Chapter 23 #2
She nodded. “So, what else do you do?”
“We just got away from having a rigid schedule. Why are you so eager to jump back into one?”
“Excuse me for wanting to learn about your life.” She scoffed in mock offense, praying his psychic radar couldn’t pick up on how desperate she was to find where she fit in his life. How she should fit. What he wanted from her.
“You don’t have to learn it all in one day.” His laugh was quick and easy. “We have time now, Zinnia. We have forever.”
Jordan casually promising forever almost sent her over the edge right there on the couch. She’d had such rigid ideas of how her marriage would play out. Had been so stubborn about them too, but that was before him.
Did she even have the right to change her mind? If she opened their door and it didn’t work out, could they go back? Close it again like it never happened?
Some days, all she thought about was kissing him and how badly she wanted to. Hours spent imagining every motion, every breath. She was so damn horny it was actually starting to make her irritable.
She nudged him with her foot. “We should sleep in my bed tonight to try it out. Make sure we like it.”
“We?” He asked, eyeing her.
In the bungalow, he never slept in her room.
“My door is open.” She wanted him to come to her too.
Sleeping together in her bed had been a mistake.
Huge. Massive. She was up half the night, sweating and staring at the ceiling.
Ignoring his warm arms inches away from her.
Listening to him breathe. Hands clenching the agonizingly soft sheets.
Watching the rise and fall of his chest. At one point she began psychically praying for him to wake up so she could beg him to please put her out of her misery.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Just…how?
And then Jordan had the nerve to dote on her all day.
THAT MAN bribed his entire building to let him reserve the pool to give her private swimming lessons for an hour twice a week.
HER HUSBAND surprised her with an afternoon special event at a vineyard for a nonalcoholic wine tasting.
And now THAT DEMON was making her dinner—some fancy pasta dish she’d never heard of before.
She had to leave the kitchen when he began making the dough from scratch.
How was she supposed to live under these ungodly conditions for the rest of her life?
Alone in the shower, Zinnia turned the water up as hot as she could stand it to try to calm down.
“Jordan, we need to talk.” She yanked her body wash off the tray and lathered up. In the Open Door clause, she hadn’t said never to sex. She’d said elsewhere.
Never and elsewhere were not synonymous. The expectation for their door was not set; therefore, she was within her right to inquire. At worst, he’d say no. She’d have her answer and move on. Simple as that.
“Jordan, you know what’s great? Planning. You know what else is great? Renegotiations. Ugh, that’s so unsexy.” What did she know about being sexy anyway? Her Zaffre Hours performances had been so bad at first, he’d needed to coach her through it.
Sexy was the wrong approach.
“So, sex? Let’s discuss. No.” She whined while vigorously scrubbing her legs. “I’m so horny right now. Ha ha, just kidding…unless? You are too? That’s even worse.”
Jokingly coy was also bad.
“What if we? We could. I would like to. Oh Jesus.” She rinsed her back. “Speaking of Jesus, are you familiar with the concept of wanting someone biblically?”
That one made her laugh.
They decided to have dinner on his balcony.
It was a moonless night with a bustling city that didn’t sleep until two a.m. below.
The evening weather was just right. She didn’t need a jacket or robe to cover her shorter-than-normal gray nightgown.
Even Beta Carotene enjoyed the view. He was looking down through the railing, tail enthusiastically swishing at all the cars.
Jordan kept staring at her instead of eating his dinner.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” She began wiping it with a napkin.
He shook his head and smiled.
“Then why are you doing that?”
“No reason.” His smile grew and her heart seized with panic.
Did he know? He couldn’t. There was no way. But the smug look on his face raised a lot of mortifying doubts.
“Stop it.” She turned his head away, covering his eyes for good measure while whispering, “You’re making me nervous.”
He laughed, as expected, capturing her hands and kissing each of her palms. “Why? Is there something we need to talk about?”
Jordan was not a listening to her in the shower kind of creep. But he was a replacing her towels with ones he warmed in the dryer so she wouldn’t get cold kind of creep—as in he might have been lovingly creeping around.
“Were you spying on me in the shower?” she asked carefully.
“No.” He chuckled, still grinning. “I happened to be walking by on my way to the kitchen, clearly heard my name, and the words ‘we need to talk.’ I did also hear some frustrated yelling and laughing, but no other actual words.”
She knew sharing a bathroom would be her downfall!
“Talk to me.” He pressed her hands to his chest.
Zinnia had never experienced a crisis like this before. Her core values were built around honesty, but sometimes when she looked at him, she couldn’t do it. The words got stuck inside her and refused to come out. What could possibly be making her hesitate like this with him?
“I can feel your heart beating,” she murmured, eyes downcast. It was racing and thunderous under her fingertips. “Can we sleep together tonight?”
“My door is always open.”
“Has anyone else walked through it lately?”
He exhaled a short laugh. “No. I don’t want anyone else.”
“You should.” She shook her head. “You’re allowed.”
“And so are you,” he said matter-of-factly.
A deep breath in, and she lifted her gaze to meet his.
The night she kissed him in the bungalow felt like it happened a thousand years ago. She remembered how tight her skin felt and the heat clawing at her from the inside out. Every sensation burned unevenly before sputtering out into tears.
Tonight was different.
In his room, she kneeled on top of his bed.
Her patience lasted long enough for him to take off his shirt—she slipped a finger through his belt loops to bring him closer and ran her fingertips along his soft skin just above the waistband.
All the way around and down to the front to unbutton his jeans—his zipper was halfway undone when he stopped her.
“Wait, wait. Slow down.”
“Why?” Couldn’t he tell how desperate she was?
It’d been so long since she’d wanted to do this with anyone.
Experimenting when she was young for no reason other than to do it hadn’t led anywhere.
She’d had zero interest in sharing her body because no one had been worth the time and trust. No one had sparked her imagination in seeing theirs in years.
“Always so impatient.” His hands slid up her thighs, bunching her nightgown as they went. “I need to see you.” The desperate rasp in his voice made her shiver. She let him go long enough to undress her.
“Tell me what you like,” she murmured against his lips.
“With you?” He dipped his head and tender pain shot across her collarbone a moment later. “Everything.”
She grabbed his face, purposefully pressing her fingers into his cheeks. “I want you to tell me what you like.”
“No. Figure it out on your own.” Her grinning devil had returned, and she laughed with him. He laid her down gently on the bed and she focused on the sweet ache tensing wherever he touched. His tongue on her neck. His teeth on her breasts. When he reverently kissed all eight of her birthmarks.
But the way Jordan treated her like a delicacy to be savored changed her life. She saw the light. She was a converted woman praying with her hands pulling on his hair as he devoured her. His tongue was so good, so talented it turned her into a panting, quivering mess.
“Ten.” She sighed, moaned, and sighed again. “Ten.”
Jordan carefully settled his weight on top of her, forearms on either side of her head, and she groaned. She’d used a weighted blanket once and loved the feeling. His body was a million times more satisfying.
“Finally.” He kissed her chin and then captured her mouth.
Being with Jordan made her feel so eager. A passionate sense of wonder, so aggressive it left her gasping from simply thinking about all the things she wanted to do with him. Starting with memorizing every inch of his body and quizzing him on hers one command at a time.
“Write your name with your fingertip where I’m most ticklish.”
“Kiss me somewhere guaranteed to make me gasp.”
“Bite me where I’m most sensitive.”
Sex had been one of those things she’d learned to live without. She was wholeheartedly not interested in dating or one-night stands with strangers. It never even crossed her mind to have sex with a friend.
But she’d conflated never thinking about it with not wanting it.
Because sex with Jordan? The utter delight of his body and her body, moving together in perfect rhythm.
The way he felt inside her, how full and warm and overwhelming.
Hearing his breath, his moans, his husky, urgent pleas and knowing that she did that to him.
That she was capable of making him feel just as desperate and passionate as she was.
There was truly nothing like it.
ZnO2 Group Chat
FIONA: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
FIONA: OH MY GOD I CAN’T brEATHEEEEEEEEEE
FIONA: I can’t believe *you* asked him I’m so proud of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GRACE: Maybe you two should start a separate chat. I didn’t need to know any of that.
FIONA: YOU ARE NO FUN