15. Nat
FIFTEEN
Nat
The worst thing happened this morning. I had a sex dream about Jack.
His rugged face hadn’t annoyed me as much. Especially when it was between my legs. And why was he good at literally everything? Dream Nat didn’t have a hard time coming on his tongue. Not one bit.
Which should have been fine. I’d had dreams about people I knew before, and I took them with a grain of salt. But not with people I hated. And definitely not with people I was also stuck living with.
I stared out the window as I washed dishes, zoning out because I could not rid myself of this persistent state of horniness.
Jack grabbed a glass from the drying rack and filled it from the tap, pointing at my hands, which were vigorously scrubbing a cup in the soapy water. “You okay?”
“What? Yeah.”
He tilted his head, his eyebrow lifted in disbelief. “Okay.”
Then he adjusted his tool belt and went out the front door.
The moment the screen slapped against the frame, I turned to make sure he was gone and made my decision.
I dropped the plastic cup I’d been cleaning, and bubbles sprayed up my forearms, but I didn’t care. I needed to get this out of my system.
I rushed into our room and dug into my suitcase, throwing clothes onto my bed as I searched.
How long had it been since I’d last had an orgasm?
Just the fact that I was having a hard time remembering meant it had been too long.
Then I found it, purple and perfect, my trusty friend that never let me down.
I dropped my yoga pants on the floor and jumped into bed, pulling the sheet up as fast as I could, and closed my eyes.
I let out a breath and turned it on, slipping it inside my underwear.
The buzz was a welcome relief as the first vibrations hit their mark.
I rolled my neck into the pillow in an attempt to loosen my muscles, but it wasn’t that easy to get in the right mood.
It could have been because his smell lingered even though he was gone.
I tried to clear my mind.
Relax. I am relaxed. Sooo relaxed.
I didn’t expect that to work, but it started feeling good.
Adding pressure only improved the experience.
I opened my eyes and stared at the bunk above me.
At night, I frequently counted all the slats to try to go to sleep, and now I had the urge to do it again.
Why couldn’t I just turn my brain off and focus on the task at hand? Literally.
But I had no mental stimuli to keep me in it.
I turned my head quickly, looking at my empty nightstand.
I didn’t know what I was thinking, leaving my phone in the kitchen.
There were a couple of romance novels on my dresser across the room, but that would mean getting them, finding a scene on the fly, and then holding the book like an eighteenth-century masturbator. No.
Flashes of this morning’s dream invaded my brain, but I shoved them down as best I could.
“Lift your shirt, princess.”
Dammit.
The words entered my brain without my consent, but I listened to them anyway. I slid the fabric up my stomach, over my bra. I did the same for the bra itself, lifting it over my breasts until they were bare above the sheet.
Dream Jack had been bossy, which wasn’t really a surprise, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.
His persona was replaced by Fantasy Jack, who placed his hands over my nipples, looking deep into my eyes as he pinched them just hard enough to hurt so good.
I let out a whine as I did the same with one hand, the other pulling the vibrator up, then down lightly—a little tease.
Fantasy Jack was wearing too many clothes.
Then he wasn’t. His bare chest, which I’d seen multiple times, touched my skin, and I imagined what that might feel like.
I’d probably never be able to see him without thinking that again, but here we were.
He kissed my neck, up the curve of my jaw, to the corner of my mouth.
A slight tremor went through my legs as I imagined his other hand working its way down my torso.
God, I bet the man would be good with his hands.
They were large and calloused, with long fingers. He’d…
I turned up the vibrator and whimpered, looking over to his side of the room. His pillow was right there. Would it be wrong if I just put it under my head and sniffed it while I—
Nope. Not going there. No way.
Fantasy Jack had gotten my pants off and was fingering me oh so good. Then he was entering me, his grip on my hips impossibly tight.
“That’s it, Nat. Take all my dick.”
Fuck.
“Do you quiver like this for everyone, or am I just special?”
Even Fantasy Jack was a tool. So why did I like it?
How were thoughts of him working so well to scratch this itch? It wasn’t like I hadn’t caught myself looking at his lips. The way he walked with purpose. That cocky grin that came out at all the wrong times and infuriated me to no end.
I upped the vibrations again, on the precipice. His hand crept up my collarbone, right to my neck, his thumb pressing on my… The vibrator slipped down, and I couldn’t feel it in the right spot. I tried to get it back to where it belonged.
Right as the door slammed in the other room.
My eyes burst open. Was I making that up?
Then I heard boots walking in the living room. “You here, Nat?”
Oh. God. I rushed to turn the vibrator off, but it only upped the setting, which felt fucking amazing. I pressed it again. Then again. And finally, it turned off. As the steps got closer, I let it drop, realizing my tits were just out, and yanked the blanket over them just as Jack entered.
“Oh.”
“Hey.” The word came out breathy. I cleared my throat. “Hey.”
Jack tilted his head in confusion. “You okay? The sink is still filled with water and dishes.”
“What?” I croaked. “Yeah, I’ll get to them. I was just…” The words hovered in the air as my mind went blank. Say. Something. “I got a headache.”
Jack turned to leave. He must have known something was up.
But he came back thirty seconds later with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel.
He approached me, and I reached under the sheet, stopping myself before he saw that I was semi-topless.
I must have looked like the big bad wolf with this thing pulled up to my chin.
He pushed my hair away from my forehead and placed the pack in its place.
“Thank you.”
Jack nodded. “You sure you’re okay? I thought I heard you groan, and you look flushed. Do you want me to grab you some—”
“No. No. I already took something. I’m just lying in the dark, trying to chill.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The light’s on.”
“Not when my eyes are closed.” Again, the urge to pull my hand out of this blanket and point at my eyes came, and I clutched my thigh to stop myself.
“Those meds must be kicking in. You sure you don’t need anything else?” Man, of all the times for him to be nice to me.
“Nope. Thank you.” I tried to sound sincere, but I was more stressed than anything. He had no reason to peel the blanket down, thank god.
By the time he left, mentioning something about missing his favorite hammer or whatever, I was amped up and desperate.
Details of him flooded in. He’d had sweat on his brow, probably from walking in the heat, and a hole in his shirt just below his collarbone.
I wondered what it’d feel like to stick my finger between the broken fibers, touching solid muscle, feeling the warmth of his skin.
I lifted my head off the pillow and listened as best I could.
He was gone. I was safe. I turned it back on, doing my best to get back into the moment.
I’d seen the outline of him under his sweats a dozen times, and that wasn’t even with him being hard.
He had to be big. It would fit so well between my thighs…
The vibrations ended. I pressed the button again. And again. And again and again.
The whine that came out of me was unseemly.
I turned my head, and the ice pack I’d forgotten about slipped along with its towel, the cold side landing on my neck.
The sound that followed that was no more dignified than the first. I pulled the vibrator from beneath the sheets and had the world’s worst staring contest.
I was wrong. Apparently, it could fail me.
“If you’re stumped, you should try the lobster gyoza. It’s my favorite.”
A smiling Chase peeked at me from behind his menu.
He seemed so naturally friendly, and it had me contemplating why Jack had looked so weird when my date picked me up.
He’d been confused when Chase arrived and more confused when Chase told him he was taking me out to dinner.
The look had been a flash of something I’d never seen from him before, but I wasn’t going to read into it.
“I love lobster gyoza,” I said, though I’d never had it in my life. At least I knew I liked lobster.
We went to the Pinecrest Lodge’s Asian fusion restaurant, Sakura, whose dress code was semi-casual. My feet were nearly healed, so I was able to wear flats and a sundress, which I appreciated.
Sakura was one of three restaurants at the resort. There was also Hidden Hearth, their Michelin-star restaurant, and Après-Ski, a quirky hole-in-the-wall on top of the mountain that primarily dealt in warm cocktails. This one was more mid-tier and was one of my favorites in town.
Chase had offered to take me out of Wildwood, but I’d told him there was no need. Something about the familiarity made me happy. And this restaurant was unique in that it had a life-size fake cherry tree in the middle, with pink-petaled flowers dangling overhead.