Chapter 11
Tiguan
“How long have I been out?”
I looked up from my tablet to see Lyrical standing in the hallway entrance. She looked lost—pale and still exhausted—but she was upright and didn’t appear to be overheating or freezing.
“Two days,” I said as I rose. She stood, silent, as I crossed to her. When I put the back of my hand to her forehead, her eyes remained pinned to mine. “No fever. You feel like eating something?”
“My stomach feels hollow.”
Nodding, I moved toward the kitchen. “I was lucky to get water and medicine in you. An easy patient you are not.”
Ain’t that the truth.
She followed me into the kitchen. “No, Jesse used to say the same thing.”
“Sit down,” I urged her.
While she sat at the kitchen table, I removed a container of soup from the refrigerator, dished some into a bowl, and heated it in the microwave for her. “Jamie said chicken soup was your favorite.”
“It is, but I didn’t have any in my house.”
“That’s what he brought me the day you were ill. Ingredients to make soup.”
“You made me soup?”
Shrugging, I tried to downplay the gesture. “We needed to eat, and it’s not like you’d be up for lasagna or pork chops yet.”
The soup finished heating, and I put it in front of her, along with a package of crackers. I poured her another small cup of ginger ale, then dished up my own bowl of soup.
“This is homemade,” she commented.
“My grandmother taught me all kinds of meals. Told me one day I’d need to take care of my wife and kids, so I’d better learn to cook.”
“She didn’t expect your wife to cook for you?”
I sat down with my bowl, stirring it so it cooled before I tried to eat it.
“Gran was pretty progressive. She claimed that a man also needed to do all the household chores—cooking, cleaning, laundry, whatever—so his woman had time to do things for herself as much as he did. Taking care of someone meant more than having the highest-paying job, driving the car, and mowing the lawn.”
“Sounds like a wise woman.”
“She is.”
“You miss her.” A statement. Not a question.
“Something in my voice gave it away?” I asked sadly.
She nodded.
“I do. She’s alive and kicking, living in a retirement community in Florida. Golfing, pickleball, heaven knows what else she is doing. Most days, I’m afraid to ask. Yesterday, she and the girls went skydiving.”
Lyrical’s eyes widened as her mouth closed around her spoon. Slowly, she drew off the utensil, then set it down next to her bowl. “Shut the front door! You’re making that up!”
Chuckling, I shook my head. “I only wish I were. I’ve got a friend who used to be in the Navy. He owns a business down there that takes people up, solo or tandem. He sent me a video. I’ll show you after lunch, if you want to see it.”
“Please tell me she went tandem.”
“Yesterday she did. Today? No idea. They had so much fun, they went back.”
She covered her mouth with her hands. “She’s crazy!”
“She’s something. There are six ladies, and honestly? I don’t think any of them ever grew up.”
We sat quietly, eating our meal. When she finished, I picked up our bowls to rinse them in the sink.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said.
“You’ll probably feel a lot better once you do. I’ll clean up here. Go on.”
A few minutes later, I heard the water faintly in the background, and I leaned against the sink, head down, as I groaned.
Instantly, an image popped into my brain of Lyrical, face upturned, water raining down on her sweet body from the showerhead.
Her hands smoothing over her hair as it dampened, then soaked through.
Easy, buddy. Just a little longer, and she’ll be yours always.
Even though I stood, locked in place over her kitchen sink, I swore I could smell her shampoo—peaches and hibiscus—because yes, I’d gone into her bathroom like a complete stalker while she was ill, opened the bottle, and inhaled the heady scent as I imagined her soaping her hair.
The froth from the lather ran down her neck and arms, across her shoulders, back, and front.
In my mind’s eye, I watched one particularly cheeky patch of froth and bubbles trail down the front of her body, flow over her breast, catch on a peaked nipple, and hang there precariously before a sluice of water sent it plunging off her breast and toward the drain.
I palmed my cock through my jeans, shifting it to a better position. Better was a relative term. At least now, if I went to the bathroom to jack off and relieve this unbearable tension, I wouldn’t catch the skin of my dick in the metal teeth, forever maiming myself when I freed it from its prison.
The water shut off, and my brain made the leap to envision her stepping out of the steamy enclosed shower, cool air hitting her, and goose bumps peppering her skin.
Her nipples would pop even further, making them hard nubs, easy to latch my teeth and tongue around.
As she buffed her skin with the towel, the friction of the soft cloth would tease her flesh, and when she patted herself dry between her legs, for a moment, she would cup her mound against the material, rocking into her own hand.
“I deserve a medal.” I groaned.
You’re going to win something better than a medal—her heart.
This was torture. I honestly wasn’t sure whether it was better or worse that my conscience took on Jesse’s voice. In a way, it was soothing. Someone I knew. Someone who loved her too. But it felt weird.
And if, by some chance, it really was him talking to me from beyond? That was a whole next level I didn’t want to think about.
By the time she returned to the main area of the house, hair in a loose braid and dressed in a sweatshirt and leggings, with thick socks on her feet against the chilly wood floors, I had somehow reined in my wayward reactions.