November 17
Grand Canyon, Arizona
“So we can finally go up today?” Kevin asked, looking at the tour guide.
Lance was a tall guy, probably in his late twenties, and his solid frame and tanned complexion were telling signs that he loved the outdoors. “Yeah,” he replied. “It’s still overcast, but it will clear up. Best weather for the hike, if you ask me.”
Lance went on to tell him how it was less strenuous on the body when it was cooler and that they’d chosen to come at the right time of year. Less crowds meant they would have a more intimate experience with the Canyon and apparently the views were just phenomenal.
All Kevin wanted was a yes or no answer. “What time do we leave?”
“After breakfast. Around nine.”
“Cool. See you then.” Kevin walked out of the reception area of the resort and headed back to their room. Jazz would probably only get back from her workout in about half an hour so he still had time to shower before breakfast.
The fact that he had that thought was a little jarring.
They had a routine already. Being with the same person day in and day out should have made him want to pull his hair out with boredom, but somehow there was never a boring moment with Jasmin.
There were other reasons why he still felt like pulling his hair out.
She was driving him crazy in different ways.
What the hell happened last night?
First kisses don’t go down like that. His first kiss had been an epic disaster.
First kisses were supposed to be awkward, hindered with nervousness, and it had been that at the beginning.
That’s why he’d agreed to it. He’d thought it would be weird and uncomfortable.
All he wanted was to satisfy his curiosity, see what it was like, and move on.
If it had been like a normal first kiss with a normal girl, he probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
It was clear now that it was stupid to ever expect anything normal from Jasmin.
Her mouth and tongue were untrained, and even though her technique got better the longer they kissed, that wasn’t the reason why he’d enjoyed it so much.
It was her responsiveness to him. She offered herself openly, so willing to explore.
Every kiss. Every touch. Every moan. Inexperience mixed with eagerness was an intoxicating cocktail, and he wanted to get so drunk.
Add to that the general feel of her, the alluring softness of her skin, her hair, her lips, and what he got was curiosity that could not be satisfied with just one kiss.
That was the reason why it went much further than he’d wanted it to go.
The memory of her firm breast filling his palm was fucking with his head in the worst way.
He just had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t attracted to her. He hadn’t lied when he said she wasn’t his type. She wasn’t. If he compared her to Claire, Hope or any of his exes for that matter, Jazz didn’t have that kind of sex appeal.
Though, she did have other qualities that were appealing.
Her confidence had grown by the minute, so much so that she’d initiated the second kiss.
And not that he’d needed any convincing, but her methods to “seduce” him were just downright cute.
She wasn’t like other girls and what she’d said last night was true: apart from Perry, no one got him to laugh the way she did.
But that didn’t mean he was attracted to her, right?
Why was this so confusing? A simple black and white question like that should be easy for him to answer, but he seemed to be trapped in Jasmin zone, an infinite world of gray.
She’s not my type, he told himself. All he needed was a few days to let this whole thing blow over. It was just a kiss (and some groping) with a girl that irritated the crap out of him. He really shouldn’t be getting this worked up over it.
He opened the door to their room and the scent of strawberries was a clue that she was already back. He walked in further and froze. Never, never did he expect to see what he saw.
It wasn’t right.
It couldn’t possibly be right.
His brain was having trouble functioning because of how not right it was.
There she was, rummaging through her bag wearing nothing but a black, cotton bra and black, cotton panties. Her hair—still wet from her shower—clung to her skin. His eyes only caught a side profile but the mirror in the corner of the room gave him a view from every other angle.
She was supposed to be skinny. A skinny Jasmin was the right thing to find beneath the layers of oversized T-shirts and thick sweaters and completely unflattering gym pants. So…where was all that skinniness?
He knew she did martial arts so in some weird way maybe it made sense. Yet not in a million years had he expected that this was the body she was hiding. He’d felt her breast yesterday and somehow seeing it in the flesh was better than what he’d imagined. Everything was better than he’d imagined.
His brother’s best friend, Danny, had always said that Max was last in line when God was handing out dimples because the poor guy only had one.
For all these years, Kevin had taken that as the joke it was, but now for the first time the idea of some kind of procession line could actually be a reasonable explanation for what he was seeing.
How else would Jasmin have a body like that?
Somewhere up there, working in the HOT-as-FUCK department, was an old man named Alfred.
Maybe his name was Alfred, maybe not, but he was wise, precise, meticulous, and those were pretty much Alfred qualities (just like Batman’s assistant).
Alfred wasn’t like the other guys who worked in his department.
The rest of them carved out bodies of cheerleaders and salsa dancers in bulk.
But Alfred was different. He took his time to create unique, one-of-a-kind masterpieces.
He was probably responsible for Sofia Vergara, Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez.
That type of unconventional beauty could only be the work of Alfred, the same man who had somehow got his hands on Jasmin.
One day Alfred was searching the production line, looking for his next project and he saw this unshapen bag of meat.
When he noticed what a great job the hair and eye department had done, he knew he was the only person who could finish this particular project.
He carried this bag of meat back to his workstation and, with his little chisel and his little hammer, he began working.
He carved out her delicate collarbone, the soft arches of her supple breasts that were the perfect size.
They weren’t huge, but they were big enough to notice, perky enough to grab attention.
Her stomach was in sharp contrast, rock hard abs with four well-defined blocks stretching across her abdomen.
Alfred shaped all her muscles with this meticulous proficiency, all the way from behind her calf to above her knee, using that tiny chisel to outline every part of her with skillful accuracy.
Moving higher, he whittled the deep line on the side of her outer thigh.
Alfred started early that day, working late into the night with unparalleled dexterity.
He didn’t take a lunch break. He didn’t even get up to go to the bathroom, because with that kind of attention to detail, there could have been no distractions.
He chiseled and scraped and sculpted, but years of experience and an expert eye told him when it was enough.
If he had gone on a little longer, it would have lacked femininity, but Alfred stopped right before that point.
The result was a dangerous combination of hard muscle and soft curves.
And that should have been bad enough, but then Alfred, the bastard, did the unthinkable.
He had tested this lazy finish before with J-Lo and Beyoncé and because it so obviously worked, he did it again.
When he got to Jasmin’s ass, he stopped, packed up his tools, and clocked out.
Kevin knew this had happened because there at the top of those flawless thighs was a big, fat ass.
For another man, that ass would be disproportionately too large for those narrow hips, but for Kevin too much ass was always just the right amount of ass.
Round and thick and juicy. It was the kind of ass he imagined squeezing if he took her from the front.
The kind of ass he imagined bouncing if he fucked her from behind.
The kind of ass that left him with a hard-on in the middle of a hotel room because of imagining these things with a girl, who he’d adamantly decided—ten seconds ago—was not his type.
“Fuck you, Alfred!”
Kevin only realized he’d said it out loud when she spun around to face him.
He immediately tugged down his sweater to hide his arousal and she quickly placed each hand on the opposite shoulder to cover herself.
The gesture was pretty pointless, though.
He’d seen more than enough. Her eyes were wide and her eyebrows cocked up, like her face was trying to tell him to either turn around or leave.
But he did none of that. He just stared at her and she stared at him and he stared some more.
“Um…” she began awkwardly. “Who’s Alfred?”
“The guy who invented cold showers.”
She laughed, but he could tell she was still uneasy. And why wouldn’t she be? His eyes were still scanning her up and down, taking mental photographs to store in his memory bank. Click. Click. Click.
“Someone actually invented that?” she asked nervously.
“Yep,” he answered with a slow nod.
She squeezed her arms tighter around herself, another hint he didn’t take.
He had every intention of doing to her exactly what she had done to him.
She stared at him openly, shamelessly, without reservation, without respect for his personal space and he thought it would be rude to not return the favor, so he simply continued gawking. Click.