Page 85 of The Usual Family Mayhem

“I thought you’d agree.” Smart man.

His fingers slipped under the edge of my bra. “In this scenario, are we both naked?”

If he kept touching me like that we’d be naked before I answered his question. “What do you think, lawyer boy?”

He kissed me again. This one started out slow and soft. Tender. Learning and exploring until my heartbeat thundered in my chest. The tension built and anticipation swirled around us. His hands cupped my breasts. My thighs pressed against the sides of his legs.

I never needed anything as much as I needed this.

“Be sure.” He said the words against my mouth.

Consent. He had the brightest green light ever. “I’m absolutely sure.”

Then his mouth crushed mine and the talking stopped.

Chapter Forty

The fantasies I’d always had about us faded out before we got to the morning-after part of sex. As expected, the guy with the big brain knew exactly what to do with his hands and my body. Jackson’s sexy voice. The way he used that tongue. Hours of touching, and exploring, and pleasure. It was amazing my heart didn’t explode.

Regrets? None so far.

Awkwardness? Unclear because he was still asleep. I took his exhaustion as a compliment to me... or him, or both of us.

No, it was me. Definitely me. I did that to him. I had him breathless and whispering my name last night. I was taking credit for his inability to wake up and get moving.

This one time in my life I appreciated running. Him running, not me. His stamina. Those muscles. That flat stomach. Damn.

Wrapped up in his robe, I wandered through the house with my mind on a muffin. I couldn’t exactly call Gram and ask her to bring a few over. She hadn’t texted to check on me. She knew where I was. I could imagine Gram and Celia chatting about this turn of events all morning. I had no idea if they approved, but that was an issue for the afternoon. Food was the immediate concern.

Jackson’s fancy kitchen called out to me. There had to befood here somewhere. Before that, caffeine. I stared at his silver coffee machine willing it to magically make me a cup. This thing had a grinder and an attachable container for milk. So many buttons with little pictures of cups on them. You’d think they’d give me a hint about where to start but I couldn’t even identify some of the named drinks. What was a doppio? That sounded totally made-up.

I bet if I looked up the price of this contraption online it would cost more than my car. Breaking it would not leave a good post-sex impression, so I went with water. Jackson would wake up eventually. Sooner rather than later would be nice.

Crawling back into bed sounded so tempting but I needed to take a breath. The collision of my fantasy world and reality scrambled my brain. My common sense took an unexpected vacation when it came to Jackson. Every promise I’d ever made to myself about not getting too close—gone. Last night was unplanned and amazing.

Now what?

I bit back a caffeine-depleted groan as I sat down and dropped my head on the dining room table. Yeah, I needed that coffee. Time to experiment with the fancy machine.

Being as dramatic as possible, I swept my hand across the table as I sat up. The stack of papers teetering on the edge made a whooshing sound as they fell to the floor.

“Crap.” I hated when things went sideways in the morning.

My groan escaped this time. I dropped to my knees and gathered up the papers. I picked up the file lying upside down and... my face stared back at me.

“Uh, hello?”

A quick look to verify and, yep, this was some sort of report with Harlan’s name on it and the name of an agency of some sort. It had been prepared for Harlan. I knew because that’s what the attached note on the front said.Per your request.

What had Harlan done now?

The document noted my name and date of birth. A bunch of basic info about the addresses where I’d lived. There was a line for “investigation type” and it said “domestic services.”

What the hell did that mean?

On the next page... holy crap. Information on the men I’d dated. No, that wasn’t invasive at all. The list of “partners” wasn’t long but that really wasn’t the point, was it?

I kept flipping through the pages, scanning the paragraphs about my education and job history. This thing included a list of my closest friends and living relatives. The latter being a very short paragraph. Details about my parents. The stark and official outline, not the more emotional version Gram gave yesterday.

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