Page 30 of Please, Sir

I choose to not focus on Jo Jo’s dad and instead, try to find the right words for her as we trek up the walkway to her house. “I didn’t get my period until I was a sophomore in high school,” I tell her quietly. “The longer you can go without getting it, the better.” I stop in my tracks, paranoid about how that came out. “That doesn’t mean go have sex, I just?—”

“I know Miss Riley,” Jo Jo says, a small smile lifting the edge of her pout.

“I just mean, you’re gonna have it until you’re like fifty. And it sucks. It sucks so much, so if anything, they should be jealous of you, not teasing you,” I tell her, feeling proud about that advice.

We make it to the front door and as soon as Jo Jo slips thekey into the lock, my bladder is put to the test. I'm hopping on my feet as she opens the door with a laugh, pointing down the hall. “There, down the hall. Don’t pee yourself, Miss Riley,” she giggles.

I don’t get a chance to really take in the house, but if the rest is like the hall, holy shit. This man has taste. The craftsman style home is just as beautiful on the inside as out, with wide plank hardwood floors, thick crown molding, eight foot doors and gorgeous square light fixtures, traced out in bronze. I come to the end of the hall, and push the door open, nearly dancing at this point. Damn that last chai tea.

I close the door behind me, really wishing that I wasn’t dressed like a hobo hitchhiker, despite the fact that I know I’m not going to meet the hottest cowboy in Bluebell. I’m here to pee, and to make sure that Jo Jo is okay before I go.This isn’t about you, Riley, I tell myself as I run my hand up and down the wall, searching for a switch plate.

When I finally find it, I swear I’m moments away from peeing my frickin’ pants. “Oh thank God, the hunt is over,” I murmur, shielding my eyes from the sudden brightness as they try to adjust. A moment later I look around, nearly choking on my damn tongue when I realize I am not in a hallway bathroom meant for guests. I am inthe hottest cowboy in Bluebell’s bedroom.

Fuck.

I took a wrong turn somewhere, clearly but you know what? Every master suite has a bathroom attached. There is no Fabio looking hunk sleeping in that monstrous sized bed centering the room so fuck it. I’m using Jo Jo’s dad’s bathroom. It’s just a toilet, it’s fine.

Two doors stare back at me from the adjacent wall, and I try the first one, opening it to a walk-in closet full of men's clothes. Plaid shirts, pressed and hung on black velvet hangers,wooden dividers separating rows and rows of leather belts, each one different. Above those are belt buckles, rows of those too, ranging from bronze to gold, various sizes from absurdly large to reasonably sized. And at the top of the closet are hats. So many cowboy hats. Stetsons, Cattlemans, Bricks and Montanas, varying in degrees of wear, ranging fromdisgusting why is that even indoorstoholy fuck I bet he looks like a million bucks in that thing. On the opposite wall, also on velvet hangers, are rows and rows of jeans. Pressed to perfection, the jeans give way to a row of boots beneath them. Big boots.

Okay.Cowboy daddy has big feet.

I shrug.No big deal.Not hot at all. And does notat alladd to the mystery of the hottest cowboy daddy in Bluebell.

I shake my head, realizing I’ve been standing in a stranger’s closet for like, thirty seconds too long. As it is, I’m already in his bedroom.Too much Riley. Get the hell out of here immediately.

Spinning, my face crashes into a wall of… “Oh my God!” I scream, my voice echoing as a deep, masculine voice echoes my sentiment, groaning, “Oh God!”

I step back, my purse hitting the floor as I wipe my forehead… because it’s wet from colliding with Jo Jo’s dad’s wet bare chest.

As much as I want to stare at his chest–and places further south–I lift my eyes from his nipples–which are, for what it’s worth, extremely hot nipples, and meet his gaze.

“Oh my god,” I repeat, this time less scratchy and way less panicked. “It’s you.”

The man from behind the barn at the farmers market, the hunky mystery cowboy who sucked a splinter from my palm. Jo Jo’s dad is the hot as shit cowboy from a few months back? Oh my god.

Oh my god.

I pace back a few steps, and I’m pretty sure thoseoh my gods are not just in my head. I’ve been masturbating to the memory of this mystery man sucking that stupid splinter from my palm for months.

Seriously. I’m not proud. But it’s been the only contact I’ve had with a hot man in eternity.

Now I’m standing in his closet, inside of his bedroom, in his house, wearing quite literally the clothing equivalent of a trash bag, my hair looking like it was in the fryer at McDonald’s and I am beyond bloated from the three chais I shotgunned two hours back.

Please let this be a dream. Please let this be a dream,I whisper internally, snapping my eyes shut for a brief moment before opening them again. My eyes come front and center to his well-crafted, barrel chest, and my nerves take over. As much as I want to look, my brain has been in control for the last thirty seconds, not allowing me to be a totally horrible person andtake an eyeful.

Seriously.

“I was dropping off Jo Jo and, um, I needed to use the restroom,” I say, rambling because he still hasn’t said anything but “oh God” and the longer we stand in his closet like this without him speaking, the more freaked I get.

“I didn’t, I didn’t know this was–I was looking for the bathroom,” I say, and just as I’m about to bolt past him like a deer escaping a speeding vehicle, my eyes betray me.

My brain must’ve been put in a temporary headlock, because my eyes, I swear, have a mind of their own when they slide down his muscled bare chest and lock onto that beast between his solid thighs. And lord are they solid thighs.

But that thing.

Swinging like a pendulum side to side, thick and ruddy, hypnotizing me. Arousing me. Making me his.

“I–”Why did I just start a sentence? Why am I looking at his massive cock?I slap my hand to my forehead, my pinky and ring finger sliding down over my eyes, but my eyes will not close.

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