Page 48 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
“And rip out the floor and put in new tile,” I point out.
He shrugs, laughing. “Yeah, that too. Other than that, not much!”
“One step at a time,” I say. “Thank you for the sink, Jesse. You have to let me at least pay you for your time.”
He shakes his head. “Nope. Dinner with you is payment enough.” He taps the countertop again. “I think some nice, rich, dark-stained butcher blocks would work well in here. I can pick some up fairly reasonably. You don’t have, like, acres of counter to do so you’re not looking at a huge expense. And honestly, stripping and painting the cabinets is something you could do yourself easily on a weekend afternoon.”
“I wouldn’t know how to strip them, but painting I can do.”
“Well, maybe I can come over some Saturday and we can do it together.”
I gaze up at him. “Why are you so willing to do all this work for me?”
He lifts one big shoulder. “It’s work I enjoy doing, for one thing. I get a great sense of accomplishment and pride from seeing something improved through my efforts. For another thing, I like you, and I like being around you, so doing something I enjoy around a woman I like? It doesn’t feel like work.”
The oven timer dings, and I pull out the casserole. I point at a cabinet. “The plates are in there and the forks are in the drawer behind you.”
He retrieves the silverware and plates, and while I’m dishing up the food he takes a bottle of red wine from the little rack on the counter next to my fridge, opens it, and pours us each a glass, and then helps me carry everything outside to my table.
Our meal together is slow, easy, and leisurely. Comfortable. We talk about our families—his father passed away from a stroke when he was in high school, and his mom is a retired teacher living in an all-inclusive assisted living retirement community in Arizona. He has one younger brother, a career Marine Corps officer stationed in Okinawa. I tell him about growing up an only child of older parents—I was born when my father was fifty and my mom forty-five. I was an unexpected accident, something they were very clear about my whole life. We trade high school embarrassment stories, first crushes, college party stories, bad trips, bad dates, and everything in between. The wine flowed—perhaps a little too freely, but I’m enjoying myself more than any date in recent memory. At some point there’s a second bottle opened, and we’re sitting side by side in my lounge chairs, watching for the few stars visible in the Chicago suburbs.
The lounge chairs are close, and we’re sitting facing each other, our knees brushing. Every once in awhile, one of us will gesture as we talk, and our hands will touch, or his fingers will rest, briefly, on my knee. I’m feeling good, happy, light, loose—a little buzzed, maybe. And I can’t seem to keep my eyes off of his lips. I remember vividly the feel of them on mine, and I want that again. I remember the way his hands felt on my hips, and clutching my buttocks. I remember the way the hard ridge of his erection pressed against me through his jeans.
Will he kiss me? What’s he waiting for?
I want what comes after kissing.
I want the rush of adrenaline; I want hands tearing at clothes, lips stuttering across bare skin, breath on breath. I want to let my desperation and hunger go free. I want to surrender to him. I want to feel small and delicate beneath him. I want to feel wanted, desired, needed.
Hours have passed since dinner—are we are on our third bottle? I can’t remember.
I’m getting impatient.
Jesse gets up, excuses himself to use the bathroom, and I follow him inside. I’m a little unsteady, a little dizzy.
I use the bathroom after Jesse, and take a moment to fix my hair and plump up my cleavage.
When I come out, Jesse is drinking a glass of water, sitting on my couch in my living room, looking through my coffee table book of Ansel Adams photography. He looks up when I come out, and his eyes darken with desire.
That look in his eyes turns me to mush, makes my thighs tremble.
I sit beside him, take the glass of water from him, drink some, and put it down. I’m angled into him, knees against his thighs. He’s so close, so big, so strong and handsome, and my lips tingle in anticipation.
I wait—a beat, two, three.
Is he not going to kiss me?
Fuck it.
I lean against him, wrap my hand around the back of his head and cup his cheek with the other hand and press my lips to his. He rumbles low in his chest, and his hands slide around my waist. For a moment, he just holds me like that, kissing me back—and then he lifts me onto his lap. I straddle him, feeling his erection through his jeans, his hands scraping up the front of my thighs from knees to hips and then he spans my hips with his hands and pulls me closer. I’m levered over him, bent over to kiss him, gasping against his tongue, tasting him, hands playing in his hair.
