Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
I searched my memories. “Joe, right?”
She smirked. “No, Joe Wong.”
I chuckled. It had been one of Joe’s running jokes. And the restaurant was called Wong’s Inn, but he’d always referred to his dad as “the Wong man,” and it stuck. Even his dad answered the phone, “Wong Man, what you want to order?” It was legendary. And the food was phenomenal.
“Does he still have the spicy beef and those crispy chili beans?”
“Yes,” she replied, pushing away her plate and sliding another piece of the casserole onto mine.
“Dinner’s on me next time. You order, I’ll pick up.”
“Who said there’ll be another dinner?”
“Hey, I’ve behaved.”
I mostly had. A few innuendos had slipped out. She’d caught me looking at her mouth more than once. I might have ogled her ass when she bent forward to lift the casserole from the oven.
She pursed her lips but didn’t deny my words.
I finished my dinner in silence. It was another thing I enjoyed. In Hollywood, everyone talked—all the time. Boasted, bragged, name-dropped. Rarely was there silence. It was as if the quiet would make a person think. Delve and realize maybe life wasn’t as perfect as they painted it.
So they rambled.
But Kassie didn’t do that. And I didn’t feel as if I had to either. The silence between us was surprisingly comfortable.
I pushed away my plate. “Incredible. And my headache is gone.” I stretched my arms over my head. “If only my backache would disappear. I hope a hot shower does the trick.”
She looked past my shoulder. Then at me. Past my shoulder again. “I have a hot tub,” she said quietly. “You could use it. Soak in the heat there. Maybe it would help.”
I sat back, surprised, touched, and pleased by her offer.
“Really?” I asked for the second time that night.
“Yes.”
I leaned on my arms, smirking. “Will you join me?”
Instantly, I got the glare. The fire I loved to see.
“No,” she stated obstinately. “I will not. I am offering it as a solution to your pain. Not a chance for you to…” She trailed off. “No.”
“A chance to what?” I teased. “Be close to you in a tub? Maybe rub up against you?” I widened my eyes in shock. “Oh, will we be naked?”
She stood, leaning over the table, bristling. “Listen—you in the tub. Alone. In your shorts, your underwear, I don’t care. Letting the water soothe your ache. That’s it. No nakedness. No closeness. No rubbing.”
I stood, mimicking her stance, our faces nose to nose. “But you could cure another ache, Kassie,” I murmured, arching my eyebrow suggestively. “A really, really hard one. It would only take a little rubbing, I promise.”
For a moment, she showed no reaction. Then it happened. Loud peals of amusement filled the room, and she sat down. “I give up, Oliver. Go use the tub while I clean up. You know where it is outside.”
I grinned. She was even lovelier when laughing. With her head tilted back, her hair hanging down her back, the braid moving as she chortled. I had forgotten how striking she was. Or maybe I didn’t allow myself to remember it. She was pretty all those years ago. Now, she was beautiful. And the more time I spent with her, the more beauty I saw in her.
I headed to the patio door, pausing. “Feel free to change your mind, sweetheart. I’ll be naked, but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Often, if my memory serves me right. And I won’t object if you join me.”
She waved me off like a pesky fly, but I wasn’t upset. I’d made her laugh. She’d fed me dinner. I got to spend time with her.
Well worth the backache.
The water was hot and bubbly. The sun was setting, the air cooler as I sank into the deep well of the hot tub. The mist hung in the air around me, the heat and jets doing the trick. I felt my muscles relax, the clutch of the pain diminishing in the soothing swirls of the therapeutic tub. I leaned my head back, enjoying the peace and tranquility around me. Smiling to myself as I thought about teasing Kassie. Her reactions. She’d always been easy to rile up, get a reaction from. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.
I had forgotten a lot of things.
Like how much I wanted her all the time. Now that I was back in her orbit, had tasted her mouth again, that old desire had flared to life. I wanted to kiss her. Hold her. Make her mine again.
I wanted to hear her moan my name as she came around me. Fuck her a hundred different ways, giving her pleasure. Taking mine.
I wanted to talk to her every evening. Sit out here on her deck and listen to the silence. Watch the sunset. Eat her delicious cooking. Her pies.