“What?” She picked up her head and gave me a furrowed-brow frown. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Settled again, she slid her hand around my ribcage and hugged me tight. “You’re perfect. You’re real.”
“Well, thank you. You’re perfect too, but actually you’re unreal. Too beautiful.”
She snorted. “Please. I think unreal would have bigger boobs and a better ass. If I wasn’t so tall, I could probably wear the same clothes I wore in middle school.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I kissed her head again. “You have a beautiful body. Perfect legs, perfect ass, perfect breasts, and—don’t think I’m weird, but I fucking love your neck and shoulders. This necklace drove me crazy the first time I saw you in it, at the wedding, and then when I saw you had it on again tonight, I almost lost it right there at the bar.” I touched the pearls on her neck, then ran my hand down her arm. “And your skin is like heaven. What the hell do you put on it anyway, to make it feel like satin? And it smells so good—like grapefruit or something, but it’s so sweet. ”
She laughed. “Thanks. That’s probably essential oil. I have an allergic reaction to most perfumes.”
I inhaled deeply. “God, I love it.”
Her fingers found my scar and traced it. “What’s this from?”
“That is from an unfortunate run-in with a chain link fence. I was trying to climb over it and my shoelace got caught. The top of it gouged my side.”
She winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, and I fractured my wrist breaking the fall on the other side.”
“Jeez. Are you accident prone?”
“Not anymore. I was a dumbass daredevil as a kid, but since I became a dad, those days are over. Now I have to watch my own daredevil at the park.”
“Is he? A daredevil?”
“Yes and no.” I rubbed her back as I thought about it. “He’s aggressive in some ways, and he will play rough like boys do, but it takes him a while to feel comfortable joining in with other kids. He also doesn’t feel pain the way most people do. So I worry about him hurting himself and not even knowing it.”
She patted my side. “I should let you go home to him.”
I squeezed her. She felt so good in my arms. When was the last time I wanted to hold a woman all night? “I wish I could stay.”
“Another time.” She sat up and looked down at me, a wry smile stretching her lips. “You might want to fix your hair before you go.”
I frowned. “I thought I did.”
“Think again.”
I tackled her, getting her by the shoulders and throwing her onto her back. With her head at the foot of the bed, I took her wrists in my hands and pinned them above her. My hair flopped forward, making her grin.
“Be nice, little girl.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I’ll take these bedsheets and tie you up, then torture you with my tongue.”
She giggled. “That doesn’t sound like torture.”
I kissed her smug little grin. “Just you wait.”
• • •
While I got dressed, Jillian used the bathroom, then threw on a t-shirt and underwear. “Give me two more minutes,” she said, taking a pair of blue plaid pajama pants from her dresser drawer. “I want to send some soup home with you.”
I followed her to the kitchen, which was actually on the second level of her townhouse, a long narrow space with plain maple cabinetry, stainless appliances, and beige marble countertops. She had two framed photos on the breakfast counter next to a wine rack holding six bottles of red. One photo showed her wearing a white lab coat and holding a diploma, a stethoscope around her neck, and her entire family surrounding her. The other was a close-up of Jillian with an arm around each sister, taken when they were kids.
I picked it up. “Look how cute you guys are.”
“Thanks.” She pulled a plastic container and matching lid from a low cupboard, and a large blue pot from the fridge. “I think I’m about ten there. We thought we were so cool because we’d eaten red popsicles and it made us look like we were wearing lipstick.”
“You’re close to your family.”
“Very. What about you?” She ladled soup from the blue pot into the container.
“Yes. They helped me out a lot when Scotty was a baby. Took us in. Gave me a lot of advice. As you can imagine, I was clueless.”
“Most guys your age would be.”
“Yeah.” I set the picture down. “But it started to get a little stifling, all the advice, especially after we got the autism diagnosis.”
“Is that why you moved here?” She put the blue pot back in the fridge and pressed the lid onto the container.
“That’s one reason. But I also felt like it was time for us to be on our own. Scotty was about to start kindergarten, so I figured that would be a good time to do it. The move was rough on him, though—a new room in a new house, no grandma and grandpa living with us, a new neighborhood, new school…he doesn’t like things to change.”
“Well, I’m glad you made the move.” She came over and handed me the soup. “Hope you like pumpkin.”
“I do.”
“I made it last night. It’s Natalie’s recipe. She’s teaching me to cook,” she said sheepishly.
“Why do you look embarrassed about that?”