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I hold the phone above me, but the angle isn’t quite right—it takes some maneuvering so the photo shows my face, torso, and legs. I take the photo and do a little editing to get rid of the bruise on my thigh from where I’d banged my leg against the counter the other day, and then get ready to send it.

  And then I have a better idea.

  I take another photo, this one of just my legs with my funny pink drunk sloth socks and I send that one first.

  Ryder: OMG! Those socks!

  Ryder: Are you wearing any pants? Please tell me you’re not wearing any pants.

  Me: Who wears pants at home alone after 10pm?

  Ryder: Not me, that’s for damn sure.

  He accompanied this with a photo of himself in his kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts. He’s in a goofy pose, one knee drawn up with a finger over his pursed lips, a saucy grin on his face—it’s a comical parody of a supposedly sexy pose you’d see on Instagram.

  I laugh out loud.

  Me: I’m pretty sure gym shorts count as pants.

  Immediately, he sends another photo of himself in that same pose, except his shorts are around his ankles and he’s wearing nothing but a pair of tight gray boxer briefs that do nothing to hide the…um…scope…of his endowment.

  Ryder: Better?

  Me, with a wide-eyed in surprise emoji: Yeah…better is one word for it.

  Ryder: Oh stop, you.

  Ryder: Not really. I have a fragile male ego, so you should compliment me some more.

  Me: My compliments are…non-verbal.

  Ryder: Meaning?

  Me: Meaning the fact that you’re doing that stupid pose, but I can’t stop looking at the pic.

  Ryder: Looking at the pic, and…?

  I let impulse reign, and in this case the impulse is to take another photo. Me, on my back in bed, staring up at the camera with my lip caught in my teeth and a wide-eyed look of arousal on my face—not at all faked or exaggerated. The fact that I’m not wearing a bra and my shirt is mostly unbuttoned means my breasts sag downward with gravity, the edges of the shirt just barely covering my nipples. The lower edge of the photo cuts off at mid-thigh, which is more than enough to show my bright yellow underwear…

  And my fingers are in the act of sneaking under the waistband.

  Naughty, naughty.

  I send it without touching it up or overthinking it.

  Ryder: holy fucking hell, Laurel. You’re killing me.

  Me: Killing you?

  Ryder: how am I supposed to keep this light and fun and MOSTLY innocent when you send me a pic like that?

  Me: Oops?

  Ryder sends another photo, this time a regular front-facing, waist-up selfie…with the gray underwear dangling from a fingertip.

  Ryder: Oops?

  I swallow hard, only just resisting the impulse to ask him to pan down.

  Instead, I slip out of my shirt and take another selfie, squeezing my breasts together so I can cover my nipples with one hand while taking the selfie with the other. Which is a trick, and it takes a few tries to get right.

  Me: Oops?

  Ryder: I’m out of oopses, and you’re still in your underwear.

  I rectify this, the daring of this game making my heart pound as I snap a photo of the yellow boy short panties dangling from my finger.

  Me: Better?

  Ryder: Yes. No. I don’t know.

  Ryder: I think I need more to be sure.

  Me: More what?

  Ryder: More of you. All of you.

  I swallow hard, swallow down the urge to give him what he wants—all of me, bare, in a photograph.

  Me: Not yet

  Ryder: I’m so conflicted right now.

  Me: Conflicted about what?

  Ryder: My need to see you naked has me wanting to beg you for more. But another part of me respects you for holding your ground.

  Me: You respect me for holding my ground?

  Ryder: Absolutely. I also appreciate the continued…mystique, I guess, although that’s not the right word. I’m even more crazy fucking hard for you than ever, but I’ve still not seen all of you. And, honestly, I’m glad, because it’ll make the reality of you, bare, live and in person, that much better. Especially when I’m the one to strip you out of your clothes.

  Me: *gulp* I’m not sure whether to say thank you, ask you to show me how hard you are, or rethink my stance on sending you a nude.

  Ryder: Now who’s not making things any easier?

  I groan.

  Me: I better go.

  Ryder: Something better to do?

  Me: Yeah…myself.

  Ryder: Not fair. Not fair AT ALL.

  Me: Like you won’t be doing the same thing?

  Ryder: …

  Ryder: while thinking of everything I can still only imagine.

  Me: Tomorrow is Friday…

  Ryder, after a brief pause: You have the weekend?

  Me: yeah, why?

  Ryder: the place we’re going to for dinner is in the city. We may be dining late, and not feel like driving all the way back out this way…

  Me: You’re suggesting we get a hotel room for the weekend?

  Ryder: Well, technically, YOU suggested it, I just implied it.

  Me, with an eye-roll emoji: Don’t split hairs with me.

  Ryder: It’s not hairs I’m dreaming of splitting…

  Me: RYDER.

  Ryder, with a laughing emoji: … So? Yea or nay?

  Me: I’ll have to think about that.

  Ryder: Fair enough. Am I picking you up? Are you following me? Are we meeting somewhere?

  Me: I’ll have to think about that too. I’m sorry.

  Ryder: No apologies. I understand.

  Me: I’ll text you tomorrow morning with my answers to both questions.

  Ryder gives me a thumbs-up, and I toss the phone aside. I sigh, rub my face with both hands, and then sit up, running my hands through my hair.

  What am I thinking? What am I doing?

  Am I teasing him, or myself?

  He wants to get a hotel room.

  A weekend in downtown Chicago with Ryder. Alone.

  Since the day we met in James’s backyard, I’ve wanted him. The first thing I wanted to do when I saw him was run my hands through his brilliant red hair, and the second was get him alone, and naked. And inside me.

  When was the last time I had sex? Derek abruptly dumped me over a month ago, and he’d been acting weird and standoffish for a few weeks before that so we hadn’t had been having sex, plus there was my period which had put an obvious damper on things…which means it’s been over two months, almost three.

  Or is it four?

  Three months, almost four? Something like that—a long-ass time without sex.

  Damn—no wonder I’m a horny disaster.

  A weekend alone with Ryder.

  Gah. How can I say no?

  But how can I say yes?

  I’d fall for him.

  Or, rather, fall even harder. It’s already bad, and I’m already only just barely holding my feelings for him at bay through a carefully choreographed process of avoidance, suppression, and just not thinking about it.

  But then we have text exchanges like the one that just happened, and all that goes right out the window.

  His smile, his silly, wry, goofy sense of humor, those mesmerizing hazel eyes, the thick red beard…that body, hard and heavily muscled without being intimidating or scary.

  He’s sexy and hysterical at the same time, and apparently that’s like catnip for me.

  A weekend alone in Chicago with Ryder.

  A hotel room, all to ourselves, for forty-eight hours.

  This is not going to go well.

  Or, to be accurate, it’s going to go amazing, and then, if history holds true, he’ll turn out to be an asshole and I’ll already be head over heels in love with him and I won’t be able to help myself from indulging even though I know I’m only going to end up getting hurt.

  Basically
, I’m gonna get hurt anyway, so I may as well just have fun and enjoy myself as much as possible before the heartbreak.

  I hold out for an hour, and then text him.

  Me: get us a room.

  I turn off all the lights and climb into bed, under the covers.

  And try to go to sleep.

  Only, the second I close my eyes, I see Ryder. Swathed in shadows, moonlight gleaming on his muscles, his fist sliding up and down his thick shaft.

  I open my eyes, but the image still unfolds in my imagination.

  My room is dark, with only a sliver of moonlight across my bed. I toss off the covers, groaning, overheated for some reason.

  My phone chirps.

  Ryder: I’d say you just made my day, but it’s more accurate to say week…month…hell, lifetime.

  Me: Lifetime?

  Ryder: Too much?

  Me: Only if it’s not true.

  Ryder: It’s true.

  Me: How do you know? All we’ve done is kiss.

  Ryder: If all we’ve done is kiss, and those kisses were the best kisses ever, then it stands to reason…

  Me: It stands to reason, what?

  Ryder: It stands to reason finally having the glorious privilege of being alone with you, getting to slowly remove all your clothing piece by piece, and then getting to spend the next forty-eight hours making you feel things you didn’t know were possible would be far and away the best thing I will have ever experienced.

  Shit.

  My imagination takes the fuel of his words and pours it onto the raging fire of my underserved libido.

  Ryder, kneeling in front of me, his mouth between my thighs, doing things that make my knees tremble and my eyes roll back in my head. His shaft throbbing in my hands, pulsing between my lips, sliding into my tight wet channel…

  My fingers slide down to my core, and I try to imagine what Ryder would look like standing over me, his hands in my hair as I take him into my mouth—what he would look like as I straddle him, taking him into me, riding him to orgasm after another.

  I come in seconds, whimpering.

  The strip of moonlight has widened, laying across my chest, illuminating my breasts.

  I snap a photo, still quaking from the aftershocks of my self-administered climax.

  I send it to Ryder. All you can see is the shape of me, outlines in shadow, except for a two-inch wide strip of silver moonlight across my nipples and areolae. It is, honestly, a rather erotic piece of nude photography.

  Ryder’s response is a long time coming.

  Which, I believe, is not a pun, but rather a double entendre.

  Ryder: Jesus, Laurel. You realize you sent that to me right as I was seconds from coming?

  Me: Oops.

  Ryder: you owe me so many orgasms.

  Me: meaning I owe you orgasms you give me, or I owe you orgasms I give you?

  Ryder: Yes.

  Me: Pick me up at my house at 6:15.

  Me: Wait…when you arranged this date of ours, you said dinner was at 6:15?

  Ryder: Yeah, I know, but then I decided there was nowhere around here good enough to take you, and the only choice is to take you downtown. So, basically, change of plans.

  Ryder: I have to go, now. I have a…mess…to clean up.

  Me: Where is the mess?

  Ryder: Dirty girl. You sent me that photo, and I came the instant I saw it. No time to even grab a Kleenex first. So the mess is all over my stomach.

  Me: Want to know something dirty?

  Ryder: Absolutely.

  Me: I took that photo seconds after I’d finished coming.

  Me: While thinking about you…doing exactly what you were doing.

  Ryder. Fuck. Stop! I’m gonna need to go again in a second if you don’t stop, and if I’m going to get out of work in time to shower, change, and pick you up tomorrow, then I have to be up in like, six hours.

  Me: Good night. See you tomorrow.

  Ryder: Good night, you seductive temptress, you.

  Me: Lol. I’m neither seducing nor tempting. More…promising. I include a winking emoji.

  Ryder: promising…when you’re not here to make good on the promise? Seductive temptress.

  Me: You’ll see me TOMORROW! And I did just send you the exact photo I promised you and myself I wasn’t going to send you.

  Ryder: Oh. Good point. Still, it’s fun to call you a seductive temptress. So…

  Me: Good night, Ryder.

  Ryder: Good Night, Seductive Temptress.

  I laugh softly to myself, and then, just to be sure I actually sleep, I turn my phone on “do not disturb” mode.

  Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

  Chapter 5

  “Mom?” Nate, in the backseat, is eyeing me with intense curiosity.

  “Mmm-hmm?” I ask absently, as I make a left turn into Paul’s subdivision.

  “Why are you all fancy?”

  This jolts me to awareness. “Um. I…”

  “Are you going on a date tonight?”

  I smile at him in the rearview mirror. “Yes, I am.”

  “I thought so.” Nate, my nine-year-old son, is tall for his age, with dark brown hair and light brown eyes, and an adorably earnest grin. “You only make yourself that pretty when you’re going on a date.”

  I laugh. “So, what—I’m ugly the rest of the time?”

  “No! Don’t be dumb. You’re pretty all the time. But when you’re going on a date, you’re extra special pretty.” He plays with his LEGO guy for a moment, jumping him across from armrest to knee and then flying through the air—but I can tell Nate has another question percolating. “Mom?”

  Ah, there it is.

  “Yep?” We’re on Paul’s street, and I pull over to the curb a half mile away so I can finish talking to Nate—Paul has a tendency to come right out as soon as he sees me pull up.

  “Is it with Derek?”

  I hesitate. “No, it’s not. It’s someone else.”

  “Oh, good. He was a butthole. He only liked you ’cause you’re pretty.”

  I shove the shifter into park and twist to look at Nate directly. “Excuse me?”

  Nate shrugs, nonplussed at my outburst. “It’s true. He was a big slimy butthole and I didn’t like him. And I heard him on the phone one time, talking to somebody about you. We were out to dinner, and I was in the stall going poop, and he came in to pee and didn’t know I was there, and I heard him talking.”

  “And? What did he say?”

  Nate shifts. “You won’t be mad?”

  “At you? No? Why would I?”

  “Cause I didn’t tell you what he said.”

  I smile. “I’ll answer that after you tell me what Nate said.”

  Nate fiddles with the gun in his LEGO guy’s hand. “He said that you…” he trails off. “It wasn’t appropriate. Do I have to say it?”

  I frown. “I hate that you overheard this.” I pat his hand. “Just tell me, and remember you don’t talk like that, now or ever.”

  “He said the only real hot thing about were your…” He makes a dramatic, disgusted grimace, and points at his chest. “And then he said that’s really the only reason he kept seeing you, because dealing with her annoying brat was almost not worth it.” His expression darkens. “I peed in his shoe and blamed it on the cat.”

  I splutter before I can stop myself. “You did not!”

  Nate holds the angry expression. “I did! I peed in his shoe, and when he found out, I blamed it on Mr. Tubbins, because Mr. Tubbins is always peeing on things.”

  “Nate—” I have work to hold back the laughter. “That’s not okay. You can’t go around—you can’t go around peeing in peoples’ shoes just because they say mean things about you.”

  He crosses his arms dramatically. “Then why do you think it’s so funny? He only liked you because you’re pretty! I don’t know much about going on dates because I’m only nine, but even I know that makes Derek a big slimy butthole. After someone pooped—and didn’t wipe.�
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  I gag. “Nathaniel Paul Madison! That’s disgusting.”

  “He’s disgusting. He called me an annoying brat.”

  I sober. “Okay, serious time. Yes, that just adds to the ways that Derek was a…a not nice person. But that’s not how we behave in this family, you understand me?”

  “What family? It’s just you and me. I think you need at least three people for a family.” He points ahead. “And don’t say Dad, because he doesn’t count. I only see him cause the court says I have to, but when I can decide for myself, I’m not gonna. He’s an annoying brat.”

  “Nate, now come on—”

  “He is!”

  “I thought you had fun when you spent time with Dad?”

  He shrugs. “Oh, sure, I have fun. He takes me to laser tag and arcades and buys me stuff, and I always leave it at his house so I have something to do when I’m there.”

  “Laser tag and arcade games sound fun.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t do it with me. He just watches. So, yeah, I have fun doing that stuff, but the whole point of me spending every other weekend at his house is for him to see me, but he never actually spends time with me. It feels like I go over there because he feels like he has to spend time with me, because the court says so.”

  I sigh. How do I navigate this? I made a promise to myself when things first went to hell that I’d never talk bad about Paul to Nate, or discourage him from seeing him.

  “Nate…”

  “Who’s your date with?” Nate cuts in.

  “You remember those times Miss Holly came over last month?”

  He nods. “Yeah. They were dates, because you looked pretty and you were nervous.”

  I laugh. “I wasn’t nervous!”

  “Uh-huh! You were too! You were twirling your hair and asking me a million questions about how you look, and I’m nine, what do I know about how you’re supposed to look on a date?” He makes a “duh” face. “So yeah, you were nervous.”

  “You’re too precocious for your own good.”

  “For your good, you mean.” He wrinkles his brow. “Does precocious mean annoying?”

  I laugh. “No, it means smarter than you should be for your age.” I put the car back into gear. “I’m going out with the same man I went out with those other times. His name is Ryder.”

  “That’s a cool name. What’s he like?”

  I smile. “He’s funny, and very nice.”