Beard Science(31)

I liked flavor and well-lit rooms, where I could admire everything that made a woman’s form different from a man’s. I liked a variety of positions and a woman with stamina, who knew how to use my body to make hers come and approached sex with enthusiasm, not trepidation.

I wanted a woman who knew she liked sex, not one who hadn’t made her mind up due to lack of experience.

So, yeah. I considered lying. But I decided against it. I didn’t want any lies between Jenn and me if I could help it.

But I did gentle my voice. “Ideally, I’d like someone who has, if at all possible, a good amount of experience.”

Her face fell and she lowered her eyes to the wood floor.

A twinge of regret originating in my chest tightened my throat. “Jenn—”

“No. It’s fine. I guess, ideally, I want the same thing. I don’t want to be with someone who is looking to me for direction. I don’t know what I’m doing, so I guess I’d like someone who wouldn’t mind teaching me.”

Unbidden, a flash of what that would look like appeared in my mind’s eye. Jennifer Sylvester divested of clothing and gazing at me with trust. My hands on her waist, hips, thighs while I kissed my way down her soft, warm, pliant body . . .

The flash of imagining forced an equally sudden and visceral reaction in my body. One that drove most of the air from my lungs and left an uncomfortable stiffness in my pants, especially since the images didn’t stop there.

How would it be when she was experienced? When she asked for what she liked? When she whispered a request in my ear during a jam session break and we snuck off someplace private? When she gazed at me with confidence and knowledge of her own desires?

I’ll have to get a bigger car. And a desk. I’d like to take her on a desk.

“Cletus?”

I shook myself, coming back to the present, and realizing with some disappointment that we still had our clothes on and there wasn’t a desk in sight.

But there is a kitchen counter.

“Pardon?” I asked, frantically fighting against the torrent of seductive imagery.

She frowned at me and involuntarily my eyes darted to her chest. Like a cheeseball.

Dammit.

I covered my face with my hands and rubbed my eyeballs.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded and made a mental list. I made a very unsexy list of chores that needed doing around the homestead, including but not limited to cleaning out the chicken coop, sharpening the knives in the shed, and chopping wood. I definitely needed to chop wood. Definitely. Even though Jethro had chopped all our wood while in a snit about Sienna. And before that Billy had chopped a pile of wood while in a snit about Claire.

. . . Claire!

“Claire!”

I dropped my hands from my face and snapped my fingers.

“Claire? You mean Claire McClure?”

“Yes. Claire McClure. You should discuss these matters with her. She’s very smart. And a woman.”

Jenn’s eyes lowered to her now empty teacup and she leaned forward on the counter in much the same way I’d been doing moments prior. “Do you think she’d mind talking about this stuff? She doesn’t even know me.”

I grabbed my jacket, needing to leave right now.

Right. Now.

The first few buttons of her housedress were undone, which meant the top most edge of her lace bra was visible. It was red.

Her bra was red lace. My educated guess was that her underwear was also red lace. I was officially fixating. I needed to leave before I attempted to confirm my educated guess.

So I announced. “I’m leaving.” And pulled on my jacket.

Jennifer looked at me with surprise. “You’re leaving? Now?”

“That’s right.” I fumbled for my zipper. Thank God tomorrow was Tuesday. Tuesday morning was my morning in the upstairs bathroom, and I was going to need it.

“Oh.” She frowned her confusion as her eyes moved over me. “I have the crème puffs and cake all boxed up. Let me grab them.”

I nodded, heat rising up my shirt collar.

“Um, will I see you at the jam session this Friday?” she asked as she bent into the refrigerator to retrieve the baked goods.

I tore my eyes from her backside and stared unseeingly out the kitchen window because I was plagued by thoughts of lifting her skirt while she was bent over and everything that entailed, including but not limited to: skimming my fingers up her smooth, bare thighs; parting her legs; reaching into the front of her dress with one hand and pulling down her bra while slipping the other into her red, lace panties . . .

Yep. That’s what I was thinking about. And, as an aside, I now understood the popularity of housedresses in the mid-twentieth century.

A cold shower was in order. And yoga. And then another cold shower.

“Cletus?”

“Yep?” I answered tightly, trying and failing to make another unsexy list of chores.

“Are you going to be at the jam session?”

“No. Not this week.” I just decided—just this very moment—I would skip the jam session.

“What about next Friday?”

“No. I can’t. I’ll be down in Nashville. Claire and I have the talent show.” I couldn’t wait any longer. I bolted for the back door and powerwalked to my car.

I heard her footsteps behind me and the sound brought me up short. I’d left her to carry the boxes, and that was discourteous. My momma raised me better, even if I was suffering from penile engorgement.

I turned and met her a few feet from the kitchen door, relieving her of the boxes.

“Thank you very much for these. You didn’t have to bake us treats.” I kept my eyes on the boxes.

“I don’t mind. And it’s the least I can do for all you’ve done. And all you’re doing. By the way, do I have any homework?”

Homework.

Dammit.

“Yes. Homework. Yes.” I nodded, trying to remember what I’d planned to give her for homework. I couldn’t remember, so I made it up. “You have to talk to Claire McClure about instruments and baking with a partner.”

“You mean I need to ask her about sex.”

Oh for the love of—

“Yep.” I turned and escaped to my car.

“So you’ll send me her phone number? And let her know I’m calling?” Jenn was trailing after me, pummeling me with questions. I needed her to leave me alone so I could stop thinking about teaching her how to pleasure herself.

“Yep.” I opened the trunk and placed the bakery boxes inside, then walked past her to the driver’s side door.

“Okay. Sounds good. I guess I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Yep,” I said, closing my door and immediately starting the engine.

Jennifer lingered just beyond my parking spot, her arms crossed against the cold. I placed the car in reverse, but didn’t hit the gas. I couldn’t leave, not until she was back inside. She didn’t move.

Grunting my frustration, I rolled down my window. “What are you doing? It’s freezing out here. Go back inside.”

She shuffled forward in her slippers and bent down to the height of the window. Before I knew what was happening, Jennifer Sylvester placed a featherlike hand on my jaw and a sweet kiss on my cheek. The whole thing was over before I knew it had happened.

Giving me a triumphant smile, she backed away from the car. I looked at her and she looked back, her smile never wavering. Then she turned and jogged to the back door. She stepped inside. She shut the door.

I don’t know how long I stared at the back door to the kitchen, but when I eventually glanced at the clock on the dash, it was 10:46 PM. I still needed a cold shower, but I decided to skip it.

My decision had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I could still feel the warm, gentle brush of her fingers on my jaw, or the searing press of her lips on my cheek.

Shit.





CHAPTER 14


“Let's clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people.”

 Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power



~Jennifer~

Over a week later and I hadn’t heard from Cletus.

I tried not to feel disappointed and mostly succeeded. We weren’t friends. I might’ve been developing affection for him and enjoying our time together; but I couldn’t allow myself to forget that I was, in fact, blackmailing the man.

The only reason he was talking to me at all was because of that video. Once our deal was over, he’d likely avoid me. I’d become invisible again. And that was okay. I just needed to prepare myself for the eventual rejection.

I was good at dealing with rejection. No biggie.

Therefore, my decision to seek him out ten days after our last lesson made no rational sense.

“What are you doing, Jennifer Sylvester?” I asked myself out loud as I pulled into the parking lot of the Winston Brothers Auto Shop. “You’ve obviously lost your mind.”

I had definitely lost my mind.

I was blackmailing him to help me find a husband. But recently, when I thought about him, when I thought back on our stolen moments together and my heart became too full for my chest, part of me—clearly the very wrong in the head part of me—wondered if I should just blackmail him into marrying me instead.

See? I’d lost my mind.

I’d lost it the moment I stepped forward, bent into his car, and placed that kiss on his cheek ten days ago.

But he was just so . . .