Several minutes later, the sound of an engine starting next door came through the open window, followed by the clatter of his truck leaving the property. She wondered what the dark-haired, dark-eyed man thought of her. Did he think she was depraved, or had she given him a hard-on? If the facilities in his house weren’t yet functioning, he might be sleeping elsewhere. Was he fleeing to a girlfriend or wife nearby to share what had happened with a laugh before tumbling into bed? He hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, considering he worked with his hands all day.
Night sounds floated into the stillness of her room. Cicadas and other nocturnal insects emitted strident noises in rounds that swelled and ebbed. The perfume of fresh-cut grass and moon-blooming flowers rode the air. She felt utterly alone with her thoughts and nervous about this sense of restlessness her note to herself had reawakened. Knowing that sleep was long in coming, Gemma turned on the nightstand lamp and gingerly reached for the folded sheets of the abandoned letter.
With her heart pounding, she picked up reading where she’d left off, where the unknown boy at a party had watched her from across the room.
It made me feel like I was someone else. So I decided to become someone else. The next day I put on the sexiest pair of panties that I owned (pink with white lace), along with a short pleated plaid skirt and a white blouse. In the bathroom at the train station I put on a brown wig that my roommate had worn in a play, and large dark sunglasses. Then I got on a train going to a part of town where I knew no one. It was rush hour and the train was crowded, but I waited for just the right person. He got on a few stops later. He was cute and wore a gray pinstripe suit. He looked as if he was just out of college, probably working at his first job in an office somewhere. He sat a few feet away, facing me. He noticed my legs first. I was wearing white socks that came up to my knees, and black Mary Jane shoes. His gaze stopped again at my skirt, so I twisted in my seat to lift it a few more inches. And I parted my legs.
His eyes widened slightly and he glanced up to my face. But I kept my head slightly turned. With my dark glasses, he couldn’t tell that I was looking at him out of the corner of my eye. He wiped his hand across his mouth and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the panty show, but no one had.
His face turned as pink as my panties, but he kept watching, kept staring at me, sending tremors through my body. I knew he wanted me. I felt myself grow warm, then wet as I wiggled my skirt higher, my knees wider. I knew I was staining my panties, and wondered if he could tell. Apparently so, because he moved his newspaper over his crotch, then slid his hand beneath it. Knowing that he was secretly jerking off while staring at my pink panties made me feel powerful. I let him get his fill for several minutes, until his eyes went glassy. At the next stop, I got off the train. As the train pulled away, he was craning to see me through the window. I gave him a little wave to let him know that I had been in on it all along.
I could hardly wait to get back to my room. Thank goodness my roommates were gone. I went into the bathroom and closed my eyes, remembering the way that man had looked at me, and I made myself come over and over again.
Gemma set aside the letter, her ears pounding with the thrum of longing coursing through her. She sighed and pushed her sweat-dampened hair away from her face. Her mother’s attempt at depicting sex as a necessary evil had backfired. By the time Gemma was finishing up college, she’d been burning up with a curiosity that Dr. Alexander’s class had unleashed with a fury. What had been taboo had suddenly seemed accessible, only she hadn’t been equipped to deal with the emotional and physical freedom. She’d been young and foolish, tempting fate with strangers in the pursuit of a sexual thrill. It had been liberating and exciting, but she had gone too far.
She was older now, wiser. She could control her fantasies, exercise restraint. She didn’t have to act on them like before. The performance at the window had been accidental. She hadn’t done anything that couldn’t be innocently explained away.
Thank goodness.
Feeling relieved, Gemma turned over her pillow to find a cool spot and willed herself to go to sleep. She needed to be rested for her interview in the morning. Hopefully everything would go well and she would find a job quickly. Then she and Chev Martinez might not have the occasion to even see each other again before he moved on to another job. The incident would be forgotten. Perhaps, it had already been forgotten by him.
But her body still hummed with memory of his dark eyes on her, and for the first time since Jason’s abrupt departure, Gemma fell asleep with the image of another man in her head.
* * *
CHEV PUSHED AWAY the remnants of a steak and baked potato and wrapped his hand around the fresh cold beer that the barkeep set in front of him. The any-town bar and grill was busy for a weeknight, with the jukebox blaring and the brews flowing freely between the men, some still garbed in work clothes, and the perpetually half-dressed coeds that populated every town in Florida he’d ever lived in, from Kissimmee to Miami.
“Lived in” was a stretch—more like visited. Moving from one commercial carpentry job to another, scouting for houses to flip in between. He couldn’t remember being anywhere for longer than six months in the past five years, since his engagement to Brooke had ended so disastrously. At least he’d learned that his fiancée slept around—and upside down—before they’d said their vows. For the first two years afterward, he’d worked eighteen hours a day to keep the pain at bay, and by then, the frantic work pace simply became a habit. Lingering in one place too long would simply lead to…complications. His mantra was to keep his relationships light…portable…temporary.
And tangle-free. He didn’t need to be arrested as a Peeping Tom for spying on the ex-wife of the state attorney general.
Chev shifted uncomfortably on the stool. He hadn’t maintained a hard-on this long since high school, but even after a cold shower and a hot meal, he simply couldn’t get the image of Gemma Jacobs out of his mind. He’d thought she caught him watching her, but then she had gone on as if nothing had happened, donning a nightgown that was as good as transparent, giving him a gut-clutching view of her full breasts tipping forward as she reached and leaned and stooped before finally turning off the bedroom light.
It was almost as if…
No. He scoffed. A woman like Gemma wouldn’t…
Would she?
He pulled his hand down his face, wondering if it were possible that she had caught him watching her but hadn’t minded. And, in fact, had extended the performance a little longer…
Then he expelled a harsh little laugh. Wishful thinking. Because the only thing hotter than watching her dress and undress in the window would be if she’d known he was watching her.
The moisture left his throat as his cock grew harder. He tipped up the beer and shifted again, troubled by the sudden thought that, after meeting Gemma and now having her nude body branded on his brain, there would be only one way to fully sate his appetite.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. The woman was way out of his league.
He turned his head and saw two pretty young brunettes staring at him over the tops of their drinks. They smiled and waved, twisting their tanned, nubile bodies to best advantage. Arms draped around each other’s shoulders, they kissed full on the mouth for his benefit. He set his jaw at the lust that surged through him and considered the doubleheader diversion. A heartbeat later, he rejected the idea. Another time, he might have been interested, but tomorrow would be a long workday. It was best to call it a night. He gave the women a clipped nod, then tossed money on the bar and downed the rest of his beer before leaving.
He mentally kicked himself all the way back to Petal Lagoon Drive. Those two brunettes could’ve taken the edge off his libido and taken his mind off the blonde next door.
For a while.
The house next to his fixer-upper was dark when he pulled into the driveway, dimly illuminated by a dusk-to-dawn light on the street. His loud rumbling truck plowed through the quiet of the upscale neighborhood, reminding him that he didn’t belong. He cut off the engine and sat listening to the silence of the suburbs, wondering what it would’ve been like to grow up in such an insular, privileged environment. A yard…trees…a pool…good schools for him and his siblings…good jobs for his parents. A world away from el Barrio where he’d spent his youth in Miami.
He climbed out of the truck and closed the door as quietly as possible, glancing up at the darkened window of Gemma’s bedroom and feeling like a fool. The “performance” had been a fluke, and he’d have to put it out of his mind until the renovations on the Spanish house were done and he could sell it. Then, as far as Gemma Jacobs was concerned, out of sight was out of mind. In fact, starting tomorrow, he would do everything in his power to make sure that he and the blonde divorcée didn’t cross paths again.
Staying away from her bedroom window would require a tad more willpower, but he’d put up a drop cloth, shutter the window, blindfold himself if necessary. Just because he hadn’t been caught this time didn’t mean he’d be so lucky next time.