I’ll be sore as hell in the morning as it is. I cannot physically handle another orgasm. The bet was four in three hours, and that’s not happening. Therefore, you lose.”
Chase laughed. “Fine. I concede.”
“You would. Bitch.”
He laughed again, and Tess smiled sleepily at him, then turned back over and was soon asleep once more.
Chase fell asleep thinking of green eyes. Only, these green eyes were framed by red curls as fiery as the woman beneath them.
CHAPTER 3
A fall wind blew hard down the corridor of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The sidewalks were full of pedestrians burdened with shopping bags and the streets jammed with taxis and buses and private cars. The sky overhead between the towers was gray and heavy. Flecks of something cold and wet—possibly snow, or rain, or a mix of the two—spattered against Jamie’s face as she bustled from the door of the high-rise condo building. She had her phone in her hand, an iMessage in the gray bubble: Meet me at the corner, babe. Dinner reservations in twenty. Her response, in blue: K. B right there.
She flipped the collar of black pea coat up and hunched her shoulders, hustling through the post-Thanksgiving shopping crowd to meet Ian. His mother had relocated to Chicago, and Ian had ended up moving to Chicago with her. He didn’t live with his mother, but nearby. Laura Collins, his mother, was a short, sweet woman with iron-gray hair and steely blue eyes. She adored Jamie, but had hinted in more than one conversation that she didn’t think Jamie was entirely happy.
Which was true, of course. She’d put everything she had into making things with Ian work. She commuted to Chicago every Thursday after her last shift and spent Friday and Saturday with Ian and his mother, then made the four-hour drive back for work Sunday afternoon. Ian met her in Detroit a few times a month as well, and overall, things worked. They worked.
But…Jamie was restless. She spent most of the four-hour trip twice a week trying not to think about how much longer she could pretend she was okay.
Ian knew. She saw the knowledge in his eyes at times, in the way she’d catch him gazing sadly at her, expectantly. Waiting.
Ian had something planned for today. He’d made reservations, which was unlike him. Usually they did burgers and beers at a local pub, or ate in. This was an event . He had something to say to her, and she knew it. It was probably a preemptive strike. His way of sparing her feelings, in an odd manner.
She found Ian waiting at the street corner, watching her approach. The sad look was in eyes again, distant and semi-hollow.
“Hello, love,” he said, with false cheer.
She kissed him, a brief touch of the lips. They pulled away at the same time. “Hey, yourself.”
“Hungry?” Ian took her hand, and they walked through the crowd together.
“Famished. Traffic into the city was hellish.”
“Sorry to hear it, darling. I worry about you making the drive so often in that dodgy old auto of yours. I’m always afraid it’s going to go tits up on you halfway here.”
Jamie chuckled at his turn of phrase. “Yeah, it’s definitely a possibility, I guess. But it’s fine for now. Besides, if it does go tits up, I’ll just call you, and you’ll rescue me.” Out of habit, she nudged closer and smirked at him. “And then as a reward, I’ll go tits up for you.”
Ian laughed. “Oh, god, I really don’t think that phrase means what you think it means.”
Jamie shoved him with her hip. “Oh, shut up. I know exactly what it means, I was just using it in another context.”
“And I know that . I was just teasing you.”
They had a long, leisurely dinner, filled with the idle conversation of a couple familiar and comfortable with each other. It was laced with tension, though. Jamie felt it, and she saw it in Ian’s eyes.
Finally, she leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Out with it, Ian.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I—I’m not
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