Emptying his glass, Johnny poured himself another. He held out the bottle to top up her drink and was a bit surprised, but not displeased,
when she tilted her glass toward him.
So maybe the partnership would be able to deal with his...issue as successfully as they’d handled the rest of the obstacles in their path.
“I first noticed it about a week ago,” he answered honestly, feeling better already with the problem out in the open. “It was those new jeans you had on, the ones with jewels...all that glittering. A guy can’t help noticing a great ass when it’s being so brightly adorned.”
Wait, did that sound like he was blaming her for his inappropriate reaction? He wasn’t. He was about to tell her so when she asked, “So you think I have a nice butt?”
Oh, Lordy. She was throwing him for a loop here. “Of course you have a nice butt.”
She shrugged. “Well, thank you. I guess...”
“I swear to you I have not been lusting after you for nine months.”
“I didn’t think you had.”
He took another sip. Might’ve done better to have picked up a fifth of something. The wine wasn’t doing enough to numb his senses. As it was, he saw an icy shower in his imminent future.
“That’s why I left yesterday. I woke up with a hard-on. Thought about dinner with you, got hard again. Started to pack for the week, and there it was again. I needed one hell of a distraction. The jet was it.”
“Did it work?”
Motioning to his fly with the glass in his hand he asked, “What do you think?”
She nodded, looking like she might smile, but she didn’t.
“You intended to come back all along.”
“I didn’t know if it would be in time to leave in the morning, but yes.” The fact that she asked the question told him she’d had doubts. Which bothered him. “Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”
She met his gaze then. For far longer than the usual look they exchanged during partnership discussions. “No.”
He felt exposed sitting there, hard as a brick, with both of them aware of his penis activity. That just made it want to be more active.
He was ready to head to the shower, but it wasn’t clear whether or not they’d handled the issue sufficiently.
“So...we’re good?” he asked.
She chuckled.
“What?”
“I’m not clear on this,” she said. “We’ve established that you’ve developed an attraction to me, and we’re just going to leave it hanging there, so to speak? Making you...physically uncomfortable on and off throughout the rest of the days we’re in each other’s lives?”
“I was kind of hoping it would dissipate.”
“Okay. And if it doesn’t?”
What the hell did she want from him?
“I’ve had hard-ons before, Tabitha. I know how to deal with them. It’ll help not having to hide it from you anymore. Seriously, that’ll ease the tension right there.” He thought about sitting forward, making his situation a bit less obvious, but wasn’t quite ready to lose the moment with her.
Life would be a lot fairer if Tabitha had looked as though she was even a little turned on by the conversation. He had no intention of forcing anything—of using her, in any way, to alleviate his condition. But if, by some miracle, the feelings were mutual...
“All I meant was...is there something I can do to make things more comfortable? Besides not wearing those jeans again...”
“It’s not the jeans, Tabitha. They just started it. Now that the awareness is there, it’s there.”