Inappropriate Thoughts (Victoria Wilde #1) (11 page)

"I would say yes... and yes," he
replied.

"Maybe we should just keep it between yours
and mine."

"That’s probably best."

"I mean, I think it’s okay that we’ve seen
each other’s parts. You know, since we could never really do
anything about it because of Rob and everything."

He nodded. "Sure. We’d end up on Jerry
Springer on the ‘My Best Friend Slept with My Mother’ show."

"Exactly. And I don’t want to be on that
show. It might be fun to do what you’d need to do to get on that
show, but..."

"It would definitely be fun," Brian said,
twenty percent humoring her and eighty percent meaning it like he
never meant anything more.

"So, we’re good. I can sleep now." Closing
her eyes, she slumped into the pillow. Her lower body was still
uncovered.

He took one last look at it, because—as
Jillian had said—it was only fair. He shook his head, admiring the
whole picture, and then he exhaled and pulled her robe down over
her exposed parts. After covering her with the sheet and blanket,
he pulled the panties from his pocket, grinned, dropped them on the
bed, and left the room.

Brian woke before 8:00 a.m. for the first
time since high school. Looking out the window at the pool, he
discovered it was a cloudless day. He decided to put on a bathing
suit and go for a swim. After forty laps, he climbed from the pool,
and walked over to the tennis court. He made his way around the
court in awe. The net was in perfect condition, and he couldn’t
find a single flaw in the surface. It was nothing like the courts
where he usually played. Public courts were always full of cracks
that caused the balls to take unexpected bounces, and the nets
usually sagged so badly that you’d need to wedge a tennis ball
container under the cord just to prop it up. Spotting a cabinet in
one corner of the court, he walked over to it.

When he opened it, he found a ball collector
containing about a hundred practice balls and a ball machine. He
smiled and wanted to use it right then. It had been years since he
had used a ball machine, and he remembered what a great practice
tool it was. Brian decided to be sure Jillian was awake before he
used the noisy contraption and thought he probably should ask
first, anyway.

After making his way up to Jillian’s
bedroom, he found her still asleep and decided to make breakfast in
bed for her as a sort of thank you for letting him stay in her
incredible home. Plus, it gave him a good excuse to spend a few
more minutes with her in her bedroom while she wore practically
nothing. He was developing more of an attraction to her than he was
comfortable admitting.

As he stood in the
kitchen, mixing up the pancake batter, all the things Jillian had
told him the previous night really started to hit him. Why was he
being so casual about it all? This was a big deal, right? She
confessed to invading his privacy and watching him—pretty much all
of him—while he slept. Not to mention that she did it all on
purpose. It wasn’t like she walked in on him by mistake while he
was changing, or something. Sure, it may have been a
spur-of-the-moment thing, but she wasn’t drunk, or anything; she
chose to uncover him and look. And last night, she had shown him
her most private of areas. Granted, she was under the influence of
the unpredictable combination of a sleeping pill mixed with
alcohol, but wow! What the hell did it all mean?
I guess she’s just lonely,
all alone in this big house.

Closing his eyes, he flashed back to being
in her bedroom. She's so free with her body and open about
everything. He decided being open was a lot more fun than the
alternative; sure, it was a little odd, but it was a refreshing
change from his experiences living at home with his parents and
much more fun than college and trying to figure out what was going
on in the minds of young, crazy college women.

He opened his eyes, and a
grin spread over his face. He loved hearing that she thought his
penis was gorgeous. No other girl had ever said anything about it.
It was only a compliment—an incredibly intimate compliment—so he
wouldn’t try to read anything else into it. Hell, she was an erotic
romance novelist; she wrote about penises every day, and she
probably talked about them constantly...
Okay, maybe not,
he thought. He
decided he would try to sort all of it out later.

Brian made Jillian a fabulous breakfast. And
yes, maybe arranging slices of kiwi on the plate was overdoing it
just a little, but he wanted to impress her. He enjoyed cooking,
and Jillian’s kitchen was so well-equipped and stocked that it made
cooking even better.

He used to make breakfast for his family
every weekend morning when he was still at home. This was the
pancake recipe he had perfected over the years with his own
personal twists. He made three for himself and took a bite to be
sure they were up to snuff. He poured batter on the griddle to cook
up three more for Jillian and ate his quickly while he watched hers
closely. When hers were cooked to perfection, he arranged them
professionally on a plate. He placed the plate and everything else
he needed on the breakfast tray he found and took it up to her.

When Brian entered Jillian’s room, he found
her still asleep. She woke up when she heard him approach the bed.
She didn’t seem put off that he was in there with her. They both
seemed comfortable with the situation, even though he was in her
bedroom, and she was barely wearing anything. She struggled to look
at the tray, and when she finally was able to focus on it, she was
stunned.

"What’s all this?" she asked.

"I made a little breakfast."

She sat up, and he placed the tray over her
legs. Smiling, she eyed the spread of the decorative kiwi,
blueberry pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, juice, and coffee. "'A
little breakfast' is a banana."

"I like to cook, and I wanted to say thank
you for letting me stay here. I also wanted to ask, but I’ll wait
until..." he said, trailing off.

"What is it?" She cut a bite of pancake and
slipped it into her mouth. "Wow," she mumbled with her mouth
full.

Reacting to her pleasure, he grinned and sat
on the bed near the footboard.

She gazed at him, overwhelmed by his cooking
skills. "This is amazing. You used my pancake mix right? I can
never get it to taste like this."

"Mix? No, I never use a mix. Pancakes are
easy to make."

She scoffed. "Right—not for me."

"They’re just flour, baking powder, sugar,
salt, oil, milk, and eggs. I do have a few secrets that make them
come out perfect."

Jillian took another bite. "Secrets?"

Brian leaned a little closer to her. "First,
you need to turn the griddle on before you start and set it to 350
degrees. It needs to be the right temperature and preheated for at
least five to ten minutes, or they don’t cook right at all."

Gazing at her plate, she shook her head.
"How do you get them to look like they came from a pancake house?
Mine always look like a greasy mess."

"Do you use butter on the griddle?"

"Yes," she replied.

He gave her a knowing nod.
"That’s the problem, but I’ll get into that in a second. I’ve had
this same recipe for years, except now I add a little more sugar,
and instead of just two eggs, I use two whole eggs and one extra
egg white. It makes them extra fluffy." He looked at her, wishing
he could take back the word fluffy, but it was too late. He tried
to repair the damage by saying, "
Fluffy
—you probably think I’m
effeminate, but I just—"

"No, you can say 'fluffy.' And I think serving
breakfast for a woman in bed is one of the most masculine acts that
a man can do," she said as she took a sip of her coffee. She smiled
at him. "Finish telling me your secrets."

"The real secret is, you put some butter on
the griddle and coat the entire surface, but then you make two what
I call 'test cakes' that you throw away. Cook the first one, turn
it over, and move it around the griddle to soak up as much of the
melted butter as you can. Then do the same thing with the second
one. The first one will look like a train wreck, but that second
one should look really golden brown on the one side. That's when
you know the griddle is finally ready."

She looked at him, even more impressed.
"I'll definitely have to try that."

"Just make sure you get 99 percent of the
butter off the griddle. You only want the faintest hint that butter
was once there—too much will kill ‘em."

After taking another bite, she shook her
head, contented. "So, uh, what did you want to ask?"

"I noticed you had a ball machine out by the
tennis court. Can I use it?"

"Sure. Do you need me to set it up?"

"No, I can do it," Brian said as he was
already leaning off the edge of the bed.

"Knock yourself out."

"Cool, thanks." He got up and headed out of
the room.

As she watched him leave, she said, "Thank
you for the breakfast. It’s amazing."

Just then, she noticed the kiwi slices
arranged so nicely on the plate and realized she forgot to taste
them. Smiling, she slipped one into her mouth.

Jillian finished her breakfast and moved to
the back window to watch Brian as he hit with the ball machine. He
was a little better than she had anticipated. She was impressed as
she watched him fire balls down the line and crosscourt, running
the machine on its fastest speed. After staring at the muscles in
his legs and arms as he worked the court, she decided she had to go
out and join him for a closer look.

When she glanced toward the pool area, she
spotted a beer bottle on the table by the lounge chairs. This
caused bits and pieces of a memory to emerge. She remembered that
George had called and that she had been angry with him. She
recalled taking a sleeping pill before the call, and then, in the
heat of the argument, forgetting about the pill and drinking some
wine. She could remember speaking with Brian out by the pool, but
everything after that was a complete blur. She thought a moment
about waking up without her panties on, and she couldn’t remember
the last time that had happened. Smiling, she shook those concerns
from her head. She had no other memories of the previous night, but
she was almost positive that nothing happened between Brian and
her.

Jillian spent a little extra time getting
ready before going down to the court. She pulled her hair back and
wore the sexiest tennis outfit she owned. The skirt was
super-short, and she thought it really showed off her legs. When
she went out to the court, Brian was sitting on the bench, and he’d
already worked up a pretty big sweat. Approaching him, she smiled.
"I saw you hitting. You're really good."

"You think? You’d probably kill me out
here."

"Want to hit?"

"Sure, but I’m a little tired from the ball
machine and everything, so take it easy on me."

It didn't take long for the two to discover that
they got along just as well on the court as they did off the court.
They both favored a serve-and-volley game, and their skill levels
matched up perfectly. Brian stole many glances at Jillian’s body in
that short skirt. He watched her bending over to pick up balls and
would stare as she walked away from him to the service line. It was
more than a little distracting. They played two sets, and unlike
Jillian’s previous experience with Mike, the overly-hairy jerk,
Brian was a perfectly good sport on the court. She thought he even
called in a few of her shots that were clearly out, but they were
close enough that she didn’t argue.

She won the first two sets six games to
four. During one long point in the first game of the third set,
Brian rushed to the net and hit a near-perfect passing shot. He
grinned when he hit it, because he was sure it was a winner. She
took off after it and reached it ten feet outside the court. Once
there, she stretched then grunted, as she smashed a running topspin
forehand toward the back corner. He watched it almost in slow
motion as it arched high and looked like it would certainly go
long. She had hit it perfectly and with so much topspin, however,
that it dropped like a rock mere inches inside the corner.

Standing there with his mouth agape, he
stared at the spot, unable to move. As he watched the ball slowly
roll away, he said, "Fuck me."

In response, she whispered something under
her breath that Brian couldn't hear.

He slowly turned his head to look directly
at her as she stood in the perfect finish position, with her legs
stretched far apart and her racquet held high. She grinned from ear
to ear. He just smiled at her, and she shrugged her shoulders. Then
she popped her legs together and headed to the service line with a
spring in her step, all the while maintaining eye contact with
him.

"Was that you grunting just like Maria
Sharapova?"

She looked a little embarrassed. "Was it
that bad?"

"If it leads to shots like that, I say grunt
away." He added jokingly, "I can’t compete with that. That was so
my point." He simply clapped his hand against his racquet a few
times, which is the proper tennis etiquette when your opponent hits
a shot of that caliber. Retrieving the ball, he shook his head.
"Sorry about dropping the F-bomb."

"Don’t worry. That was a freaking amazing
shot. I never can hit on the run like that."

Brian won the third set six games to three
and impressed her more than once with his game. Afterward, they sat
on the bench, chatting about tennis and other topics. Twenty
minutes was spent on the racquets they had played with over the
years. She asked if he ever had any formal lessons. He told her he
hadn’t and mentioned that his backhand was always the weakest part
of his game. He asked if she had any advice for him, and she said
she did.