His Nasty Virgin

VIVIAN

“So,” I started carefully, “is Jesse supposed to be short for anything?”

“James,” he answered, voice like rich honey, deep and smooth and mesmerizing.

I laughed nervously. “Isn’t that a syllable shorter?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. His suit jacket looked like it was struggling to contain him. “That’s just what my mother called me. Somewhere along the line, it stuck.”

We walked alongside each other, a respectable foot and a half or so between us. Even still, I was enveloped in the scent of his cologne. It wasn’t overbearing, but subtle. Sophisticated. Manly. I knew for a fact that Wally still used that cheap Axe body spray, the type that hurt my nose when he used too much of it. Jesse, in contrast, smelled good.

And it was more of a problem than I anticipated it to be.

Something inside me was stirring that I couldn’t explain. Every time I glanced at him, the butterflies in my stomach went crazy. A tight, wet heat bloomed deep within my core. My fingers itched to reach out -just once- for the chance to touch him, driven purely by curiosity even though I knew it was wrong.

I couldn’t allow myself to feel… whatever I was feeling. Jesse was my ex-boyfriend’s father. I didn’t want to give in to temptation and become a walking romance novel cliche. Yet my brain shut off every time he so much as looked at me. My breath caught in my throat every time he spoke.

Common sense, go ahead and throw yourself straight out the window.

I’d met Jesse only once before. Wally had invited me to meet his father sometime around Christmas at a formal, get-to-know-you sort of shindig. If my calculations were correct -which they always were- we’d been dating for about two months by that point. It was high time Wally introduced me to his family.

It was alright. Uneventful. A little boring.

At least, that’s what I told myself after the fact.

The truth of the matter was, that I was so mesmerized by Jesse when I first met him, that I could barely bring myself to utter a word. What was I supposed to do? Admit that I couldn’t stop thinking about my then boyfriend’s father.

Yeah, no. Not.

I didn’t think much of it after that. Once Wally and I broke up, I figured I’d never see Jesse again in such close quarters. Imagine my surprise when he swooped in at the bar to save me from being harassed. What were the chances that out of all the bars in Chicago, we’d end up running into each other?

We walked up to a white Porsche 911 GT3 in the parking lot beside the bar.

“Whoa,” I gawked. “Damn. I wish I could afford a ride like this. It’d take me…” I did the math in my head. “It’d take me twenty-five and a half years to pay it off.”

Jesse raised his eyebrows at me. “That’s some quick calculating.”

“You seriously drive this around? Aren’t you afraid someone might steal it?”

He shook his head. “State of the art security system. Tracker’s built right in. They wouldn’t get far.” He said this so casually that it took me by surprise. The nonchalance, the air of indifference despite the vehicle’s value… must have been nice. I hoped to one day achieve the same level of financial freedom.

He held open the passenger side door for me. “After you.”

A couple of onlookers were gathered on the sidewalk, staring at the two of us as we climbed into the vehicle. I felt simultaneously embarrassed and inexplicably… good? Excited. Important.

It was a fleeting sensation, though, once I slid into my seat and found myself inches away from Jesse. The smell of his cologne grew that much stronger in the enclosed space.

I was honestly afraid to touch anything for fear of breaking something. I’d never be able to pay for the repairs.

“Buckle up,” he ordered.

I tried to pull my seatbelt down, but the mechanism locked. I tried again, but it wouldn’t budge. Mild panic gripped my throat. Why couldn’t I handle something as simple as putting on my seatbelt?

“Um, Jesse? It’s not…”

“Here,” he said gently. “Sometimes it’s finicky.”

Before I had the chance to think, Jesse leaned over the center console and reached across my body, expertly tugging the seatbelt free.

He was close. Close. So close I couldn’t help but stare at his lips and drown in the warmth that radiated off his body. I easily and willingly fell into his orbit, lacking the strength and willpower to pull myself away.

My face burned with the fire of a thousand suns when the softest of sighs bubbled past my lips. Jesse looked me in the eye. He heard it. I tried to play the whole thing off with a dramatic stretch and yawn, taking the now free seat belt from him to buckle up.

“Goodness,” I said way too loudly, “would you look at the time?”

Jesse glanced at the time on the Porsche’s bright display screen. It was only 10:00 p. m.

“Let’s get you home, then,” he said without the faintest hint of judgment.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

I was thankful he kept his eyes on the road the entire time because I didn’t know what I’d do if he realized just how red in the face I was.

I lived on the second floor of a small apartment complex on the corner of Western and Fifth. It was crammed between a massive skyscraper and a twenty-four-hour sub shop, the latter of which was a lifesaver when those late-night study session cravings hit. It wasn’t exactly living in the lap of luxury, but it was comfortable enough.

After years of moving from house to house -family to family- this tiny, one-bedroom apartment was the first place I’d ever considered home. My scholarships could only cover so much, and housing subsidies only got me so far, but I was smart enough to start saving the second I was old enough to get a part-time job in high school. I had enough saved that by the time I signed my first lease, I could afford to decorate it from head to toe in whatever I could find and flip at the local consignment store.

The couch was lumpy. The accent rug in the living room was fraying at the ends. The dining table and matching chairs in the kitchen were covered in all sorts of scratches and dings. And the TV I found half off at a nearby pawn shop only had seven channels, all of which were grainy.

It wasn’t much, but it was still mine.

Jesse pulled the car up to the curb. I fully expected him to say good night and peel off into the distance, but he parked and got out with me. He looked very out of place here with his high-end sports car and bespoke suit.

I finally had a good look at him. Things were so chaotic at the bar that I barely had time to register him and his sudden presence. One second I was fending off unwanted advances, and the next I found myself safe.

He towered over me like a mountain, every inch of him chiseled and refined. I didn’t know what a man like Jesse would be doing at a bar like the Snapdragon. He would have looked much more at home at the Four Seasons or the Ritz.

That was the vibe I got from him, anyway. He liked the finer things in life. Hundred-thousand-dollar luxury car. Rolex watches that could pay my rent five times over. An air of power and control that followed him wherever he went.

It was hard to believe that he and Wally were related. They couldn’t be more different. The first and most notable difference was that, unlike Wally, Jesse walked me straight to my door. Wally wasn’t a jerk or anything, it was just a super archaic thing to do in this day and age. Gentlemen and the like were rarer than diamonds.

Jesse looked around as we strode down the hall together. My apartment was at the very end. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell by the slight curl of his nose that he didn’t approve of the place.

“Safe neighborhood?” he asked.

I nodded. “As safe as it can get in Chicago.” Even I knew that wasn’t saying much. I unlocked the door quickly and looked up at him with a smile. “Well, this is me.”

Jesse scrutinized the lock. “That doesn’t look very sturdy.”

“It’s not, but I’ve got one of these.” I reached into my handy messenger bag and pulled my portable lockout to show him. “Pretty nifty, right? Bought it off Amazon years ago.” He didn’t look convinced, but I pressed on. “Besides, my neighbors are all nice. Except for that guy on the ground floor next to the boiler room. Pretty sure he’s a drug dealer, but he’s relatively harmless.”

Jesse frowned. “A drug dealer who’s harmless. Talk about an oxymoron.”

I laughed. “I was joking.”

“About a drug dealer living in your building or being harmless?”

“Which one sounds worse?”

“They both sound equally bad. You should report him.”

“Charlie’s not that bad. He helped me move some boxes when I moved in.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, that makes up for his morally questionable profession.”

“Whatever pays the bills.”

“You’re surprisingly calm about it.”

I shrugged. “I’ve seen much worse. Charlie keeps to himself, so-”

“Much worse?”

I swallowed. I didn’t mean to let that slip. It was all in the past now, but I went out of my way not to think about my childhood, easier to ignore it if I did. Pretend it never happened. I made it out alive and well and not nearly as jaded as the others. I didn’t get where I was today by letting it drag me down.

“Anyhoo…” I stepped into my apartment with a shaky laugh. “Thanks for the lift.”

“I hope you hear back from your friend.”

“I’m sure I will. Say hi to Wally for me?”

His shoulders tensed; the lines of his jaw suddenly hard. “Of course,” he said curtly. “Have a good night, Vivian.”

He walked away without another word, leaving me wondering if I’d accidentally offended him.

I retreated into my apartment, rubbing my cheeks with my palms. Did I forget to turn the heater down before I left? It was unbearably hot in here. Nothing a nice cold shower couldn’t fix.

The first thing I did before hopping into the shower was plug my phone in. The screen lit up, the battery icon glowing a dim green. Once there was enough juice, I checked my messages. Molly was normally very good about texting me. If something did come up, she would have let me know. I probably just missed her message because my phone was dead.

No new messages.

I frowned. That was weird. “Maybe she forgot,” I mumbled to myself.

I stepped into the shower and washed my hair, massaging my vanilla-scented shampoo against my scalp. I breathed in the steam as the hot spray trickled over my skin, trying not to think about the embarrassing reaction I had in Jesse’s car.

The graze of his hand against my shoulder. The tickle of his breath on my cheek. The intensity of his eyes, the weight of his gaze.

I held my head under the showerhead and set the water to cold. I was still inexplicably warm by the time I got out.