Friends With Partial Benefits (11 page)

Watching him closely, she saw he only glanced at it briefly before he said, "It’s nice."

"No, really look at it."

She watched as he looked down at her beautifully trimmed areas, and his mouth opened slightly. Brian felt that familiar rush in his midsection as she looked down at herself. Then she began to touch the hairless areas next to the landing strip and even below that.

"It feels weird. But a good weird, you know?"

Brian swallowed hard and nodded.

"Do you want to touch it? You can."

"I, uh, really haven’t washed my hands since I’ve been out, so..." he stammered.

"Oh, okay. I feel so much better now that you’ve seen it," she said, smiling. Then she looked at him, slightly alarmed. "Do you think Rob would mind if he knew I saw your... and you saw my...?"

"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 baseline. 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.