His mouth was now apologizing, as his tongue soothed the now-tender spot that was just below my ear. He then made his way to the underside of my jaw, nipping and licking.

I arched my neck to give him easier access, but apparently he was done with my neck, for now, because his hand reached back and very softly gripped my hair and tilted my head back down to eye-level.

Licking my bottom lip when he leaned back in, I fully expected an actual kiss this time. And still, he didn’t deliver. Instead, he kissed the corner of my lips.

I seriously loved the way his stubble felt on my skin, I’d decided. That was when I tried to take the moment into my own hands and went in for the kill.

I was almost to his mouth when his hand fisted even tighter in my hair, preventing me from closing the mere centimeters I had left. He pulled back, letting go of my hair, and looked at me with raised eyebrows and a confident smirk.

“Is this what you had in mind?” he asked.

I matched his smirk with one of my own and upped the wattage. “Well actually, what I had in mind was some lip-to-lip action. Know what I mean? So, if you don’t mind…”

“Well, had I known that,” he confessed mischievously, “I would have brought my tip jar.”

That’s when we both cracked up, letting the humor of it all wash over us. Finally, when we both managed to collect our wits again, I sighed. Clearly, the moment of sexual tension had come to a close and it was my cue to send this guy on his merry little way.

I turned away from him and fished out a pen from one of the drawers and signed my name at the bottom of the forgotten bill. Handing the slip back to him, Jason met my gaze with a heated one of his own.

“So, I’m officially off the clock, eh?” he asked.

I felt my eyebrows nearly reach my hairline. “Umm…yeah?”

“That’s good.”

Yeah, I wasn’t following. Until I watched his eyes travel to the button of my denim cut-offs and back up to my face, regarding me with a look that was asking me a question.

“Lip-to-lip action, you said?” The mischief was back. “May I?”

Sweet baby Jesus. He doesn’t mean…what I think he means?

He took a very unrushed step towards me. And there was pretty much nothing I was going to do in that moment to dissuade him. His fingers brushed up my thighs when he was back in kissing distance, making their way to the top of my shorts and skimming over the skin that was just right above it.

With one hand, he unfastened the button and tilted his head over to my ear and gave the lobe a quick nip. I felt my chest rise and rapidly fall as he pushed the denim down my legs.

I watched him kneel to the floor only to look back up at me, “You didn’t answer me,” he said.

“Yes.” I quickly replied.

He smiled briefly, and brought his face to my panty-covered pussy. I felt something wet and warm pushing against it from the other side of the material, and my head fell back as my arms braced my body on either side of the counter.

Using his hands to spread my legs a little wider, he began to suck hard on the damp fabric. I moaned when I felt his tongue push as far as it could go, only to retreat back into his mouth in exchange for a set of fingers. The fingernails of his other hand grazed my lower tummy as his talented fingers continued to lightly strum my slit.

“Tease,” I called him, not even knowing whether or not he heard me, being that it was quickly followed by another frustrated moan.

But he must have heard me, because those fingers rubbed a little harder, and I felt the tip of his tongue on my clit through my panties right before he asked, “Do you want me to stop?”

I looked down at him, and he chuckled softly as he took that specific moment to pull my underwear all the way down. Leaving them to pool at my feet, he didn’t waste any time at all before his tongue sank all the way into my wetness.

“Shit,” I whispered to no one in particular.

He pulled back only to take an entire lip into his mouth, nursing on it softly. Jason did the same thing with the other one before French-kissing my pussy for a second time.

My knuckles were completely bleached, as my hands clung to the counter, because I was pretty sure they were the only things holding me up at this point. The only sounds in the room were my hardening intakes of air and the wet noises of his mouth eating me.

My hips were now beginning to grind up against his jaw. I felt his hands cover mine on the edge of the counter, making sure I didn’t lose my grip.

He tongued my clit, and I was so fucking close.

“You have one minute to come,” he told me, licking up my entire slit.

I managed an airless laugh and whimpered as two thick fingers entered me, “Or…?”

“Or I make you come,” he replied quietly.

I loved being under pressure to come. There's just something about having constraints like that put into place that makes that pre-O sensation draw out even longer, which in effect, makes the orgasm blow that much harder when it is released.

This was one of those times.

I closed my eyes, my head tilted up towards the ceiling, and I let myself totally submerge into this pool of pleasure that Jason had created for me with his very talented tongue and his probing, thick fingers, which were giving my sweet spot the 'ol come-hither motion at that very moment.

I felt my core turn to liquid as I melted into the magical thrumming of his tongue and fingers in unison, on both my clit and my sweet spot, ready to give him exactly what he'd ordered just moments before. I moaned loudly, my hips starting to thrust upward to lessen his journey.

"What the hell?" I heard someone shriek…from somewhere.

Immediately, Jason's warmth left me. My eyes simultaneously flew open, the hazy fog of being 'almost there' quickly dissipated as I saw Lindsey's horrified face standing about six or seven feet away, aghast at what she had just viewed.

She had clamped her only free hand over Harper's eyes, her other arm cradled a still-sleeping Jackson against her chest.

"Get out," she hissed, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if she meant Jason, or me, or quite possibly the both of us.

Jason hurriedly stood up, grabbed his tool box and got the hell out as quickly as any man could, his erection still very evident underneath his navy blue work pants.

I slid from the countertop, bending over to pick up my panties and shrug them back on. Lindsey was still glaring at me, evidently too fucking pissed to have the good manners to give me some privacy. Harper was squirming around, trying to move Lindsey's hand away from where it still covered her eyes, but she couldn't budge it.

"Timing," I said, pulling my cutoffs up and fastening the button, "is fucking everything," I finished, brushing past her and going to my room.

It was my sixth week of physical training, but it felt as if it had been years instead of weeks. I stood in the weight room, at five-fifteen in the morning—that's right—five-fucking-fifteen, watching myself in the mirrored wall of the room, doing curls with free weights clutched in both hands.

Fuck, why in the hell did I get assigned this time frame for a personal work-out?

It was punishment, pure and simple. But it was required, and since I'd done a good job of pissing off my instructor, it was what it was.

I glanced around the large, carpeted room. There were only three other people in here, all guys. The thing was, I had to clock in and out, so it wasn't as if I could ditch it without getting busted, and then I'd be in more trouble, if that were even possible.

Neither Trace nor Lindsey were speaking to me and hadn't been for three weeks. I was, as they say, persona non grata at the Trace Matthews residence.