Jo was there, lying on her back on the hotel bed, her strawberry blonde hair splayed out all around her. She was smiling and wearing a green lace camisole and matching panties. Her arms were above her head, her wrists were crossed, and her eyes followed me as I walked around the side of the bed and went to my elbows beside her. She stretched up, her eyes falling closed as she placed the softest kiss on my lips.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. Her voice sounded far away, like she was underwater or in a separate room.

“Nothing,” I said.

She giggled. “Liar.”

I kissed her this time, suckling at her velvety soft bottom lip. When I pulled away, her bright green eyes darted back and forth between mine. “I’m thinking about you,” I whispered, running a thumb along her cheek. “I’m always thinking about you.”

She lifted herself up to lean on her elbows, and her hair fell behind her like a curtain to the bed. “Thinking about what you want to do to me?”

“Sometimes.”

“Like now?”

“Yes.”

She reached for me, hooking her hand behind my neck and guiding me down to her. “Then do what you’re thinking about,” she cooed into my ear.

My alarm went off, ripping me from the dream that was just about to get good. I reached for my phone on the nightstand and fumbled around for a good ten seconds before I found it and turned the alarm off. Then I pressed my hands to my face and groaned into them.

My dick was rock hard.

Josephine Hart was going to be the death of me.

I ripped my blankets off and went to the bathroom, which was small but clean, and grabbed the hotel shampoo and mini bar of soap. I turned on the shower and stepped under it while the water was still cold. It bit into my skin, but I didn’t care. I needed to shake off how fucking horny I was. It was torture, and the cold water wasn’t helping.

So I did the next best thing. I gripped my shaft and leaned against the shower wall. I began working myself over, hard and fast, as I closed my eyes and thought back to that night in the hotel room back in San Antonio.

Flashes of Jo’s naked body played in my mind like a movie reel.

I clenched my jaw as Jo’s breathless moans whispered in my ears alongside the patter of water hitting the bottom of the tub. Curling in on myself, I grunted like some sex-crazed beast. I hated how badly I craved her. She was a drug I’d only tasted once; a high I’d only felt for a brief flicker of time.

I worked myself faster. I was about to blow. I imagined myself back between her legs, lapping at her juices, sucking on her clit, and running my hands up and down the insides of her thighs. I remembered how she quivered beneath my touch like the fragile thing she was most certainly not.

I groaned when I came and braced myself against the shower wall. Pleasant dizziness washed over me and then vanished as fast as it came, taking with it all the pent-up tension my orgasm had extinguished.

Feeling immediately less burdened by my longing for Jo, I enjoyed the rest of my shower. I took my time drying off and getting ready in the steamy bathroom. Once my cologne and deodorant were on and my hair was slicked back, I went back to the bedroom where I grabbed my phone from the nightstand to check if I had any missed calls.

I was getting antsy waiting for the Air Force Personnel Center to call me about the Humanitarian Assignment I had applied for almost two weeks ago. I understood that they were busy, and there were several other candidates, but I had never been a patient guy. I appreciated instant gratification, especially where work was concerned. I knew how impractical that was.

Eager for something to occupy my mind, I left the hotel and took my bike out for a ride. The wind whipping over my shoulders and the roar of the engine beneath me was as close as I was going to get to being back in my plane.

I geared up and took to the road, opting for the windiest route I could find with challenging corners opening up into long straightaways. I liked the combination of skill and speed. In some corners, I leaned so far that my knee hovered an inch or so above the asphalt. On the straight stretches, I opened the throttle and pushed my crotch rocket over two hundred miles per hour.

In those moments, the wind roared as loudly as the engine, and I was as close to flying as I would ever get.

I stopped at my mother’s condo to check in on her and found her sipping tea with another woman from the building on her deck. She invited me in and introduced me to the other elderly lady, who was called Francine, and then insisted I have a cup of tea. I wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but I also wasn’t much of one to say no to my mother.

So I sat on the deck with them and drank English tea with milk and sugar out of a small floral patterned china cup.

Afterward, I helped move a few more boxes out of the hallway closet and into the living room where my mother could easily access it and unpack a few more things over the next couple of days. I made sure none of the boxes had anything heavy in them. Mostly, they were full of photo albums, linens, clothes, and trinkets. My mother loved collecting little items to cover every surface in her home with.

She sent me off with another container of food. This time, it was homemade macaroni and cheese, and I asked her if she was trying to fatten me up. She insisted she was not but mentioned how I could do with a bit more meat on my bones.

Leave it to a mother to think a fit physique earned from hours upon hours of training and diligent diet was malnourished.

So I took the food, hugged her goodbye, and went back to my bike where, like a total clown, I used a bungee cord to strap the Tupperware container onto the tiny back seat.

As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, I decided to indulge myself in one more ride around town. Maybe I would stop and pick up a case of beer to bring back to the hotel where I could enjoy it with my macaroni and cheese.

Instead of ending up at a liquor store, I found myself pulling into the parking lot of Hart’s Pub. It wasn’t intentional. It just sort of happened, like my subconscious was guiding me to her.

Son of a bitch, I thought, unimpressed with my own inability to shake this girl from my mind.

I parked the bike in a stall across from the entrance, and as I went to get off, an old pickup truck tore through the lot and came to a grinding halt at the front door. Dark smoke billowed out of the tailpipe, and the driver left it running as the passenger hopped out and walked around the hood.

It was Jo.

She was dressed in form-fitting black pants that made her ass look like a million dollars. Her top was a black button down, just like the one she’d been wearing the other night. It must be her uniform. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, and she had black and white sneakers on.

The driver of the truck rolled down his window and banged his hand on the outside of his door to call her over. She stopped and went back to him, resting her hands on the window frame. I watched the two of them talk for a few minutes. One of Jo’s hands fell from the frame, and she leaned back. Her body language suggested that she was not enjoying the conversation.

The man behind the wheel tipped his head like he was beckoning her toward him. She responded by stepping in close and popping her head through the window. They exchanged a brief kiss, and she made to walk away. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to the side of the truck.

I narrowed my eyes.

She braced herself against the door as he spoke sternly to her. I could see that his grip on her was firm. Her hand was in a fist in his grip, and her brow was furrowed. If he couldn’t see that she was uncomfortable, he was a bigger ass than Ryan led me to believe.

When he released her, she pressed her shirt flat and pulled it down self consciously, especially at the back. Then she walked away, and the guy in the truck, who was undoubtedly her boyfriend Brett, catcalled her.

She hurried up the front steps to the front doors of the bar and slipped inside without looking back.

Brett reversed from the doors. When he put the truck in first gear, he stalled it. The truck swayed as Brett punched at the steering wheel, then started the thing up again. The engine sputtered, and he blew out of the parking lot, tires screeching as he took to the main road and sped off.

I watched him go until he disappeared around a corner a good ten blocks or so down the road. After he was out of sight, I found my gaze drawn back to the bar.

I contemplated going inside. I wanted to see her. I wanted to ask what the hell that had been about, and I wanted to know what he had said to her. By the looks of things, it hadn’t made her happy. It had made her uncomfortable and unsure.

No wonder she was so different from what I remembered. The guy was a total jackass.

But I knew going in and asking her prying personal questions was not the right move. She hadn’t wanted to see me last night, and tonight wouldn’t be any different. She wanted space, and I could give her that.

At least, I could try to.