Twice Driven (11 page)

I was aware of more words coming out of people’s mouths, but I was very suddenly in my own head somewhere. All of a sudden, every single inappropriate little fantasy I’d ever had about Jake Hardy and pushed to the back of my mind came roaring up to the foreground. Every single school-girl fantasy of “running away” with the handsome older man next door were suddenly
just
a little closer to my outstretched fingers.

Suddenly, I frowned, my fork still halfway between my plate and my mouth. “Wait, weren’t they going to have a baby?”

My dad muttered something under his breath and my mom just shook her head. “Well,
Lenore
is having a baby-”

“She stepped out on the poor guy is what happened,” my dad said through clenched teeth, shaking his head. “Poor son of a bitch.”

“Michael!” My mom raised her eyebrows at my dad before turning back to me. “Well, I don’t want to
gossip
, but word around the neighborhood is it was a work thing. The whole thing came out when she had to admit the baby wasn’t Jakes.”

It felt like my whole world was shaking up around me. Here I was, a new girl, with a new spring in her step and a new view of the world. And I come home for winter break to find the
impossible
man next door was just a
little bit
less impossible.
 

Just a little bit, at least.
 

I felt a little guilty too, since my thoughts immediately went to the glimmer of an open door to Mr. Hardy, and not sympathy at how he must be feeling in the wake of this betrayal. But as silly as it was to even
hope
that this was going to lead somewhere, there it was. Lenore was gone, Jake was probably lonely, and I was suddenly even
more
nervous about seeing him again.

Chapter 5

Jake

Fuck, she was home
.

It’s a weird feeling, being crawling-out-of-your-skin excited and yet utterly dreading seeing someone. Someone Like Chelsea Riley, specifically.

The past three months had been basically a blur, and I feel like it was literally hearing Mike and Sarah talking their little girl coming home last week that started to get me out of it. Lenore;
fuck
, man. I can’t say I would never seen it coming, but something like that knocks you sideways no matter how on the rocks your marriage might be. Okay, so I was pissed about it, for sure. I mean I gave that woman the world; money, a great house, sex whenever she was looking for it. And I
never
stepped out on her. Alright, fine, I fantasized like a fucking pervert about the sexy little bait living next door, but I never
did
anything about it.

Well, except jerk my cock probably four times a week thinking about her. Thinking about her prancing around in those skin-tight little one-piece bathing suits out by the pool that I know she wore because she
thought
they were more modest.
 

They weren’t, not on a girl who looked like that.

And shit, it’s not like Lenore was exactly calling for it every night. So fuck her, and fuck the dick from her office she ended up with, I thought. She could be as frigid and bitching with him as she was with me, and that’d be karma enough for me.

Truth be told, at the place our relationship was at when the end came, the only thing I was
really
and truly pissed about was the kid. I mean shit, I
wanted
kids. I’d wanted ‘em for a while, actually, but Lenore was always iffy about it. Finding out we were expecting though had been one of the best days of my life.
 

Of course, finding out a few weeks later that it was
that
jerk-off’s and not mine was basically the opposite. Talk about a mind-fuck, man.

After that, the whole thing sort of collapsed like the house of cards it was. There was no “couples counseling”, no reconciliation after that. No need for it, really. We’d signed a prenup before we got married, so that settled that. Lenore took off and moved in with jerk-off, I kept the house, and slowly over the next few months, I just adjusted to being a bachelor. Sleep late, work from home, grow a beard, work out whenever I wanted, jerk off whenever I wanted; yeah, I had it set up pretty good. Not a care in the world, a new lease on my life, and zero distractions.

That is, until I found out when
she
was coming back. Because after that? Fuck, after that, it was like everything got turned around all over again. I was
excited
to see her, and it made me feel like a seriously dirty old man. ‘Cause I wasn’t just missing her being around and reading books on her back porch, or coming over to say hi, or helping her change her first flat in the driveway.

Nope
.

What I
missed
about Chelsea was see her swimming in the pool in those tight little bathing suits. I missed her not knowing that when she left the blinds open in the upstairs bathroom, I could see her from my study when she stepped out of a shower.

I miss sneaking glimpses of that tight little ass, ‘cause I could a girl like that walk away
all fuckin’ day.

Except she wasn’t walking away this time. Nope,
this time
, she was coming back. And this time, I was hard as a damn stone just waiting to see her again. Because this time, there was no Lenore. This time, there was one less obstacle between me and that barely legal pussy that I had on the brain
bad
.

And this time, I was going to do something about it.
 

Chapter 6

Chelsea

It was two days later when Jake invited the whole family over to his house for dinner. It was also the firs time I was going to see Jake since before I'd left for school.

I'm not going to lie, I made myself look
good
before we went over that night, and I did it entirely for him. Dinner was going to be casual, but I still put on a sexy, yet not
slutty
short skirt and wide-necked shirt that hung off my shoulders that managed to flatter my slender form instead of highlighting my lack of, well, much of a bust up there. I even slipped on one of the pairs of
thong
panties I’d blushing bought at school. A thong was
hardly
something I’d have worn back in high school, and even now it wasn’t anything I’d bought
for
anyone. But feeling that thin, tiny piece of fabric tight against my bare slit always made me feel an extra bit
sexy
, and I wanted to feel sexy tonight.

I could feel my heart hammering as we walked across our yard to theirs and my stomach flip flopped when my dad rang the doorbell.

The door swung open, and there he was, looking gorgeous as ever. Crisp white button-up shirt stretched tight across his broad tanned chest and shoulders and a casual pair of jeans.

"Hey guys! Come on in Mike! Sarah; and-" He froze mid sentence as he focused on me, and I could see him stumbling for his words as his eyes went wide.

"Chelsea!
Wow,
hey!” He finally stammered out, his eyes quickly moving over my body before he seemed to catch himself. I blushed under his wide-eyed stare, his mouth hanging slightly open as his gaze ran up and down the whole new girl standing before him.

"Man, what do they feed them at school, huh Mike?" He suddenly tore his eyes away from me with strange look in his yes as he elbowed my dad in the ribs.

"Come on in guys, food's just about done!"

Jake stepped aside and ushered us in with gusto. As I stepped past him into the house, I felt a thrill rush though me as I felt his linger gaze burn into me.

As we milled around, talking and me filling everybody in on the usual "how's school" questions before we sat down for lasagna. And it was then that I started to notice something. Much to my glee, Jake Harding
could not
keep his eyes off of me. I thought at first I was just hopefully imagining in it. But the more it kept happening - the more I kept
just
missing his eyes on me as I'd turn, or his lingering smile as I recounted a story about school or class - the more sure I was, and it made me
glow
inside.
I
- the geeky, scrawny girl from next door - actually had Mr. Harding's attention!

*****

After we were finished with dinner, my dad and Jake walked over to the bar cart in the corner of his living room. Dad was patting his back and nodding emphatically as they talked just out of earshot of the rest of us, and it occurred to me that we’d all pointedly avoided talking about Lenore all night. I took the moment to volunteer to clear the table.
 

I was in the kitchen, poking around the cabinet underneath the sink for the switch to the garbage disposal when he must have first walked in. The water was running in the sink, along with the dishwasher running next to me, which is why I never heard him until I heard the loud “Whoops!” from behind me. My head whipped around at the sound, and I think both of us froze in that moment of realization.
 

You see, looking for that garbage disposal switch, I’d been bent over at the waist, one hand on my knee as I peered into the darkness beneath the sink. And as I whirled around at Mr. Harding’s exclamation, it’d only taken me half a second to realize what he was staring at with his face bright red and his eyes wide and so
hungry
looking.

The skirt I’d worn that night was hardly inappropriate;
if
I was standing up, or even sitting down with my legs crossed, or beneath a dining room table.
Bent over at the waist
, however, was another matter altogether, and between the piercing focus of his eyes and the sudden feeling of air tickling up the bare backs of my thighs and my butt, I suddenly grasped
exactly
what was happening.

My skirt was pulled
right up
over my ass, and just as he’d walked into the kitchen, Jake Harding had gotten an absolute eyeful of my tight young ass, split right down the middle by my thong panties.

There was a moment where I just
froze
; just deer in a headlights frozen, and Jake had the same look. But quickly, after possible the longest single second of my entire life, I stood up, blushing furiously and smoothing my skirt down. Mr. Harding quickly looked away, as if the refrigerator had suddenly and raptly caught his attention. And just like that, we both pretended that he hadn’t just seen right up my skirt to my thong panties pulled tight across my pussy, and that I hadn’t linger
just
a second longer than necessary in
letting
him.

Jake quickly smiled at me, his face probably as red as mine as he quickly moved past me to the kitchen counter with the stack of dishes in his hands.

“So! School is good?”

I could still feel my pulse racing, and I nodded at him as I swallowed heavily and tried to slow the pounding of my heart.

“Yeah, it’s- it’s good.”

He smiled at me as we stood there another second or two in not necessarily
awkward
silence, but silence none-the-less; just both of us lingering a bit too long in the moment.

“You, uh- you really do look great, Chelsea,” he growled. “You’ve really grown up up there at school.”

Mr. Harding ran a hand through his thick chestnut hair and smiled warmly at me as I sat there blushing like an idiot and wanting him more than I’d ever wanted him before for it.

“Thanks.”

*****

We said our goodbyes later at the front door, giving our best to Jake and thanking him for dinner.

He gave my mom a quick kiss on the cheek, high-fived Dennis, and shook my dad's hand warmly on the way out. As I passed by him though, he paused, freezing slightly before he pulled me in for a hug. I felt heady surge of heat grip my body as he pulled me close, even if it was for just a moment. The feeling was electric; just like that time before way back at my birthday when he'd hugged me close. And this time, just as before, I felt whole body glow and tingle under his touch.

"Welcome home, Chelsea" He had that same slightly confusing look in his eye as he had in the kitchen before. He grinned at me once more before I turned and followed my parents back across the lawns to our house.

Chapter 7

Chelsea

Later that night in my room after dinner, I found myself looking out the back window. It's not like I actually thought I was going to see him or anything, but so much of my attraction to this man stemmed from watching him from this very spot that it was almost a second nature thing to do when I thought of him.

That night though, in the darkness of the backyard, I suddenly saw a light flick on in the second floor window by the back of the house. I knew just from growing up next to the Hardings and from being in their house before that the master bedroom was on the other side of the house from the one facing ours across the driveways, but that the room that had just had the light clicked on was Jake's home office. I found myself blushing and quickly stepping behind the curtains as I had so many times watching him mow the lawn, or exercising, or fixing up his car. I could see him then, stepping into the light of the open window as he rummaged around his desk for something for other.

This time though, things were different; of course. This time, I wasn't just the shy girl from next door trying to secretly spy on her crush. This time, I was older, I was more ready, and there was one less thing holding me back.

And so this time, I found myself stepping out from behind the curtain in my semi-darkened room, standing there in my small sleep shorts and button-up pajama shirt. It took a second, with him still poking around his desk, but suddenly as if he knew he was being watched, he stood up straight and turned right towards the window.