All characters are 18+
Jess stretched her arms overhead, yawning wide as she made her way downstairs for breakfast. She'd just graduated a few weeks before and was taking advantage of her time off before going to college in the fall by sleeping in every day and generally being lazy- at least until it was time to head to the diner where she worked as a waitress a few evenings a week.
She padded toward the kitchen, clad in plaid pajama pants and a Gryffindor t-shirt, her strawberry blond curls swept up into a messy ponytail. Suddenly, her hazel eyes zeroed in on the pair seated at the table, and she let out a shriek. "Aiden!"
She bounded the last few steps, throwing her arms around her big brother. "You're home early!"
He laughed, moving his cereal out of the way before she could knock it over. "Good to see you too, Jessie," he replied, returning her embrace.
Aiden was three years older than her and had just completed a semester abroad in Spain. He had still been in classes when she graduated, and so he'd had to miss her big day.
"Jessie," her mother chided. "Let your brother have some breathing room. He just got in late last night and I've barely had the chance to talk to him."
Grumbling, Jess went to the counter and poured herself a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Taking her breakfast over to the table, she sat across from Aiden and listened with half an ear as her mother and Aiden discussed his summer plans to intern for a local law firm to decide whether he wanted to pursue law school after he finished college next year.
Jess's mind was whirling. If Aiden was home, that meant Finn wasn't far behind.
At the thought of her brother's best friend, Jess's heart gave a little leap.
She'd been hopelessly in love with Finn for almost a decade. Aiden and Finn had been inseparable since kindergarten and so he had been a fixture in her home ever since she could remember. She'd watched him morph from a gangly, tow-headed youth into a tall, built, dark-blond, green-eyed hottie.
But to Finn, she'd never been anything but Aiden's pesky little sister who spied on them when they had sleepovers and begged to tag along wherever they went.
Finn had gone away to college when she was fifteen, and since then she'd only seen him a handful of times when he came home to visit during summers and holidays. He was always unfailingly polite in his greetings, but other than that, he had an irritating habit of acting as if she were invisible. Jess had always thought that as she'd matured, maybe he would take notice of her, that he would start seeing her as a woman, but there'd been no indication of that happening.
Yet.
After breakfast, Jess went on a run, jogging through her neighborhood to their local park, which had a running trail she loved. She ran three miles and then headed back home to finish up her workout. It was a gorgeous day and she planned to do her abs by the pool, then take a swim.
She entered the house, which was quiet. No cars were in the driveway. Her mother must have gone into work, and Aiden was probably catching up with friends or something.
She noticed a hastily scrawled note from Aiden on the counter saying he'd be back later that afternoon if she wanted to see a movie.
Jess went to her room and quickly changed into a red string bikini, then grabbed a towel and her sunglasses and headed out to the pool.
Throwing her towel down, Jess laid on her back. She did ten crunches in three different styles, then went into spiderman and scorpion planks, and ended with side planks.
Standing, she toweled off the sweat that had gathered at her forehead. She moved over to one of the loungers and draped the towel over it, then picked up the bottle of sunblock and smoothed the cream everywhere she could reach. She finished by using a high-SPF lotion for her face, then laid down on the lounger on her back.
She still had her earbuds in from her workout, and,grabbing her IPhone, she closed out the Spotify app, cutting off the high-energy 90s dance workout mix she'd been listening to. She navigated to Audible and opened the book she was listening to, a spicy enemies-to-lovers sports romance by her favorite contemporary author.
She'd left off with the story just as the heroine, a cheerleader, was finishing her practice and heading to the locker room. Jess closed her eyes as the silky, deep voice of the male narrator filled her ears.
The cheerleader headed into the empty girls' locker room and took a shower. She stood at her locker in nothing but a towel when the bad-boy football hero snuck in.
Jess was rapt, as, in the story, the cheerleader ordered him to get out of the locker room, and in response, the football player pushed her back against the lockers, pinning her with his body and kissing her roughly.
Jess's breathing picked up, and she felt a tingle between her legs as she listened to the sexy scene unfold. Under the triangles of her bikini top, her nipples tightened into stiff peaks.
In the book, the football player tugged at the cheerleader's towel, ignoring her feeble protests and exposing her nakedness. He slipped his hands down her body—
Through the audio narration, Jess faintly heard her name being called. She ripped an earbud out of her ear and sat up to see Finn coming through the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard.
Her pulse skittered, as it always did when she saw him. She waved and then motioned for him to come over. She was painfully aware of her tightly pebbled nipples and the flush of arousal that swept her body, head to toe, from a combination of the sexy story and the gorgeous man approaching her.
He was long and lean, a few inches over six foot, with broad shoulders that tapered down to narrow waist and hips. He wore a plain gray t-shirt that displayed his muscular arms and stretched over a sculpted chest, and khaki cargo shorts. The sun picked up the lighter strands in his dark blond hair, and it glittered gold in places.
Her heart thumped madly as he drew closer. Just having him in her vicinity was enough to turn her body on high alert. She hadn't seen him since Christmas, and it seemed like every time she saw him, he was more mouthwateringly good-looking.
