“It’s no trouble.”

“I think I can remember the way.  I’ll be down in a sec.”

I watched her walk away, having to restrain myself from following her.

What would she do if I got in the shower with her?

Would she let me f**k her?

I got the distinct feeling that she would, but somehow I made myself walk away.

I had half the ingredients out of the fridge for my shake when I remembered her bag.

I nearly ran as I grabbed it and brought it up to her.  The shower was running, I could hear it from the bedroom, and like a pervert, I just opened the door.

The shower was too steamy to make out her figure, thank God, but my eye was caught by a tiny scrap of neon yellow cloth as I set her duffle on the counter.

I picked it up gingerly with two fingers.  If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the tiniest thong I’d ever seen in my life, made up of just a few stretchy strings and an itty-bitty piece of mesh.

I dropped it like it was on fire and backed out of the room, keeping my eyes on the floor.

I shut the door very quietly behind me.

I was nearly back to the kitchen when I veered off into the half bath that connected to the living room.

Her borrowed towel was still on my shoulder, and I buried my face in it.

I licked my palm, yanked my shorts down, and started jerking hard on my cock.

I needed to get a handle on this.

I didn’t even think about her body.  That was overkill.  My mind stayed firmly on that tiny yellow scrap of cloth as I groaned and shot my load into the bathroom sink.

I washed up.

I was still panting as I opened the door.

Iris stood there, dressed in another pair of her tiny Lycra shorts, these ones a pale peach color that emphasized her tan, and a white sports bra (the front zipper halfway down).

Of course she was smiling.

She touched the twice-used towel on my shoulder.  “Maybe I want to keep this thing.  Does it smell like you now?”

I shook my head, then moved past her, heading resolutely to familiar ground.

She sat on the counter while I worked, right smack in the middle of everything, so I had to constantly move by her.  She was perched back on her hands, her thighs spread just wide enough to make my brain stop functioning completely.

“So what do you do for a living to afford this place?”

“I write books.  Mostly crime dramas.”

“Wait, what’s your last name?”

I sighed.  She’d likely heard of me.  I had a fairly popular series that had gotten a lot of attention, and some big screen love, over the last decade.  “Masters.”

“Alasdair Masters.  I’ve heard of you.  How did I never hear that you were smoking hot, Alasdair?”

I gave her a rueful smile.  “You’re buttering me up.  Why?”

She winked at me.  “Not at all.  I call ‘em like I see ‘em.  So do you use your real name as your pen name, or are you giving me a fake name?”

“That is actually my name.  Not smart, I know, but I got into the business before I knew better.  I graduated college when I was eighteen, and started writing books a few years before that, and I was too egotistical as a kid to use a fake name.”

“A prodigy.”

“Not quite.  Just a few years ahead.  And my father worked in the business, so I had some very helpful connections.”

“And you’re humble, to boot.  Tell me what happened between you and your ex-wife.  How did it all go south after twenty years?”

“You really want me to talk about this?  I was in such a good mood.”

“Were you?  What put you in such a good mood?”  I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the smile in her voice.  “Does that good mood have something to do with all the grunting and slapping noises I heard you making in the bathroom earlier?”

I couldn’t touch that one, couldn’t respond to it.  I ignored it (though I could feel the hot blush on my cheeks) like she’d never said it.

It was too much for me, otherwise.

“Well, to be honest, I suppose there were always troubles.  I just didn’t understand them or even see them.  I tried to be a good husband, as I understood it, tried to make her happy.  One day I came home to find her on her knees, giving some man I’d never seen before a blow job, in my entryway.  Everything went real south after that.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.  It didn’t help that she hadn’t given me a bj for, hell, I don’t know, years.  It was a hard thing to see.  I could have used a blow job, or f**k, a smile, and there she was, deep throating some stranger.”

“That’s terrible.  She sounds just awful.”

“Well, I guess it was love, because I hear she’s marrying the guy, who is way younger than her, by the way.  Apparently, I was just the husband that was holding her back.  Of course, she took every penny she could in the divorce, so at least she doesn’t mind my money.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.  Never even thought of a pre-nup.  I was twenty and assumed I was getting married forever.”

“How old was she when you got married?”

“Twenty-three.  Which was the last time I dated someone your age.  But enough about me, let’s talk about you.  Are you in college?”  I’d already surmised that she wasn’t, but I was trying my best to be polite.