Free Show and Tell by Jasmine Haynes

“No. We can only talk when you’re at work. If you want to stay late so I can call, that’s fine. But those are the rules.” That felt better. Setting rules gave her a sense of control.
     
     
    “So you’re not going to call me this weekend?”
     
     
    “You’ll have your daughter with you.” A reasonable explanation. “Monday. I’ll call when I get home. Hopefully you can stay late at work.” Said as if it didn’t matter one way or the other.
     
     
    Scott laughed. “You really are a Jezebel, aren’t you?”
     
     
    This time he hung up first.
     
     
    Was he angry? God, even allowing the question in her mind was frightening, as if she were letting her former self, the woman who lived to please a man, sneak back inside her. She couldn’t let that happen.
     
     
    “YOU look pretty chipper, Dad.” Lexa chewed on a carrot stick as he put the artichokes on to boil. She’d driven up from San Luis Obispo, arriving late last night. They’d spent Saturday morning running errands, then hanging out around the house. “Got a new hottie?” she added before another carrot crunch.
     
     
    Scott’s heart gave an odd jump. Lexa had had a much harder time with the divorce than Brooke. A couple of years older, Brooke had been going into her junior year at college, and though she’d been sad, it hadn’t affected her in the same way. Then suddenly, Lexa, after spending last summer bouncing between his place and Katy’s, had gone back to school with a new attitude. She’d started treating him like her buddy, looking for dates, pointing out “hotties” when they went to the movies or out to dinner.
     
     
    But no freaking way was he telling Lexa about Jezebel.
     
     
    “I’m just glad to have you for the weekend, honey.”
     
     
    She popped him on the arm. “You’re a fibber.” Dumping the bottle of spaghetti sauce into a pot, she set it on the glass-top stove. “Seriously, Dad, Brooke and I want you to find a woman.”
     
     
    She caught him off guard once again. She would always be his little girl, and there was something about her picking out women for him that felt . . . queasy. Yet she thought of herself as grown-up, no matter how much he’d always see her as his baby, and she was doing her best to have him treat her as an adult.
     
     
    Still, some things were going too far even for him.
     
     
    Scott put his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening.” Then he reached for the linguine noodles in the cupboard over the stove. He hadn’t cooked a day in his life when Katy walked out. The last year had been a crash course since he didn’t want to subsist on fast food. When he bought this house, he’d upgraded the kitchen, and at least learned to boil noodles.
     
     
    “Tell your sister my sex life is off-limits.”
     
     
    “Da-ad.” Lexa put her hands on her hips and pouted.
     
     
    Despite being two years apart, she and Brooke were as alike as twins. Five foot ten, they got their height, brown hair, and brown eyes from him while their beauty and slender build came from their mother. They even said Da-ad identically. God, they were so beautiful his heart ached looking at them.
     
     
    “We weren’t talking about your sex life.” Lexa flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “We’re talking about your love life. And we think you’re lonely.”
     
     
    After salting the water, Scott put the pan on to boil. “You used the term hottie . That doesn’t refer to a love life.” He opened the can of clams to add to the sauce.
     
     
    Hottie did, however, refer to Jezebel. She’d cut him off until Monday. Even then, he’d have to stay late if he wanted to talk to her. He recognized a woman’s need to assert control, but it made him nuts. He was deep in withdrawal. Yet that was part of her lure. She kept him on edge, and he couldn’t wait to hear her voice, her musical laugh, the heady sound of her orgasm.
     
     
    If he wasn’t careful, he’d be embarrassed in front of his