Right now, I just want to revel in what’s right and soak it in, not worrying about when and if it might fade away.
Max strokes the planes of my face with the pad of his thumb as if he wants to commit my expression to memory, then places a soft kiss on my forehead as he holds me.
“That was incredible, babe. I knew it would be.”
We both lay there like that, still connected, enveloped in the warm cocoon of passion. We don’t speak anymore—neither of us seeming to want to break the magical spell lingering between us. Slowly, our breathing returns to normal and I listen to the sound of his strong heartbeat filling my soul with Max’s nearness.
Something snaps deep inside me—in that place that never gets much light—and I feel complete.
Chapter Eighteen
Max
Slice.
Crunch.
Slice.
Crunch.
I’ve been breaking down and recycling boxes for over an hour now and even though Sue-Ann is out front organizing a new jewelry delivery, she hasn’t said anything to me. Hell, she hasn’t really even looked at me.
And my gut falls and lands somewhere down in the vicinity of my loafers if I let myself think about it long enough. She seemed to have fun in the Town Car with me. Her warm, wet pussy draining my dick dry couldn’t lie. Not her stunning orgasm face. Not her skin flushed the perfect shade of rose. Not her nipples turning into tiny pebbles of desire.
Nope.
She enjoyed herself when she came all over my tongue and then all over my cock. But now she wants to pretend like nothing ever happened. And I’m not sure why that pisses me off so much. But it does.
I also think I have an idea of how I can work around her temporary amnesia. After the last box gets cut down and placed into the recycling, I wipe the dust off my hands and head to the front of the store where Sue-Ann crouches down in front of the rotating jewelry rack.
Her eyes narrowed in concentration, she jots down the UPC code of the necklace she holds in a death grip. After she’s done, she tugs her lower lip between her teeth and moves on to the next item. A flash of her using her teeth lightly on the head of my cock instead tightens my body as I walk toward her.
“How’s it going?” I ask.
She jumps a little as if she forgot I’m even here. Well, I won’t let her forget. I may not be here much longer until camp, but I’m going to make the most of the time I have left with her. I’m gonna make her want me to stay. She’s good for me, and I’m good for her. I can’t be in a relationship with a needy chick in my line of work. I want an equal. Someone strong and independent on one hand and soft and vulnerable on the other. And if, in the end, after I give it everything I have, she wants me to walk out of her life, I will. But in the meantime, I’m going to put my A-game into staying around and seeing where this thing goes.
In fact, I’m going to start giving everything in my life 110 percent. I’ve been lazy and arrogant and generic just so I can stay safe flying under the radar. And that isn’t me.
“Good,” she says, standing. “I’ve got almost all the new jewelry coded into the computer inventory system.”
I gesture toward the stockroom. “All the recycling is done. Anything else you need?”
She glances around. Everywhere but at me. “No, nothing that I can think of. You can take off. I’m sure you have better places to be than here.”
My eyes narrow as I regard her, and I try to ignore the pinching of my heart. “Why do you think I would have somewhere better to be? I enjoy spending time with you and helping you.”
She gives me a soft smile much like the one a woman gives you right before she’s going to break your heart. “You don’t have to lie to me, Max. We both know you’re only here under duress. You said this was your lacy prison and I’m just your warden.”
“I might have been open to suggestion in the beginning, but you better believe I wouldn’t be staying here unless I wanted to. Milo doesn’t run my life, Sue-Ann. I was just trying to get him off my back at the gala.”
She wipes her palms together as if she’s getting rid of a film of dust. “You should go and party or play video games or… whatever.”
My eyes narrow as I guess what ‘whatever’ means to her. “I’m not seeing anyone else, Sue-Ann. Do you think after what happened the other night that I could go and spend time with another woman? You must think I’m a total asshat, and I’m not sure what I ever did to give you that impression.”
She chews on her lower lip, weighing her next words. “I don’t think you’re an asshat. I just think you’re sowing your wild oats or whatever they’re calling it these days.”
I stalk toward her until she hovers just out of my reach. I close the gap and grip her by her waist as images flash through my brain of the last time I did it. When I was balls deep inside her. I lift her as if she weighs nothing and sit her gorgeous ass on the counter so she’s eye level with me.
I tease the seam of her full lips with my thumb until her breath hitches. “Let me take you out on an official date.”
Her eyes dart from me to the door and back again. “A date?”
“Yeah, ever heard of it? Two people who are interested in each other go out somewhere for dinner or cocktails or a movie. It’s fun. You should try it sometime.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The words feel tight in my throat. “Why the hell not?”
“Because any date you and I go on is going to end up horizontal, and that can’t happen again.”
I glance up at the ceiling. “Actually, in our case it’s vertical. But why can’t it happen again? We’re adults, Sue-Ann. If we want to get… vertical that’s our prerogative. No one is going to come here and send us both to separate corners.”
She tries to wiggle herself down, but I hold firm. “Obviously, you’ve never met my mom.”
And in that moment, it all makes sense. She’s worried about what people are going to think of her—the high and mighty successful businesswoman on the board of the Duluth Chamber—if she’s seen with a younger puck monkey known for boozing and whoring. I can’t really blame her, I guess. People’s business reputations are very important. What I can do is change my ways and prove her and everybody else wrong.
“Then let me make an honest woman out of you. One date. If it doesn’t work out, we don’t have to go on another one ever again. There’s something between us. I feel it. You feel it. I don’t think it’s a crime to see where it goes.”
Her hands drift to both sides of my face, and I lean into her caress as she works the scruff on my jaw between her fingers. “On one condition.”
“Your wish is my command, princess.”
“That’s just it. No getting… vertical on our date.”
I chuckle and plant a kiss on the inside of her wrist. “You’re going to regret asking for that during this negotiation. I do vertical better than anyone.”
Her eyes narrow into serious slits. “I know.”
“So you’re saying I’m good?” I can’t keep my lips from tugging upward at her tragic look.
“I’m pretty sure you already know that. But then, you’ve obviously had a lot of practice.”
I don’t like this self-deprecating look on my girl who stroked her own clit to an explosive orgasm when I was claiming her as mine. “Not as much as you’ve been told. I was in a relationship for a long time when I first got drafted.”
Her eyes widen. “Really? What happened?”
I gently lift her down from the beveled glass. “Since I want you to start trusting me and believing what I tell you, I’m going to be honest. She cheated on me and made a complete ass out of me in front of my new team. Good times.”
Sue gazes up at me. “That’s awful. I can’t even imagine a woman cheating on you.”
The smile splits my face wide. “Are you saying that you like me?”
“I don’t think there’s anyone with a uterus who wouldn’t like you.”<
br />
My heart expands, and I have to kiss her, which I do, but not like I really want to. “It’s a date then. Sunday, since the store’s closed. We’ll have time to get to know each other better—outside of in the biblical sense unless you change your mind. I’ll pick you up at 2:00.”
With a wink, I retreat to the stockroom and grab my keys. Since it’s Friday night, I won’t see her until our date Sunday, which gives me a little bit to plan something I know she’ll love. Something that will make her want to stay with me and not give me up when I go back to camp. Sue’s a sassy, independent type. There’s no way she couldn’t handle my travel schedule. I can’t think of anyone who would mesh with my lifestyle better.
Unless you get traded.
Or cut.
Playing in a shitty farm club in Topeka.
Milo’s words float around in my brain, but I sweep them away. I’m feeling bulletproof and like I can scratch my way back to the top of my game this season. And I will. And I’ll have Sue by my side.
But first, I’ll go home and hit my gym so I can start getting in perfect physical condition for my new life and career. I’ve got the world by the tail, and I’m going to give it a yank just because I can.
Chapter Nineteen
Sue-Ann
“Sue-Ann Johnson, I raised you better than this.”
My mom’s voice floats over my phone’s speakers as I put a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies in the oven. Some women drink wine and binge Netflix when they’re conflicted. I bake.
And then I eat whatever I create and worry about the size of my ass.
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“I was at book club with Francine Matthews the other day all set to talk about the crawdads singing and then she whipped out her phone and showed me a picture of you with some hoodlum on the Instagram.”
“Instagram, Mom. Not the Instagram.”
“Well, you looked mighty friendly with him. People are talking about you, Sue-Ann Marie, and not because you sold little Betty-Lu her prom dress. You have a successful business, you know. Your father and I warned you to stay out of trouble and out of the papers. Remember what happened when that nasty Jessie Glynn helped Heather go after Julia?”
My mind drifts back to that horrendous billboard that Heather paid for attacking Julia, and I try to swallow down the lump in my throat. Just because I’m a successful business owner doesn’t mean I can’t have a life. She’s bellyaching like Max is a criminal or worse. He’s a professional athlete, for Pete’s sake!
“Mom, Max is helping out at the store. That’s why we were running in the Amazing Race together.”
And fingering.
And licking.
And fucking.
I’m am so going to hell.
Sans handbasket.
“Lilith Montgomery told me all about Max Monroe. He’s a ladies’ man, Sue-Ann. He’s too young, and he’s not for you. Lilith said he might even get cut from the team because he’s an underperformer. And my only daughter is an overachiever. Those two types of people don’t mesh well.”
But our bodies mesh well. So well.
Now what to tell my mom to get her off my back without outright lying to her. I hate fibbing to my parents and try to avoid it unless someone would seriously get hurt without a little white lie.
And this time, that someone is me.
I already feel like I’ve been rolled underneath the bus and flattened. God, why can’t I just enjoy my life without all this constant judgment?
“I know what I’m doing, Mom. He’s headed to training camp soon, and I’ll be back to being a workaholic without my assistant manager. I’ll have gained a new friend. No harm no foul.”
A pause and then a snort. “You’re not fooling me for one second, young lady. Your mother knows best. Stay out of the man’s pants and keep him out of yours.”
Too late. Both pairs of pants have been ripped off and flung to the side.
“Right. Stay out of his pants.”
“Are you coming over for dinner Sunday after church?” she asks.
Let the lying commence.
“I already have plans.”
Plans to try to stay out of the man’s pants so you don’t disown me.
“You’re getting to be a stranger, Sue-Ann. I’m starting to forget what you look like. It’s bad enough you’re thirty-two and not married and not giving me grandchildren, but we don’t even get to spend any time together anymore.”
“How about we meet at Mean Beans for a mocha next week and catch up?”
That way, I can get my mom off my back and touch base with Meredith at the same time and I can stop feeling so guilty about working too much.
“Sounds good, honey. Now you don’t work too hard and keep yourself out of trouble.”
“Yes, Mom.”
The moment we say goodbye and I hang up, I hit Jules up from my contacts. “Hey. How are you holding up after the gala?”
I sigh and sit down at one of my paprika colored counter stools. The oven timer says I still have seven minutes until the cookies are done. I’ve already got the metal cooling racks and the hot pads set to go. “How much time do you have?”
She sighs. “That bad, huh? What happened? You and Max seemed like you were having a great time.”
I run a hand down my face and feel my heated cheeks. And it isn’t from the oven. “Remember what you told me at the last girls’ night?”
“About having a fling? No wonder you wore that dress. Deets, please!”
“Guilty as charged. Except now he’s taking me out on a real date this Sunday, and I just want to forget it ever happened.”
“Was it bad?”
“No, it was so good I thought I might stroke out.”
“Then I don’t see what the problem is. You’re getting to know each other. You’re enjoying each other like adults do. Hell, Sue-Ann, most women have sex on the third date nowadays and you and Max spent way more time together in the store than if you were dating off Match.com or something. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Tell that to my mother. I just hung up with her, and she’s got her granny panties in a wad.”
This sigh sounds even deeper. “I love your mom, Sue, but she can be a little hard on you. I don’t think she has enough to do if she’s berating her thirty-two-year-old daughter for having a little harmless fun.”
“She doesn’t know about the ‘fun’ part. And she can’t know. She’s already having a fit because her old lady book club saw those pictures of me and Max. Thank God, she didn’t see the one of the kid at Duluth Trading.”
A pause. “You mean that one from Instagram with the eggplant book on the cover? Have you read it yet?”
“Like I have time to read about men’s junk when I haven’t even seen any in years until recently!”
She chuckles. “I thought there might be some good info in there that I could use to spice up my bedroom since Charlie. You never know, Sue. The eggplant book could be a useful tool about tools, if you know what I mean.”
I roll my eyes even though she can’t see me. “God, your humor is third rate. Your comedy routine peaked back in high school.”
“I’m going to Amazon right now and look at it. What’s it called again?”
“I think it’s just called The Penis Book.”
I inhale the spicy goodness of my perfectly baked cookies and my mouth waters. “Are you really looking it up?”
“Yup. Says here in the product description that it’s a one-stop-shop about dicks. Did you know there are certain foods you can eat for penis health and certain exercises you can do to keep your wiener in tip-top shape? Do you think he means exercises like that chick on YouTube who can hang watermelons from her vagina? I’m going to ask Adam if he can hang a melon from his cock.”
I slap my palm to my forehead. “You do that and let me know how it goes. No, don’t. Knowing Adam he’ll just tell you to head to the garden and harvest your own homegrown cock ring so he can prove that
he has the strongest dong in Duluth.”
“He does.”
Oh, Jules, if you only knew. But some things should always remain sacred between a couple and not weave their way into girl talk. Now, I have to get out of this phone call unscathed. But when you put your head in the sand, you can’t complain that it’s dark. The timer on my cookies runs down to two minutes.
“Gotta go, Jules. My cookies are about to burn. I’ll call you next week.”
“Be prepared to spill the deets about your hot date.”
I slide the oven mitts on. “Will do.”
Once the cookies are safely on the cooling rack, I reach in the fridge for a bottle of Pinot. After these two conversations, I think this is going to be a night where I drink half the bottle and eat all the cookies until I fall into bed in a food and wine coma so I don’t have to think about my impending downfall.
Chapter Twenty
Max
I throw the duffle bag into the back of my pickup while I hold the leash in my other hand.
My secret weapon.
If anyone can help me get Sue-Ann to see me as more than a boy toy and consider where our budding relationship might lead, it’s my main squeeze, Meatball. Who doesn’t love a man with a dog? And Meatball is well-behaved and well-trained, proving that I’m a man who cares about and honors my commitments. Because owning a pet and loving them until the agonizing day you have to say goodbye is the ultimate promise.
Normally, Meatball would ride shotgun, but Sue’s going to be sitting there and lab hair will find your clothes and cling whether you intend it to or not.
I pull the seat forward and give her a boost into the back seat. “Here you go, brown-eyed girl.”
She smiles that huge dog smile and gives a few pants as she settles in. She probably thinks we’re headed to her personal nirvana, the dog park, but this will be almost as good.
As I pull out onto the road, I hit the button for Prime Country on Sirius. Ever since I spent every Saturday fishing with my grandpa, I’ve loved old country. It reminds me of him. God, I miss that man every single day. Closest thing to a dad I ever had. When we’d get back from fishing, Grandma would make us fried Spam sandwiches and apple slices with her homemade caramel dip. I think of them every time I smell ham and it takes me back to before I understood that when you come from nothing, you always have something to prove.
Gamed (Minnesota Caribou Book 4) Page 11
