Just What I Needed

by Lorelei James

  “I’m good with that. Now be a little worker bee and get busy.”

  —

  Something awakened me and I opened my eyes, but in the pitch black of Trinity’s room, they may as well have been shut. I blinked a few times and lifted my head, trying not to wake the snoring woman sprawled across my chest. I let my hand follow the outline of her body. I liked sleeping with her and I didn’t remember ever feeling so comfortable with a woman beside me in bed. Trinity curled into me and conked out immediately. Like she trusted me to keep her safe even in sleep.

  I saw movement across the room.

  A white lump sat on the dresser, staring at me.

  Buttons, you spooky bastard. How did you get in here?

  The only thing that moved was the long white tail, twitching back and forth with irritation.

  I leveled my meanest look on Buttons because I knew she could see me perfectly well in the dark. I swear she chuffed out a noise that sounded like a cat sneer.

  “Watch it,” I whispered. “Or when she moves in with me I’ll replace you with a dog.”

  Trinity shifted and muttered, “We can have a cat and a dog.”

  I wasn’t sure she was awake, so I said, “A cat and two dogs.”

  “Okay. But a guard dog for safety and a fluffy little one for the kids to drag around and dress up.” She sighed. “I always wanted that. And a bunch of kids.”

  Talking about pets and living together and kids . . . when we’d been together just a few weeks? My balls should’ve been sweating. At the very least I should’ve been staring at the ceiling unable to sleep for the rest of the night.

  But I couldn’t stop smiling as I drifted off.

  Seventeen

  TRINITY

  It was six days until I’d deliver the Stephens commission.

  I’d taken the day off to laze around with my man. But lying in the sun without purpose always sent my brain into overdrive.

  “What are the odds?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. I’m not exactly a statistician.”

  I adjusted my sunglasses. “Or maybe it’s just a rich-person thing?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning all you rich people hang out at the same places.”

  No comment from Richie Rich. He took my ribbing about our financial disparities in stride.

  Once again, I tried to empty my mind and listen to the trill of different birds in the maple trees, or the steady buzz of the cicadas, but my brain was wound up. “Does this happen often?”

  “What? You chattering away while I’m trying to take a nap? It’s happening more than I’d like it to, babe.”

  “I’m the one who deserves a nap.” I’d finished the Stephens piece with time to spare—only a few days, but ahead of deadline was ahead of deadline. But ever since I’d deemed it done, I hadn’t allowed myself to relax. My brain started asking me what was next. And I didn’t have a clue.

  Like that’s new.

  Walker snagged my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I’m sorry. I’m just wiped out. Keeping up with your sexual demands could be a full-time job.”

  I smirked. “First you complain we don’t see each other enough. Now you complain it’s too much.”

  “I will never complain about that. I should’ve taken a rain check last night when you wanted to play grab-ass because I’m dragging ass after my early morning.”

  Walker invoked the eight o’clock rule whenever we stayed the night together; I had to be up and ready to spend time with him by eight a.m. That meant he couldn’t use our limited hours together to work out, so he hauled his fine ass out of bed at six a.m. to be done by eight. And last night, we’d messed around until two a.m. I kept waiting for the need between us to cool, but it hadn’t. “Who did you work out with this morning?”

  “Myself. Why? You wanna come tomorrow?”

  I snorted. Like that’d happen. “I thought you had a workout schedule with your brothers and cousins?”

  “We used to. They’re busy doing their own things, so I do mine.”

  I’d heard that excuse a lot. It hurt my heart to think the close connection Walker felt with his family wasn’t reciprocated.

  “Since you’re determined to keep me up and involved in your circular thought processes, let me remind you that the client who commissioned you to do the project has money. And yes, money people stick together. So the fact your client is hosting her husband’s surprise birthday party at the Minneapolis Club isn’t unusual. Club members have to spend X number of dollars there every month, so the private rooms are almost always booked.”

  “Does Lund Industries have events at the Minneapolis Club frequently?”

  “Often enough. Especially for the smaller stuff.”

  “So the party they’re holding the same night as the Stephens party? It’s not a major corporate thing that every Lund board member has to attend?”

  A shadow loomed over me. My sunglasses disappeared. Then I was gazing into the beautiful face of the man who rocked my world and filled my soul with happiness.

  “Trinity. I’ll be there with you. I promise. No one at LI will miss me. But you. You . . .” He waited for me to fill in the blanks.

  “I need you.”

  “In case something goes wrong with the installation?” he pressed.

  I touched his face. “In case something goes wrong with me.”

  “Not.” Kiss. “Gonna.” Kiss. “Happen.” Kiss. “Everything will go perfectly; you’ll have people lined up with their checkbooks out to commission an original Trinity Amelia piece of art. And curator dude will demand a piece for all the galleries he reps.”

  “How can you be so confident?”

  “How can you look at all the beautiful stuff you create and not be cocky about it?”

  “Because I’m neurotic.”

  Walker kissed me again. “I know. I don’t get it, but it’s part of what makes you . . . you, so I figured it’d be easier to accept it than to question it. Kind of like how I accept that Buttons is an asshole, but she’s your asshole cat and part of the package.”

  I grinned. “She’s growing on you.”

  “Yeah. The scratches on my calves are signs of her affection.” He smirked. “I guess that could be true since the scratches down my back are signs of yours.”

  He scooted away before I swatted him.

  “You want something to drink?” he called from the patio.

  “No. I’m good.”

  I watched as Walker raised the bottle of water to his mouth. His T-shirt rode up, exposing the blond happy trail vanishing into the waistband of his board shorts. I knew that section of his abdomen would be warm from him sitting in the sun. I knew how hard his muscles and how soft that strip of hair would feel against my lips. I knew he’d taste of salt and sweat and man.

  It still shocked me, that immediate rush of need when I caught his musky, masculine scent. The knowledge that I could have this man anytime I wanted just made me greedier.

  He crouched beside me. “You wanna stop staring at my junk and licking your lips so we can finish this conversation?”

  “Not really.” I reached out and pushed his sunglasses on top of his head. The heat in his eyes wasn’t solely from the scorching temperatures on the patio. “You were complaining about me talking. So I assumed you’d rather I used my mouth for something else.”

  “Jesus, Trin.”

  I set my hand on his cheek, tracing the bow of his bottom lip with my thumb. “We both know if you got it in your head that you wanted a taste of me as we’re lazing in the sun, you’d just do it and wouldn’t ask permission.”

  His nostrils flared.

  “So I’m not asking, Walker. Stretch out on this blanket with me.”

  He stood, stripped off his shirt and sat behind me. Snugging his groin to my backside, he bent his knees so I could rest my back to his chest as he braced his hands behind him. His lips brushed the top of my ear. “Happy now?”

  “Very.” My heart sighed. You m
ake me happier than anyone I’ve ever met. When I’m with you, for the first time in my life I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

  As much as my heart wanted to whisper that confession to see how his heart responded, my mouth remained uncooperative for a change.

  I felt the tension in every inch of Walker’s body. He was such a complicated man, used to being in charge in his work, so I suspected that sometimes he wanted me to take control. He needed my focus one hundred percent on him.

  Setting my palms on his knees, I ran my hands down the outside of his legs. For being so fair-haired everywhere else, the darker hair on his calves and thighs intrigued me. My fingertips mapped the bulging muscles of his calves and the delineated lines of his quads. They quivered at my touch. He took great care of his body. Not in an obsessive way, but I assumed competition with his family played a big part in why he remained fit.

  I rolled forward onto my knees and turned around to face him. “Look at you. All stretched out like some kind of Norse god ready to be worshipped.”

  He didn’t speak. He just watched me and waited with coiled energy.

  His body was so much longer and broader than mine that we were mismatched when I tried to hang above him. He started to shift to accommodate me, but I shook my head. “Let me.”

  As much as I wanted to slowly lick the beads of sweat from his skin, starting at the top and working my way down his magnificent body, teasing him until he moaned and begged, we were outside on a Sunday afternoon in a neighborhood teeming with kids. I didn’t want to leave it to chance I’d only get the job half done.

  I paused at his nipples, taking one thorough swipe with my tongue and a tiny nip with my teeth on each side.

  His only response was a quick hiss of a breath.

  I tapped his butt and said, “Lift.” I eased his baggy board shorts down past his erection.

  A few loose tendrils of my hair teased his skin as I started my southward journey. His belly bunched and flexed as I zigzagged my lips down the golden trail bisecting his abdomen. When I reached his hips, I ran my tongue down the ridge of his flexor muscle. And back up the matching one on the other side.

  I looked up at him as I lowered my head and licked the plump tip.

  “Trinity.”

  “Let go and let me make you feel good.” I wrapped my fingers around his shaft at the base and moved my hand up as I slid my mouth down.

  He pretty much went incoherent after that.

  I let myself go too, staying focused on his pleasure and nothing else.

  Once he hit the point of no return, I stayed with him through every hot pulse and every jerk of his hips. I thought maybe the aftermath would be weird, because face it—sometimes sex was awkward even when it wasn’t new. But he just reached down, pulled up his board shorts and hauled me into his arms, nestling me against his body.

  Walker didn’t say “Thank you” or “Baby, that was great.” He just sighed like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders and muttered, “Fuck yeah,” almost to himself.

  Even snuggled together like this, I couldn’t not touch him. I nuzzled his beard. “Does this ever get too hot in the summer and you think about shaving it off?”

  “I’ve had it so long that I don’t notice.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’d look like without a beard, but with this gorgeous bone structure . . .” I nuzzled him again. “Maybe I’ll ask Selka to show me a pic of her baby boy before his beautiful beard.” I laughed. “I get points for alliteration.”

  “She’d like it if I had no beard,” he half grumbled. “What will you do with all these mysterious points you’re awarding yourself?”

  “It’s a thing I did as a kid. My mom used a point system for rewards. If I picked up my room without her nagging me, I’d get points. Or if I did my homework right after school, or if she saw me helping someone, she’d add those to the tally. When I reached a certain amount of points, I could cash them in.”

  “Cash them in for what?”

  “She offered me options. If I wanted to see a movie, it’d ‘cost’ points. If I wanted a new toy or jewelry, those cost more. I don’t know if that was supposed to teach me not to be materialistic, but it worked.”

  “How?”

  “I almost always spent my points to do things with her. As I’ve gotten older some of those memories started to fade, prompting me to write them down, because that’s all I had left of her.”

  Walker kissed the top of my head. “I can’t imagine not having my folks.” He paused. “How did she die?”

  “Hit-and-run. She was changing a tire late at night. They think the person that hit her lost control on the ice and plowed into her. The cops never found out who did it.”

  “Baby.”

  His sorrow for me brought all those memories rushing back. “For a while in my teen years I had this big conspiracy theory that my dad had her taken out.” Before he asked the obvious question of whether my father had the connections to do that, I said, “Guess I’d been reading too many thrillers. The theory faded when I realized after my mom died, he’d had to take on the daily responsibility of me. I’m pretty sure he would’ve done anything to prevent that, not cause it.” I changed the focus. “Have you lost anyone close to you?”

  “Not really. Maria, our first cook, died when I was sixteen and the house seemed empty after school without her. She and my mom were so funny together. It was hard on Mom too.”

  “What about the Lund family patriarch?”

  Walker’s body tensed beneath me. He said, “I’ve gotta move. I’m getting a crick in my neck.” He sat up and grabbed a bottle of water out of the cooler. After draining it, he crushed the plastic in his powerful hands. “It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about him.” He blew out a breath. “Probably because he was an asshole. He didn’t have much time for me anyway, which I am thankful for now.”

  I turned onto my side and propped my head on my hand. “But you weren’t thankful back then?”

  Walker shrugged. “I was a kid. It seemed I always ran into him when I’d been rolling in the dirt or something. Nolan could be just as filthy as me but Grandpa would praise him for the artistic placement of mud or some crap like that. Where I was just dirty.”

  “He played favorites?”

  “Oh yeah. I was maybe twelve when the almighty Jackson Lund informed me that I had an inferior intellect to my siblings and my cousins—including my four-year-old cousin Dallas. He suggested I run off to the woods and learn to carve clogs with Sven because working with my hands was all an oaf like me would ever be good at.” He snorted. “My grandpa Jensen’s name wasn’t Sven, but that’s a perfect example of how dismissive he was.”

  “What a miserable jackass.” I touched him, just a brush of my hand across his skin. “You didn’t . . . I mean, it wasn’t because of his nastiness—”

  “That I moved to Sweden when I turned eighteen and became a carpenter?” he supplied. “Nope. I figured his cut-downs were supposed to inspire me to try harder to be like him.”

  “What did your parents say when you told them?” When Walker didn’t respond right away, my heart clenched. “You didn’t tell them.”

  “I’ve never told anyone.” He looked at me over his shoulder. “I can’t believe I told you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “I didn’t see any point in telling them. It’d just hurt and anger them—and they’d already dealt with that enough. It’s a testament to my grandmother’s influence—a woman I never met—that my dad and his brothers didn’t turn out to be entitled pricks, cruel fathers, heartless men and conscienceless business tycoons. They are the exact opposites in all ways.”

  The next thing I knew, Walker had rolled me beneath him. “How’d we get on that shitty topic anyway? When I should be entirely focused on the fact you’re strutting around in a swimsuit.”

  “Strutting?”

  “If you’re not, you should be.” He buried his face in my cleavage wi
th a happy sigh.