by Elodie Colt
“Easy.” She shrugs. “Slap your face and punch your nuts at the same time.”
Eight
Matthew
Sated, restless, and horny like a fifty-year-old virgin, I make my way back to the neighbor’s house. The door to Jillian’s room is ajar when I breeze past, and I catch her with her head bent over a pile of college books, nibbling on a carrot.
I slow down. What part of my body is in more need of satisfaction right now—my cock or my bloodstream? The latter, my twitchy eyelid decides for me as I unlock my door.
Once inside, I yank my shirt over my head, toss it to the floor over a heap of crushed Coke cans, and gun for the nightstand to fish out my pocket flask. I take three greedy swigs, satiating a portion of my craving with the hot, spicy liquid.
Perching against the window sill, I eyeball Sam’s kitchen window. The lights are already off. I find her roaming the porch with a watering can in hand, idly chatting to her plants. She even bends down to put a kiss on a leaf from her Marigolds, making me wish she’d show my cock the same tender loving care. When she’s done licking her plants, she puts the can aside and crosses her messy garden. My neck almost snaps as I stretch it so as not to lose sight of her when she climbs up the rope ladder of her tree house, unlocking the door with a key and vanishing inside. A second later, light pours from the tiny windows.
“Need a private place to play with your sex toy, girl?” I mumble to myself, smirking, just as someone knocks on my door.
Jillian appears, her expression something between wary and bashful. When she spots me in front of the window, half-naked and with my jeans hanging low on my hips, her teeth start to abuse her lower lip. She closes the door and leans her back against it. A moment of silence passes. We size each other up. She’s still in her tight-as-fuck yoga pants but has switched her bandanna for a zipper hoodie.
Her eyes rake over my discarded shirt and scattered Coke cans. Guess she’s not happy to see I went for the unhealthy sugar boost instead of the glasses of self-made celery juice someone put into my fridge this morning. I straighten, leering at her, trying to anticipate her next move.
She clears her throat. “How was dinner with Sam?”
The question was meant to sound casual, but the crisp undertone layering her voice gave away her irritation.
“Entertaining.”
My laid-back though curt answer prompts her to smack her lips. “Anything going on between you two?”
Only easy banter, sexual innuendos, and scorching hot looks. I rub a hand through my hair. Forty-eight hours was all it took to throw me into the middle of a love triangle. Shit is getting too complicated too fast. Then again, my lips and cock haven’t touched Samantha Kent yet, so technically, we’re not more than a fleeting acquaintance.
“Right,” Jillian mutters when it takes me a second too long to utter a simple ‘no.’ “You know what? None of my business. Within a matter of hours, you turned from a stranger who helped a damsel in distress, to an almost-quickie I never expected to see again, to Mom’s gardener who’s sleeping next door. To say this whole thing is awkward, plus the fact that I have no idea if my mom wants you to warm her bed or mine, would be the understatement of the year. Anyway, we started this without attaching strings, so let’s not attach any now.”
Her voice drips something deep and sultry at the end as she trails a hand down her cleavage. I clock her fingers as they curl around the zipper to slowly push it down until the two sides of her hoodie flap open and reveal a black bra.
Keeping eye contact, she pushes away from the door and saunters in my direction. My mouth waters, and something wet forms in my boxers, too, as she slides off her hoodie on the way and halts in front of me. A pair of gray eyes burn into mine, her look more daring than heated, but I remain motionless as she runs a palm down my pecs. The only body parts that move are my heaving chest and my dick bouncing like a bobblehead when she reaches my waistband.
Sloping her head, she assesses me as if wondering why I haven’t done the raw, rampant Fifty Shades number yet, pounced on her, and ripped her clothes to shreds. I’m even more puzzled by my hesitation until it dawns on me that a feisty blonde is starring in my sexual fantasies, and not the brunette currently squishing her chest against mine.
Christina’s distinct, shrill voice seeps from behind the room’s walls, giving me an excuse for my delayed reactions.
“Christina…” I mutter when her fingers start to rub over the prominent bulge in my jeans.
“No better turn-on than you uttering my mother’s name at that moment,” she grumbles before she pulls my face down to hers, simultaneously signaling that she doesn’t give a shit if her mother storms in on the scene.
And as soon as she thrusts her tongue into my throat, the sexual throbbing in my belly, my dick, my fucking head smash all my silly inhibitions, as if she’s pushed a button to draw a complete blank in my brain. She moans into my mouth when the possessive part in me takes over and slams her against the wall.
I buck my hips against hers, and she almost climbs me like a tree in a desperate attempt to create friction. Fervently, I push my hand down her pants, eager to get to the smoothly shaved body part between her legs. Her nails rake along my shoulder blades and—
“Fuck!” Pain shoots up my ear, and I yank my hands back, clamping one over my injury.
Jillian almost falls on her ass when she tumbles down the wall. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”
Her Wolverine-sharp nails have dragged a nice gash across my half-raw wound, ripping it open anew and dribbling blood down my shoulder.
“It’s fine,” I hiss through gritted teeth, stopping her feeble attempts at trying to help me somehow. Guilt is written all over her face as I press my hand onto the wound to stop the blood flow. “Guess I ripped off the band-aid too soon. I’ve got this,” I assure her and turn tail to clean myself up in the bathroom, silently communicating that I don’t need her fussing around.
I ransack the drawers in search of a med-kit, but other than stacks of fresh towels and rolls of TP, I come up empty. Cursing, I sweep back to my room. Jillian is gone, probably to bring what we’ve started to an end in private. Which is exactly my plan, too, once I’ve found a fucking band-aid.
I thrust an old shirt over my head and breeze out to skip down the stairs. Thanks to the wide-open space, there’s no way of sneaking around undetected, and Christina launches from her sofa as soon as she spots me from a mile away. She hones in on my hand pressed against my neck.
“Oh no, Matthew, what—”
“All fine. Do you have a band-aid?”
I’m not surprised when she swats my hand away to bandage me herself. What does surprise me, though, is the fact she’s not fawning over me as if I was a Chippendales dropout but tends to my wound with focus and efficiency. It’s the first time she’s not acting the desperate housewife but the caring mother in my presence.
Five minutes later, I sit on one of her upholstered dining room chairs while she pops the cork of a Montrachet Grand Cru bottle. After a few obligatory questions about my father’s health condition, she stirs the conversation to the main topic I’ve felt hovering in the air since I first crossed her threshold.
“Jillian likes you,” she casually launches into the topic.
She likes me? She likes my face, the package in my boxers she hasn’t seen yet, and the idea of getting a share of Florida’s citrus fruit empire. Or maybe I’m referring to the other Ms. Robinson here.
“You two would be a good match, don’t you think?”
A good match like Heidi Klum and that Tokio Hotel toyboy, yeah. I’m too exhausted, mentally drained, and sexually frustrated to beat around the bush and drag this conversation out for no reason, so I get straight to the point.
“Why are you so eager to play matchmaker for your daughter? She’s old enough to find herself a guy.”
She gives me a tight smile, whirling the wine in her glass. “She’s stuck in a phase where she’s convinced that commitment is
a liability, marriages are bound to lead to a divorce, and career is more important than family. I don’t want her to live a lonely life.”
Like me are the last two, unspoken words wobbling in the room when she puts her wine glass to her lips, eyes fixated on me.
“Then look for someone who can provide for her and comes from the same social stratum. I’m a simple farm boy. Gucci, Porsche, and French-imported wines are not part of my lifestyle.”
She taps her fingers together. Her smile is there but twitching on her contoured lips. “Well, Gucci, Porsche, and French-imported wines have always been part of mine, just like a husband who went on twelve business trips a month, banged his mistresses in Europe more often than me, and made up for being MIA when I conceived Jillian by sending his new-born daughter a Dolce & Gabbana onesie—addressed ‘for my daughter, Jane’. That man is the reason Jillian thinks she’s better off without me, friends, and men altogether.”
No Best-Daddy-award for Christina’s ex, then. Also, no accolades for Husband of the Year.
“Jillian is easy on the eyes, benevolent, and quite unpretentious, contrary to what you may think. She prefers to cook for herself than getting served by my employees, wears Stella McCartney fair trade clothes to support environmental sustainability, and would take a bio fruit salad over a plate full of the best caviar any day. She’s not the woman to do your laundry or patch up the holes in your flannel shirts, but she’s the woman who can help you run your business.”
I scoff, rubbing the back of my neck. “Sorry to disappoint, but my business will be extinct within the next few months.”
Her tattooed eyebrows slam together. “What are you talking about? Mallory Fruit Farms is the state’s largest orange importer and exporter. How can an empire like that crumble?”
“By a tiny insect called the citrus psyllid, spreading HLB. Huanglongbing, the yellow dragon sickness. It’s a pathogen that prevents citrus greening. Attacks the tree roots and robs them of the ability to absorb nutrients,” I explain with a sigh. “Bastards reproduce so fast, they develop resistance to insecticides within months. The result—either fruit that cannot ripe or ripe fruit dropping to the ground before it can be picked.”
Christina leans forward, forming her hands into a steeple. “I’ve heard about it on the news, but I didn’t know the situation was so severe.”
“Severe enough to destroy the country’s entire citrus industry,” I say somberly.
“And there’s nothing you can do?”
“Not unless hundred-dollar bills start to grow on my trees so I can get three-thousand new, disease-tolerant rootstocks genetically engineered by the University of Florida.”
“So nothing money can’t buy,” she drawls as if already contriving something. Spotting an opportunity I’m not sure I want her to chase.
I shake my head, which seems to wobble on my neck. I’m juiced, and my eyelids are growing heavier than Christina’s boob job. “Even with fifty thousand in my pockets, I can’t just raze all sick trees and start over. It would take years before the new ones produced fruits to break even.”
She lifts her head, but her gaze travels past my shoulder. I crane my neck to look through the porch doors just as Sam scrambles down the rope ladder.
“I saw you working in Sam’s garden today,” Christina points out, clearly sniffing a competition.
“I offered to help her with the chaos while I’m here.”
I swivel my head back to her, bracing myself for a glower, an accusation, a degrading comment. Instead, she smooths down her dress before she folds her frame back into her seat. She takes her time slurping her wine, flashing me a calculating glance.
“How about this,” she says at last. “You’ll get the three-thousand per week as promised. You finish your work here, whip my garden into shape down to the last pebble, and I’ll foot the bill for those new trees. I’m also willing to help you out with occasional financial injections until your business becomes profitable again.”
She pauses, letting me digest for a moment—a tiring task with Sam’s steak weighing down my stomach. A clear-cut ‘no’ sits on my tongue right before a verbose excuse about how this is a generous but unacceptable, clearly overkill offer.
Then again, her money pumping through my plantation’s pipelines would be more fruitful (literally and figuratively) than through the Botox in her cheeks that keeps her smile from hitching all the way up her balloon lips.
I cross my arms, keeping my face blank as I scrutinize her. Something tells me we’re not talking about a purely charitable contribution here just for the sake of rescuing my land and the country’s citrus sector. “And the catch?”
The slow smirk creeping up her face reveals the punchline long before she speaks the words out loud. Words that sound equally preposterous and disgracefully reasonable.
“Marry my daughter.”
Nine
Samantha
Screw strippers. Should I ever tie the knot in the foreseeable future, and the girls get the opportunity to arrange my bachelorette party, I’ll persuade them to skip this part and watch a high-res video on a flat TV featuring Matthew Mallory in a self-made porn clip—hedge clippers in hand, biceps glittering in the sun, and jeans slipping whenever he bends.
Sipping my morning cup of coffee, I enjoy the nice, once-in-a-lifetime view from the kitchen window with a wide smirk on my face. Never thought watching a man trimming bushes would turn me on to the point my panties become as dewy as the grass in my garden when dawn breaks.
“What’re you ogling at?”
Kendra’s voice startles me, brutally jolting me out of my steamy daydreams. I jump a foot in the air only to spill a good portion of coffee on my shirt.
“Argh!” I yelp as the liquid burns my skin, trying to shake off the hot drops from my hand. Not the injured one, thank God.
“Wow, hot,” Kendra chirps as she peeks out the window, too, ignoring the mess I made. “Careful, Sam. You might burn yourself.”
“Ha ha.” I grab a napkin and dab on the coffee stains.
She flicks her locks, her golden loops jingling. “So, how was dinner with the sexy farm boy? Did he show you his spade?”
“No, but let me fetch one and bop it on your head.” I toss the used napkin into the sink. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to work?”
She makes a show of glancing at her watch before she drops into a seat, crossing her legs clad in a skirt so short, it could pass as a belt. “I think I’ve got a minute to spare. Enough time for you to spill the dirty stuff.”
“There’s no dirty stuff to spill.”
“Huh.” She doesn’t buy it. “The guy eyeballed you with a scorching gaze the moment he stepped into the kitchen, close to bending you over the table right in front of us, and you expect me to believe you spent three hours with him scraping forks on your plates and doing the dishes?”
I sip my coffee. There are only three drops left in my cup, but I manage to take five gulps to save myself an answer.
Kendra huffs a laugh, shaking her head. “Wow, you’re holier than a nun, and in desperate need of therapy, girl. You’re not gay, are you?”
She throws the question casually at me, as if she just asked me if I was more the chocolate or vanilla type. My gaze snaps to her. “No, for God’s sake.”
She hitches up her shoulder but continues to drill me with an unnerving, probing stare. She won’t back down until I throw her a bone.
“He’s been hitting on me since day one, but I’ve dodged him so far.”
“Because of Harvey?”
“Because of Jillian,” I say through clenched teeth, as usual irked when someone brings up that cheating asshole. Anyway, I won’t risk falling for the guy in true, naive Sam-style only to find out I was nothing but a last-minute replacement. Again.
“Come on, what’s with the loyalty act all of a sudden? You and Jillian are as tight as Trump and Clinton.”
“This has nothing to do with loyalty. It’s one thing to sleep with a
guy not knowing which girl he screwed the night before. But in my case, she’s been living next door since we were toddlers and chasing each other in diapers.”
Matthew pauses to fish out a pocket flask and downs half of it in one go. Disgusted, I switch my focus back to Kendra.
“Also, he’s a boozer, and it’s turning me off to no end.”
“Hm, I wouldn’t be able to stand Christina sober, either.” She darts to her feet, adjusting her skirt. “Alrighty, I’m on my way. Have a niccce day,” she says, making a hiss like a snake.
Prying myself away from the window, I spend the rest of the morning catching up to emails, unopened Facebook invites and plowing my way through book reports. My last promotion paid off, it seems. Twice as many sales yesterday, which made Harmless, Book1 jump up to the top five-thousand on Amazon.
I pump a fist in the air. Finally, a silver lining.
Or two, if you count the fact that Matthew Mallory is doing pull-ups on Christina’s mango tree.
I haul my ass up to grab myself a front-row seat in front of my window, careful to stay incognito behind the curtains. At a closer look, his disheveled hair glistens in the sun as if he’s just stepped out of the pool. A set of powerful arms bulge under the traction as he pulls and pulls until his face scrunches up from the exertion, beads of sweat running down his neck.
Something throbs in my pants, a pent-up exhale bursting through my lips. Jeez, did I just experience a mini-orgasm?
With my eyes glued to his painfully sexy Adonis body, I watch as he hops down and ambles over to the mini fridge to fetch a Coke. The soft hiss as cool air erupts from the can wafts up to my window. It’s the sound my heart would have made if it were able to do anything other than pumping. I start to swoon when he dips his head and knocks back the drink with closed eyes.
