Except Reid.
That thought rises up, unwelcome and frustratingly pleasant at the same time. I rub the soap to a furious lather, thinking about Reid and the way it felt to have him against me. I turn my back to the faucet and rub the soap across my chest, cupping my breasts as I do, feeling a tingle of warmth that has nothing to do with the water.
My hands slide down my stomach and I rub myself between the legs, eyebrows drawing down, imagining his hard cock is pressing into my belly, throbbing. His body is hard against me, lips only inches from mine. Vivid images of him pumping into me, groaning with pleasure flash in my mind and I’m soon leaning against the wall, working my fingers fast, riding the waves of my shameful climax.
I shut off the water and towel off, feeling the guilt from what I just did seep deeper and deeper. Even if Reid wasn’t a total asshole, he’s Tara’s ex. Even if she has changed recently, I’m still her best friend. I lost track of how many pints of ice cream we shared while she talked through her problems with Reid to me. I never really looked at their relationship objectively though. I always looked at it through the lens of being Tara’s best friend. I took her side. That was my job.
Now, I think back on it and realize that she was horrible to him. She always came to me and complained that he was a deadbeat who didn’t want to make enough to support her, that he didn’t love her enough to make the life she wanted. And what did I do? I defended her. I told her she was right, and that he should have goals beyond just doing what makes him comfortable. I can’t help feeling like shit looking back on it. As much as I love Tara, she didn’t know Reid at all. He may be the most abrasive asshole I’ve ever met, but he seems to know what he wants and he’s devoting himself to doing it, regardless of what the world says about it.
A lot like me.
The realization gives me chills. Did I just compare myself to Reid Riggins? I sigh, wrapping a towel around myself and heading downstairs to pour myself some wine. I really could use a good buzz right about now. Who cares if it’s not even past noon. When I think back to the notice folded in my purse I feel like I could actually go for something closer to black-out drunk. Anything to forget. Anything to put this all behind me, even for a little while.
Well, at least the solution to my problems is simple. I just need to come up with about twelve grand on short notice. Yeah. No big deal.
32
Reid
I wipe the sweat from my eyes and squint toward the road at the sound of an approaching car. A six cylinder, by the sound of it, and poorly maintained. I can practically hear the pistons struggling to pump from here. Once the car pulls into view I realize exactly who’s driving.
My little brother, Mark.
As much as I hate to admit it, he’s one of the last people I want to see right now. Even on a good day I wouldn’t really want to see my little brother these days. I practically raised him, and he thanked me by shitting all over that as soon as he got his fancy college diploma and the fancy job that came with it. I was proud of him, too. Even with the ungrateful attitude and the bullshit he put me through, I was glad my little brother was making something of himself.
Until grandpa died and Mark showed his real colors. He thought the garage should have been left to him. He thought he could sell it and use the money to jumpstart his real estate empire.
The car door opens and Mark steps out, dusting off his dress shirt like just standing in front of my shop is sullying his fancy city clothes. He makes a show of squinting his eyes and looking around to take everything in, like he didn’t spend the first half of his life growing up here. He’s tall, but still shorter than my six-foot-three frame. He was always a little more prone to carrying weight, and now he has a slight gut and a fullness to his cheeks. His most prominent feature is the expression he wears though. It’s as if he spent so long sneering that one corner of his mouth froze that way.
“The fuck do you want?” I ask, setting down the carburetor I was working on and start wiping the grease from my hands.
Mark sniffs. “A shower, for starters.”
“Get to the point, before I kick your ass off my property.”
“Fine,” says Mark, pulling out a pair of expensive looking sunglasses and putting them on. “I’m working with the mayor to turn this shithole into something useful. We’re going to demolish old dumps like this place and build a strip mall. There will be thousands of middle and upper class families looking to move here, and we plan to have the infrastructure ready before they are. In five years, you won’t even recognize the place. I just thought I’d tell you in person.”
I drop the rag I’m wiping my hands with and step closer to Mark. “Let me make sure I understand you,” I say, voice low and deadly. “You think you’re going to take my shop from me?”
Mark shakes his head, sighing. “This isn’t the Old West, Reid. It’s the development business. It’s happening all over the country. No one has a use for rinky dink towns like this anymore. There’s a population explosion and we’re just trying to keep up with the demand for houses and entertainment.”
“Yeah? Well maybe people should stop fucking, then, because the only way this shop is getting torn down is over my dead body.”
Mark makes a face to show he’s unimpressed. “You know, if you violate the terms grandpa left, it’ll be--”
“So you’re the one?” asks Sandra.
We both turn to her, surprised. She’s wearing jeans and a loose-fitting top and she looks absolutely incredible. I still don’t know how I was with Tara for so long without even noticing what a knockout Sandra is. I guess it’s just that I was the faithful half of the pair.
“Sandra…” says Mark. The tone of his voice tells me he knows her, and it’s only then that I look down to his feet and realize where I recognized the boots at Tara’s place from.
He’s her new boyfriend. My own little fucking brother. He’s sleeping with my ex-wife and he’s trying to destroy one of the few things in this world I care about by destroying the town.
My fist cracks into Mark’s jaw, snapping his head back and sending him toppling to the ground. He tries to scramble to his feet, but I stomp a boot on his chest, pinning him down. “I knew you were a dirty, ungrateful bastard, but this is a new low.” I suck in breaths that come hard and fast, burning my lungs. I couldn’t care less about who Tara fucks these days, as long as he’s not going to be a bad influence on Roman. What pisses me off is that Mark chose to get involved with her. He doesn’t even live around here anymore. It’s almost like he is doing it specifically to piss me off, and it’s working. It’s a matter of respect. Something my little brother has never cared much for.
“I don’t know what you’re--”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re fucking my ex-wife. Well, you can have her,” I say, taking my foot off his chest. “Just watch out, she cheats.”
Mark is slow to rise, rubbing his jaw where I hit him and glaring at me. He knows better than to take a swing back. We fought enough growing up for him to know he’d only lose.
“And you,” I say, turning to Sandra. “You didn’t think I’d want to know that my brother was fucking my ex-wife at your place?”
Sandra looks away, folding her arms. “I didn’t see what good it would do to tell you, no.”
“Unbelievable. Both of you. Get the fuck out of here.”
“No,” says Sandra. “I want to know why. Why are you doing this? I’ve worked my whole life for that bakery and you’re going to just rip it away from me?”
“Why?” asks Mark. “Honey, the strong feed on the weak. If you don’t want to be a victim, be stronger.”
He gets in his car and slams the door behind him, spinning his tires before pulling away. Sandra and I are both left watching after him, wondering how we can hope to stop this from happening.
I move to step back into the shop, but Sandra stops me with a hand on my arm.
I look down, noticing the way her small pale hand looks so out of plac
e on my rough, tanned skin. Out of place. Just like she is. Just like I will be soon if I don’t figure out a way to keep my shop.
“I should have told you,” she says, looking up to meet my eyes. “That was shitty of me. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. It was. Come on, have a beer with me and we’ll call it even,” I say.
Sandra raises her eyebrows in a way that says why not and follows me inside.
I toss her a cold one, which she fumbles and nearly drops. I grin at her, cracking open a can for myself. “Nice hands, sweetheart.”
She gives me a wry smile. “I wasn’t exactly the greatest at sports.”
I laugh, eyeing her smooth legs and the curve of her hips. Not for the first time, she catches me off guard. She has a lot more spunk and bite than I’d expect from a rich daddy’s girl. I’m starting to wonder if I really do have her pegged wrong.
I pull up a chair and sit across from her at the patio table I have set up outside on the back porch. The hills slope away from us and give a great view of the mountains and the lake in the distance. Nothing but nature. Our town is pretty much surrounded by steep hills and mountains. It’s probably why Mark wants to demolish everything instead of trying to carve a place in the surrounding wilderness. I imagine it would cost a fortune to try to level all that ground outside town.
“Fuck,” I mutter softly. “Can’t believe they want to take it all away.”
“I guess I’m not surprised,” says Sandra. “Little places like this are dying everywhere. It was only a matter of time before it caught up with us.”
“The machine,” I say.
She sips her beer, looking out over the hills, searching for the words. “The American dream,” she says finally. “Everyone wants more. They want it faster, bigger.”
I nod my head slowly, draining my can and crumpling it in one hand.
“So your grandfather left you this shop?” asks Sandra.
The real answer nearly spills out, but I give her the safe one. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Must be nice,” she says.
I squint at her. “You make it sound like your parents never gave you anything.”
Sandra picks at a piece of chipped paint on the table. She seems to choose her words carefully. “I’m luckier than most people. I can’t complain.”
I nod, draining the last of my beer. “Nah,” I say. “If you ask me, having rich parents isn’t luck at all. If everything is given to you for free, where’s the satisfaction. You know?”
She meets my eye, smiling the first real, genuine smile I’ve seen from her, and God is it beautiful. “Yes,” she says softly. Her eyes are distant and I can practically see her mind racing. I don’t have any idea what she’s thinking, but I do know I’m getting dangerously close to doing something I can’t take back. If I get involved with her to save my shop, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself. But if I don’t do something to save it, I don’t know how I get myself out of bed in the morning. Fucked if I do, fucked if I don’t.
I get up to grab another beer from the fridge. I have to get up, because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll try to kiss her, or something more. Can’t go down that path. Not right now, probably not ever. Besides, Roman was a little traitor and talked Tara into dropping him off at my place till tonight.
I sit back down and set a beer beside her, cracking open my own and taking a deep drink.
“They are going to pay me half of what my bakery’s worth unless I can come up with almost twelve grand,” says Sandra.
I whistle through my teeth. “So you’re fucked too?” I’m surprised the money seems to be an issue for her, but I don’t press the issue. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s her choice.
She laughs humorlessly. “Yeah. I guess I am. Wait. What do you mean, “too”?”
“I’m sure they’ll come after my garage sooner or later,” I say carefully, not wanting to have to talk any more about it. I raise my can to hers before she can respond. “To being fucked together.”
She pauses, clearing her throat and looking down. Her reaction makes me realize my choice of words may have been a little more suggestive than I intended. Her cheeks are scarlet. I smirk, reaching farther to tap my can against hers, even though she hasn’t moved.
“There’s no one I’d rather get fucked with,” I add, watching her for a reaction.
She eyes me in the most fucking adorably bashful way and bites her full bottom lip, grinning. “Reid Riggins, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to suggest something here.”
“You’d be right.”
At some point our faces came closer together and all I need to do is lean forward just a little to kiss her. The moment feels right, and her eyes flutter closed as she leans closer too. I don’t even know if I’m about to kiss her for the garage or if it’s just because I want to.
“Daddy,” comes Roman’s voice from the patio door.
Sandra pulls back quickly, clearing her throat and pressing the back of her hand to her lips, large eyes searching mine. There’s surprise there. Arousal.
“There’s a customer,” says Roman.
“Right, well. I’d best be going,” I say.
“Of course,” she says, standing and brushing the wrinkles from her clothes. “Me too. I still need to finish those gutters. You know, once I climb on top of that big thing you gave me.”
I smirk. “Now who’s the flirt?”
33
Sandra
I spend the rest of my day on the ladder Reid let me borrow--mounting his tool. I laugh softly to myself. Just a few days of living next door to Reid Riggins and he already has my mind nearly as dirty as his. I yank handful after handful of pine needles from the gutters, my mind anywhere but the job. I should be completely preoccupied with the threat of losing my bakery, but that possibility is so catastrophic I can’t even begin to run through what I will do. I don’t know if I have the mental energy to start all over. It took so much to do it the first time around. And how could I drive myself forward when I might just lose it again?
Then there’s Mark and Tara. My first impulse was to call Tara and kick her out of my place, but that would just be a spiteful, useless move. I just can’t believe she’s dating the guy who is pulling the strings behind getting my shop taken away from me. No matter how much I tell myself it’s unreasonable to blame her, I know I’m going to end up confronting her about it. I have to. I can’t just let this settle in my chest and fester.
Above all of that is the crazy, improbable, and absolutely unbelievable fact that I think I might be falling for Reid Riggins. He’s everything I always thought I wanted to avoid in a man. There’s more to him, though. He guards it well, but I’ve started to see glimpses of it. I saw something in the way he looked out over the hills on his back patio, a thoughtfulness and kindness. It made me realize Reid is a rare creature. He’s a man who has found what he wants in life and will fight to keep it.
Most people spend their whole lives trying to find the courage to go after what they want and doubting whether it’s the right path. They second guess themselves, waste time, pass opportunities, and don’t take risks. They end up unhappy because they were too afraid to go after what they really want for fear of failing. Not Reid. He’s already living his dream, and now it’s going to be taken away from him, just like mine. It all feels so tragic, and I burn with a desire to do something about it, even if I have no idea what that something is.
I climb down from the ladder and go inside to cool off. If I think I’m starting to have feelings for Reid, I must be getting heatstroke.
I make a quick call to the bakery to see if everything is going okay without me. The girls assure me they are doing fine and that business is going as usual. Still, I need to make time to get down there and put in the order before Tuesday or we’ll be spending all week apologizing for being out of half our products. Mrs. Parsons would probably burn the bakery down before the city had a chance to demolish it if I had to tell her
we couldn’t make her cinnamon rolls in the morning.
For all I know, Reid is finished with my car already, but I can’t quite bring myself to go back over there right now. I just keep replaying the moment when I was leaning in and actually thinking about kissing him. It’s amazing what a little buzz and a lot of stress will do. Now that I have some distance, it all seems like an insane dream, like none of it really happened.
I put him from my mind as much as I can and decide to take a quick walk over to the place I’m renting Tara and Mark. My place. I’m only going over there to check on the property and make sure they are taking care of it, of course. I’m going to keep this strictly professional. I will not say a single word about how Tara is being the world’s shittiest best friend for dating the guy who wants to tear down my bakery. Not a word.
I knock on the door and wait. When Tara opens it, her eyes light up and she moves forward to hug me. “Hey girl!”
“Hey,” I say, grimacing over her shoulder.
Tara is ninety to ninety five percent sweet and loving. She was the first and last person to see me at the hospital when I had the embarrassing line dancing incident last summer and sprained my ankle. She was there with sweets and movies every time I had a rough breakup. She has talked me through some of my darkest moments and been there to share my happiest.
She’s a friend, in every sense of the word. And sometimes friends are back stabbing, heartless--
I force myself to calm down. She probably doesn’t even know. The least I can do is talk to her and feel it out before I start holding a grudge. I owe her that much.
She’s drop dead gorgeous too. Blonde hair, startling green eyes, full lips and a pert little beauty queen nose. She does yoga five times a week and still finds time to go to the gym in between. All of that is absolutely true, but over the years I’ve come to realize there’s just something else about her. Somewhere beneath all that sweetness and kindness is a small, almost imperceptible ball of nasty.
Knocked Up and Punished Page 22
