by Blake Wilder
“Yeah!” George replied excitedly. His undying love of baseball was fairly recent, sparked by my father, who’d taken him to a Nationals game last spring. Since then, George had talked of precious little else, begging for a glove, bat, balls and wanting me to pitch with him outside twenty-four seven.
I hated baseball. Like despised it. Watching paint dry had more appeal.
“You ever considered playing on a team?” Jake asked.
“He’s a little young, don’t you think?” I replied.
Jake shook his head as George’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the thought.
“Local parks and rec runs little league. Tee-ball is part of it. Sign-ups for fall ball are going on now.”
“Tee-ball?” The idea of sitting on hard bleachers watching five-year-olds knock baseballs off a post for hours on end sounded like the definition of hell.
Unfortunately, George had already signed with a major-league team in his mind. “Can I, Mommy? Can I play?”
“You don’t have any equipment,” I said, trying to recall exactly how much money was left in my checking account. The move had taken what little money I’d managed to save and my first paycheck was still another week or two away.
“I have a glove,” George insisted.
Right now, he had an old mitt of my dad’s that was way too big for him. “It’s an adult glove, George. You can barely keep it on your hand.”
Jake was no more deterred than George. “Rec department has extra mitts they’ll loan out.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Jake to stop being so freaking helpful, but it was too late. The damage was done.
George was dancing around us. “I’m going to play baseball.”
Jake laughed at his enthusiasm. “You ever play catch?”
George settled down. “Mommy throws the ball to me.”
“She any good?”
I narrowed my eyes at Jake, who was clearly having fun at my expense.
“She throws like a girl,” George muttered. “The ball doesn’t go very far.”
I wanted to argue about that, but I couldn’t. Glancing down, I could still make out the faint remnants of the bruise on the top of my foot, left there by one of my less-than-stellar throws.
“How about I teach you?” Jake offered and I instantly saw his game.
No. Fuuuuuck no.
“You will?” George started bouncing again. “Can he, Mommy? Please. Pretty please?”
“I could stop by Saturday afternoon.” Jake’s smug smile let me know he believed he’d won this round.
I nodded, simply because I didn’t trust myself not to let the few choice words I was thinking fly.
“Great.” Jake slipped his phone out of his pocket, tapped in a few things, then held it out to me. “Why don’t you put in your number and I’ll text later to set up a time and get your address?”
I begrudgingly took the phone because George was still there, watching us. Jake had put Miss Connor in as the contact information.
I was “this close” to giving the asshole the wrong number, but one look at George’s excited face had me typing in the real thing.
Jake’s fingers brushed mine when I handed the phone back and every single thing inside me clenched…with excitement and need.
“We, um.” My throat was suddenly tight. I cleared it. “We should get back on the bus.”
Jake reached out for a handshake. I accepted it because it was the polite thing to do, but his hand was too large and warm with callouses that proved he wasn’t afraid of hard work. And because I was pretty much out of control of my libido, I imagined what those rough fingers would feel like inside me.
I shivered. Jake noticed, and his eyes went dark with the same hunger I felt.
“I’ll see you on Saturday.”
I nodded, then tried to pull my hand back. Jake didn’t let go. Instead, he gave it one last squeeze.
I tugged harder and he relented.
As soon as I was free, I felt the overwhelming desire to give him my hand back.
Two
Jake
I grinned as I pulled up to Hope’s house. George was sitting—actually squirming was a better word—on the front porch, waiting for me. The second I put the truck in park, he picked up a brand-new mitt and darted across the yard toward me.
“Hey, buddy.” I reached into the truck and pulled out my own well-worn mitt and a new baseball. Then I looked over his shoulder. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s inside, trying to put her bed together.”
“Her bed’s not set up yet?”
George shook his head. “Nah. She just sleeps on a mattress on the floor.” He struggled to put his mitt on.
I took it from him. “Here,” I bent the stiff leather a few times, trying to soften it. “I see your mom got you a new glove.” I slipped it on his hand. “Now then. How’s that feel?”
“Good.” He gave me a gap-toothed smile.
“Hey now. What’s going on here? You’re missing a tooth.”
George put his finger in the empty space. “Tooth Fairy gave me a dollar for it.”
“Not too shabby. Wonder what she’d give me for mine.”
George giggled. “You’re too old to lose your teeth.”
I gave him a wink, then tossed the ball to him, impressed when he caught it with ease.
He threw it back at me and I whistled. “You got a great arm there, George. You’d make a heck of a shortstop.”
“George!”
We both turned at the sound of Hope’s voice as she stepped onto the porch, looking for him. Her pretty brown eyes widened when she saw me.
“Oh, Jake. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Just pulled up. George had his mitt and was ready to roll.”
She smiled as she looked at her son. “He’s been waiting on the porch. For two hours. I told him you wouldn’t be here until three.”
“Wish I’d known. I could have come over earlier. He said you were having a hard time putting your bed together,” I said, watching her squirm. “I could have helped you with that, Miss Connor.”
My comment got the desired result. She narrowed her eyes even as she blushed. I’m not sure what it was about Hope Connor that had my dick going rock hard every time those cheeks of hers flushed red, but damn if it wasn’t happening again. I tried to covertly adjust my jeans.
She followed the movement of my hand. Nothing got by the cute kindergarten teacher. Hope was a million miles away from my usual type of woman, something I’d told myself at least twenty times in the past few days.
Ordinarily I avoided women like her like the damn plague. Hope had her heart set on some uptight, serious dude in a suit with a nine-to-five job, who’d come home and play house with her and George. They’d set a Saturday morning date—locking the bedroom door—for missionary, then go on with their ho-hum lives.
On top of that, Hope was too sweet for a guy like me. While she was looking for love and commitment and forever, I was happy with my own status quo—footloose and fancy-free. So we were a mismatch from the word go.
And while I’d repeated those same words over and over since the field trip, they weren’t sinking in. Hence my presence here.
Because all the logic in the world didn’t change one simple fact.
I wanted to fuck her.
Her and her loose-fitting, completely virginal wardrobe.
I looked her over. Man, I thought the field trip outfit was bad with that voluminous skirt that hung all the way to the ground and high-necked T-shirt that hid her tits.
Today’s attire was worse. She was in a man’s T-shirt, the godawful thing three times too big, and baggy jeans. Her auburn hair was up in the same style she’d worn the other day—a tight single braid that hung down her back. My fingers itched to pull it loose, wrap her long hair around my fist a few times and give it a good tug. Preferably while she was on her hands and knees in front of me, my dick sliding in from behind.
She g
lanced at my truck, then sighed. “Do you have any tools with you? I bought a screwdriver and hammer at the hardware store, but I think I need something else. Maybe a wrench or pliers.”
I laughed at her unwillingness to admit defeat and let me into her bedroom. “Regular do-it-yourself gal, huh? Which is it? A wrench or pliers?”
She bit her lower lip, drawing my attention to her pretty mouth. I wouldn’t mind pushing my tongue between those plump pink lips. I bet she tasted like sugar, rather than vodka, like most of the women I kissed.
I probably needed to stop picking women up at bars.
Shit.
I suddenly felt the need to kick my own ass again. I should be anywhere but here, flirting with the blushing schoolteacher. She seemed like the type who’d fall in love fast and get clingy.
I did not go for that.
Finally, she sighed and threw in the towel. “I have no idea what I’m doing with that bed frame.”
I ran my hand over my jaw, trying to hide my grin. “Give me and George a little while to play catch and then I’ll come in and help you with it.”
She didn’t want me in her bedroom—that much was evident from her grimace—but it appeared she was even more tired of sleeping on the floor. “Okay. Why don’t I make you guys some lemonade?”
“That would be real nice.”
I watched as she walked back to the house, trying to get some glimpse of her figure or even just her ass. Her damn clothes were an effective shield, no doubt something she’d picked out just for me.
I played catch with George for the better part of an hour, stopping for a few minutes to drink the lemonade Hope had brought out for us. The kid was tireless when it came to playing ball, but he was cool and easy to hang out with, not whiny or demanding. I figured he’d been raised right.
Speaking of…
“Hey, George. You want to help me put your mom’s bed together for her?”
I thought he might complain about stopping, but George was obviously up for anything. “Sure.”
I tossed my mitt in the truck and reached into the back seat for the toolbox I always kept there. In addition to my position as the only full-time, salaried firefighter in Bootlick, I was also sort of known as Mr. Fix-it among the single ladies in town. Difference was most of those women came up with excuses to get me into their bedroom with my tool…er, tools, while Hope clearly wanted me a hundred miles from hers.
“Can I carry that?” George asked.
“It’s kind of heavy,” I warned as I handed him the toolbox. I didn’t let go immediately, making sure he wouldn’t drop it.
“I can do it.” He struggled a bit, but George was determined not to let anything stop him from being my assistant.
I followed George into the house, enjoying his five-year-old version of a house tour. “That’s going to be the dining room. Nothing in there yet,” he said as he nodded his head to an empty room. “Back there is the family room. We got a couch and TV, but Mommy said we can’t get stations until she gets paid.”
I assumed stations meant cable.
Hope had all the windows open and there was a nice breeze blowing, so the house was cool, the air fresh.
I didn’t mention to George I’d been in this house countless times before. My great aunt had lived here up until she died. My uncle inherited it and he’d been renting it out ever since. The last tenant had been a young widow and the two of us had enjoyed more than a few wild nights together in this house before she decided to move to Kansas City to be closer to her sister.
“Dammit.”
George and I took off in the direction of Hope’s voice. George rolled his eyes at me. “Mommy isn’t supposed to cuss.”
His tone told me there was a big difference between Hope doing what she was supposed to and what she actually did. I’d gotten a kick out of some of her near-misses during the field trip.
When we got to the kitchen, Hope was standing on a wobbly stool, trying to change the battery in the smoke detector. It looked like the old one was corroded to hell.
“Pretty sure you’re going to need a whole new detector,” I said.
She jerked in surprise. George and I should have announced our arrival. She threw her hands out, flailing to try to keep from falling off the stool.
My mother hadn’t raised a fool, so I stepped behind her and placed my hands on her hips to steady her. My thumbs landed on the fleshy part of her ass and I gave it a little stroke.
She let me steal my touch without giving me shit—probably because George was standing there—but once she was steady, she twisted around so I had no choice but to drop my hands.
I lifted one hand up to help her. “You better get down from there, Miss Connor, or you’ll break your neck. Or bruise that sweet little—”
“I’m fine now, Jake.” Even as she said it, she took my hand and let me help her down. “You don’t need to worry about my neck. Or sweet little anything. And it’s Hope.”
“I’m just glad to discover you’ve got something interesting under that T-shirt. Is there any reason you’re shopping in the Big and Tall section?”
She tugged the hand I’d refused to let go of out of my grip and narrowed her eyes.
I’m not sure why I found her annoyance at me so arousing, but the truth was whenever Hope Connor gave me that self-righteous look or impatient sniff, my dick got hard enough to pound nails into the pavement.
That turn-on partnered with the blushing one ensured my hard-on wasn’t going anywhere.
She looked up at the smoke detector. “I’ll grab a new one from the store tomorrow.”
“Let me know when you get it. I’ll come over and install it for you.”
“That’s—”
“Nonnegotiable,” I finished for her. I was getting pretty good at anticipating her rejections. “Let me tell you how this is going to play out. You’re going to keep saying no and I’m going to keep showing up here to help anyway. So save your breath.”
Hope put her hands on her hips, and I tried not to wince when my cock thickened even more. I was going to have to invest in bigger jeans with Hope in town. Otherwise, hanging out with her was bound to get painful.
“Listen, Jake,” she started.
“Where’s your bedroom, Miss Connor?” I murmured suggestively, even though I was perfectly aware of where the bedrooms were in this house. I chose to keep that tidbit to myself since she was clearly sensitive about my reputation.
She glanced George’s direction. “I don’t think—”
“We’re putting your bed together.” I pointed to the toolbox George was carrying for me. “Remember?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
There it was again. That blush.
My cock was going to have a permanent zipper line imprinted on it at this rate. I was glad my T-shirt was untucked and shielding her effect on me. I didn’t mind her seeing it, but George was another story.
“Lead the way, George,” I said, grinning as the little boy took off in the direction of her bedroom. As we walked, I glanced around and noticed Hope hadn’t lied about needing to unpack. There was precious little done in the house.
She noticed me looking around. “It’s my first year of teaching. Planning lessons takes a lot more time than I realized. By the time I’m ready for the next day, it’s usually late and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.”
“It’s okay. I wasn’t kidding about helping out.”
She smiled at me, but I wasn’t blind to the suspicion in her eyes. She thought I was going to expect to be paid—and not monetarily—for my work.
She hadn’t been here more than a month and the local gossips had clearly managed to fill her in on my sexual exploits. Not that I was surprised.
Hell, not that too many of those stories would have been lies.
I’d lived in Bootlick my whole life, and living in a cracker box with the same people meant nobody had a secret. And when the secret was a big one, a twelve-inch whopper, word got around, women got curious, and s
hit got out of hand.
I used to get a kick out of my big hose. It made me a legend in Bootlick. But lately, it had stopped feeling cool. As my reputation grew, so did the invitations. I liked women and I liked to fuck, but recently I’d started feeling more like some freak show attraction than a flesh and blood man.
The women who’d been inviting me to their beds the past few months wanted bragging rights, a chance to say they took a ride on the bad boy fireman’s pole. I was tired of that game.
As for the nice girls like Hope…well, I just made sure they stayed away.
So, for the first time in my life, I’d become celibate. I hadn’t slept with a woman in nearly six months—a record for me since I’d lost my virginity sophomore year with Donna Paxton, a senior and captain of the cheer squad, in the back seat of her dad’s Buick. She’d been so impressed with my equipment, she had instigated the locker room talk. I’d been volunteering at the fire station since I was a freshman, so between that and Donna, my reputation as Big Hose had been born.
While this current hiatus hadn’t been intentional at first, there wasn’t a single woman in town who’d tempted me enough to break the streak.
Until Miss Connor.
I followed George into her bedroom, Hope right behind me. The first thing I noticed was she wasn’t kidding about the bed frame defeating her. Pieces of it were strewn all around the room, nuts and bolts scattered as well.
That was the first thing I saw.
The second—and more interesting—was the nice-sized cucumber lying on the floor next to her mattress.
“Late night snack?” I joked.
If I thought I’d seen her blush before, those pink cheeks had just been a tease to what she could really do when embarrassed. She bent over, picked up the cucumber and tossed it into the small trash can by the bedroom door.
“Seems like a waste of good food,” I murmured.
Before she could reply, a siren sounded in the distance.
Hope heard it as well. “Shouldn’t you go?”
“What?” I asked, confused by her question, wondering if I’d really pissed her off about the cucumber.
