Dream Maker

by Kristen Ashley

  And my pride (yeah, I’ll admit it) would not allow me to ask for help.

  And my courage (yeah, I’ll admit that too) wasn’t up to the task of telling her, and Brian, to sort their shit out.

  So now I was paying a mortgage on a house that was sitting there, rotting.

  And I was still in a rental, helping my brother pay his mortgage, and his ex-partner pay his old mortgage.

  It was my own damned fault.

  All of it.

  But when I walked down the hall to the kitchen and saw Portia helping Jethro make PB&Js for their lunch, all those curls, dark (like Angelica) and light (like Brian), it was hard to debate I’d made the wrong choice.

  I looked and saw thin, little baggies filled to the brim with potato chips as accompaniment for the PB&Js and I fought back a wince because first, I agreed with my friend Evie that baggies should be outlawed, due to choking dolphins, or destroying the ozone layer, or some shit that I didn’t really care what it was, none of it was good. And I kinda wanted my niece and nephew to inherit a decent world (not to mention, the kids I’d eventually have, maybe, one day, if I ever encountered a decent man). And second, the only thing that held merit in that lunch was kinda the peanut butter.

  “How about we get you two some carrot sticks to go with that?” I suggested.

  “Euw!” Jethro protested.

  “Really?” Portia asked sarcastically over him. “We don’t have carrot sticks. We don’t have anything. This is the last of the bread and chips.”

  “Mom’ll get us chips today, she sees we’re out,” Jethro declared.

  No judge (okay, warning, there was about to be a judge), but I knew that was the truth.

  Angelica put on twenty pounds with Portia, and I thought she looked cute, all new-mom curves.

  Jethro was a surprise and came close on Portia’s heels, definitely before Angelica had the time to lose her baby weight should she have wanted to do that. But with Jethro, she put on twenty more.

  Now I’d guess she’d added another fifty.

  It wasn’t my bag, telling people what to do with their lives, what to put in their mouths, how to handle their bodies.

  Be curvy and sassy, if that floated your boat.

  Teaching your children that hanging in front of the TV was a major way to pass your time and having chips in the house was more important than getting them properly fueled and off to school, uh…

  No.

  Thus, there I was.

  Three hours of sleep, mentioning carrot sticks and being sure to get the kids off to school, because someone had to make them understand there were people in their lives who gave a shit.

  We stowed the lunches in their bags, hustled out into my car and took off.

  I watched too many true crime programs to sit in my vehicle, let them out and watch them walk up to their school.

  No way.

  Predators were crafty.

  I was one of those get-your-ass-out, walk-the-kid-in, make-eye-contact-with-an-adult, then-force-kisses-on-them before you let them go kind of school dropper.

  And the teacher I made eye contact with smiled at me, probably because she’d seen me, or my mom, or Angelica’s mom, more than she ever saw Angelica.

  I didn’t hang around, though.

  I was dancing that night again, so I needed to get home and hit the sack, because stripping was a way to earn major cash. But strippers with shadows under their eyes who were too fatigued to pull off any good moves were just sad.

  In other words, I needed to get home.

  I had my phone out to text Angelica that the kids were safe at school, something I’d do sitting in my car because people who walked and texted drove me batty, when I noticed a mom who was also a walk-her-kid-in kind of mom nearly run into a column.

  She was not texting.

  She had her head turned.

  I looked where she was looking.

  And saw Boone Sadler. He was my friend Lottie’s boy, her man Mo’s bud, and an uncomfortable acquaintance of mine.

  He was leaning against the passenger side of his gleaming black Charger, arms crossed on his broad chest, long, sturdy legs crossed at the ankles.

  What the hell?

  He had shades on, aviators, the sun was glinting in his dark blond hair, his skin was tanned, his biceps were bulging, and where I was at in my head and in my exhaustion, the weakness nearly couldn’t be beat.

  I wanted to sink to my knees and beg him to make me his any way he wanted to do that.

  Here’s the deal:

  My dad was deadbeat too.

  And I was Portia, plus twenty-two years.

  The big sister who (a change to Portia’s plight) saw my mom busting her ass to take care of her kids. So I got to a point where I helped with dinner, and the dishes. Then I made dinner and did the dishes. I also did my own laundry starting at age eight, and my brother’s.

  Dusting.

  Vacuuming.

  Tidying.

  Making grocery lists.

  And when I could drive, going out and getting groceries.

  Mom hated it that I did it, but she needed the help.

  I didn’t bitch, because I loved her, and I knew she needed it.

  But I’d been on the ball, or learning how to be on it, since I was six.

  Now, I did not research this stuff, maybe because I didn’t want to know, maybe because it didn’t really matter.

  But if you asked me, if I wasn’t just plain ole born this way, I’d reckon that I needed a man to take care of business in that way because I was so…fucking…done with having a handle on every aspect of my life, my brother’s, and now Angelica’s and the kids’, I needed to give over.

  Boiling this down, I was a sub, as in submissive, this being of the BDSM variety.

  And Boone Sadler was a Dom, as in a Dominant, of that same variety.

  He was also the guy my friend Lottie tried to fix me up with months ago.

  Lottie had her shit together. Lottie had lived life and she knew how to read people.

  Case in point, when she met her fiancé Mo, they knew each other maybe a few hours before she knew he was the one.

  Second case in point, she set up Evie with Mo’s bud Mag. They were living together within days of meeting (okay, so circumstances were such she had to move in with him, since her apartment had been torn apart, and that wasn’t the beginning of the story, or the end). But they were now officially moved in together, Evie had been able to quit dancing at Smithie’s, she’d gone full-time at her preferred job as a computer tech and was finally going back to college with an aim to finish it and earn her engineering degree.

  Why I couldn’t go there with Boone, I didn’t know.

  He was hot, like, mom-walking-into-column-at-the-sight-of-him hot.

  He’d shared he was interested, this by asking me out to dinner three times, and also getting up in my shit after a lap dance I gave that he witnessed because he was a guy, a guy who’d asked me out, a guy who was into me, a guy who’s job (not a joke) was being a commando.

  And last, he was a guy who was a Dom.

  As for me, I was into him. I was into him in a way I’d had so many fantasies about him—ranging from the many ways he could order me to take my knees and suck his cock to snuggling in front of the TV with him after a long day—that I’d lost count of the dizzying varieties these fantasies took on.

  But I just couldn’t go there.

  Maybe it was that my dad was a deadbeat, but he was also other things, like mentally abusive, serially breaking women’s hearts, when the spirit moved him (which was rare) demanding his fatherly rights (even though he was a deadbeat, which circled back to mentally abusive, and breaking women’s hearts) and generally just an asshole.

  And my brother was an alcoholic deadbeat who was either clueless, in denial, or both.

  And I’d had two semi-long-term boyfriends, both who, after I shared, didn’t “get” my “kink” and thought I was a loser who wanted to be abused, instead of
a submissive, who needed to give over and allow someone to take care of me (or put in the work to try, and get their reward, I was kind of a brat).

  Last, I’d had a really shitty Dom who took things too far and once completely ignored me saying my safe word (that had not been fun, in fact, it’d been terrifying when he shoved that scarf into my mouth after tying me up, so I was completely helpless, and not in a good way—exit said Bad Dom from my life).

  So yeah.

  Me: gun shy.

  And Boone had given up, full stop. I knew this because he’d been seeing some other woman now for weeks.

  I didn’t blame him.

  Though part of me did.

  Because honestly, he didn’t try that hard.

  And sorry, not sorry, this girl wanted to be won.

  Like I said, put in the effort…

  Get your reward.

  It sucked and for some reason it hurt (a lot, too much, especially when logically, I knew I had no claim on the guy).

  But he’d moved on.

  So why was he there?

  I knew one thing with the way he was right then uncrossing his arms, his shades locked on me, his hand going up, and his finger crooking at me.

  No, two things.

  One, I was in imminent danger of a highly inappropriate orgasm while standing on the walk to an elementary school.

  And two, he was not there playing bodyguard to some rich kid or because his new woman had kids he’d offered to drop off.

  He was there for me.

  Interesting.

  I moved his way and felt a number of greedy eyes following me as I did.

  When I got close, he pushed away from his badass car, straightened to his substantial height and tipped his chin down to look at me.

  “Hey, what are you—?” I began.

  “Your place,” he growled. “Now.”

  And then I found myself standing there, blinking at him as he stalked around the hood of his car to the driver’s side.

  He’d opened the door, but didn’t angle in, because I was still standing there.

  “Now,” he ordered.

  Only then did he angle in.

  All right, I was going home anyway.

  But…

  Again…

  What the hell?

  And, more.

  Did he know where I lived?

  Apparently, he did, because he made his point I needed to get my ass to my place by making his engine roar (and again, imminent orgasm, mine and probably a dozen other moms).

  I hoofed it to my car, and once inside, glanced quickly at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

  I’d pulled a brush through my hair because it wouldn’t do to have semi-slept-on, teased out stripper hair when taking the kids to school.

  But it was still a mass that was mostly a mess of honey-blonde flips and curls.

  No makeup, and serious, I was such a makeup freak, even if I was living my dream of knocking down walls to create great rooms and grouting tile, I’d have makeup on.

  I always had makeup on.

  Gray oversized tee. Black skinny jeans with rips in the knees. Powder Valentino rockstud slides.

  In that moment, I wasn’t my normal edgy Ryn Jansen who (if I did say so myself, which I did) made Kendall Jenner look like a novice at putting together streetwear.

  So I felt vulnerable.

  But he’d already seen me.

  And he was on some mission.

  So I might feel vulnerable, but I also had no choice.

  I hit my pad, which was the bottom quarter of a big house that had been broken up into four apartments in what loosely could still be considered Capitol Hill, on Pearl, a couple blocks south from Colfax.

  There were parking spots out back, though I never bothered, because they were always taken by other tenants.

  And even if street parking was always at a premium, Boone not only knew where my house was, he’d found a spot before I did, and I knew this because he was waiting at my front door.

  “You wanna tell me what this is about?” I asked after I walked up to him.

  “Inside,” he grunted.

  Oh shit.

  With my morning and all that was Boone suddenly and unexpectedly invading it, I didn’t even think.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Inside,” he repeated.

  “Evie all right?”

  “Inside.”

  “Lottie?”

  “Ryn, get your ass inside.”

  Here’s the second part of the deal:

  If you weren’t working me up to an orgasm.

  And you were a boss.

  And you bossed me.

  My first reaction would be to fight the urge to knock your teeth down your throat.

  Even wired, tired, worried about what this was with Boone, and in a negative headspace, I successfully fought the urge to knock Boone’s teeth down his throat (not that I’d achieve that, again, the dude was a commando, he’d probably ninja-move me, and it would end in humiliation).

  I let us in.

  So, my pad had character.

  And not all of it was the good kind.

  In fact, most of it wasn’t.

  The kitchen needed updating about two decades ago. It was small, cramped, had little counter space, a thin-piled carpet that had so many spills and smells and so much steam and grease soaked in, it was like a thin living stew (so I ignored it), but the rest…well, I was used to it.

  We entered in the little vestibule/mudroom and I led him to the living room.

  But down from the foyer was a narrow hall, where off to the left, first, was a tiny bedroom, down the way was a small bath, and at the back, was my bedroom, which was only slightly bigger than the tiny one.

  Off my living room was a dining room (without a dining room table, or anything, it was a largish space in my smallish pad that I’d only found a rug for and then stopped trying because I was going to flip houses, but ended up taking care of someone else’s kids) which fed into my aforementioned scary kitchen.

  Both living room and dining room had fireplaces.

  They were rad.

  Straight up, if I had the cash, and the time, I’d buy this house from my landlord and restore it to its former glory. The mantles, the tile, the wood floors, the high ceilings, the cornices, the ceiling roses.

  Sublime.

  As mentioned, I did not have the time or money.

  Boone walked directly to the built-in hutch at the end of my dining room and stopped.

  Beginning to seriously lose patience with this, whatever it was, I followed.

  And stopped.

  “Boone, what the hell?”

  With my head where it was at, I didn’t notice he had a folder with him.

  He opened it and tossed an 8x10 full-color glossy on the counter of the hutch.

  I looked down at it.

  It was a picture of Angelica, looking pretty damned good, messy topknot in her hair, cute formfitting tank dress…

  Valentino rockstud jelly thongs on her feet.

  I stared.

  Boone tapped the picture and I forced my attention from the $350 flip-flops she was wearing to the sign above the place she was walking out of.

  It was a fucking day spa.

  My head jerked when he tossed another photo down.

  Angelica enjoying lunch al fresco with a friend. Another cute outfit. A sparkling glass of rosé wine in front of her.

  My breathing went funny.

  Another picture landed.

  Angelica browsing in what appeared to be a Bath and Body Works, a Kate Spade shopping bag dangling from the crook in her arm.

  “Worth those lap dances, baby?” Boone’s deep, drawling, caustic voice broke into my brain, a brain that was paralyzed with shock and rage.

  Oh no he did not.

  My narrowed gaze went to him.

  “Totally playin’ you,” he stated. “I bet you dropped money on her today, seein’ as she’s got a facial booked.
”

  Oh my fucking God.

  This couldn’t be.

  This…

  This…

  It just couldn’t be.

  “You’re stalking my niece and nephew’s mother?” I asked.

  His chin shifted to the side.

  “Ryn—”

  “To what?” I swept an arm out over the pictures on the hutch. “Make some point?”

  “Well, yeah,” he replied. “And the point I’m makin’ is, you’re shoving your tits into horny assholes’ faces so this bitch can have bi-monthly massages.”

  Bi-monthly?

  I hadn’t had a massage in…

  I didn’t remember the last time I had a massage.

  And Angelica had two a month?

  Off my back?

  No, wait.

  Her kids didn’t have fucking carrots and were eating Cap’n Crunch and she was getting massages?

  “She gets child benefit,” Boone carried on. “She’s conned her mom outta at least a couple hundred this month. Your mom outta a couple hundred more. And I don’t know what she’s telling you, but your brother ponied up, and he pretty much always ponies up, and if he doesn’t, it’s because he’s a little short. Then you take up the slack. Even so, she went and reamed his ass, and after he handed over a check for fifteen hundred a week ago, he handed over another one for five hundred a coupla days ago, both of which, when she got them, she went directly to cash, for cash, and they cleared.”

  This was…

  It was…

  “So she’s shaking you down,” Boone continued, “and your brother’s shaking you down so he can cover his own ass, and hers, even though he’s gainfully employed, makes good cake, though I’ve no fuckin’ clue how he manages to stay employed since what doesn’t go to her that he earns or asks for from you goes right to Argonaut Liquor. And you’re racing to her house to get the kids to school so she can sleep in. Because I can guaran-damn-tee you that woman does not have a headache.”

  Oh no.

  He did not.

  “How do you know she called about a migraine?” I asked quietly.

  “Ryn,” he bit down on my name impatiently. “I’m lookin’ out for you.”

  “You’ve hacked my phone. You’re stalking me too.”

  He drew in so much breath, his chest expanded with it.

  It was a sight to see since his chest normally was pretty formidable.

  But I could bite too.