Dream Chaser - SETTING

by Ashley, Kristen

  “I thought you got that with the collar,” he muttered.

  I shot up to a hand in the bed, and he rolled to his back automatically when I did.

  With my target exposed, I slapped his chest and snapped, “I thought it was big, but I didn’t know it meant I was the one.”

  He sat up with me and caught me at the back of the neck.

  He also looked like he might be fighting laughing.

  “I see you’re down with that,” he said.

  “Uh…yeah, Boone. I just asked you to be my official boyfriend.”

  “And I already thought I was.”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled.

  “Baby, this is good.”

  It wasn’t good.

  It was soooooo good.

  I didn’t say that because he already knew that.

  Boone got serious again.

  “Just…you’re aware now, yeah?” he asked. “If it gets too much, we’ll talk. Figure it out.”

  “Boone, if life doesn’t get in the way, I probably masturbate once a day. If I’m in a zone and I’ve got a good book or comic that’s turning me on or my imagination runs wild, I could have a session all by myself, maybe come two, three, more times over a few hours. I think I can keep up.”

  He was staring at me.

  “So you can just chill,” I told him. “But for your peace of mind, if, in the unlikely event I can’t hack it, we’ll sit down and chat.”

  I got that out before I had a big, blond, beautiful naked man flat out on top of me.

  “You masturbate for hours?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes to scan the top of his bed, saying in exasperation, “God, dudes. They think they’ve cornered the market on sex drive.”

  “Kathryn, eyes to me,” Boone ordered.

  The name he used, as well as the tone, my eyes went to him.

  “You’re not allowed to do that anymore,” he said.

  “Wh-what?” I asked.

  “Touch yourself. Unless I tell you to or let you.”

  Oh man.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked.

  Oh, I heard him.

  My pussy heard him too because it contracted.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed verbally.

  “Did you get me?” he pushed.

  I nodded.

  His stern Dom face relaxed and he whispered, “Okay, baby.”

  I was kind of hoping after that, he’d take us there.

  And he did, in a way.

  He restructured our Sunday.

  “Sex shop. Tomorrow. Make sure we got the tools you like here so you can perform for me.”

  All righty then.

  Yippee!

  He liked the look on my face and told me that by kissing me.

  We made out, touching and groping, but I could tell Boone wasn’t going to take us there, it was just about closeness.

  Then he turned out the lights, grabbed the remote and turned on the fan, and we snuggled.

  He was curled into my back, his body full-on relaxed into mine, so I knew he was close to sleep.

  I was close to sleep too.

  But just to round out our discussion, I mumbled, “You’re the one too, you know.”

  He gave me a squeeze.

  Then he said, “Thank fuck.”

  And I fell asleep smiling.

  * * *

  “Babe.”

  I shifted.

  “Rynnie.”

  I stretched.

  I felt a hand grip my hip. “Wake up, sweetheart, and roll. Time for breakfast.”

  I blinked, turned to my back, and looked up at Boone who was standing there, balancing one of those breakfast-in-bed trays with the legs on it in one of his hands.

  Okay, this was totally next level.

  “You have breakfast-in-bed trays?” I asked groggily.

  “No, my neighbors do, and I borrowed one. Push up so I can set this down.”

  I pushed up but did it asking, “How do you know your neighbors have breakfast-in-bed trays?”

  “Because sometimes I train with Remy, and I went over to get him so we could take off, and Paul was still in bed with a breakfast tray.”

  “Ah,” I murmured as he put the tray over my lap.

  I stared at what was on it.

  Then I looked back up to him. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Awhile,” he pointed out the obvious, doing this climbing over my legs and settling in, propped up on his headboard at my side.

  “You made eggs benedict for me while I was sleeping in the same room and went to your neighbors’ pad to get a breakfast-in-bed tray, all without waking me up?”

  He took up what I was now seeing was one of two forks on the tray and answered, “No, I made eggs benedict for us.”

  He then speared a strawberry that was part of a side dish of fruit salad that included strawberries, blackberries and kiwi. There were also pan-roasted potatoes, two mugs of coffee, and two little glasses of OJ.

  “My God,” I whispered. “Maybe you are superhuman.”

  Boone burst out laughing.

  He then leaned in front of me, twisted, and kissed me hard.

  He tasted of strawberries.

  Um.

  Yum.

  “Welcome to Sunday brunch at the Sadler loft,” he said when he moved away.

  “We’re doing this every Sunday,” I declared.

  “I’m in,” he agreed as he righted himself and reached for a knife.

  I looked down at the tray. There were two plates and a bowl. One plate with four eggs benedict, one with the potatoes and the bowl with the salad.

  We were sharing.

  He cut into an egg.

  I had never had breakfast in bed, so suffice it to say, I’d never had breakfast served to me in bed.

  I slowly turned my head Boone’s way.

  “Baby,” I called softly.

  He shoved egg, Canadian bacon, muffin and sauce in his mouth and shifted his eyes to me.

  They came to me in query.

  The second they hit my face, they changed.

  “I never wanted much with a guy. Just that he’d get who I was and like it. How has my life, that has been mostly coasting on the love of my mom, a few good times, and the ability to keep on trucking, led me to you?”

  “I think Lottie had something to do with it,” he said.

  “I’ve just decided she’s getting one a hell of a bachelorette party and that’s all going to be me.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. Then he said, “Tuck in, Rynnie. It sucks if it gets cold.”

  I usually needed to brush my teeth first thing in the morning.

  I did not move from my spot.

  I grabbed my utensils and tucked in.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Let’s Dance

  Ryn

  I was leaning into Boone’s kitchen countertop, clicking through stuff on my laptop, and doing this with frustration.

  Boone was making us breakfast.

  It had been almost a week since breakfast in bed.

  Now it was Friday morning, and I was glad for it because Boone had the weekend off.

  Outside of us managing to go a whole week without fighting, and me and Chaos being out of my house since the plumber was doing his thing (for the now, there would be more later when I actually had sinks and tubs and shit), nothing much had happened.

  Except Brett had disappeared.

  He wasn’t even taking my calls.

  This part worried me/part relieved me.

  Seemed a good idea to me that he took a long vacation, let things perhaps get resolved without him around mucking up the works and maybe inadvertently putting another unsuspecting female in the path of danger.

  But Brett had hung around for a while, seemingly intent to clear his name, so even though I didn’t know him hardly at all, this seemed out of character.

  So, okay, him disappearing mostly worried me and only a little bit made me feel relief.

  With Brett not taki
ng my calls, however, there was nothing I could do about it and thus life was moving on.

  That day, Boone had a day of doing possibly nefarious things for Hawk’s clients.

  I had a day where Hattie—seeing as she was a classically trained dancer, and the rest of us weren’t—was going to work with me, Pepper and Lottie on our new routines.

  If I ever got back to work, that was.

  And speaking of that…

  “I need to get back onstage. Smithie’s pay packet wasn’t light, but I could use about a dozen lap dances. Or maybe a hundred of them,” I muttered, scanning pricing on the kitchen cabinets I wanted for the house, and scratching numbers down on my list. Numbers that seemed impossible to achieve.

  “Think about me buying in,” Boone said.

  I didn’t get up from my slouch onto my forearms on his counter when I turned my head his way.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I got some money put away. Was already looking to use it to invest in something. We’ll figure it out, what you invested, what I invest, and we’ll decide where we’re at when we unload the house. If I go all in with you on the next house you flip, or if I just take my percentage.”

  Was he for real?

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Unless it pisses you off like Smithie giving you money you think you didn’t earn, but the man is probably the only strip club owner on the planet who gives PTO, and you haven’t run out of PTO yet, so you did. And yes, even if it does piss you off, but then we’ll talk about it.”

  “Boone, that would be…it would be…”

  I couldn’t even finish.

  It would be so amazing if he did that.

  Because I’d have the money to push forward instead of stagnate, or worse, cash in those savings bonds mom gave me for a rainy day, or even worse, take another loan out on the house.

  But more, it would mean he believed in my dream.

  In me.

  “It would be a good investment,” Boone finished for me, turning the omelet he was making (today, cheese and mushroom omelet, turkey sausage patties, accompanied by a smoothie). “I’ve seen what you want to do with it, and in that neighborhood, it’s gonna sell fast and you’re gonna make a whack.”

  It would be a good investment.

  I’ve seen what you want to do with it…and you’re gonna make a whack.

  “Boone,” I called.

  He was sliding the omelet on a plate with the sausages.

  Now, this might be gross and far too gushy for some, but at breakfast, we ate off the same plate.

  We were both eating the same thing, and we did it close, so why dirty another plate?

  That said, the smoothie he poured into two glasses, because even if he’d had his tongue down my throat and up my pussy, and vice versa (switching out my pussy for his cock, obviously) no one wanted to court someone else’s backwash.

  He looked to me.

  “You want a blowjob while you eat breakfast?” I asked.

  He smiled huge.

  Then he brought the food over to me, saying, “No, but you could find some creative way to show your gratitude tonight.”

  That was oh…so…totally…happening.

  It was me who smiled huge then.

  He bent in and kissed me before he set the plate down by me and went to get the smoothies.

  I pulled out utensils thinking every love language was Boone’s love language.

  He was touchy and affectionate. He gave compliments easily. He cooked, but also (yes, it was a Boone thing, not a Dom thing) he loaded my toothbrush for me if we hit the bathroom together in the morning. We talked and we did it often, and when we did, he listened. And he’d shown at my pad on Wednesday night to pick me up and he’d had a bouquet of flowers he said he was “out and I saw them, and they reminded me of you.”

  It was a big bunch of pale peach, true peach and orange roses.

  They were gorgeous.

  All this was awesome.

  But making it better, it made it easy for me to do all of that too (though I’d never given him anything, which was cause for concern, because he seemed like a man who had it all and what did I do when it was his birthday?).

  It made it easy to do it and it made an us that wasn’t lopsided.

  Like I liked to cuddle, and he didn’t (I did and so did he).

  He was hot and he probably knew it, but it never hurt reminding him (and he was always telling me how gorgeous he thought I was).

  He was fucked up, and had his ways of coping, I was fucked up too, and had mine, but now that we’d gotten over that hump, neither of us had a problem with talking shit out (though, it must be said, I had not broached the Jeb subject yet).

  We weren’t dark and light, fitting perfectly.

  We both had our dark.

  We both had our light.

  We just fit.

  Perfectly.

  “You’re in a daze again,” Boone noted.

  I focused on him to see he was eating and watching me.

  Then I looked at the roses that were still beautiful and on the end of his counter.

  Back to him, I said, “Did I tell you how much I liked those roses, honey?”

  “Yeah,” he replied softly.

  “Just making sure,” I muttered, then forked into the omelet.

  He slid some of my hair behind my ear.

  And that was that.

  Us.

  Perfect.

  * * *

  It was Axl on my security detail that day, the first time he’d been on it since Boone lost his mind about his buds being mean to me.

  Mag had apologized, though I didn’t think that was necessary.

  Mo hadn’t needed to apologize because he’d always been cool.

  And Auggie had given me a big hug that I took as an apology.

  But clearly, with the eye contact that was happening between them when Axl showed before Boone took off, Axl had been cut off from me as penance for being a dick.

  I had a feeling with the way they were with each other, the other guys were on other jobs that day and Axl was the only one who was free (ish, I suspected I wasn’t easy on their schedule).

  But before Axl showed, I also suspected Boone did not know he was coming, and further, when Axl showed, Boone did not like it, but since he showed, Boone had no choice about it.

  And I had a feeling with Axl’s body language, today was going to be awkward.

  Boone gave me a kiss before he left, and whispered in my ear, “He isn’t cool with you, you let me know immediately.”

  I was oh so never going to do that.

  “Gotcha,” I whispered back.

  He looked in my eyes, sighed, and I knew he knew I was lying.

  He took off.

  Axl put me in his Jeep so he could take me to the dance studio where Hattie had booked space for us to work out our moves.

  We rode in uncomfortable silence, mine heightened by the fact that I’d become an issue between Boone and his bud.

  I totally had to fix this.

  Pronto.

  “Axl—” I started.

  “It’s about Jeb,” he announced.

  When the specter of Jeb was raised, I shut right the hell up.

  “I know you didn’t now, but when he talked to me about it, he thought you were blaming him for falling down in keeping you safe. He’s talked about Jeb with us and he carries guilt about that. He sees Whitney and her daughter a lot. She has a problem with her tub draining or her garage door opener fucking up, he’s on it like it’s an infestation of black mold and it’s killing them. He takes them out to dinner. He’s on the list at Muriel’s daycare to go get her if something’s up and Whitney can’t get there.”

  Okay, I knew it was going to be rough, but I was going to have to prioritize our discussion about Jeb because Boone had told me none of this.

  And if this was true, which it undoubtedly was, either Boone was still taking care of Whitney and Muriel
and for some reason not telling me, or they were hanging in the breeze while we were stuck in new-relationship bliss. Because as far as I knew, when he wasn’t working, or trying to figure out what was happening with dirty cops in the DPD, he was always with me.

  “He’s a good guy, but this is also about Jeb not being here and Boone breaking his back so Whitney doesn’t feel that as much as she would,” Axl carried on.

  Another impossible endeavor Boone had taken on.

  “Bottom line, I don’t know you all that well,” Axl continued. “But I do know you’re a straight talker and you’re tough, so I thought you loaded shit on him. He’s my boy and I was not down with that. But it wasn’t cool, me being a dick to you when it was none of my business. Then it was more not cool because you didn’t actually do that.”

  “Axl, I got it then and just to say, as much as it wasn’t fun, I also liked it because I’m glad Boone’s friends are loyal to him.”

  “Right.”

  “And you weren’t a dick to me, as such. You were just not as friendly as you usually are.”

  “Right.”

  I turned to look at him as he drove. “Axl, let it go.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Is Boone up in your shit about it?” I asked.

  “We had words.”

  Fabulous.

  He glanced at me. “We’ll get over it, Ryn.”

  “Okay, so, even if, really, Boone is your business, I understand how you think we’re not your business when we hit a rocky patch. In the same vein, your friendship with Boone isn’t my business either, but still. Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “We’ll get over it, Ryn,” he repeated, then his voice dipped. “Promise.”

  “Are we good?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  He punctuated that by reaching out and giving me a brief knee squeeze.

  Well…

  Good.

  The rest of the ride wasn’t long, but it thankfully also was no longer uncomfortable.

  A lady in a pink dance leotard with a short filmy skirt who was hanging out at the front desk told us how to get to the space Hattie had rented, and she did this with this her eyes glued to Axl.

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw some drool forming at the side of her mouth.

  Not a surprise.

  Axl and I headed that way, Axl in the lead, the garment bag with my fur coat in it slung over his shoulder, me following holding my cowboy hat in one hand, the box with my gold sandals in it clutched to my chest.