“And did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Show me?”
“I don’t know. Is it too late to know if it bothered you that I had sex with several other men to avenge your breaking up with me the way you did?”
He heaved a sigh. “It bothers me immensely.”
She knit her brows. “That’s so caveman of you.”
“I don’t know if it’s caveman, or if it’s a foolish guy who fucked up and now regrets it massively. A guy who realizes too late what he gave up and maybe wants to prove he can learn from his mistakes.” He leaned forward and began planting kisses along her collarbone. “It makes me want to make up for lost time.” His tongue followed the trail begun by his lips as he moved down her body. Lifting her dress over her head, he circled her taut belly with his mouth as he worked his way toward his very own pot of gold. He shimmied her panties down past her hips, then slid his hands beneath her bottom, spreading her legs wide with his shoulders. He glanced up at her, licking his lips. “Mine,” he said as he lowered his mouth, his tongue spread wide to capture as much of her essence as possible on the first pass.
Cricket jumped as his tongue pressed to her spread lips, and she let out a sigh of contentment. Soon she began to grind her hips toward his mouth, encouraging him to linger each time he found a sweet spot. She wove her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp while gently directing his mouth with her silent commands.
“My God, you’ve got a talented tongue.”
“The better to lick you with, my dear,” he said, lifting his head and grinning at her. Cricket let out a moan, knowing deep down in her heart that the more intimate things became with the two of them, the harder it was going to be for her to make the break when it was time for Fletch to return to his life. But did that stop her? Hell no.
Not for the first time would she wonder if she’d made the right decision to pretend that her feelings weren’t going to come into play. Something told her she’d made a big damned mistake.
Chapter Thirteen
Fletcher wasn’t quite sure when it had finally dawned on him that he and Cricket had a whole lot of unfinished business to attend to. Not only that, but also that he had no intention of finishing whatever business they needed to deal with. Each minute he was spending with her reminded him that he’d been a flaming asshole to walk away from what they had. Was he worthy of her at this point? Did he deserve to win her back? He didn’t have the answers but he sure as hell planned to try his damnedest.
In the meantime, he’d woo her with what he’d like to believe were his own inimitable skills, coupled with a little creativity and imagination. He reached for one of the cups of chocolate mousse on the nearby coffee table. Lifting his mouth from Cricket’s center, he scooped two fingers into the dessert and painted it right down where his tongue had been. Cricket squealed and giggled as he smeared the cold concoction along her lips, then settled his tongue back along her clit to lap at the dessert.
“Oh, you naughty boy,” she said on a moan as he circled his tongue around her clit. She pressed herself toward him, encouraging him onward as his fingers slid inside her while he sucked.
“You’re quite an amazing chef,” he said as he lifted his head to fix his eyes on hers, which were hazed over with lust.
“And you’re a most imaginative lover.” She pulled his head against her center, her hips circling faster until her climax broke, her vaginal walls spasming against his fingers as she released a flood of juices to mix with the sweet chocolate.
Only after she came did it dawn on Fletcher that if he wasn’t careful, she’d have chocolate mousse all over her nice sofa. So he lifted her up and carried her to the kitchen, where he sat her on the island as he quickly shed his pants and notched his hard cock to her opening, chocolate and all. He lifted her legs till her feet hit the countertop and spread her legs wide to allow him in. This gave him a bird’s-eye view of his cock sliding into her slick opening, her pussy swallowing him inside, and his cock hardened at the sight. Jesus, he wanted to take this woman every way that he could to show her how much he wanted her, how much he realized he needed her. He only hoped it wasn’t too late.
Fletch leaned over and grabbed a nipple into his mouth as he pumped himself into Cricket. He began to play with her clit with one hand, despite her protestations.
“I can’t, Fletch. Too soon. Too sensitive.”
“You can do it, Cricket. Feel how hard I am inside you? That’s how much I want you, how much I want to feel your pussy convulsing around my cock, pulling the come from me.”
Just thinking about it made him crazy with desire and he clutched her hips hard, driving himself deep inside her until the tension mounted to the breaking point, pins and needles giving way to a wash of relief as he released himself into her for the second time in only a handful of hours.
He could get used to this.
CRICKET HAD AN OLD-fashioned claw-footed tub in her bathroom, which looked out onto the mountains, illuminated by the bright, full moon. That’s where Fletch realized right here, right now, for the first time in forever he felt at home. And home was naked in a bubble bath with Cricket’s beautiful ass nestled up against his cock as warm water sloshed against them and she leaned back into his arms, carefree and sexy as hell.
“Can I ask you something?” he said as he twirled a finger through her hair.
“Fire away.”
“How did you manage to get it all so very right?”
She turned to look at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean all this. A successful business, a beautiful home, a serenity about you that says you know what you’re doing and you’re doing it, no questions asked.”
She thought for a minute. “Gosh. I never really thought about it,” she said. “I mean after you left, I was a hot mess for a good while. I spent a lot of time crying. Ask my mother. She probably could have wrung water out of her shirt for as many times as I cried on her shoulder. But then one day I had clarity. I knew I needed to get away from the scene of our lives together. I knew I loved to cook things, so why not say ‘fuck it’ and get myself to Paris? I didn’t know a soul, could barely speak the language, but there is quite a bit of revelation when you put yourself so far beyond your comfort zone. You start to know what to do and when to do it.” She reached for the wineglass she’d placed on a table next to the tub and took a sip. “Before I knew it, I was carving a life for myself and making it happen.”
“Was pastry school hard?”
She laughed. “Hell yeah, it was hard. My idea of baking and their idea of baking were two entirely different things. But I rose to the challenge and graduated at the top of my class. I earned the most challenging internship and stayed on for six months there to complete it. I’d have stayed longer if I could have gotten a job; it’s not easy to get work permits for the long term.”
He shook his head. “I admire the hell out of you for having pursued this and worked it out, no muss, no fuss. Then coming back here and opening your own business, and, well, look at it.”
“Thanks, Fletch. That means a lot to me.”
“I’m sincere about this. You amaze me.”
“You’ll probably lose your level of awe once we learn that Justine has decided to crush me like a bug since I wouldn’t submit to a threesome with her.”
“The mere mention of her name has a magical ability to shrivel my dick to Lilliputian proportions.”
She giggled.
“But seriously, my future progeny owe a debt of gratitude to you, being that they were in peril due to permanent shrinkage that occurred in the presence of my boss.”
“Meanwhile, you haven’t seen her since you left her hours ago after her intentional public shaming of you, have you?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and I’m not sure if I’m even going to go back to work for her. I’m over her bullshit, you know?”
“Can’t say that I blame you. With bosses like her, who needs prison cells? Workin
g under her is like a life sentence of psychological incarceration. I appreciate that you set goals for yourself and all, but suffering through that crazy bitch on a daily basis is hardly worth it.”
He nodded. “I’m starting to realize there comes a point when self-preservation needs to stop taking a back seat to career ambitions.”
“Well, if you need some help while you’re figuring things out, I’m happy to let you bounce ideas off me.”
He reached his arms around her and turned her around so she sat facing him.
“But for now, the only bouncing I want to experience is when I get to watch your luscious tits bouncing as you ride my hard cock. Deal?”
“I’d like nothing better.” She leaned over and placed her lips over his, her tongue finding its way into his mouth, exploring and stroking along his tongue as she ground her center along the length of his cock. It swelled in no time. Soon he guided it inside her and clutched her hips and went along for the ride as she bucked, lifted, and plunged down again on his dick. He closed his eyes, savoring the moment, realizing that he had some choices to make: the same mistake he made last time, abandoning this for the hollow world he would return to in LA, or figure out a way to convince Cricket that they still had that unmistakable magic, that they could rekindle the flame and make it burn brighter than ever before. That with age and maturity came the recognition that what they had was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and wasn’t something to toss away like he’d done so foolishly before.
Chapter Fourteen
For lack of a better plan of action, Fletcher chose to simply ghost Justine rather than deal with her bullshit. He knew it was making her absolutely insane. By the time he’d turned off his phone, he’d piled up at least thirteen calls and forty-two text messages from her, each one increasingly hysterical and nasty.
“You will never eat lunch in this town again if you don’t reply to me immediately,” she’d said in the last one. Which made him laugh. If by “this town” she meant Bristol, he figured the likelihood was greater that she’d never eat lunch here again if he had his way. Over the past two days, he’d gone from humiliated to empowered as he ran into old friends and even some relatives he’d not seen in a while, all of whom were indignant at how she’d treated him at the reception.
Rumors, of course, had run amok that Fletcher was some sort of gigolo, lending himself out for astronomical prices to further his career ambitions in Hollywood. When he heard someone voice that at Annie Bananie’s Pie Emporium, he was tempted to grab a chocolate cream pie and smash it into the guy’s face. It was one of those country boys who came into town to eat, he presumed when they got tired of parboiling varmints they trapped in their raccoon traps.
“Hey, Cabana Boy,” the one guy shouted at him. He thought it was Luther Morrison, some loser he’d gone to high school with, but if it was, the guy hadn’t aged well, what with the long, straggly hair, beer gut, and nicotine-stained teeth. “Maybe you can teach me the tricks of the trade so I can become a famous Hollywood gigolo too!”
It took Fletcher all the restraint he could muster, but he maintained his dignity and refrained from the pie assault, as fun as that would have been. He knew revenge was a dish best served cold to that meth head, and he’d been working feverishly over the past few days on his very own form of revenge. He hadn’t even told Cricket what his plans were.
Speaking of Cricket, she’d invited him to join her parents for dinner back at the ranch tonight. At first he was reluctant to agree—no doubt her folks had certain opinions about him that weren’t about to change anytime soon. But he knew if he had any chance of fixing things with Cricket, they were going to have to be on board. Same with Darby. Team Cricket wasn’t going to allow him to ever cause her soul to ache again, and he needed to prove it to them.
Before picking Cricket up, he stopped to get a bottle of wine for her mother and her dad’s favorite bourbon, plus a bouquet of flowers. Then he diverted to Annie Bananie’s to pick up a banana cream pie, which he knew her parents loved. He was covering all his bases.
He picked Cricket up a few minutes before six, and once again was on the receiving end of Darby’s stink-eye. She did that thing where she pointed at him, pointed at her eyes with two fingers, then pointed back at him, so he would know she was watching his every move. Shy of writing on a chalkboard one thousand times “I will never hurt your best friend Cricket again,” he wasn’t sure how to make it okay with her. Only time would tell.
As they drove out to the ranch, Cricket told him about her encounter with Justine earlier in the day.
He clenched his jaw as she filled him in.
“So she stopped by right after lunch,” she said. “She had on a leather minidress, because, well, who doesn’t wear a short leather dress in Bristol?” She grinned. “Oh and thigh-high boots, which are always the right thing to wear in a cow town too.”
Fletch rolled his eyes. The woman was insufferable.
“She came in when Darby was still at lunch, but Dingo was lying near the door. Of course the minute that thing stepped inside the shop, Dingo started barking like crazy. Justine had a look of abject terror in her eyes. I have to admit I enjoyed watching her crap a brick or two over it, especially because I know Dingo wouldn’t hurt a flea. Her bark is way worse than her bite since she doesn’t even have a bite.”
“Now you tell me.”
Cricket laughed. “She’s my greatest ally.”
He nodded. “Yeah, between her and Darby, you can be assured no one will bother you ever.”
“Darby can be a bit overprotective.”
“Gee, ya think?”
Cricket knitted her brows. “Why do you say that like that?”
“Maybe because she threatened to shish kebab my nuts if I hurt you.”
Cricket burst out laughing and clapped her hands together. “Oh, goodness! That’s why I love that girl so.”
“Yeah, I’ll leave it at I respect her for loving you.”
“Let’s get back to Jerky Justine... So I called off Dingo, and immediately she seemed to have gotten her groove back. She strode in like she owned the place, demanded to see you, and told me she knew we weren’t engaged, but she still thought we could all have a lovely time together at a skinny-dipping party at her swimming pool with some guy named Paco.”
“Paco? The guy who delivers the drinks at the pool?”
She shrugged. “Sounds like he does more than serve drinks. Good to know she’s an equal opportunity sexual harasser at least.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“Well, that’s when she started getting creepy.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Started? I hate to tell you we’re well past that now.”
“Good point. The other night it was creepy enough when she was stroking along my breast. But today she put her face right up to mine and angled her head and started to freaking kiss me!”
Fletcher thought his head might explode. “What the fuck?”
“I know, right? But then the best thing happened.”
“Please tell me your dog bit her.”
“Even better.”
“I’m on pins and needles—what?”
“Darby walked in as this happened and I squealed out loud and started banging on Justine’s shoulders and was trying to push her away and Darby came up from behind and pulled her off of me and hauled back and punched her!”
“Right in the face?”
Justine nodded rapidly. “Bloodied up her nose!”
“I knew I liked that friend of yours.”
“She’s a prince, that one is. But don’t ever get on her bad side.”
He rolled his eyes. “Trust me, I’m well aware of that.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m having flashbacks being back at your folks’ place,” Fletch said. He pointed to the barn. “How many times did we sneak off to the loft when we wanted to be alone.”
She cocked a brow. “Is that what they call it now—‘being alone’?” She elbowed h
im in the ribs.
“I’d pay good money to slip away there right now to get you alone for a few minutes.”
“You and me both. But Mom’s got a rib roast waiting and she said you’d best bring an appetite.”
Fletch licked his lips. “She made a rib roast? But I thought your mother hated me.”
She scruffed her fingers through his hair. “I thought I hated you too, and look at me now.”
He smiled. “I guess there’s hope for us all.”
They walked hand in hand up the walkway to the house and Cricket called out to her parents in the foyer.
“Mom, Dad—look what the cat dragged in.”
Her mom, Linda, was a tall, blond, blue-eyed woman with the healthy, tanned look of someone whose body agrees with outdoor living. Her father, Bob, had a full head of silver hair and dressed like the lifelong rancher he was, in blue jeans and flannel and boots.
“Fletcher—so good to see you.” Her mom reached out and pulled him into a hug.
“Mrs. Ferguson, the pleasure is all mine.”
“Fletch.” Her dad extended his hand and gave him a nod of acknowledgment, which might as well have been like passing him a peace pipe. No way would he have shaken hands with Fletch if he was pissed at him.
“Mr. Ferguson,” Fletch said. “Thank you for allowing me to spend time with your daughter.” Which sounded a little weird, considering she was all grown up and not even living at home, so it was not as if permission were required, but Cricket figured he was trying to be conciliatory, and with her father, it would work. He only wanted his daughter to be happy, and both of her parents could see that she’d had an extra spring in her step since this loose reunion with Fletch occurred.
Over cocktails on the back porch, which overlooked the mountains of Glacier National Park, they discussed such compelling matters as the price of hay and which horse was going to be bred with which horse next go-round. It was all so normal, Cricket could hardly believe they were here as if nothing had ever changed. Yet it had. A lot of pain and heartache, but she’d come through the crucible and landed in a much better place. If Fletch hadn’t let her go, maybe she’d have stagnated here in Bristol, never expanding her horizons, never seeing a bit of the world, never learning a skill that would make her so happy. Oddly enough, perhaps Fletcher’s leaving her was a gift.
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