by J. Daniels
Jamie grinned and slid his phone away, shook the hair out of his eyes, and remained leaning on the counter, fixating his gaze on Syd.
“See you’re off today. Is my girl workin’?” he asked, cocking his head. “Fuckin’ starved for a burger and her smart-ass mouth.”
“I really think she’d prefer it if you went someplace else to eat,” Syd replied, sliding her hand around my back.
Jamie grinned bigger.
“Beautiful. She’s workin’. I’m headin’ out.” He shifted his eyes to me as Syd sighed heavily in response. “You good?” he asked, straightening. “Should be back around four.”
I nodded, answering, “No problem.”
Jamie looked at Syd again. His brows pulled together.
“What kind of flowers does she like?”
Silence turned my head. I looked down at my girl and saw disbelief etched on her face.
“You…want to know what kind of flowers Tori likes?” she questioned slowly.
“That’s what I’m askin’.”
“Why?”
“Why the hell do you think? I wanna get her some.”
Syd’s expression changed from disbelief to straight-up shock. She stared at Jamie with her mouth slack and hanging open, eyes rounded and refusing to blink.
“You do?” she pressed, tipping forward. “But…you’re an idiot.”
Jamie flinched. “What the fuck?”
“I’m just saying, that’s thoughtful and you don’t strike me as a thoughtful person,” Syd quickly clarified. “Now you wanna be that guy who takes her flowers?”
“No. Honestly? I really fuckin’ don’t,” Jamie said, crossing his arms and appearing irritated. “I wanna be the guy who fucks up a car owned by some worthless motherfucker who did her wrong and gets to see that soft look on her face after I do it.”
Syd sucked in a breath. The hand gripping my waist held tighter.
“Unless you got a list of names of people I can pay a visit to, I’m shit outta luck with that,” he added. “So are you gonna help me out? Or do I need to buy one of every flower and hope for the best.”
Syd slid her other hand over my stomach, body turned so I could feel her tits against my ribs.
“Tori only likes dahlias,” she said. Her voice was softer. “That’s it. Coral ones if you can find them, but if you can’t, she likes every color. And she likes displaying them so make sure you put them in something, not just with the stems wrapped up.”
Jamie nodded, looking hopeful, then started flipping his keys around his finger and heading for the door, calling back, “Thanks, Sunshine. Appreciate it,” before disappearing through it.
Syd tipped her head back to smile up at me.
“I’m kinda rooting for him now. Don’t say anything.”
“Who the hell would I say anything to?” I asked, bringing my other arm around her. “Feel the need to stress again, Wild. I don’t care who Jamie fucks, who Tori fucks, or if they finally end up fucking each other. That’s their business. Only person I care about in terms of fucking is you.”
She got up on her toes and, with excitement racing through her voice, said, “Then you better give me a tour of this place and do it fast, ’cause I’d really like to get to the fucking part.”
I leaned back.
“Here?”
“Yes,” she strained. “It’s the entire reason for this outfit I’m wearing because these shorts make my butt look really nice and I know how much you like staring at my butt. So…” She released her arms from around me, wiggled out of my hold, and grabbed my hand, tugging. “Give me a quick tour and then take me to your office. And every time you go in there, I want you thinking about me and what I looked like with my legs spread wide on your desk.”
Fuck yeah. That was one helluva visual.
Wild pulled me along the counter, and without her seeing, I slid the classifieds underneath a magazine then cut my eyes back to her and lowered them to her ass.
She was spot on with my obsession and my dick was hard before we reached the other side of the room. The tour lasted all of thirty seconds before I started moving my hands over her tits and between her legs and she started grinding back and grasping at me. Then our mouths took over and I somehow managed to keep kissing and touching and building it for her while taking the time needed to lock the front door and flip the sign to Closed.
We made it to the office a second before her limbs started shaking and she was tightening around my fingers and moaning in my mouth.
Then I fucked her while I sucked her tits, shot my cum onto her stomach when she told me to, and watched her rub in it with that heavy look in her eyes like having me all over her was the biggest fucking turn-on, leading to me getting hard seconds after finishing and taking her again, eyes on her ass the whole time she bent over the desk with her arms braced. I pounded her to another orgasm and rooted deep when I couldn’t hold off, filling her pussy as she cried out and clenched around me.
She was right. I’d never look at this desk the same again.
* * *
Bag in hand, I crossed the parking lot of Carolina East Therapeutic Riding, climbed the ramp, kicked the dirt off my feet when I reached the top, then yanked the door open, stepping inside the small office.
I was in a hurry. I needed to get this done so I could get to Tori’s and have dinner with Syd. She was expecting me right after work and I was hoping Mona wasn’t going to keep me long or give me shit about this.
I didn’t have time to argue, and it wouldn’t fucking matter anyway. I was going through with this, and nothing she could say would change that.
Mona was seated at her desk on the phone. She glanced up at the sound of my entrance and greeted me with a quick smile, then whispered something into the line, listening and disconnecting a second later.
“Brian, it’s good to see you,” she exclaimed with her usual kind voice. She pushed out of her chair and stood to round her desk but halted behind it when she saw me making my way across the room. “Though it’s a little unexpected. You were just here.”
“I know,” I muttered, lifting the bag off my shoulder and setting it on the desk. I looked her in the eyes. “Need you to do one last thing for me, Mona. This is it.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“I’m sure whatever it is, it’s unnecessary, Brian.”
I ignored her comment, it was typical and expected, then I pushed the bag in front of her.
“Need you to make sure Owen and his family get this,” I told her. “Can’t leave it at their house like I’ve been doing. Someone could take it.”
She stared at me, then lowered her gaze to the bag.
“What is it?” she questioned while sliding the zipper open. She pulled the flaps back and peered inside, her breath catching on a gasp. “Brian,” she whispered, looking up with caution flooding her voice. “Where did you get this money?”
“It’s mine to give,” I assured. “Didn’t do anything illegal to get it. Know that’s what you’re thinking and you don’t need to be thinking that. That’s clean money. I need you to make sure it gets to them.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s not.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Not even close.”
Mona kept her hands on the duffle as she closed her eyes and breathed slow, conflicted, and pitying breaths.
I could argue with her for years over this, force my understanding onto Mona and will it to stick, and she’d still come back telling me I was wrong and this was excessive beyond reason. It was who she was.
Like Jenna and Jamie and Cole, she didn’t understand my fault or the guilt I carried with me. She couldn’t. No one could.
They weren’t there. They weren’t responsible.
They would never understand.
I could never give enough. I could never give them back what I took but I could do this.
I needed to do this.
“Mona,” I prompted, watching her eyes slide open. “Please.”
Her hands fisted the duffle.
“I just…I don’t know if you realize what this will mean to them or if you will ever know because you won’t allow yourself to feel that, Brian, and that breaks my heart and makes me incredibly angry at the same time. I could hit you with this bag for being so disjointed.”
Relief pulled across my shoulders.
“You’ll do it then,” I verified.
She shook her head in exasperation, answering, “Of course I’ll do it. My God, I wish I could do this for all of my families. This is an incredible gift.”
“Just make sure they don’t know it’s from me.”
Her lips pressed into a tight thin line.
Fuck.
“I don’t like doing that,” she informed quietly. “And I really think they should know where this kind of money is coming from. They will want to thank you—”
“They can thank me by taking the money,” I cut in brusquely.
“Brian,” she pleaded. “I really think—”
“Please,” I growled through my teeth. “Do not tell them.”
Mona flinched at my tone, closed her eyes, and nodded quickly.
Fuck.
I hated getting on her like that. She didn’t deserve it.
I reached out and placed my hand on top of one of hers and squeezed, prompting her eyes to open.
“Appreciate you doing this and everything else. Means a lot,” I said. “Knowing how you feel about what I’m doing, that means something, too.”
Her mouth relaxed and lifted softly.
“You’re a good man, Brian. I hope one day you’ll believe that.”
I gave an easy smile to appease her. I needed to get going and I had zero fucking time to argue that one.
Pulling back, I dropped my head into a nod.
“Thanks again,” I said.
Mona gave me one last smile.
Then I turned without giving that bag another thought and got the hell out of there.
* * *
I knocked again on the front door, this time a little louder, and stepped back, waiting to be let inside.
A muffled yell came from Tori’s house. I couldn’t make out what Syd was saying and I knew it was Syd since she was the only one here, her car being the only one in the driveway, so I tested the knob and it turned willingly, allowing me to ease the door open and step inside.
“Syd,” I called out, shutting the door behind me as my eyes scanned the room.
Tori’s house was fucking impressive. On the smaller side, but you could tell there was a lot of money in it and not just because of the ocean view.
The decorating was some fancy shit.
It reminded me of Jamie’s parents’ house. Everything was either dark oak or leather, and the art hanging on the walls looked like something Oliver or Liv could’ve painted, which meant it wasn’t just fancy shit, it was expensive shit.
“I’m in here! And I’m stressing out so just get back in your car and go home! This was a huge mistake!”
Laughing, I moved through the living room and around the corner where the noise was coming from.
It couldn’t have been that bad.
Syd was in the kitchen at the stove, bent at the waist with her head in the oven as thick smoke billowed out around her and into the air.
It was that bad.
“Shit!” she yelled, pulling a dish out and sitting it on the burner. She kicked the door closed and waved her hands over the charred remains, murmuring, “No no no no.”
“Babe.”
The smoke detector sounded loudly from the hallway.
“Oh, God, not again,” Syd groaned, covering her face.
Jesus. She was definitely stressing.
I fought a smile as I grabbed a dish towel off the counter, moved out of the room, and stood below the detector, reached up, disabled it, then took the towel and fanned the air to clear the smoke so it wouldn’t go off again.
When I stepped back into the kitchen, Syd was still standing at the stove, facing it with her head down, only now she was massaging her temples.
I came up behind her, wrapped my arm around her apron-covered waist, pulled her back against me, and dropped my head beside hers, breathing in the apple-scented shampoo she used in her hair.
“I don’t know what I did,” she admitted in a small voice, lowering her arms and gesturing at the dish, which at this point was unrecognizable, blackened, and still smoking.
I couldn’t make out what she was going for.
“I followed the recipe perfectly, double-checking my steps and the ingredients before mixing everything together, and I know I set the oven temperature right. I triple-checked that.”
I kissed her temple.
“What were you making?”
“Homemade chicken potpie with all kinds of yummy veggies and spices, all beautifully contained in a made-from-scratch pie dough.”
Shit. That sounded really fucking good.
She sighed in defeat, then said on a whisper, “I wanted to do this for you so bad, and I’ve messed it up.”
I gave her a squeeze, let her go, then moved to the counter where she had mixing bowls, cutting boards, and measuring spoons laid out, found the recipe she had printed, and picked it up, reading the cooking instructions.
“You take it out after forty-five minutes?” I asked, looking over at Wild.
She slowly turned her head.
“Forty-five minutes?” she echoed with a suspicious pout. “No. Why would I do that?”
“’Cause that’s the cooking time.”
“What? No it isn’t!”
She eliminated the space between us in three quick steps, yanked the recipe out of my hand while pulling a pair of red-framed glasses out of the front pocket of her apron and sliding them up her nose, then began scanning the paper frantically.
Glasses like that would be cute on anyone else.
They weren’t cute on Wild. They were sexy as shit.
“Like those,” I observed, watching warm hazels lift and peer up at me through the lenses.
She gave me a small smile and a sweet, “Thanks,” returned her gaze to the paper, and continued scanning.
I bent closer. “Want you wearing them the next time we fuck.”
With a gasp, her eyes snapped to mine again, this time going round.
I leaned back.
“Oh,” she breathed, swallowed, then added a quick, “O-okay. Yeah, that’s totally doable.”
Smirking, I jerked my chin at the paper.
“Back to it. You said forty-five minutes isn’t the cooking time, babe.”
With a frown, Syd resumed scanning the paper.
“There was no cooking time. It says right here, look”—she pointed at the bottom of the page—“put it in the oven, walk away, completely forget about it, and come dangerously close to burning the crust.” She looked up at me. “I did exactly those things.”
My eyebrows rose.
“Think you went a little further than coming dangerously close to burning the crust. I had no idea that was potpie.”
Her eyes narrowed. She stood on her toes and tipped her chin up.
I bit back a smile.
Fucking loved it when she challenged me like that. Her sass made my dick hard.
“It told me to walk away and forget about it. I was just following directions,” she snapped.
“Not all of them.”
I grabbed her hand and moved her finger to the top of the page, indicating where I’d been reading.
She gasped. “Look how tiny that is! Who can read that?” Her head whipped around and she glared at the stove. “I can’t believe this. I followed the recipe perfectly. It took me ages cutting up those vegetables. I cut myself twice, but I recovered. Everything else was simple. I even brushed egg wash on the crust so it would golden up and made a pretty design with a fork around the edges, and you can’t even tell. I’m not even sure it has edges anymore.”
I slid my hand to her hip.
&
nbsp; “Wild.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t see the time, or question what I was doing.” She looked up at me with pleading eyes. “There’s something wrong with me. I let myself forget about what I was making. That’s insane! Who does that?”
Before I could answer, Syd lowered her head and crumpled up the recipe, holding it tight in her fist.
“I am so mad at myself,” she whispered brokenly.
Fuck that.
I moved her over so I could grab a spoon off the counter, stepped in front of the stove, leaned over it with a hand bracing on the granite, and dug into the burnt potpie. I got to the meat and vegetables baked inside, heaped a spoonful of them, and ate a mouthful.
I’d eat this whole fucking thing if it made her feel better.
“What are you doing?” Syd questioned at my back, her voice growing closer.
“Eatin’.” I scooped out some more, shoved it in my mouth, and said around the steaming bite, “Not into wasting something my girl took time to make for me. I’m finishing this.”
“Brian, don’t.” She wrapped her hand around my bicep and pulled. “It’s ruined. Look at it.”
I kept eating.
She pulled harder, laughing when I went in for a fourth spoonful.
“That can’t be good. Seriously. Stop. Come on.”
I swallowed my bite and dug around for more.
“Not bad, actually,” I said. “Once you get past the bitter, it’s good. I like the chicken.” Lifting the spoon to my mouth, I turned my head and peered over my shoulder, letting her watch me eat it. “Hope you made something else for you ’cause I’m eatin’ this whole thing and not into sharing.”
Syd laughed harder, tossed the crumpled recipe onto the counter, reached up, and covered my mouth with her hand as her other wrapped around the front of my waist and pulled me back, forcing me to leave the spoon in the dish and turning me away from the stove.
“Okay okay okay. You’ve made your point.”
I moved willingly this time, waited until her hand slid off my mouth so I could speak, then asked, “And what’s that?”
“That you’re incredible.”
I blinked, chewed up the rest of my mouthful, then swallowed it down.
She slid her hands up my arms to my shoulders and linked them around my neck, pressed her front against mine, and tipped her head back.
