Ain't Doin' It

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I-I thought you went home?” I asked, my hand going over my heart as if it would help me calm it down.

  The man had scared the daylights out of me.

  Coke shrugged. “I did…for a minute. I checked in with Castiel and Frankie. They’re both good and convinced me not to come tonight.” He looked around the room. “When I saw they were all gone, I decided to come back.”

  My brows rose.

  “Do you want me to stay over here, or do you want to come stay at my place?” he asked, sounding as if I was doing him the favor—when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “I don’t have an extra bed…or a couch,” I admitted.

  Meaning he couldn’t stay over here, even though I desperately wanted him to.

  I did not want to be alone. Not tonight, anyway.

  Today had been filled with hours upon hours of sitting and waiting while my father and his friends moved around me. Janie had come over at one point and had started pulling information off of her handy dandy computer, relaying it to her father and mine.

  If there was anything that Frank Withers, Jason Weeble, and Cory Carmichael didn’t want us to know—well that was just too damn bad. Because Janie and my father’s friend, my honorary ‘uncle’ Jack, found fucking everything there ever was to know about the three of them.

  They also knew shit about anyone closely associated with them—wives, girlfriends, children, parents. You name it, they knew about them.

  “I don’t have an extra bed, either. I do have a recliner…it’s in my bedroom, though,” Coke spoke, pulling me out of my inner musings. “If that’s okay, you can come on over.”

  I opened my mouth to decline, but the opposite came out without me planning for it to.

  “Okay,” I paused. “I’ll take the recliner.”

  He snorted. “Honey, I’m not that nice of a guy. The bed was never an option for you.”

  I snickered. “You have a couch…”

  “A couch that has a thousand and one lumps in it,” he gave me a piercing look. “I know from first-hand experience that it sucks. Let me just say that over the eight hundred million times Beatrice forced me to sleep on it, I’ve come to realize it’s not fit for a goddamn child—let alone a grown adult.”

  “Then why do you have it?” I countered.

  He shrugged. “Sentimental value. It was there for me through the years when she was not…and Beatrice got all the fuckin’ good shit in the divorce.”

  I snickered. “She really shafted you, didn’t she?”

  He nodded. “She did. You have no idea how much.”

  I walked into my room and came back out a few minutes later with a few of my essentials, trying not to let the relief I felt that I wasn’t staying by myself tonight show. I’d get actual clothing tomorrow.

  I, apparently, had failed.

  “What?” I questioned.

  “You don’t have to look so eager to leave. You know, you could’ve told your father that you wanted to go with him.”

  I shot him a wary look.

  “What, you thought your little act was fooling everyone?”

  I nodded. I had.

  Earlier, I’d thought I’d been doing a bang-up job of appearing as if I was keeping it all together.

  And, obviously, I’d done at least a decent job of it, otherwise my dad wouldn’t have left.

  Granted, he said he’d be back tomorrow to fix up a few of ‘holes’ he discovered in my security system.

  Not that I was complaining about that.

  I couldn’t explain why I needed them to leave.

  I just did.

  But I wasn’t ready to be completely alone…just mostly.

  “I’m sorry for not talking to you over the last couple days,” I blurted suddenly. “I was just so…”

  “Hurt,” he finished for me.

  I nodded.

  “I wasn’t sure that Janie would let you off the hook if I came myself. She doesn’t see me as a good fit for you,” he admitted.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, curious now.

  I would not admit to him that he was more my style than anyone I’d ever met—and he definitely didn’t need to know that my feelings had extended past friendship and were now solidly into infatuation.

  I was more than capable of hiding those feelings from him.

  “I’m old, woman,” he answered. “I’ve got a kid that’s closer to you in age than I am, and honestly? Sometimes when I’m around her, I think that she can see right through me. Can see what I don’t have to give.”

  It broke my heart that he saw himself that way.

  “Coke,” I said softly. “Janie’s no one to judge who a person dates. She’s dating someone just as older than you are.”

  “So, tell me why you acted okay when you weren’t,” he ordered, changing the subject.

  I sighed, letting him.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was a difficult child and I hated being that way for them…it’s just easier for them to think that I’m normal—for me to put on that happy face—rather than letting them know that I still struggle sometimes.”

  “You think that your dad would care that you were scared?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “No. But then he’d feel obligated to stay here and take care of me. And…I don’t want him to feel like he has to do that anymore. He did enough of that when I was younger. I’m telling you… I wasn’t an easy kid to raise.”

  “Cora…”

  “Take me to your house,” I ordered. “Oh! My eggs...”

  I turned to go back, but he caught me around the waist with one of his long, muscular arms, curling me into his body tight.

  “We’ll leave them here. I’ll come check on them tomorrow morning…okay?”

  I agreed reluctantly. “I only have two more weeks left.”

  He grunted. “Just wait until the last week. You’ll be checking the incubator once a day to make sure there aren’t any new cracks.”

  I clapped my hands in excitement. “I can’t freakin’ wait!”

  Chapter 14

  Shout out to everyone who’s seen me get totally psycho and stuck around anyway.

  -Cora’s Facebook status update

  Cora

  I heard him getting out of bed, and I cracked my eyes open to see if he was getting up for real this time or just making another round of the house like he’d done the other four times he got up that night while he thought I was sleeping—which I was.

  Kind of.

  But the brightness on his phone each time he picked it up to send out a text had me waking despite my desire to sleep.

  After he got whatever text he was waiting for, he’d put it back down and do a round of the house, checking various locks and windows, as well as peeking through the curtains in his room.

  His bed was really, really loud. Each time he got up, the headboard creaked, and the springs in the mattress squeaked.

  He didn’t get up for real this time, either.

  Instead, he went to the bathroom, peed with the door wide-ass open, and then washed his hands.

  Moments later, he walked back out and took another look around the house before coming back to his bed.

  He stopped and eyed me beside his bed, but with the darkness surrounding us, he couldn’t tell that I was awake.

  I’d stayed in my exact spot for most of the night, so comfortable I wondered if I could sleep in his recliner every night.

  Surely, he wouldn’t notice a new addition to his place—right?

  Smiling, I let my eyes drift shut just as I heard Coke crawl back into bed.

  But then he cursed and sat back up.

  “What is it?” I asked sleepily.

  He paused, half in, half out of bed.

  “It’s cold in here. Are you cold?” he asked.

  He sounded almost horrified.

  “Not really, no.” I paused. “I have your sweatpants on
, though.”

  He digested that for a moment. “I guess that’s one way to keep warm. If you need anything else…”

  “My toes are kind of cold,” I admitted. “But I’m tucking them underneath the arm cushion, so they’re okay for now.”

  He got up and walked to the dresser where I’d stolen his sweatpants while he’d been in the shower earlier. Once there, he opened the first drawer—which I’d found out were his socks and underwear—and pulled something out.

  He shut the drawer and turned, coming to stand next to me.

  “Let me have your feet,” he ordered gruffly.

  I poked one foot out from under the heavy blanket that he’d found for me—apparently Frankie was a blanket freak and had like a million—and he slipped a heavy wool sock on over my cold foot.

  “Other foot,” he ordered once he dropped my foot.

  I lifted up my other foot and sighed when that sock moved into place.

  His bare knuckles rested on the side of my calf for a few long seconds, and then he patted my thigh. “I’m sorry. I never thought to turn up the heat, and I forgot that there was supposed to be a cold front coming through. This damn room is the coldest part of the house with all the windows and the door that leads to the outside.”

  I licked my lips, trying not to think about how awesome his hand had felt on the side of my thigh through pants and a blanket.

  “It’s not a big deal. I don’t sleep with the heat on in my room because it dries my nose out and makes me stuffy.” I paused. “But you can turn on your heat if you want to. I won’t complain. You’ll just have to deal with me having a stuffy nose and sounding like I need to blow it constantly.”

  He chuckled and finally removed his hand, heading back to his bed.

  “We have a couple more hours of sleep yet, darlin’,” he murmured, voice rough and edgy. “Sleep tight.”

  I wiggled my toes in the socks that I planned on stealing from him when he finally kicked me out of his chair and closed my eyes.

  When I opened them again, it was to sunlight starting to pour in through the blinds covering his massive bedroom window and to Coke once again moving around.

  He was making his bed, tucking the sheet into place then the comforter. With the way the bed was positioned, I couldn’t see anything from the waist down, so I focused on the muscles in his arms and how they retracted and bunched with his movements.

  Then there was his abs.

  The man had a great set of them.

  Like, really good. Once he got out of the military, I knew that it was much harder to maintain. Obviously, Coke had no problem doing it, though.

  Once he finished making the bed, he stood up, and it was then that I realized that Coke didn’t wear anything to bed but those boxer briefs I’d spied in his dresser drawer last night during my search for pants.

  The pair he had on were red, and I could see every single delicious inch of his body.

  He looked magnificent.

  I wanted to eat him alive.

  Even through the clothes he normally wore, I could tell that he was in great shape.

  Holy shit, seeing him in his normal street attire was all fine and good, but seeing him in nothing but boxer briefs? Jesus Christ on a cracker. There was no comparison at all. Hands down, him practically naked won every single fucking time.

  No ifs, ands or buts.

  I licked my lips, trying not to move, so as not to bring his attention to me, and thank God I didn’t. Because he turned, giving me a full-frontal view, and my eyes automatically went to the bulge in the front of those boxer briefs.

  My eyes went wide.

  Holy guacamole.

  The size of this man’s dick was downright frightening—in the best possible way, though.

  Those boxer briefs traveled down his thick, muscular thighs coming to a stop about six inches above his knee. The waistband of his briefs rode low on his hips, displaying that expanse of muscled flesh that no woman could help but look at. The V.

  But his cock?

  Starting at the apex of his thighs, completely escaping the cup-shaped area meant to contain his balls and dick, it traveled down the length of his left thigh to just above where the hem of his underwear began around his thigh.

  Just a scant inch and that big ol’ dick of his would be peeking out!

  I swallowed past a sudden dryness in my throat and tried not to squirm.

  Holy crap, but I wanted nothing more than to run my hand along the length of it.

  He looked so hard and inviting…

  Then his eyes, which had been focused on the floor where he was moving around the bed, moved to me.

  I immediately slammed my eyes closed, and felt my heart nearly pound its way out of my chest.

  But it didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed—I would forever see him there, in all his glory, with a hard cock that I wanted—no, needed—in my mouth.

  Holy crap.

  I was so going to hell.

  He moved around the room, and I heard the drawer right next to me open and then close.

  Moments later, I felt him walk up to my side.

  “Come on, get up,” he ordered, smacking my ass to get me moving. “You’re coming to work with me.”

  “I’m…I’m what?” I asked, surprise and a tinge of excitement entering my voice as I sat up in my chair and wiped my wild hair out of my eyes.

  “You can draw anywhere, correct?”

  I nodded. “Yes, but today’s work is a little more digitalized. I do a lot of my work on the computer.”

  “Does your computer transport easily?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. “My laptop, yes.”

  “Then bring it with you,” he suggested. “But you’re not gonna stay here by yourself. I know that you want to prove that you’re all strong and a female version of Superman, but today you don’t have to do that. Honestly, I’m surprised that your father even left you and went home.”

  I smiled. “My dad thinks I’m a badass.”

  He grunted. “We’ll go over to your place so you can grab your things, and then we’ll head out. You have an aversion to riding a motorcycle?”

  I immediately shook my head. “My dad…let’s just say that I grew up on the back of one. I took my first ride on one when I was a toddler.”

  He grinned. “Frankie took her first ride when she was six, but that was only because every time I tried to take her earlier, my ex-wife would freak the fuck out and threaten to call CPS on me. In the long run, it was easier to just let her have her way.”

  It was then I allowed my eyes to take in what he was wearing.

  He had on a pair of sweatpants nearly identical to the gray ones I had on, only the ones that he was wearing were black.

  And that was it.

  He had nothing else covering him, and I could still make out the outline of his hard cock.

  Maybe he didn’t know how noticeable it was?

  I didn’t know, but I really didn’t care either.

  I licked my lips and tried not to stare at his chest when I said, “Your wife is a dumbass.”

  He burst out laughing, which subsequently caused his dick to jump.

  I felt things in my lower half clench that had never clenched quite like that before and hoped that my nipples weren’t showing through my t-shirt.

  “You can use the bathroom first. I’ll make coffee. We will check on your eggs when we pick up your computer.”

  Then he was gone, and I was left staring at the finest ass I’d ever seen.

  I slumped down in the chair and let one hand slip down my pants.

  There was no way around it.

  I had to fix this little problem.

  Now.

  Chapter 15

  When you have a clap light in your bedroom, rough sex also sets its own mood lighting.

  -Cora to Coke

  Cora

  There were a whole lot of t
hings I’d expected when I woke up that first morning in Coke’s house.

  Coke, of course, was in all of the scenarios I envisioned.

  Coke cooking breakfast. Coke making coffee. Coke talking to me over the morning newspaper.

  Except, I didn’t find Coke at all in his house when I got done with teeth brushing—oh, and orgasm. What I did find were four other Coke-like men in his kitchen.

  And it was obvious that they were related to Coke in some way. They all looked exactly like him. Same bone structure. Same build and height. Same eyes. The only difference was that all of the men’s hair was in varying shades of gray.

  Where Coke was obviously the eldest, the others likely fell in line depending on the amount of gray they had.

  Only one of them had a beard like Coke, though. Likely, if my assumptions were right, the next one closest to him in age—the one that’d recently retired from the army.

  Consequently, there I was, walking sleepily into the kitchen, barely paying attention to my surroundings because of being in Coke’s house and feeling safe, when I hit the threshold of the kitchen.

  All four men noticed my arrival despite two of them having their backs to me.

  Upon seeing them, I looked down and studied my attire.

  I was still in the t-shirt Coke had handed me last night after my shower. I had brought pajamas, but I felt better borrowing his things. The t-shirt hung on me like a dress and fell off one shoulder, revealing my bra strap. I had panties on, of course, but with how the shirt traveled down to mid-thigh, I was in no way in danger of revealing them.

  The sweats I’d had on during the night were tossed into the laundry hamper, despite my desire to keep them on and wear them forever and ever.

  The best touch, I thought, were the huge freakin’ socks that Coke had put on me in the middle of the night.

  They ran up my calves, settling at the tops just below my knees.

  I was bruised, aching and sore. There wasn’t a single part of me that was not hurting thanks to all the struggling I’d done when the men had kidnapped me, and it showed on these men’s faces when they realized it.

  The one closest to me narrowed his eyes. The one farthest away, the only one with a beard, looked like he’d been sucker punched.