“Fuck yes, baby. Want to come again?”
She leaned forward and braced her hands on his knees and ground against him in a circular rhythm, familiar to her from her striptease classes. Her men seemed to love it when she did that. He held her hips since she had limited leverage and groaned deeply as his thrusts became wilder, more uncontrollable, bouncing her up and down on his cock.
“Don’t stop, Beck! Please, please, please!”
“Never. You ready?”
“Yes! I’m coming! Oh, Beck!” She arched her back and cried out in ecstasy, barely aware of a sharp pain at the back of her head, undulating on his rigid pulsing cock until she couldn’t move.
Beck murmured his approval as she rode each wave and then wrapped his arms around her, one hand holding her shoulder and the other hand over her mound and began to move beneath her.
His muscles grew hard as rock as he held her and tunneled his shaft into her repeatedly until he let out a guttural cry. He drew in great breaths of air as he held her, his cock pulsing deep inside her.
She lay against him, panting and limp and bathed in perspiration. He cuddled her close and squeezed her breasts gently, a happy-sounding groan rumbling in his chest.
“I’m probably squashing you, aren’t I?” she asked, ready to move as soon as he could help her stand. Her legs no longer worked on their own.
“Don’t you dare move, sweetness. Give me just a bit longer, I want…”
“Want what?” she asked softly.
“I want to stay inside you a while longer.”
“Oh. Me sitting on you doesn’t hurt?”
“Hurt is not what I am right now. You feel so damned good. Don’t move just yet.”
She tilted her head back to kiss him and then did a double take. “Beck! You’re bleeding!”
He grinned and put a tentative hand up to his lower lip and dabbed at the blood that had leaked from it. “Yup.”
“Did I do that?”
“You accidentally head butted me when you were coming. I wasn’t exactly going to stop you. Hell, I didn’t even really feel it until you pointed it out. It’s nothing.” He licked his lip and smiled at her. “It was worth it.”
Waldo the cat chose that moment to join them and she giggled when he rubbed his head against Beck’s shoulder and then licked some of the perspiration from his skin. The ginger tabby cat conked his head against him again, meowed in his raspy old tomcat voice and then rubbed her shoulder, too.
Waldo always gravitated to Beck, a fact that pleased Lucy very much. Her ex had hated cats with a passion. Waldo lay down on the couch and then nudged Beck’s elbow so he’d give him more attention. His purr rumbled in the room as he flopped over and let Beck scratch his belly.
She laid her arms over his and looked at the television. “Oh, the movie ended and I didn’t even notice. We missed the end.”
Beck laughed, which jarred his cock inside of her and she moaned again.
“Don’t worry, sweetness, I think it had a happy ending. They all came.”
“Well, I can promise you that I certainly was not faking it, sexy.”
Eventually, her breathing returned to normal, but Beck’s arms were still tight around her. She stroked his arm and said, “Beck?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you remember the night I asked you to dance and you turned me down? Then later you explained that you didn’t know how but were too embarrassed to tell me?”
“You have to bring up one of my ‘epic fail’ moments right now?”
She giggled and patted him. “It’s for a good reason. Would you let me teach you how to dance?”
“Now? I can’t walk much less dance.”
“In a few minutes? You’re nice and loose now. It’s a perfect time to learn.”
Beck thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Will you be nekkid while you teach me?”
She tilted her head and smiled up at him and he kissed her. “Of course.”
“Okay, but then you know what I’ll be thinking any time we dance at the Dancing Pony. I’ll be thinking about my sexy nekkid dancing tutor.”
There was never a better slow dancing student than Beck O’Malley. The man might’ve been a bit of an ass in the past, and still liked to tweak her buttons occasionally, but Lucy discovered that night that what he sometimes lacked in people skills he made up for with a perfect sense of rhythm.
Chapter Thirteen
Early May
Beck grinned as he lifted frames from the hive body he was working with. Bees buzzed lazily about him as he used the smoker can and crooned to his girls as he used the edge of the hive tool to separate the frames. They were partial to his Elvis impersonation but also seemed to enjoy his attempt at Trace Adkins.
He lifted his hand to look at the bee tickling his knuckle and watched as it fed on the droplet of nectar spilled on his finger. “You’re oooooonnne hot mama,” he sang softly, smiling when the docile honeybee flitted away on the breeze and he went back to work while singing.
He grinned when Cooter came snuffling along around the hive body and sneezed. “Hey, Cooter-Tooter. What are they laughing and giggling about down there?”
Cooter grinned up at him as he rolled over, shamelessly begging for a belly scratch on his rotund abdomen. The melody of Lucy’s giggling filtered up through the trees lining the creek. To keep the beehives cool and protected, Beck kept his colonies nestled in the protected, shady area along the creek.
He currently had enough active hives to keep him busy full time during the season. He’d started out with two hives and each successive year he’d increased his capacity until he was making a healthy living from his honey and bee products. The summer months were busy but he didn’t mind the work.
During the off months, he did contract work and built beehives to sell to other beekeepers online and was considering breeding queen bees to sell. It was a good life.
Lucy’s robust laughter echoed around him, followed by an outburst from Patrick, and Beck smiled when she squealed. Thoughts of where the three of them were headed had occupied his mind for the last several days. They each had their own lives. Their businesses, homes, and responsibilities. But their lives were now so intermingled, where they stayed at night was merely a question of geography. Lucy liked staying with Patrick because then they were all together, including PJ.
The boy seemed to be thriving, despite the harsh warnings Roberta had given Patrick. The woman really needed to get her own life and stop worrying about her brother’s so much. Business had rebounded for Lucy and Beck a bit by the end of April but Patrick had lost another important contract with a business contact from his former church.
Beck sweated inside his long-sleeved shirt and veil, blowing on the drop of perspiration that clung to his nose, He grinned as he thought of joining Lucy and Patrick down at the creek just as soon as he was finished placing the frames in the empty hive bodies to be taken back to the house and uncapped. From there they’d go into the honey extractors.
The Divine Trade and Craft Fair was coming up the following weekend and he was harvesting honey as fast as he could. Three nights each week he worked creating the beeswax candles and beauty products that so many of his customers favored. It was going to be a good year and he was grateful that his colonies were doing so well and that his savings were growing.
Sliding the last frame into the empty hive body for transport, he set his tools aside and whistled to Cooter as he ambled over to his picnic table and took off the veil that was necessary for working with the bees and stripped his soaking wet denim shirt off.
The breeze on his damp skin was refreshing and he grinned as he looked forward to jumping in the creek for a quick swim. They’d had some rain and the creek had swelled a bit. He was glad that the section of the Divine Creek that his property backed up to was wide enough and deep enough for swimming in. The rain might mean that it was nice and cold, too.
He looked back at his house in the distance when he reached the t
He had to laugh out loud at the sight that greeted him when he crested the slight rise that led down to the creek.
“Beck, save me!” Lucy squealed as she looked up at him with a big shit-eating grin on her face. She was nekkid as a jaybird and covered from head to toe in mud. She elbowed Patrick who was in a similar state and her feet shot out from under her. She grabbed for Patrick and they both slid down the slimy muddy slope to the waters’ edge.
He didn’t know anyone who embraced life with as much gusto as Lucy did.
“Hey, Beck!” Lucy called out as she crawled back up the creek bank, sinking her fingers deep in the mud. She grinned big and he was amused to see that even her teeth were a little muddy.
“Yeah, sweetness?” he asked as he came to a stop at the grassy edge before the muddy drop-off.
“You’re too clean,” she said with a hearty giggle and then threw two big handfuls of mud at him. One sailed clean over his head but the other hit him in the middle of his chest with a big splat. He looked down at the muddy gray mess clinging to his chest hair.
“Oh…” he said softly as he came to sit on the edge of the drop-off.
“Uh-oh,” she said with a gigglesnort as she glanced at Patrick who was grinning like a fool.
“You’ve gone and done it now, sweetness,” Beck growled as he inched a little closer to the edge. He hoped their mud war wasn’t too massive because his dick was rapidly swelling and he wouldn’t take too kindly to any hits below the belt.
Lucy panted and giggled as she ran and hid behind Patrick and wound up slipping and falling in the mud again. “I’m in trouble now, huh?” She didn’t sound scared at all.
“Yeah, ya are,” he said with a grunt as he launched himself onto the slope and caught her on his way down to the water, plastering her with handfuls of mud as they slid. He chunked a big glob at Patrick for good measure, before Lucy pulled him to her and gave him a muddy kiss. She laughed and he had to laugh with her. There wasn’t a bit of her that wasn’t gray with mud except for her bright blue eyes.
She squirmed out of his grasp and then shoved him farther down the incline until he was nearly as muddy as they were.
“She started it,” Patrick said, laughing as he gave him a hand up. “I figured she’d want to take a dip in the creek and then fool around a little.” Beck noticed that Patrick’s cock looked like it still hoped for that inevitability.
“But I do!” she crowed. “I just figured you’d like a little bit of dirty fun first!”
Patrick ran his fingers through his hair and it stood on end. “Not the kind of dirty I had in mind, but at least we’re all cooled off. You get done?” he asked of Beck.
“Yeah. I’ll carry the frames up to the house and extract the honey later.”
“We can help,” Lucy said as she rejoined them on the slope. “So you can play for a while?”
“Depends on if this is the only kind of play you had in mind, sweetness.” Beck enjoyed her reaction as he teased her peaked nipple and she bit her lip.
“That explains how you’ve even gotten mud in your teeth,” he said with a chuckle.
“A little dirt never hurt anybody. Oooh!” she replied with a gasp and a giggle as he tweaked her other nipple. “You’re still too clean,” she added with a bright gleam in her eye as she plastered two wet handfuls of mud on his chest and then turned to run and landed on her tush and slid right into the creek.
Beck stood with Patrick on the slope and watched…and waited. “She can swim, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Patrick said with a nod. “At least I think she can. She’s probably just staying under to rinse all the mud off.”
A big cloud of gray rose in the water and they were both still standing there watching when she rose from the water, bared of all the mud. He couldn’t have kept his jaw from dropping if he’d tried. In his peripheral vision, Patrick had a similar reaction.
His heart pounded as he watched her smooth her water-slick hair back as she walked up into shin-deep water, smiling at them like a water nymph bent on mischief.
“I’m her slave,” Patrick whispered.
“Hell yeah,” Beck replied, wanting her with a fervent passion as she crooked her finger at them both, beckoning them to the water.
She didn’t have to ask twice.
* * * *
Lucy finished restocking and tidying up the small massage room after her last client of the day left and she walked down the hallway to the kitchenette. Her new receptionist, Tamara Resendez, was just washing the coffeepot and drying it as they prepared to close the shop on Friday night.
She’d told Cassie over at Divine Drip about needing a receptionist and Cassie had told her that her daughter, a senior in high school, was part of a vocational work-release program at her school and was interested in becoming a licensed massage therapist. Lucy had taken an instant liking to Tamara when she’d come in to fill out an application.
Lucy was anxious to get out to Beck’s house to help with labeling his products. There was a problem with the newly designed labels that the print shop had done for him and they’d had to do a rush reorder. Consequently, they had to do them all that evening to be ready for the Divine Trade and Craft Fair the next day in Central Park, right across the street from her shop.
“Lucy, there’s someone waiting up front for you. She said you’d know her.”
Just as Lucy turned, the front doorbell rang. She hurried to the front as two women walked in chatting a mile a minute.
Just what I need. What’s she doing here?
Tabitha Lester turned to her and gave her a prissy, pseudo-gracious smile. “Ah, Lucy. Don’t mind us. We wanted to stop in just for a minute. I wanted to show my friend your shop.”
Lucy struggled to hide her surprise at Tabitha’s act and said, “What can I do for you, Miss Lester?”
Tabitha patted her hair, waved her hand dismissively, and continued talking to her friend, “You can see how well preserved this section of this building is. The Abbott brothers did very good work bringing it back to its former beauty. I think it and the property next door would be just perfect for office spaces.” She turned a smile on Lucy, dislike glowing in her eyes. “Might we have a look around?”
Lucy tilted her head and held up a staying hand. “Sorry, Tabitha. I’m still not clear why you’re here, and we’re closing up for the day.”
Tabitha shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m just showing my realtor friend the space. She’s in the market to branch out from her Real Estate office in Morehead to here.”
“And you’re showing her my shop and Seth’s studio? Why?”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “It’s not like either of you will be here much longer, dearest. Divine just isn’t a very good market for a massage parlor and a tattoo parlor. You might have better luck getting business out on the Interstate though.”
The realtor gave Tabitha an odd look. “Actually, I thought these properties were already available. Massage retreats and tattoo studios, if they have good reputations, are excellent draws for smaller communities.”
“Lucy?” Tamara touched her shoulder and whispered. “My mom is waiting to pick me up out front.”
Lucy turned to her and nodded as Tabitha yakked on to her friend about the architecture, and walked Tamara to the door. If this conversation got ugly, she didn’t want Tamara around for it. She noticed someone sitting in one of the chairs and swallowed her snicker when she recognized Madeleine Sinclair. Madeleine winked at her as she folded the newspaper she’d been reading. Evidently Tabitha hadn’t noticed her yet.
“Anyway…” Tabitha said, looking askance at Lucy as though she was rude for keeping them waiting while she let Tamara out and waved to her mom, Cassie. “We’d like to see the rest of the shop, if you please.”
Lucy blinked and noted the pained look in the realtor’s eyes. She gave her head a little shake to make it clear she’d had a misunderstanding.
Madeleine rose from her chair, and Lucy remembered why she’d always enjoyed working for her. She was clad in a royal blue business suit that probably cost more than Lucy made in a week, maybe even two weeks. As was befitting a salon owner, her hair, nails, and makeup were flawless. But even beyond that, Madeleine exuded confidence and business savvy as she smacked her paper into crisp folds and slid it into her posh leather tote.
“Claire? Your name is Claire Wilkinson, yes?”
The realtor turned to Madeleine, “Yes, yes it is. Wait! Madeleine? Madeleine Sinclair?”
Madeleine smiled widely and opened her arms. “I wasn’t sure if you’d recognize me.” To Lucy, Madeleine said, “Claire was my realtor when I purchased the spa years ago, Lucy, and a lovely woman to do business with.” Miss Wilkinson and Madeleine hugged each other and then Madeleine patted Claire’s forearm. “I would love to see you open up shop in Divine but I think you may have been misled.”
Tabitha gaped. “How–how did you know I was even showing—”
Madeleine tilted her head and looked at Tabitha as though she were a little touched in the head. “Miss Lester, I’m not sure you’re qualified to be showing properties of any kind. Especially ones that aren’t yours, that you haven’t been contracted to show, and that aren’t available.”
Tabitha was struck speechless, at least for the moment. Lucy stood and watched events unfold with amusement. She could tell Madeleine was enjoying herself.
Miss Wilkinson said, “I was at your spa this morning, Madeleine, but I thought I’d just missed you.”
Madeleine chuckled and gestured at Tabitha. “I was just leaving my office when I heard this one talking to someone about Lucy’s adorable little retreat here and I could tell what she was up to. You mustn’t believe her.”
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