Muffin Top

by Avery Flynn

  “I didn’t want to see my mom hurt.” The news that Frank Hartigan Sr. had kissed another woman would be a shiv to his mom’s heart.

  Lucy kissed his chest, right above where his heart beat against his ribs. “A protector to the core, aren’t you?”

  “I’m loyal. I know right from wrong.” He paused, listening to the frogs or crickets or whatever other woodland animal his city ass couldn’t define sing their song. “And I promised myself on that day that I’d never do to someone what my dad had done to my mom.”

  “You don’t want to be alone, but you don’t want to hurt anyone, either. Ever think of just trusting yourself rather than have a no-girlfriend rule?”

  Yeah, he hadn’t really thought of it before, but that made sense. “I wouldn’t call it a rule, just more of a guideline until I met someone who really would be the beginning and end for me.”

  Someone who made him laugh all the time and drove him nuts some of the time. Someone who challenged him and didn’t fall for his bullshit. Someone who got him to share his secrets while sitting naked on a floating dock because spilling his guts was the only thing he could think of to steal just another couple of minutes like this with her. Someone he actually liked.

  “Frankie Hartigan, you really are the last of the romantics,” she said, her words carrying just enough bitterness to soak through the sweetness.

  “You don’t believe in a one and only?”

  She let out a huff of disbelief against his chest. “Growing up like I did, the child of divorce with a mother who came back and, shall we say, found solace with my father whenever her new husband had another mistress? True love doesn’t seem realistic.”

  Ouch. That would definitely sting, but still… “That’s pretty damn cynical.”

  “Okay, truth?”

  “Yeah.” Why should he be the only one with his ass literally and metaphorically hanging out?

  She tugged at the blanket’s corner, pulling it up and wrapping it around her, not as if she was cold, but as if she was trying to hide. She pushed away from him, stood up, and began pacing across the blanket spread out on the floating dock as if the words needed motion to get out. “I want that happily ever after someday, but I’m skeptical,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Reaching out to put his arms around her shoulders and scooting closer to her just seemed as natural as breathing. “You just need the right person to show you it’s possible.” Okay, maybe being around her and still on the comedown from a killer orgasm had made him a little more touchy-feely than normal.

  “Are you applying for the job?” She gasped and looked at him with a look of pure, abject horror. “I didn’t mean that. I know this, whatever it is, is only fun. You haven’t led me on. I know you don’t want more.”

  The words rushed out of her so fast they nearly tripped over each other as a huge swath of red made its way northward from her more-than-impressive rack. Because he was a human with eyeballs and she was a gorgeous naked woman in front of him, his gaze dipped down to her nipples, then lower across her belly and to those round hips that made his fingers itch with the urge to grab hold of all that softness and worship it. Damn, even after spilling his guts and while she was in the middle of an embarrassed ramble he wanted to toss her down and fuck her silly.

  “What if I am looking for the job?” he asked. “Do you have an application on hand that I can fill out?”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes at him. “Very funny.”

  Sure, he’d said it as a joke to lighten the mood and ease her embarrassment, but something about the idea settled somewhere deep inside of him and took root.

  Lucy, her cheeks still pink, gave him a sassy wink. “Last one in has to fold up the blanket and put it away in the storage locker.”

  All he had to do was look at the blue-and-green checked material for a mental flash of what they’d just done on it to make his balls tingle in anticipation. “Do you think we should leave it after…”

  His words died in the face of her hearty laugh. Seriously. The woman was practically bent in half as she giggled her ass off at him. Finally, when she could take a breath, she gave him a you-dumbass look and shook her head.

  “The lake is part of my family’s land,” she said. “I’ll come out in the boat before we leave and get rid of the damning evidence by tossing it in the washing machine at home.” His shock must have shown, because she started laughing again. “You don’t think I’m the kind of woman who goes skinny-dipping in public, do you? Come on, I have a professional reputation to uphold. Imagine me trying to scare the crap out of one of the Ice Knights players who’d fucked up when there were naked pics of me on the internet. That’s a big oh hell no.”

  Of course, she hadn’t left anything to chance. Not his Lucy. “You really are something.”

  “Yep,” she said, taking three quick steps that brought her right to the edge of the platform. “And you really are the last one on the dock.”

  Then, with a shit-eating grin, she jumped into the dark water, surfacing a few feet away, and started swimming to shore. Of course, Lucy being Lucy, she rolled over on her back to wave at him before flipping over again and taking off. And all Frankie could do was watch because the sight of her mouthwatering ass shown off to perfection in the moonlight made his brain blank out and his dick get hard.

  If he had Lucy Kavanagh’s boyfriend application at that moment, he would have been filling it out. In triplicate. Immediately.

  But he couldn’t help wondering if she’d even still want to see him when they got back to Harbor City. What if she saw that failure in him, too? The one Shannon had pointed out—not with glee but pity—that he wasn’t a guy who could deliver happily ever afters.

  Chapter Fifteen

  One thing was for sure. Being sober did not make Constance less of a complete and total bitch. Today, however, Lucy was not going to let the über-hag get to her. It was amazing what a few brain-blowing orgasms could do for a woman’s state of mind.

  She ignored the other woman when she waltzed over and stood next to Lucy a few feet from the front of the stage, where the next event for the reunion decathlon was about to start.

  “Interesting,” Constance said. “I figured you would have been the natural choice for this.”

  Without meaning to, Lucy curled her hands into fists before she realized it and had to take a few deep breaths so she could unclench her hands. Instead of responding, she focused on Frankie as he tied a plastic bib around his neck and sat down in front of the homemade berry pie for the pie-eating contest. She caught his eye, and he winked at her, making her insides do that ooey-gooey thing that sent all of her happy endorphins straight to her clit.

  That little buzz of pleasure gave her the strength to turn to the woman determined to make her life hell like it was high school all over again and deliver a super sugary smile in place of a knuckle sandwich. “Frankie has many talents, including eating pie. Lots of pie. With gusto. Plus, there’s always a big bang at the end.”

  It took a second, but Constance got it. Or at least Lucy thought she had, considering the way her face got all mottled and how she let out a huff of disgust before stomping away. The woman wasn’t even trying to go the frenemy route. She’d moved on to a full-frontal assault. Lovely.

  Yeah, getting laid well really did have a positive effect on her mood.

  She must have still been riding the high of finally giving it back to her tormentor—and the fact that Frankie came in first in the pie-eating contest, no shocker there—to agree to take on the next challenge. Really, it was the only reason she could think of as to why she had her forehead pressed to the end of a bat and was spinning around and around as the crowd of reunion attendees counted to ten. Once she heard that, though, she popped up into a standing position and started running toward Frankie, who was standing about ninety feet away—the length from third base to home plate. Or at least she meant to run. Her legs were a wobbly mess, and the world was shifting as if she was on a
boat and it was going down hard and fast.

  “Come on, Lucy!” Frankie hollered at her. “You can do it.”

  “Lu-cy! Lu-cy!” the people around them chanted as they clapped and cheered her on.

  Holding her arms out as if that could stop the ground from weaving this way and that, she stumbled and bumbled her way toward the blurry redheaded giant urging her forward. Thank God he was a big target, because otherwise she wasn’t sure she would’ve made it. But she did.

  She nearly knocked Frankie off his feet with the force of her clumsy impact, but she made it. Best of all, she beat Bryce, who had stopped three feet in front of Constance and was upchucking all the pie he’d gobbled in an attempt to win that contest.

  By the time the next to last contest of decathlon, a game of cornhole, ended, she and Frankie were tied with Constance and Bryce in points. It was all going to come down to the big finale to be held during the dance tonight.

  “So, are you ready to go home and get psyched up to win?” Frankie asked as they made their way to his car.

  She thought about it. When the invitation to her reunion had arrived in the mail, the only goal she had was to show all of the people who had given her a hard time in high school that they didn’t matter to her anymore. Of course just by thinking that, she was pretty much confirming, to herself at least, that they did.

  But the past few days of participating in the decathlon had shown her something.

  She’d gotten to talk—actually talk—with a lot of the people she’d graduated with. They weren’t the same people now that they’d been then, any more than she was. Everyone had changed and grown. She wasn’t unique in that aspect. And with that realization, something a lot like contentment settled into that spot and shoved out a lot of the old bitterness.

  “You know, it doesn’t really matter,” she said, stopping at his car while he unlocked and opened the door for her. “I thought it would, but what matters is my life back home in Waterbury, not showing up people I went to high school with for the sake of my ego.”

  “I hope I can still help you have fun tonight,” he said, a sexy rumble in his tone.

  She got into the passenger seat. “Does that mean you’re going to sing karaoke for the final event instead of me?”

  “Hell no,” he said with a grin. “But I’ll help you have plenty of fun later.”

  Now that, she didn’t doubt for a minute.

  …

  Frankie hadn’t gone to a prom after his freshman year—not because he didn’t have plenty of date options, but because the nuns of St. Mary’s had banned him from the big dance his senior year after an unfortunate experiment in what would happen if someone in a snorkel mask got sprayed down with a fire extinguisher in the middle of the cafeteria. He and Finian might have gotten away with it, too, if they hadn’t picked their younger and way-too-rule-following brother Ford to test out their hypothesis—without Ford knowing.

  Now Frankie was standing in the Kavanaghs’ living room in a suit and holding a corsage made from a trio of bright red ranunculus flowers. He’d never heard of them before, but earlier when he stopped in at Wolfsbane Antiques and Collectibles to ask Henrietta where he could get a corsage for Lucy, the grumpy old biddy had snarled when he said he wanted to get a rose corsage.

  “That woman, she deserves something a little more special than the default flower for people who’ve never had an original thought in their head, don’t you think?”

  As much as he hated to admit it, Henrietta had been right.

  She’d sighed and had shaken her head. “Men are so easily stumped. And that is why I never said yes to Henry, no matter how many times he asked. Well, that and the fact that our names were practically identical. Could you imagine?” She’d pulled out an iPad with the largest screen possible. “Let’s check the Google, shall we?”

  Like the idiot he’d been feeling right about then, he’d nodded and kept his mouth closed.

  “So how would you describe our girl Lucy?”

  He hadn’t even had to think about it. “Pretty. Funny. Smart. Amazing.”

  The older woman had typed away on her screen, her fingers moving faster than he’d expected from a woman Henrietta’s age. Then she must have hit on something, because her fingers had stopped moving and she’d dragged her finger down the screen. When he’d tried to peek, she’d shot him an annoyed glare.

  “Don’t suppose I can add sexy-as-all-get-out to that list?” she’d asked.

  He’d laughed. Not because what she’d said was funny—it was really fucking true—but because hearing it from someone who had probably spent the last million decades surrounded by antiques hit him right on the funny bone.

  “Oh hell yes.”

  “Damn skippy,” she’d said, grinning back at him, and then she’d glanced back down at her screen. “And are you dazzled by her charms?”

  He’d given the older woman his best wouldn’t-you-like-to-know sexy smirk. “Without a doubt.”

  “Then here it is, the ranunculus.” She’d put her iPad down on the counter between them, faceup so he’d been able to see the bright red flower with tightly wound petals that formed a big bloom. “It says they are sexy and sassy. Plus it gets bonus points for its meaning.” She’d tapped the text under the picture of the flower.

  Meaning: I’m dazzled by your charms.

  Yeah, that just about summed it up. “Mrs. Campher, you are a goddess among women.”

  Her snowy eyebrows went up in the universal sign for no shit, sonny. “And don’t I know it.”

  And that’s how he’d ended up standing in the living room feeling like he’d become a cast member in some time travel movie where he’d gone back and gotten stuck in a younger version of himself. He hadn’t had this much anticipation about seeing a woman since Alice Evers had slipped off her bra and shown him the first real-life boobs he’d ever gotten to see. In that moment on the bus on the way back from a school field trip to Harbor City’s Natural History Museum, it was like getting a glimpse of a whole new world that he’d never known about before. It had knocked him six ways to Saturday and changed his whole perspectives on things.

  That moment was nothing, however, compared to seeing Lucy walking into the living room in a tomato red dress that would have been simple in its design if it wasn’t for the woman in it. The sleeveless dress had a deep V-neck that showed off the beyond generous curve of her breasts. The fit followed the lines of her body down to her waist, where it flared out into a skirt that ended right at her knees, showcasing those fucking amazing legs that had been wrapped around his head out on that floating dock.

  “Wow.” Yeah, not his most brilliant line ever, but he’d never meant it more.

  Lucy did a little spin, sending her skirt a few inches up in the air and making him forget how to breathe. She glanced down at the ranunculus tied together with a silver ribbon and let out a small gasp.

  “Did you get flowers?” Her eyes went wide with pleasure. “Why did you do that?”

  “Just to see that expression on your face.”

  She stopped mid-step toward him, her hand going to her chest. He could practically read her emotions like she had a news ticker on her forehead. It went something like oh shit. She’d been more than plain last night. Commitment wasn’t realistic. Skeptical, that’s how she’d put it. He’d been right there with her for most of his adult life. Then he’d sat down at a table in Marino’s across from a woman who busted his balls while sharing her french fries and making him laugh his ass off.

  Not surprisingly, because Lucy was never thrown off her game for more than a second or two, she broke the moment.

  “Frankie,” she said, making his name sound like a plea and a promise, then punctuated it with a little chuckle. “You’re going to ruin me for other men.”

  He was really beginning to hope so. Not that he was going to say that out loud and freak her out, but yeah, it was there. The idea that maybe there was more to this had definitely taken root.

  Conti
nuing his innate sense of when to cause absolute, joyous chaos, Gussie picked that moment to come sprinting into the living room on one of those unexplainable canine runs. The dog barreled right toward Frankie in what had become his signature move—leaping into the air and aiming straight for his balls.

  Jealous because you don’t have any?

  Frankie made a raised-leg-twisting move to protect the family jewels while lifting the corsage up in the air. After Lucy’s reaction, there was no way he was sacrificing the red blooms at the altar of a fat-tongued, pint-sized demon dog.

  “Gussie, no,” she hollered, rushing over to him and snagging the dog in midair as it bounced off him like he was a human bounce house. “You are such a naughty boy.”

  “He’s just protecting his sister,” Tom said as he walked into the living room.

  Tom looked between her and Frankie before nailing him to the wall with a look that really did make him feel like he was picking up a date for the high school prom. Good thing Tom was carrying a phone instead of a shotgun. The man might be a sex therapist, but Frankie couldn’t shake the feeling that that didn’t mean he was okay with his daughter doing the deed.

  “I just want to get a couple of pictures before you two leave,” Tom said.

  “Dad, it’s not really prom,” Lucy said, holding onto Gussie, who was still trying desperately to wriggle free, no doubt to continue Mission: Nose To The Crotch. “It’s not even a real date.”

  Frankie tensed at that pronouncement before he could regulate his reaction.

  Tom aimed his dead-eyed stare at Frankie. “Uh-huh.”

  Agreeing with the man’s obvious doubts might be what Frankie wanted to do at that moment, but Lucy’s dad knew the score even if she didn’t. So, Tom continued to give him the stink eye as he snapped pics with his phone, telegraphing a don’t-fuck-with-my-daughter message with every extra-hard tap on his phone.

  Frankie may have missed a few proms before, but he was getting the whole experience now, and unless he fucked up royally, that would include getting laid, too—but not in the back of a car.