by Bella Love
I nodded. “We were both Ranger regiment, different battalions.”
“You never deployed together?”
I shook my head. “Kept in touch, though. He almost got blown up. His dog lost his leg.”
“Oh shit.”
“Better than losing all of him. He still has the dog. Max.” Finn had sent me pictures of three-legged Max. I wanted to see Max.
I wanted to see Finn more, but I also wanted to see the dog who’d saved my brother’s life.
“So you’re going there to start over,” she said quietly. “Destiny Falls sounds like a good place to do it. And you have family there, so…”
I figured it was as close as I could get. “It’s a start.”
“Starting’s good.”
“It’s all I got.”
I felt her watching me. She was going to ask me something hard. Something I didn’t want to answer, or didn’t know how to answer.
I reluctantly looked over.
She moved her hand so her palm rested right over my heart. She met my eyes and whispered, “Are you hungry?”
I blinked and gave a bark of laughter. “Fucking starving.”
She grinned and rolled away from me, reaching for the phone. I watched her move, feeling tension flow out of my body. Her dark hair swept over the pale skin of her back, trailing onto the mattress and the sheet hooked in the curve of her hip as she put the phone to her ear.
“Hey, yes, hi. I’d like to get room service.” Silence. “Two cheeseburgers…” She glanced back at me. “Make it three.”
I pushed up on my elbows. Was she…was she ordering us burgers?
“And three orders of fries,” she said into the phone. “Lots of ketchup. Like, lots. Seriously, I’m not joking about the ketchup.”
I let myself drop back onto the bed and shoved my hands under my head again, watching her order us burgers and fries at oh-one-hundred.
Fucking. Perfect. Woman.
This might be more than bed-and-wall sex.
“And milkshakes,” she was saying. “You use real milk, right? Okay. Yes, two of them.” Her waist rippled as she turned to look over her shoulder at me. “Both chocolate…?”
I nodded.
A beat, then she hung up and flopped down beside me, reached out and brushed the hair back from my face, and I didn’t pull away.
“Twenty minutes,” she announced, smiling.
“You’re my fucking dream woman.”
There it was, the flush on her cheeks. This woman could do bad things to me. Good, bad things.
“Yeah, I know, I’m perfect. Burgers and sex; what more does a guy need?”
“About nineteen minutes,” I said, rolling to my knees. I pushed her legs apart and slid the sheet down and thanked her the best I could for making burgers normal again.
For making me normal again, at least for one night.
I spread her wide and lapped her slow, until her head was back, her spine arched, her fingers tight in my hair, pulling on me, and then she came on my tongue, crying my name.
I let that wash over me, her orgasm, her fingers in my hair, her gasping my name like it was more than just coming, hoping it could stand in for whatever else I didn’t have inside me.
TREY FINISHED HIS WORK ON MY BODY just in time. Trust a Ranger to be on point.
The room service knock came on the door and the guy entered, carrying a tray covered by expensive, high domed lids that hid burgers, shakes, and fries. And lots of ketchup.
Trey tipped him a lot of money, then reached for his boots as the door slammed shut.
“Be right back,” he said, sweeping the hotel key card into his pocket and the ice bucket off the table.
“What? Where are you going?” I exclaimed, staring at the food. “It’s going to get cold.”
“Dig in,” he said and strode out the door.
Jeez. Always on a mission, that guy.
I RODE THE ELEVATOR DOWNSTAIRS and stalked the hallways for twenty minutes, looking for that fucking puppy.
I found him in an offshoot hall, near the pool, huddled in a corner, all alone, his nose resting on his fat little paws.
I slid my ass down the wall at the end of the hallway and kicked my boots out. He watched me warily, not moving.
“Hey bud,” I said quietly.
His tail thumped.
“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but Cassidy thinks you’re pretty worth saving.”
He looked at me, head still down on his paws.
“It’s not a big deal, you know,” I told him. “Just for the night.”
His tail thumped again.
“You should know, we’re getting burgers.”
His head lifted.
“With cheese.”
His head tilted to the side, like he knew what that meant. Smart pup.
“But you gotta come now,” I told him, “because Cass is probably going to eat everything if we don’t hurry.”
He got to his feet, his furry little body shivering way down there in the dark.
“Come here,” I murmured, patting my thighs. “No one’s going to hurt you here. It’s all gold tonight.”
He sat back on his haunches and gave a high-pitched puppy bark.
“Right,” I said. “That’s what I’m saying.”
He ran at me, a dark little furball tumbling down the hall.
I SAT ON THE BED, on the gloriously crumpled sheets for what felt like a long time. I glanced at my phone. Yep, a long time.
I looked at the burgers then tipped forward and inhaled their greasy, fatty fragrance. And oh my lord, the fries. The ketchup sat in a high, shimmering red mound, waiting to be desecrated. My mouth watered.
I folded my hands in my lap and looked away. If Trey wanted ice, then jeez, the least I could do after what he’d just done to my body was wait a few minutes while he got it.
Apparently from the first floor. Maybe the basement. Or perhaps from an empty lot down the road a few miles.
What was taking so long?
I looked at my phone again. How good could this ice be?
Suddenly the door rattled and it swung open.
Trey, dark-eyed and grinning, stood in the opening, ice bucket in one hand…puppy in the other.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
My jaw dropped, then I flung myself at him and the puppy.
15
I SET THE PUPPY ON THE BED and fed him burgers and fries, which was probably a bad human thing to do, but man did he like it. He shoved his little snout into the plate and hoovered it up, then toppled over on his kind-of thin belly, his paws stuck out like fat little sticks, his furry head pushed against Trey’s knee. He farted once and fell asleep.
Trey and I grinned at each other.
“What are you, some kind of warlock?” I said, rubbing my hand over the puppy’s belly.
Trey sat against the headboard, one leg bent, the other stretched out beside me. He’d disrobed, and the sheet was draped lazily over him from the waist down, but from the waist up…damn. Dark hair sprayed across his plated chest and down a flat stomach, narrowing over his abs to rope’s width, before it disappeared under the sheets.
I kept looking at him as I ate, trying to convince myself he was actually real, actually here in my bed. Actually, for right now, mine.
With a puppy.
Trey ate another fry as he looked at the pup. “You said you wanted him, and you were right, he was hungry.”
“But how’d you get him to come?”
He shrugged. “I called him. Told him about the burgers.”
I gave a sage nod. “That would do it.” I eyed his furry little body. “We’ll have to give him back in the morning,” I said sadly.
“But for tonight…”
“For tonight, he’s ours.”
This got a grin, tilting up one side of the handsome mouth that could do so much damage to me. “Never had a dog.”
“Me either. We’ll name him Peacock,” I announced.
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br /> “That’s a stupid name,” he replied in a friendly way.
I folded my arms over my chest. “What would you call him?”
He ran a hand over the fluff ball. “I have no fucking idea. I’ve never named anything in my life. Fluffy?”
I snorted. “Yeah, you’re not very good at this. Peacock Prodigal Pup,” I said firmly, and reached forward to pet him. “Because he found his way home.” I looked up swiftly. “Just for the night.”
“Peacock it is,” Trey said.
I sat facing him, sheet lumped around my waist, wearing my favorite old t-shirt that I’d tugged from the drawer and nothing else. His foot and calf poked out of the blankets beside me, just behind my bottom, and I rolled that way a little, to feel his hard maleness touch me.
I took another bite of my burger, then pointed to something poking out of the pillow behind him.
“Hey,” I said, my mouth full of food. “Where’d that come from?”
He reached back and pulled out one of my coffee bean dispensers. “Found them in a box in the sex room.”
I laughed and had to swallow fast before I choked.
“Of course, after the sex, they weren’t in the box anymore.”
I recalled now the little clattering sound when Trey swiped his arm over the table, clearing it to bend me over. It hadn’t made much of an impression then, all my little plastic dreams scattering across the floor.
“I grabbed one before I left,” he explained. “But they were on all the tables.” He fingered it, flipping up the little coffee cup on the top. Coffee beans spilled out in a brown-black tumble onto his lap.
He shoved up. “The fuck…?”
I laughed and reached for another fry. “They’re peaberry Kona beans. Coffee beans. They’re mine.”
He scooped them up and sniffed them. Smart guy. They smelled incredible. Then he gestured to the dispenser. “These are yours?”
“Yep. Had them custom made when I ran my coffee shop.”
He lifted a brow and looked impressed. “An entrepreneur.”
I pulled a face. “If you saw the shop, you wouldn’t call it that. And I think you have to actually make money to be called an entrepreneur, right?”
He shook his head. “Nope. You just have to try.”
I smiled bitterly. “Then I fit. I can try with the best of them. The coffee shop was supposed to be that. Funky vibe, live local music in the afternoons, fancy beans, the works.”
“Fancy beans are the best.”
I laughed and shifted on the bed, stretched my leg out. His hand came down absently and dropped over my ankle, a warm, heavy weight.
My heart did a little flip.
The puppy sighed and shifted. His eyes never opened.
Trey took a bite of his burger and looked at my toenails a second. “Why ‘ran’?” he said, pulling his gaze back up.
“Sorry?”
“You said you ‘ran’ the shop. Past tense. Where’s all the fancy beans now?”
“I released them to the wilds. Set them free. I closed up shop a few weeks ago. It was a small place, kind of off the beaten track and funky. And the wifi was spotty, and then they raised the rent so…”
“So?” he prompted when I trailed off.
I kept looking at a pile of ketchup on one of the plates and shrugged a little. “Now I’m moving on.”
“Where you going?”
I slid my eyes up to his. “I might go work for Amber’s dad, Ben’s new boss.”
“Whoa,” he said quietly, like he got it.
“Yeah,” I agreed glumly, punching a fry deep into the ketchup pile, smothering it. “It’ll be great. The family business.”
“Like the mafia.”
I looked at the coffee bean dispenser in his hand, jaunty little coffee cup perched atop it, and blew out a breath. “I guess sometime’s trying isn’t enough. I mean, who wants to make their own double shot of coffee when they can go buy a six dollar espresso, already made?”
He sat back against the headboard, burger in one hand, pezzie in the other, looking it over.
“I don’t know about the sheep,” he said thoughtfully, “but they’d be great for soldiers.”
I blinked. “The…sheep? Is that us, the civilian world?”
He smiled and reached out to touch my chin, and came away with some ketchup. “Not you,” he said softly, then popped his finger in his mouth and sucked the ketchup off.
Lucky ketchup.
I sat back and considered him. “Are you serious? Soldiers would like these?”
“Yeah. Grinding them would be a little loud if you’re on patrol, but otherwise….”
“You don’t have to use whole beans.” I sat forward eagerly. “It’ll take grounds just as well.”
He smiled, maybe at the way I’d slid forward in coffee-excitement. “I think they’re great.”
I smiled a little proudly. “You’re welcome to all four thousand five hundred of them back in the apartment. Nothing by halves for me.” I sighed. “But enough about me and my failures….”
“I’m enjoying your failures.”
“You just want to avoid talking about yours,” I shot back, teasing.
“It’d be a long list. I fail constantly. I just get back up again.” He crumpled up a napkin and tossed it onto the tray between us. “Like you.”
Something fluttered through my belly, a little tumble of shivers and knocks.
“And only cowards do things by halves,” he added.
I eyed him skeptically. “Oh yeah? Sometimes smart people do things by halves. You know, one time Ben took me to a company picnic for the Fourth of July because Lexie was away, and I decided to organize this big softball game, and in the third inning the vice-president took a pitch to the head and ended up in the E.R.”
“Ouch,” he murmured.
“Another time, I was playing guitar out back on our patio. But we live in the dense heart of the city, and it was, well, it was late, and I was feeling a little low, and I might have had too much to drink. Anyhow, I was belting out Dusty Springfield, and the neighbors started throwing up their windows, yelling at me to stop.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, smiling.
I leaned forward, over the tray of food, and said in a fierce whisper, “But I did not stop.” His smile deepened, tracked across my face like he was seeing something. “And about twenty minutes later, the cops showed up. I got a three hundred dollar fine for disturbing the peace. With Dusty Springfield.” I sat back. “I think I’m destined to fuck things up.”
He let a few beats pass, then said, “Who’s Lexie?”
I blinked and straightened. “Um, that was way back at the beginning of my story.”
“I circled back around.”
“Lexie is my bff. My only ‘f,’ to be honest. Except she travels a lot, and when both she and Ben are away, which is a lot…”
“You’re alone.”
“In a city of millions,” I concluded. “Only me.”
“Me too.”
Our eyes met. “You spend a lot of time alone, Trey?” I asked quietly. “Because people seem to like you. Me, I’m kind of forgettable, so it makes sense, but you…
His gaze drilled into mine. “You’re not forgettable.”
I felt those words down to my solar plexus. I sat back and grinned at him, showing him smashed up fries.
He leaned against the headboard. “I’ve seen some bad shit in my time, Cass, and that,” he pointed at my mouth, “is disgusting.”
I swallowed and drank some milkshake. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait ‘til you see what I do with bacon.”
He burst out laughing and I picked up the third-to-last fry, even though I didn’t actually need it. But…salt and grease and potatoes.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten this stuff,” I said, popping it into my mouth.
He eyed the food. “I’ve been eating it all week long.”
I squinted, appraising him. “Yep, you look it.
Kinda pale and washed out.”
He threw the second-to-last fry at me. I batted it away, then swept it off the covers onto the plate, feeling happy. I’d been in a crap-food starvation state. Also, sex-starved.
Trey sure was good for me.
“How come no junk food?” he asked.
I patted my lower belly. “Pooch.”
His eyes slid down the length of me in my old t-shirt. “I like your pooch.”
I stared at him. “That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
He grinned. “Know the sexiest thing anyone ever said to me?”
“‘Fuck my ass with my heels on?’”
He shook his head. “‘I’m ordering us burgers and fries.’”
I smiled. “Yeah, that’s a good one. And shakes.”
“Definitely shakes.” He looked me over. “I wouldn’t worry about what you eat. You look good.”
“Ha, my hands are greasy and I smell like a milkshake.”
“Good enough to eat.” His gaze moved down my chest. “Pull up your shirt.”
I laughed. “You like this?” I tugged my shirt up, showing him my breasts, then took the last fry and slowly ran the tip of it down my cleavage.
“Now I’m salty too,” I said, all sultry-like.
He lunged for me.
I laughed as he kissed me, then did precisely what he’d said, tasted me, then guided me to the shower and fucked me there, but he didn’t finish the job, just made me die from the wanting.
Then he brought me back to bed and did me there, too. Made love to me there. Did something to me there. Something slow and languorous, like smoke rising in a summer sky.
I don’t know how long we made love, because Trey had ripped the alarm clock cord out of the wall when we first walked in. Maybe we were at it for days.
All I know is he moved in me forever. Held himself above me and moved so slow I thought my heart would stop as his gaze held mine, his eyes closing every so often, his head tipping back as a shudder of pleasure moved through him.
Then he slid out with a wet pop and kissed his way down my body. He kissed my breasts and my belly. He kissed my knees and shins. He kissed my feet.
He kissed my feet.
Then he rolled me over to my stomach and kissed back up my body. My calves, my thighs, my ass, up the line of my spine to my shoulder blades. He pushed aside my hair to kiss my sweaty neck. Then he massaged me, his hard, wide, hands kneading my muscles until I cried a little from the pleasure. I was so thick and heavy I could have fallen into a happy coma, but I didn’t, because I was so aroused my body kept sending little short circuit surges through me, snapping hot then, like a wave, long, slow pulses.
