Pretend I'm Yours_A Single Dad Romance

by Vivian Wood

  At least she wants to have pizza with me, I think. I always have my friendship with Olive, even if I don’t have any reliable male companionship.

  Men suck anyway, I huff.

  Getting up, I head to my closet to put something on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jett

  I’m already out with Alex and Mason, appreciating some beer at the Orpheus brewery, when Cady texts me.

  Hey. What are you doing?

  I read the message while Mason is telling us about the marathon he just ran. I’m only half paying attention to him, checking my phone under the massive oak table, but I give myself away when I try to think of how to respond.

  “Hey, rock star,” Mason says. “Eyes up here.”

  “Or just tell us what’s on the phone,” Alex chips in. “If he has a line with some girls, he’d better cough it up.”

  I roll my eyes. I haven’t told Alex and Mason that I’ve been seeing Cady yet, but I guess now is as good a time as any.

  “Remember that girl from the party a few weeks ago? The one you dared me to… I don’t know, not take home?” I say to Mason.

  He straightens a little. “The hottie who you said wasn’t your type? Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, she and I have been—”

  “Boning?” Mason cuts in.

  “Yeah, if that’s what you want to call it, you fucking little kid.”

  Mason grins, unabashed. “It is!”

  “Well, she’s texting me.” I pull my phone up from under the table. “I’m just going to tell her I’ll call her later.”

  “Wait, whoa whoa,” Alex interjects, putting his hand over my phone screen. “I think you should ask her if she has any hot friends who like beer. There’s plenty of room here at our table.”

  I start to say no, but Mason cuts me off again. “I second that motion. Bring the girls here, to me.”

  He jabs a finger into the table. I squint at him; he might be a little drunk.

  “What’s the girl’s name?” Alex asks, brow furrowing.

  “Uhhh it’s Cady,” I say. “And… I don’t know, aren’t we sort of having a bro date?”

  “Fuck no,” Mason says immediately. “Not if there can be women.”

  I think about it, cupping my jaw. The last time I was with her, I did sort of make a big deal out of the fact that we never leave her house. Her answer to an invitation could answer whether or not I’m crazy to even be thinking about dating her.

  “Alright, fine. I’ll ask,” I relent.

  “Atta boy,” Mason says, clapping me on the back super hard.

  I make a face as I reply to her. I settle on: Out with my friends at a brewery. All guys, no girls. Do you have any friends to fill our party out?

  I see that she’s gotten the text. Those three dots appear, letting me know that she’s typing. Then they disappear.

  I flip my phone over on the table, shaking my head. “She’s not answering.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, my phone buzzes in my hands. Alex raises his brows.

  “Guess you’re not the patient type?” he jokes.

  My friend Olive is down for some day drinking. Where are you guys?

  I text back with the details, and she says they’re on their way.

  “She’s bringing one friend, someone named Olive?” I say, uncertain about the whole idea.

  “You know what you need?” Mason asks.

  “Another beer?”

  “Another beer, exactly.” He gets up and grabs our pitcher, heading out of the tiny room with the bar in mind.

  It doesn’t take long for Cady and her friend to get here. I see Cady come into our room, and it’s like she’s moving in slow motion: her dark hair is in a messy side braid, her grey eyes are sparkling, and she is wearing a blood red dress that is short enough to make me shift in my seat. She sees me, which makes her give me a megawatt smile.

  Fuck. Between her miles of bare, toned legs and that red-lipped smile, I’m on the verge of getting hard, right here and now.

  Her friend Olive is just behind her, a petite redhead in a pastel blue floral dress. Alex and Mason both sit up a little straighter when they notice the girls; I realize dumbly, for the first time, that I’m not the only one who finds Cady attractive.

  “Hey stranger,” Cady says, stopping before the table. “Mind if we join you?”

  “Hey,” I say, rising to greet her. I awkwardly kiss her on the cheek and hug her. Her dress is really tantalizingly short. I nearly brush her amazing bare legs when I stoop to hug her. Almost. “Here, sit down. This is Mason, and this big guy is Alex.”

  The girls take empty seats for themselves, slinging their purses across the chairs as a way of claiming them. Cady sits next to me, and I scoot my seat a little closer to hers. Mason starts fumbling with the spare pint glasses that we brought back from the bar, and filling them with the amber lager that we decided to try.

  “This is my best friend Olive,” Cady says, putting her hand on Olive’s back. “She was with me at Ponce Market, getting some flowers, and she agreed to come along.”

  “Yes I did,” says Olive. “Mmmm.”

  I want to laugh at the look on Olive’s face. It’s like she’s at the meat market, and she’s trying to pick the best rack of ribs. That makes me, Mason, and Alex slabs of meat, which I think is an apt comparison. It’s not often that we are the objectified ones, I guess.

  Mason slides Cady and Olive each a glass. I scrunch my face a bit as Olive’s glass stops abruptly and sloshes a little over the rim. “Thanks,” the girls say in unison.

  Cady takes a sip of the beer, eyeballing the pint glass. “Hmmm. I thought it would be more bitter.”

  Alex shakes his head. “No, not this particular beer. It’s very low in hops, so it has a correspondingly lower bitterness.”

  “Alex brews at home,” I tell them. “He is a beer snob, big time. It was hard to get him to agree to drink this amber lager, actually.”

  “I like what I like,” he says with a shrug. “Hey, at least I’m not like Mr. Whiskey Aficionado over here.”

  He jerks his thumb at Mason. Mason looks fake-offended.

  “It’s not my fault that you guys like fucking Bulleit. I happen to have a refined palate—“

  “Alright, alright,” I interrupt. “Let’s not get into that again. Cady, I know you’re a lawyer. Olive, what do you do?”

  “Well, she’s the lawyer you want when you’re trying to sue Big Pharma,” Olive says, pointing to Cady. “Me? I’m the lawyer you want when you’ve done something very, very bad, but you don’t want to go to jail for it.”

  Cady gives Olive a funny look. “Or if you’re innocent, I would assume.”

  Olive snorts. “They so rarely are, though. Honestly, I think I’m a very important part of the legal system. It is your right to defend yourself, no matter what.”

  “And if you happen to have a mere five hundred thousand dollars, you too can have Olive on your team,” Cady jokes.

  “Hey, nobody said the law was cheap,” Olive answers, looking at her nails.

  “No, indeed. So what do you guys do? Aside from Jett. Obviously I already know what he does,” Cady says.

  “My boy Mason here is a grade-A, genuine bounty hunter,” I jump in. “And Alex is in the NFL, although he’s a free agent right now.”

  Olive looks confused. “He’s what?”

  Alex speaks up. “Um, it means I’m not signed to a team at the moment.”

  “Ahh,” Olive says, and Cady nods her understanding. “So are you like… looking for one? Or how does that work?”

  I lean back in my seat, letting the conversation flow around me. Cady looks at me after a second, and I wink at her. She blushes. I stretch out, putting my arm around her. I draw lazy circles on her silk-clad shoulder, which makes her blush even harder.

  Yeah, I’ll admit it. This is exactly what I hoped for, us going out with our friends and her acting like a…

  Well, shit. She’s acti
ng like a girlfriend. Not like Emily, obviously; Emily was frosty from the get-go, and she never liked my friends.

  Cady moves her chair a little closer to mine, so that we’re practically touching. I tug her side braid gently, and she looks at me with a grin. I want to lean in and whisper something dirty in her ear, but that would probably be rude to everyone else.

  So I just think about what I want to do to her, and how. I will rip that little red dress off of her… or no, maybe I will let her leave it on, while I fuck her senseless. In my mind, I do her doggystyle, pound her as her fantastic ass jiggles.

  Fuck, I’m hard again.

  I’m so distracted by the thought of what I’d like to do with her, I almost don’t notice when her hand touches my knee. I glance at her, and see that she’s purposely looking away. After looking around, I feel fairly confident that my lower half is covered by the table.

  When her hand moves further and further up my thigh, so close to touching my cock, it’s very hard to maintain a neutral expression. I put my hand under the table and grab her hand, dragging it to my cock. I see her eyes go wide, and I love the blush that springs to her cheeks.

  Before she can start to explore, though, I remove both of our hands, placing them on her silky thigh. She glances at me with a tight smirk, her eyes sparkling. She’s flirting with me, big time.

  I like her. Like… I really like her. And she gets along fine with my friends, unlike my ex.

  The thoughts come to me, unasked for. But there they are. I give her thigh a hard squeeze, enjoying the feel of my fingers on her smooth skin. She gives me another smirk, and then answers a question that Mason asked.

  There’s only one problem with my liking her. She was pretty damned explicit about what she’s looking for in a guy: great genes, a good time… and absolutely no commitment. I’m not sure how far I should take the whole no commitment thing, but I’m pretty sure that telling her out loud that I like her is a no-no.

  I give her a gentle squeeze, then release her.

  “Hey, how about a group selfie?” Olive suggests, whipping her phone out.

  “Uhhh…” Mason says, looking at me for help.

  “Pleeeeeeeease,” Olive says.

  “She likes to print them out and put them onto a big wall of photos at her house. It kind of makes her look like a creepy murderer,” Cady says.

  I shrug. “Why not?”

  Mason groans, but the rest of us submit to Olive’s picture-taking. I smile and casually put my arm around Cady’s shoulders. When there’s no resistance, I’m a little surprised.

  After four selfies, Mason shakes his head. “We’re done.”

  I detach myself from Cady. I look around at everyone’s glasses, and the empty pitcher. “Should I get another round?”

  “Yes! Oooh, do they have anything fruity?” Olive asks.

  “If you get a fruit beer, we can’t be friends anymore,” Alex says coolly.

  “You could get both,” Mason suggests. “We’re reasonable people, after all.”

  I chuckle. “All right. Something with fruit, and something without.”

  “Extra hoppy!” Alex insists.

  “Alright, alright, don’t get carried away. I’ll be back.” I stand up and grab the pitcher.

  “I’ll keep you company,” Cady says, jumping up. “Make sure you don’t get lost on the way back.”

  I grin, offering her my hand. After a moment of hesitation, she slips her hand into mine. I give her hand a squeeze as I head out of the back room. There is a line at the bar, and we stand and wait our turn.

  “Your hand is so much smaller than mine,” I say, looking down at our clasped hands. “Here, let’s compare sizes.”

  I hold my hand up. She brushes back a strand of her hair, and holds her hand up against mine. There is almost an inch of difference between the tops of her fingers and the tops of mine.

  “That explains some things about you,” she says, her eyes twinkling.

  “Are you trying to say that I have a big cock?” I ask, loud enough for the guy in front of us to turn around for a second.

  Her cheeks color that perfect dusty rose tinge. She drops her voice to a whisper. “Maybe.”

  I bite my lip, leaning close enough to her that my lips touch her ear. She shudders before I even say anything.

  “I’m going to take you from behind later… and it’s not going to be sweet. It’s going to be rough. I’m going to spread you out and dominate you,” I rasp into her ear. I put my hand on her waist, then slip it around to her back. “You’re going to fucking love it.”

  Cady’s eyes are so wide when I look at her, her pupils dilated. Instead of saying anything, she grabs my bearded face and kisses me, hard. I can feel her need in that kiss, and that is more meaningful than anything else.

  “Hey, you guys are next,” the lady behind me points out, impatient.

  “Sorry,” Cady murmurs.

  I wink at her and move up to the bar. But the gears in my head are turning, trying to figure out my next move.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cady

  It was almost midnight by the time that Jett finally came, shouting my name. We both collapsed where we were, me on top of him, both of us breathing hard. I like this position that we’re in; it lets me feel all the raw power of the man below me.

  Right now he’s as relaxed as likely he ever will be, but I can still feel his abs and pecs… and probably a thousand other muscles for which I don’t know the name. I turn my face to lay it flat against his muscular, sweat-slicked chest.

  I can hear the insistent tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump of his heart, and the sound of him inhaling and exhaling. It’s so rhythmic and lulling, it makes my eyelids heavy. I want to close my eyes and fall asleep as I listen to it.

  Lazily, I wonder what kind of gym routine he does to keep in shape. His arms are each almost as big around as one of my legs. And thank god he does all that, because it results in some mind blowing sex.

  “Jesus christ,” he mumbles, moving some of my hair so it’s not in his face. “That was fucking spectacular.”

  I just grunt, which makes him chuckle. I like the sound of it, with my ear pressed to his chest. It’s just very… him. He puts his arms under his head and sighs contently.

  I wiggle a little bit, and catch sight of my family photograph. I was so rude to him when he asked about it; I feel embarrassed, retroactively.

  “Hey,” I say after a minute.

  “Yeah?” he asks. The rumble I can feel when he talks is so fucking nice.

  “You know the photo of me and my family?”

  He pauses for several beats. “Yeah…”

  “It’s… my mom is holding me,” I say slowly. “And I think the guy in the background is my dad, but I don’t really know for sure.”

  He takes a second to digest that. “How did you come across the picture? You said you were raised in an orphanage, right?”

  “Sort of. Mostly foster care homes. I, uh…” I pause, drawing a breath. “Sorry, it’s really hard for me to talk about… about my family.”

  He shifts a bit, one of his hands coming down to stroke my bare back. For some reason, that gives me the courage to keep talking.

  “So, I was taken away by the state at seven, I think. Well, from what I can piece together. I requested my case files as an adult, and it said that… well, basically my mom was brutally beaten by a man. Maybe the guy was my father, maybe not. And it wasn’t the first time he hit her, either. They pulled me because he had beaten me too, and my mom wouldn’t leave him. I think…”

  I feel tears burning at the corner of my eyes. I hate crying.

  But I can’t stop seeing the scene in my head, what little I remember. My mom was in a pink shirt and white panties, and the man was in blue jeans and a yellow cutoff shirt. I saw the man leaning over my mom, staring down at her as she crouched on the floor by the cabinets. She was already protecting herself, drawing up into a little ball as he yelled at her.

  I hea
r the words he said, still drilled into me to this day. You fucking whore! I saw you flirting with the neighbor, bitch. You think that any man would want you now, all fucking fat and pregnant? No! I don’t think so.

  I take a minute to breathe, to ensure that I wasn’t about to make a scene. I calm down, get him out of my head. Still, I get goosebumps when I think about it. I have a real and complex fear of getting pregnant and then being dependent on anyone else for my well-being.

  Jett seems content to just lie there, stroking my back. He seems to have nothing to say about my little lapse, and that’s okay by me.

  “Sorry,” I say at last.

  “Don’t apologize to me,” he says. “You’re just being honest.”

  “Anyway, my mom gave me a few things to keep. And that photo is one of them.”

  Silence stretches between us. I can tell he has a question, but isn’t sure how to ask it. I glance up at him.

  “You want to know something, I can tell,” I say.

  “I was just going to ask… what happened to her? Your mom, I mean.”

  I purse my lips. I really, really don’t like talking about this, but I did open the door.

  “The guy that she wouldn’t leave killed her,” I bite out. “And he ran. The police barely looked for him, just figured… you know… she was asking for it.”

  Jett looked horrified. “Jesus, Cady. I’m so sorry.”

  I look away, using my fingertips to dash tears from my eyes. He rubs my back, up and down my spine. It feels so good, so comforting, that I want to let my tears run free. I almost tell him to stop, but then I would have to explain what’s going on inside my head.

  Instead, I change the subject. “I feel like… I have a chance to do a better job with my own family, you know? Like it’s a second chance or something. I think that’s why I’m so baby crazy.”

  He just nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “Ahhh,” I say, wiping my tears away. Milo meows, and jumps up onto my side on the bed. I shift a bit so that I can pet him, even though it’s pretty awkward. “Enough of that. Tell me about something else. Tell me about your family.”