by Amy Vansant
Katy covered her mouth to keep from spitting out her wine. “That. Is. Awesome.”
Emily giggled. “It kinda was.”
“So did you...?” Kady asked, raising her eyebrows until they almost flipped to the back of her head.
“No. It was our first drink together and I work for his dad. I dunno if sleeping with the boss’s son is smart.”
“Since when have you done anything smart?”
“Good point.”
“It’s been a while though, hasn’t it?”
Emily sighed. “Let’s just say when the opportunity arises, I hope it’s like riding a bike.”
“It pretty much is. Except the bike wears out before you get where you’re going a lot.”
Emily chuckled. “But you’re like, ‘Oh no bike, I’m totally done this ride, that’s okay, no worries…’”
“And the bike is like, ‘I thought so. I rock.’”
The two women collapsed into giggles.
“So, what are you going to do about Sebastian?” asked Kady, regaining her composure.
“Nothing, I guess. He’s got a girlfriend and until he doesn’t, what can I do?”
“You could kill her...”
“I know, but that’s so messy.”
“True.”
“What about you? Anything new and exciting?”
Kady looked away and twisted a piece of her long curly hair around her finger.
“No...”
“What? Something’s up.”
Kady took a deep breath.
“I don’t know. It’s Joe. He’s being really squirrely.”
“How could you tell? This is a man who doesn’t smoke who just taught himself how to roll cigarettes.”
“That’s just it. All of a sudden he seems really interested to learn all sorts of things he didn’t used to care about. Just like—”
“Just like when he met you and wanted to know about everything you were interested in,” Emily said, finishing her sentence.
“Exactly.”
“Well, like what? There’s probably a reasonable explanation.”
“All of a sudden he’s really into baseball,” said Kady. “He hated baseball. Now he’s going to games once a week with this guy, Max, from his office. And he’s bringing home different bottles of wine every night, mostly white. And they aren’t for me. He drinks them.”
“Well, it is summer. That’s the only time I drink white.”
“But he hasn’t had wine at all in years. Suddenly he’s trying to learn what oaky tastes like. Yesterday he asked me to taste his glass and tell him if I thought it had a peppery finish. When I said yes he did a fist pump like he’d just won the lottery.”
“Did you ask him what’s up with all the wine?”
“Yes, sort of,” said Kady. “He said he’d been stuck on beer too long and it was time to expand his palate.”
Emily shrugged. “That’s why I started eating humans. You know, you can only eat chicken and fish and beef for so long.”
Kady nodded. “True. Maybe you could eat Sebastian’s girlfriend.”
“New boyfriend and lunch, two birds with one stone!” she said, grabbing the empty wine bottle and heading inside to grab a new one. “Brilliant!”
The next day at work, Emily was diligently adding truck parts to the website’s database when Mark bopped into her office.
“Whatcha doin’?” he asked.
Emily stopped typing and swiveled her chair to face Mark. He leaned against her doorway, sweaty, mopping his face with his shirt, which he had removed and balled into a makeshift handkerchief. She watched Mark’s muscles rippling across his ribs, beautiful as a pianist’s elegant fingers fondling the keys of a perfectly tuned instrument.
Kady was right. It had been too long since she'd had sex. Comparing men to finely crafted musical instruments had to be an early sign of withdrawal.
“What am I doing?” Emily repeated, trying to focus on anything other than Mark’s torso. “Same thing I’ll be doing until my fingers fall off. I never dreamed trucks had so many parts.”
“Got any big plans tonight?”
Emily shrugged. “I have to mow my lawn.”
Outside it was 88 degrees with 85 percent humidity. She was not eager to mow, but if she didn’t soon, her neighbors would revolt.
“Ooh! I’ll do it!” whooped Mark, raising his hand over his head.
Emily jumped in her chair, startled by his sudden outburst.
“What? Mow my lawn? It’s like a thousand degrees outside!”
“You got beer?”
Emily thought for a moment. She wasn’t much of a beer drinker, but she usually kept some on hand for her dad and her brother, should they stop by.
“Some, I think. Maybe like twelve?”
Mark grimaced. “Mm. Well, I can pick some up.”
“You can have it all. I’m not really a beer drinker.”
“No, I know.”
Oh. Got it. Twelve isn’t enough.
“Write down your address and I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
Emily ripped a hunk of paper from a page she’d finished and jotted down her address.
“You’re seriously going to mow my lawn?” She held out the slip of paper and he bounded over to retrieve it.
“Yeah, I was going to work out, but I’ll just do this instead. You have a universal machine?”
“A what?”
“Free weights? You have free weights, maybe?”
“I have ankle weights and little pink barbells that came with an aerobics video I bought ten years ago.”
Mark stared into middle distance, deep in thought.
“Ankle weights,” he mumbled. Then, just as quickly, he spun and sprinted out of her office, screaming, “See ya soon!”
Emily turned back to her monitor and rubbed her eyes.
If men expected sex after they bought a girl a drink, what the hell did they expect after mowing a lawn?
Emily’s imagination drifted back to the vision of Mark’s glistening torso in the doorway. She was going to end up in a special hell where girls who abandoned their principles for a side of beefcake, spent their days roasting in hell fire, just out of reach of a cool vodka and lemonade.
Mmm.
Vodka and lemonade.
An hour and a half later, Emily sat on her front porch, drinking an ice-cold vodka and lemonade, wearing her big Jackie O. shades and lazily watching as Mark strolled back and forth behind her lawn mower. Every few minutes he’d wave like an excited schoolboy, and she’d wave back. By the end, she’d started to wave in different styles, once slowly, with her fingers closed, like a pageant girl, next in the strange air cupping motion of the Queen of England. Mark didn’t seem to notice. He just grinned and pushed; the sweat beading on his tanned forehead and gliding across his angular jaw line.
Emily felt like Mrs. Robinson, except Mark was her own age. Physically, anyway. He had to know they had nothing in common. Of course, he was probably only after one thing, which she was starting to think might work just fine for her as well.
“Looks good?” said Mark, mowing up to her lounge chair and cutting the engine almost in time. Emily brushed away the bits of grass that settled across her bare feet.
“Looks great! Ready for that beer?”
“Hell, yeah. That’d be awesome.”
“Well, I’ll go get it, then,” she said, standing.
“Cool,” he said, pushing the mower back to the shed as she left. “Bring like four.”
She nodded. Inside, she grabbed four of the beers Mark had brought with him. Having no cooler, she put some ice into a bowl and artfully arranged the beers on top of it.
Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart.
Mark was on the back porch, sitting in a patio chair, shirtless and glistening, when Emily found him. She put the ice bowl and beers on the glass table between them, and took her own seat.
“Cool,” said Mark, cracking open a can and finishing it in one long gulp.
He crushed it in his hands and glanced at Emily for approval.
Should I clap? She offered Mark an appreciative smile and he grinned back, mission accomplished. She suspected he had some sort of Neanderthal checklist built into his brain:
Show woman me can perform manly duties. Check!
Show woman how strong me is. Check!
“Well, I really appreciate the lawn,” she said, trying to jumpstart the conversation.
Mark shrugged. “No biggie. I like working outside. I was thinking of starting a landscaping business, but you know, Dad was all like, ‘You’re going to come work for me, Son’ so...”
“I guess most would consider you lucky to inherit a business, but people don’t realize what a burden it can be, too.”
Mark popped and finished his second beer. This can, he sat beside the bowl, having already proven he could crush it should the need arise.
“People expect a lot from me,” he said.
Mark rarely spent any time in the office. From what Emily could gather, his father relegated him to monkey-work around the warehouse. She wasn’t sure how much his father really expected from him, but she had only been at the company for a week. She didn’t know the family history.
Mark opened a third beer and drank half. As he tilted back his head to finish, Emily studied the sinews in his neck and the sweat pooling in the “V” notch of his throat. Mark’s collarbones gracefully stretched from either side of that limpid sweat lake, traveling to the tips of his broad shoulders.
“Could I make you dinner?” Emily asked before the thought had gelled in her brain. She wasn’t sure why. He looked hungry? The urge must have been a latent maternal instinct to feed him.
Mark chose to crush the third can. The suggestion of food had stirred something primal in him.
He looked at Emily and held her gaze with his green eyes.
Oh shit. I am totally going to sleep with this guy.
“I, uh...” Emily swallowed. “I have some crab meat. I could make crab cakes? Or, we could do steaks on the grill...”
“Would you mind if I got a shower?”
“No, of course not.” Emily stood, and he stood as well. “I can get you a towel.”
Emily planned to make a joke about not having dry clothes that would fit him, but Mark cut her short by leaning forward, putting his knuckle under her chin, and guiding her lips to his. Emily felt sure she’d seen John Wayne use that same move in an old Western.
Emily felt lightheaded and took a deep breath. Mark smelled like a wildebeest.
She had never been so attracted to a wildebeest.
“I have some clothes in my truck,” he said.
Mark walked around the house to get his clothes. Still in shock, Emily stumbled toward the house to find a towel for his shower.
When Mark entered the house with his spare jeans, Emily met him in the kitchen. She introduced him to Duppy, and then led him to the guest shower. Mark paused at the threshold of the bathroom. Emily sensed he was about to ask her to join him, so she spat, “I’ll get the crab cakes made!” and quickly jogged back down the hall. Her voice crackled with nerves; she sounded like a teenage boy hitting puberty.
Emily had barely shaped the crab cakes before Mark reentered the kitchen, wearing nothing but a fresh pair of jeans. He smelled of man-scents she knew he hadn’t found in her bathroom.
“You smell much better. Is that like deodorant or like cologne or like one of those body spr—”
Mark shut her up by kissing her again.
Nervous about the seduction in progress, Emily still appreciated Mark’s ability to quiet her babbling. If only Mark could kiss her quiet every time she was about to say something stupid.
This time, wildebeest odors and sweat were not an issue. Mark pulled Emily close to him.
“I—I—” Emily tried to talk between kisses, but the way Mark’s hand glided beneath her shirt and across her spine made it difficult to catch her breath.
It had been so long. Mark’s body felt warm against her own as her palms moved across the rippling muscles in his back. His arms were so strong, she felt like he could sweep her up and carry her to...anywhere. She kissed him, hard.
That’s when she saw the picture; a flashbulb bursting in her brain long enough to illuminate the face of a man.
Sebastian.
Heaviness enveloped her heart. It was strange to be aroused, and yet so sad at the same time.
Emily pulled away.
“You should know I’m sort of in love with someone else,” she said, as he nuzzled her neck.
Without releasing Emily’s waist, Mark leaned back until he and Emily could stare into each other’s eyes.
“You have a boyfriend?”
“No, I’m just sort of waiting for someone. I think.”
“Waiting?” Mark asked, squinting with confusion.
“I just wanted you to know, emotionally, my heart might be somewhere else.”
Mark’s amusement at her statement didn’t manifest as a snicker or a titter, but as a loud, hearty belly laugh.
“You’re so weird,” he said. He resumed kissing her. He worked his way down her neck, biting her lightly with each nod of his head.
Fair enough. She’d done her duty. She’d warned Mark she liked someone else. They were on the same page about what this was. She wasn’t callously using him with the intention of breaking his heart. That, apparently, was laughable, so...
Mark’s mouth again found hers and she felt her hips tingle.
Emily silenced the voices in her head and gave into the moment. She kissed Mark, swept away by his sheer manliness. His hands slipped beneath her buttocks and pulled her hips against his. She could feel his hardness. An aching need rose inside of Emily; a need she felt confident Mark could satisfy.
Mark lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He continued to kiss her neck as he turned toward the bedroom.
Mark headed down the narrow hallway. Suddenly, a blood-curdling yelp echoed against the walls. Emily heard the scrabbling of claws on carpet.
She knew that sound. She heard it at least once a week.
Duppy.
Her dog had been snoozing in the hallway when Mark came wheeling around the corner with a woman held tightly to his chest. There was no way he could have seen Duppy below him.
After releasing a panicked cry, Dup scampered to safety, but the forward momentum of Mark and Emily’s entanglement no longer held in Mark’s favor. They moved much faster. Mark fell forward, desperately trying to catch his balance and keep his feet without dumping Emily to the floor.
Before Emily could unwrap her legs, they reached the end of the hallway. Emily’s head and back plowed into the drywall. There was a crunching sound, and then nothing but panting; her own and Mark’s. Mark’s body pressed Emily to the wall like a mounted butterfly. She couldn’t move, pinned as she was by Mark’s bulk.
“Holy shit,” said Mark. “That was close.”
Emily released a little grunt. It was hard to breathe with Mark’s chest pressed against hers.
“Close?” she croaked.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked, his mouth muffled against her neck.
Emily slowly unlocked her ankles and Mark steadied her butt as he lowered her feet to the floor. Once standing, Mark released her, stepped back and stretched his back.
“Did you just plow me into the wall?”
Mark scratched his head and offered a sheepish grin. “It was the dog. I couldn’t see him...”
“Oh, I know. I almost step on him all the time. He’s a menace.”
Emily rubbed the back of her head and stepped away to inspect the wall. Part of it had buckled against one of the studs.
“We broke the drywall,” she said.
“That’s no problem. I’m really good with drywall. I did my buddy’s whole apartment.”
Emily cracked her neck. “Great.”
“And my ex-girlfriend’s bedroom wall,” he added.
Emily squint
ed at him.
“Seriously? Should I ask?”
Mark shrugged. “It’s a pretty cool story...”
Emily sighed. The mood was broken, and she was glad. She glanced at Mark’s jeans and found the bulge she’d felt a moment before had disappeared. Good to know plowing women into walls didn’t excite him.
“Guess what part of us broke her wall,” said Mark.
Well, sometimes it excited him.
“Guess,” repeated Mark. “You’ll never guess!”
Emily walked down the hall toward the kitchen.
“How about those crab cakes?” she asked.
Chapter Thirteen
“You want to get some dinner?”
Emily swiveled her chair with every intention of turning down Mark’s invitation. Though the thought of Mark’s body excited her, she wasn’t sure she had it in her to use him for it, even if he approved. After their mishap in her hallway, she’d found the strength to end romantic entanglements for the day; surely she could find that strength again. Plus, he was the boss’s son; things couldn’t end well.
A moment before she had been daydreaming about Sebastian. The curve of his smirk; the brilliant cobalt of his eyes, his lips, as they mouthed the words, “I can’t; I have a girlfriend...” in slow motion...
Formulating a gentle letdown for Mark, Emily turned to find him standing in her doorway, shirtless, as usual. Shirtless was Mark’s uniform when working in the un-air-conditioned warehouse, a fact that delighted him to no end. Other than a defiant two-year-old she once saw speed-strip in a K-Mart to protest his mother’s reluctance to buy him a video game, she’d never met anyone so eager to rip off their shirt.
Emily allowed herself a quick ogle of Mark’s physique. A fine sheen of sweat covered his taut body, and in his arms, he held the most adorable Jack Russell puppy she’d ever seen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled.
“Did you see the puppy?” Mark asked walking the squirming ball of adorable to her. “George brought him in.”
Emily involuntarily squealed with delight as Mark placed the puppy in her lap. Mark sat on his heel beside her and scratched the dog wherever he was able to sneak past her puppy-snuggle attack. The mingling scents of puppy and raw man made Emily delirious. Someone needed to create a cologne of that scent called, “Men with Puppies.” They could spritz it at female shoppers at the mall and make a fortune.
