Bigger Rock

by Lauren Blakely

  Curious about Wyatt? His love story is told in WELL HUNG!

  WELL HUNG

  ABOUT

  * * *

  Here's what you need to know about me -- I'm well-off, well-hung and quick with a joke. Women like a guy who makes them laugh. Even better if he's loyal and hard-working. That's me.

  * * *

  Enter Natalie. Hot, sexy, smart, and my new assistant. Which makes her totally off limits... Hey, I’m a good guy. Really. I do my best to stay far away from the kind of temptation she brings to work.

  * * *

  Until one night in Vegas… Yeah, you’ve heard this one before. Bad news on the business front, drowning our sorrows in a few too many Harvey Wallbangers, and then I’m banging her. In my hotel room. In her hotel room. Behind the Titanic slot machine at the Flamingo (don’t ask). And before I can make her say “Oh God right there YES!” one more time, we’re both saying yes—the big yes—at a roadside chapel in front of a guy in press-on sideburns and a shiny gold leisure suit.

  * * *

  But it turns out what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. And now, my dick doesn’t stay in my pants when she’s around. I try to resist. Honest. But the more we try to keep our hands to ourselves, the more we end up naked again, and the more time I want to spend with her fully clothed, too.

  * * *

  The question now is…do I take this woman to be my ex-wife?

  Prologue

  Once upon a time, there was a guy, there was a girl, and some crazy shit went down.

  The end.

  .

  .

  .

  .

  .

  .

  .

  Just messing with you.

  I’m a full-service kind of guy, and I’d never skip the good part. When I tell a you’ll-never-believe-what-happened kind of story, I’ll stamp it with my personal guarantee that you’re getting the whole Oreo, from the delicious chocolate wafers to the sweet crème filling. And please, I encourage you to devour it all, every mouth-watering morsel of the tale.

  Like that one time on the rollercoaster when we learned exactly why some people shriek at the top of their lungs on the downhill.

  Or the tale of the quickie behind the lucky slot machine, when someone nailed three cherries while I nailed her.

  Not sure either of those times topped the afternoon with the ladder, though.

  What? You don’t have any fantasies involving ladders? You will soon, and you’ll never think of the top rung of a ladder the same way again.

  But in between all of that so-insane-it-should-be-illegal stuff that I never could have predicted in my wildest imagination—and look, it’s lawless up there between my ears—there was some seriously real shit, too.

  The type of real that fucks your heart with a chainsaw.

  That damn near rips it out of your chest.

  That was what happened to me.

  So now, after nearly sixty-nine days with her—and the irony of that number is most decidedly not lost on me—I’m here.

  On the steps of the courthouse. She’s going up. I’m going down.

  I reach for her arm. Wrap my hand around it. “Is this how it ends?”

  My voice barely sounds like my own.

  Hers is a whisper, too. “You tell me.”

  I could tell you I’m a player. I could tell you I’ve got a big dick, a rock-hard body, and a heart of gold. But you’re not here for my résumé. Besides, you’ve heard stories before of the player tamed.

  You haven’t heard this one.

  Warning: I don’t give spoilers, so you’ll just need to buckle up and enjoy the ride.

  The only thing I’ll tell you is this—our ending is one you’ll never see coming.

  1

  I’m going to let you in on a little secret about guys. When we see a chick we like, we all say she is hot for us. Doesn’t matter who the woman is, what her situation might be, or if we even have a clue if it’s true or not. We just say it.

  Like right now.

  Floyd, the redheaded dude who was three days late dropping off the hinges for this swank Upper East Side penthouse, has parked an elbow on the counter and is yammering away. Guess he needs a break from the hard work of missing a deadline. I’m determined to meet it though, so I keep working, screwing the hinges into the cabinet door for one of my clients.

  A client who Floyd believes is hot for his sausage.

  His words. Not mine.

  “Wyatt, did you see the way Lila stared at me when I walked in?” he says as he grabs his black and green energy drink, pounds it, then swipes his hand over his mouth, leaving a trail of droplets on his red-flecked goatee.

  “Hmm. I must have missed that moment,” I say, and I’m glad that Lila is downstairs in the building’s gym right now and can’t hear him.

  “I’m telling you, the chicks just line up for me at every job,” Floyd says, puffing out his chest.

  I arch an eyebrow as I twist the screwdriver and give him my best deadpan retort. “This line of women—would you say it extends beyond the door and down the hallway of every client’s home?”

  He nods, like he buys his own bullshit. Evidently, sarcasm is lost on the Hot Sausage King.

  “Absolutely. I could have them all day long. One right after the other. That’s why we’re in this business, right, bro?”

  He holds up a fist for knocking, but my hands are busy, so I just say, “For the tail?”

  He nods. “Best tail I’ve ever had. Nothing quite like a hammer in the hand to nab the chickadees.”

  I laugh at this incredible line of baloney. Because tail is exactly why I got into the home construction business. Not. “You’d probably never be tired, either? You’ve got constant stamina?” I ask, egging him on as I move to the next hinge, spacing it evenly along the back of the door.

  “Oh yeah. But here’s the thing. This is the golden rule of our business,” he adds, then presses his finger to his lips.

  Oh, lucky me. He’s going to let me in on his secret.

  “I love rules. Tell me, tell me,” I say, like an eager acolyte.

  “The golden rule is this—you can bang the clients, but you can’t ever screw your assistant.”

  “That so?” I say in a completely serious voice, as if he’s just dispensed wisdom from Mount Olympus.

  Floyd nods sagely. “Trust me. Learn from my mistakes. I lost the best assistant in the universe when I couldn’t keep my hands off her fine ass,” he says, then sighs wistfully as his gaze drifts to the ceiling. He must be remembering her sweet cheeks. “A good assistant is worth her weight in gold.” He taps his chest. “That’s why my new one is a gray-haired granny. That just removes the temptation entirely.”

  I finish screwing the hinges to the door, and take the drill from my tool belt. Pointing it at him, I meet his eyes. “But consider this . . .” I let my voice trail off, take a pregnant pause, then say, “What if I was into silver foxes?”

  His eyes widen, and his words come out dry and unsure. “You are?”

  “Absolutely. I’m an equal-opportunity man.” I can’t resist yanking his chain, so I keep going, giving a big serving of braggart right back at him. “They float my boat, and let me tell you, the GILFs are hot for me. Talk about a line of hotties. Retirees as far as the eye can see. I can’t keep my hands off them.”

  “You know it. Good thing you don’t have a GILF manning your phones then, or you’d be royally fucked.”

  “Pun intended, right?” I set down the drill, rest the door on the counter, and lower my voice. “But you know, Floyd, there’s another option,” I say, and now it’s my turn to lean in, lower my voice, and pass on my brilliance.

  “Yeah?” He’s practically salivating for what he no doubt thinks will be an office sex tip.

  I straighten to my full height. I’m six two, and I tower over him. “You could”—I keep my tone even and light—“for instance”—I take a final beat—“keep your dick in your pants at work
.”

  The entire penthouse goes silent. Floyd scratches his head. He furrows his brow and says, “Huh?”

  Apparently, my advice is so foreign I might as well have been speaking Turkish. “Anyway, time to go, Floyd. I need to finish this job on time for Lila, who is neither hot for your sausage, nor your baloney.”

  I clap him on the back, thank him for the late delivery of hinges, and send him on his way.

  A few hours later, I’ve finished my work for the day, just as a peppy Lila arrives home from her gym session, bouncing in her leggings and sneakers. I show her what I worked on this afternoon in her kitchen remodel, and update her on what needs to be done tomorrow as I move into the homestretch of the job.

  “It’s really coming together so nicely,” she says in her perky way. “You do amazing work. And I’m so glad Natalie was able to fit this remodel work in your schedule. I know it was a tight squeeze, but you come so highly recommended, and I had to have the best for my home.”

  I nod and say thank you, then give credit where it’s due. “Natalie is the wizard of scheduling. She can pretty much make anything work.”

  “Good, because I might have another project for you. Let me talk to my husband, Craig, when he gets home tonight from his board meeting, and then we’ll set something up?”

  “Sounds like a plan. And I’ll see you tomorrow to finish the cabinets.”

  Soon I’m back at our office in the West 50s, dropping off tools and materials, and none other than the Mistress of Scheduling herself, aka the woman who turned this ship around, greets me.

  “Hey, Wyatt,” Natalie calls out from her desk as I walk in.

  See, I almost want to call Floyd and tell him that following my advice is easy. I manage it every day. What a miracle. Especially considering I have a whip-smart assistant who’s beautiful, clever, fantastic at her job, and has a smile that just slays me. Call me old-fashioned. I’m a sucker for a woman with a great smile, and Natalie, with her bright blue eyes and cheerleader blond hair, wins at smiling. She’s the perfect, all-American girl, like an apple pie, and I just want to eat her up.

  I mean, I don’t want that.

  Fuck, that came out wrong.

  I totally don’t want to eat my assistant. Or bang my assistant. Or bend my assistant over the desk.

  See? I’ve followed my own advice. My dick is safely in my pants.

  Besides, Natalie’s great at her job, and it’s just wrong to think of her that way. Not to mention dangerous. Last time I canoodled with someone I worked with, my business could have tanked. That experience taught me a lesson I should have learned a long time ago—don’t mix business with pleasure. You’ll get a nasty cocktail with a bitter aftertaste. So even though Natalie has the prettiest face I’ve seen in ages, and the most generous heart, topped by a complete goofball side, and even though I once thought she wanted me, I can’t go there with her.

  I keep it all fun and games when she flashes me that killer smile and asks, “How’s the Mayweather job coming along?”

  I gesture from my torso all the way down to my legs then sniff the air for effect. “Great, but do you have anything to get the scent of douche off me?”

  She points to the shelves on the far wall of our office and deadpans, “Top shelf. Left side. I got a new anti-asshole spray last week. But it sometimes takes a few pumps to really work. So work it good, ’kay?”

  I give her a thumbs-up, pretend to grab a can of aerosol and douse myself with it, then put it back. “There. All better.”

  I grab the ratty mustard-colored chair across from her desk and sink down in it. Clients don’t come here; the office is just for us, so we can skimp on furniture.

  She twirls the pen in her hand. “So who caused the contamination today? Was it Floyd or Kevin the oily electrician you tried to put a chokehold on?”

  “Oily Kevin needed the chokehold. Agree or disagree?”

  She nods. “Completely agree. There’s so much agreement in me, I can’t imagine how much more I could possibly agree.”

  “The chokehold was one hundred percent certifiably necessary,” I add, since Kevin had hit on her when he stopped by a few weeks ago. Here’s the thing—Natalie could dropkick him in the blink of an eye. She could slam him to the ground herself. But that shit he pulled with the leering and lewd comments does not fly with me. I would have done the same if a dude tried to get fresh with my little sister, Josie, at the bakery where she works. So I’d dropped a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, Vulcan style, and promptly escorted him the fuck out of my office. No one, and I mean no one, gets to put the moves on my employees.

  “It was Floyd today,” I tell her, then give her the safe-for-work version of the story—the one about Floyd’s client conquests, not his comments about banging assistants. There’s no need to have that hanging out there in the air between us. Can’t plant that forbidden idea in her head.

  That risky, dangerous, dirty, filthy, completely fucking alluring idea. My eyes roam the office briefly, and I catalogue all the places that are calling out to be christened. Her desk, her chair, the floor . . .

  Just like that, my head is a wild rumpus of inappropriate ideas. Exactly what it shouldn’t be. It’s like horny aliens have invaded my mind.

  But I’m not Floyd. I can do better, so I picture a vise, jam the images into it, and crush them out of my mind. The dirty images and the horny aliens, too.

  “And then I escorted him out of Lila’s home and said see ya later,” I tell her, finishing the story, as I drag a hand through my dark brown hair. “Like, in another lifetime later.”

  “Hmm . . .” she says.

  “Hmm, that’s great, or hmm, why did I give one of our suppliers the heave-ho?”

  “Hmm, as in your story gives me a good idea. Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

  “What’s that?”

  Her eyes sparkle. Hers are a lighter shade than my dark blue. “Want me to find a new hinge supplier?”

  The idea is beyond perfect. I smack my palm against the edge of her desk enthusiastically. “Yes. And for the record, you’re brilliant and beauti—” I cut the last word off so it sounds like a low bass note. Note to self: Don’t call her beautiful when you’re berating other men for hitting on her at work.

  She’s watching me, waiting for me to finish my sentence, and somehow I twist the words into a new compliment, as I say, “Brilliant, and . . . bountiful.”

  Bountiful? Seriously? What the hell was that? Maybe she won’t notice.

  No such luck.

  “Bountiful?” she asks, skepticism thick in her tone. As it fucking should be. “I’m bountiful?”

  I nod, going with it, owning it. “Your brain. It’s like a cornucopia of ideas. It’s a Thanksgiving bounty. It’s bountiful,” I say, because I’ve got to sell this cover-up.

  She squares her shoulders. “If you say so, Hammer. And this bountiful brain was two steps ahead today. I already found a new supplier. I called around, talked to some of our colleagues, and got some great recommendations. I already have a new hinge guy lined up.”

  My smile spreads quickly. “Damn. You are three steps ahead of me.”

  “A good assistant should be.”

  “And you’re a great one. What do you say we go celebrate six months of you making WH Carpentry & Construction a much better business than it was before?”

  WH stands for my name, Wyatt Hammer.

  But WH also might stand for something else. You’ll see. Don’t worry. The whole Oreo, remember? I’ll give it to you.

  2

  She chooses the vegetarian bibimbap, supernova spicy style, at a Korean restaurant off Ninth Avenue, not far from the office.

  “Bibimbap,” she says, like she’s weighing the word. “It’s challenging to pronounce and usually comes out like ‘bippity-bop,’ something a fairy godmother from a Disney movie says. But in fact, bibimbap tastes nothing like a Disney movie.”

  “Or like a fairy godmother,” I add, stretching my neck to the
side to work out the kinks in it from today’s job. Eight hours on my feet, screwing, pounding and drilling. Nothing like a hard day’s work, but man, I could go for a massage.

  She shoots me a look. “And you know how a fairy godmother tastes?”

  I realize how my comment came out, but I go with it. “Like all your dreams come true.”

  “You’re telling me you’ve dated fairy godmothers?”

  “Maybe I have.”

  “I’ve dated genies, then,” she says, playing at one-upmanship as our waitress arrives. Natalie tells her what she wants, and I order the beef bibimbap for myself, so spicy it singes your hair off, then add in an appetizer and some beers.

  We’re here because Natalie loves spicy food. The hotter the better. In fact, she’s challenged me to a few food dares over the last six months. Fortunately, I was born with fireproof taste buds and a competitive will of iron, so I usually beat her, but I’ve got to hand it to the woman. She can down a habanero pepper like no one I’ve ever seen.

  Not gonna lie. It was a massive turn-on watching her eat a couple of those bad boys on a burger one night a few weeks ago when we got some grub after work. There’s just something about a woman who can handle her spice.

  That is, it would have been a turn-on if I’d been thinking of her that way. And I hadn’t, so I wasn’t turned on.

  Case closed.

  A minute later, the waitress returns with two beers, and I raise a glass to toast Natalie. “To six months of your magic. You’re better than a fairy godmother.”

  “To six months of solid employment, at last,” she jokes. Natalie was bouncing around at various odd jobs before I hired her. She’d needed work, and she was blunt about it. In fact, the night she approached me in her job hunt perfectly underscores my point about dudes saying women are hot for us.