The Trouble With Bachelors (Windy City Bachelors Book 1)

by Caitlyn Blue

  “Don’t you think we should check out the noises? What if you’re being robbed?”

  Whoa. Robbed? I’m immediately straightening my clothes and grabbing for my phone. Safety trumps sexual satisfaction.

  “Should we call the cops?”

  He shoots me a wicked smirk. “I’ve got this.” He’s heading to the back stairs before I hop off the counter.

  “You got what?” I stage whisper to him. My eyes widen as he snags Brynn’s baseball bat from its place beside the door. In the summer she goes to the batting cages at least once a week to burn off energy and practice her swing. “Where are you going?”

  “To confront the guy.” He heads for the stairs.

  After a second, I follow. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  An old house makes lots of noises. Pipes banging. Gaps in the windows whistle. Ductwork knocks. Radiators clink. Ghosts of dead ancestors go bump in the night. And it’s really hard to sneak up a set of wood stairs unless you know which boards to avoid.

  Of course, I’m sure Zach and I already made enough noise in the kitchen to alert any burglar that he wasn’t alone in the house. Nevertheless, I wince at every creak as Zach ascends ahead of me to the second floor.

  Two of the bedroom doors are open—mine and Gabby’s. In full heroic mode, Zach dashes into each of the bedrooms, bat raised, ready to do battle. I can guess both rooms are empty by the silence that greets him.

  While he’s clearing the bedrooms, I take a peek into the bathroom we share. The space isn’t large and no one closed the shower curtain, so I can immediately see the bathtub is empty. We reconvene in the hallway and simultaneously gaze toward the closed master bedroom door that Sarah occupies.

  When we first moved into the house, we drew straws to see who got which room. Mine is the smallest, which really doesn’t bother me that much. I don’t do much more than sleep in there anyway. Initially Brynn was assigned to the room Gabby now occupies, but she whined so piteously about needing more space that Gabby gave up the third floor so Brynn could have it. I love Brynn, but she can be difficult to live with, so if she has an entire floor to herself we’re all happier.

  As Zach and I advance toward the master bedroom, it occurs to me that it’s located directly above the kitchen. There’s no question in my mind that this is where the noises came from.

  “How do you want to handle this?” I whisper. “Do you want me to throw open the door and then step aside so you can rush in?”

  “I think you should wait back there while I beat this guy to a bloody pulp.”

  My hero.

  “You deserve the most enthusiastic sex of your life after this,” I’m inspired to announce.

  He gives me a wry look. “Not the best sex?”

  “I would not presume to compete.”

  For a second, the bat wavers. Zach gazes down at me, his expression momentarily blank. Then, to my surprise, he wraps his free arm around my waist, hauls me up on my toes, and plants a hungry kiss on my mouth. My lips part. His tongue sweeps in to tangle with mine. I’m in free fall by the time he lifts his head. Thank goodness his arm is around my waist because my legs have turned to rubber. Without his support I would’ve collapsed onto the floor.

  “You are a snowflake,” he declares with a broad grin.

  “Cold and small?”

  “Perfectly unique.” His warm gaze makes my heart OMG!!! like a fangirl with front row seats to her favorite artist.

  “Keep talking like that and I’m going to melt.” I bat my eyelashes at him.

  With a chuckle, he sets me free and returns his attention the closed bedroom door.

  “Be careful,” I warn as he reaches for the doorknob.

  He gives the knob a turn. When a crack appears between the door and the jamb, he rushes forward, punching the door fully open. The bat swings wildly around his head while he shouts at the person to give up. Even though he told me to stay back, I rush forward to confront the thief. The room is empty.

  I go past the bed to check the en suite bathroom and something small and gray races out from beneath the dust ruffle and heads for the door.

  “Rat!” I jump onto the bed, shrieking and pointing.

  Zach whirls around and his gaze darts toward the hall in the direction I indicate. “A rat?”

  “It was so gross.” I don’t really know that it was gross. All I saw was a flash of gray, but it was a rat, so…gross. “It went that way. Get it.”

  “Are you sure it was a rat?”

  It wouldn’t be the first time something got into the house. When my dad was growing up, they’d had an infestation of squirrels in the attic and once my grandfather had to call the exterminators to take care of a raccoon.

  “I saw its beady little eyes.” I shudder.

  “You saw its eyes?” Zach stops waving his bat in a menacing way and regards me with typical male skepticism. “How fast was it moving?”

  “Fast.” I add a zooming hand motion to demonstrate its speed. Would you please go chase it down and kill it?”

  “I’m starting to think you’re more bloodthirsty than you seem.” He actually sounds a bit pleased.

  “Only when it comes to rats.”

  When I was ten, I saw a rat in the basement of a house my great aunt was visiting. She was there to look over some discarded fixtures in the basement. Doorknobs, lights, old furniture. It was an antique collector’s paradise and a grand adventure for a ten-year-old with an insatiable interest in treasure hunting. Or at least it was until I had opened the lid of a trunk and a rat sprang at my face. I’m not sure which of us was more surprised, but I’m sure I screamed the loudest. Without explaining why, I ran for the stairs and didn’t stop until I was sitting in my aunt’s car. It’s why to this day I refuse to allow any trunks or suitcases in the store. It drives my mother crazy because we have a fair number of people who are looking for old pieces to use as coffee tables or to fill in empty spaces.

  Zach leaves the room and I perch on the edge of Sarah’s bed, my knees drawn up to my chest as I strain to hear what’s going on in the rest of the house. My breathing is too loud, so I stop, hoping to catch any tiny noises. I hear the click of the door closing.

  “Bathroom’s clear,” Zach announces from the hallway.

  I can’t see him and my curiosity is close to exploding, but there’s no way I’m getting off this bed until the rat is cornered or killed. The thought of a dead rat in our house awakens my gag reflex. I clap my hand over my mouth and pray it won’t come to that.

  “I’m gonna have to move,” I moaned, rocking to comfort myself.

  “Gabby’s bedroom is clear,” Zach announces in a calm, reassuring voice.

  My heart swells as he appears in the doorway. He is my champion. The man who is willing to take on the dreaded rat to save me. I will give him such a blowjob in gratitude. As I’m contemplating taking him into my mouth and hearing his impassioned moans, I’m suddenly aware that there’s one last room on this level that Zach has to check. My bedroom. All interest in sex vanishes as I’m besieged by the image of a rat lurking under my bed, waiting for me to fall asleep so it can eat my face off.

  How am I going to sleep at night now that I know a rat can get into the house at any time? It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

  “I fucking hate rats,” I grumble between clenched teeth. The silence is killing me. Has Zach found it yet? I can’t stand it another second. “Any luck?” I call and then go back to waiting with heart-pounding anxiety. When Zach appears empty-handed, my chest tightens to the point of pain. “Did you kill it?”

  He shakes his head. “There something you need to see.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I’m deathly afraid of rats. I mean, like, beyond scared. It’s pathological.”

  “It’s okay, really.” He steps closer and puts his hand on my knee.

  As much as I enjoy the warmth of his skin seeping through my jeans, I shake my head. “No, it’s not. I’m not s
etting foot on the floor until the rat is gone.”

  He gives my knee a little squeeze and then surprises the heck out of me by scooping me into his arms and carrying me out of the room.

  10

  Zach

  Emma isn’t exactly made of dandelion fluff, but I work out regularly and the way she’s beaming at me from beneath her long dark lashes makes me feel like Superman. Like she wants me to take her across the hall to her bedroom and finish what we started in the kitchen. I glance down at her misbuttoned shirt, eager to get my mouth on her gorgeous tits once again. They were better than I expected and my expectations were pretty damn high.

  And then she starts squirming. “Wait. Put me down.”

  Disappointment bombards me as I cross the threshold and enter her bedroom. Obviously she isn’t turned on by the thrill of danger like I am. But the second I start to oblige, she locks her arms around my neck, nearly unbalancing me.

  “Stop,” she cries. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  I’m thoroughly confused. “About what?”

  “Where is it?” Her head whips around. She’s become a writhing snake as she tries to see into every corner of her bedroom. “You didn’t bring me in here to scare me with it, did you? Because if so, I’m going to kill you.”

  She’s still focused on the rat. Her adrenaline has spiked and her ick factor is on high alert. There’s no way I’m going to hear her moan my name as she comes. At least not today. And still I try.

  “There’s no rat,” I tell her.

  “There is.” She’s unwilling to let it go. “I saw it go by me. It was gray and had beady eyes.”

  I try to set her down again, but she won’t uncoil her body and let her feet touch the floor. I’m forced to dump her on the bed. Obviously she’s not going to calm down until I produce the “rat.”

  “Just a second.”

  I drop to my knees and peer under the bed where I glimpsed the poor terrified critter moments earlier. It’s still there. Hoping I’m not about to get scratched, I reach out and place my hand under its furry belly. Emma is watching me with a mixture of horror and awe as I withdraw my arm and present her with…

  “It’s a kitten,” she exclaims in a soft, cooing voice that revives my earlier hard-on. “It’s so cute. What are you doing under my bed?”

  Fuck, I love her voice and all its nuances. And the way she transforms from freaked out to maternal in the blink of an eye. Her expression has gone all tender and adorable as she cuddles the kitten against her chest and scratches its cheek with her finger.

  If I kissed her right now, it wouldn’t be because I was hoping to get her naked. I would do it so she turned those big brown eyes on me as the rescuer of all things that need saving.

  “I can see why you thought it was a rat,” I say, petting the kitten’s fur with my fingertips. “It’s gray and about the size of one.”

  “And I barely saw it before it got past me. But what is it doing in Sarah’s room? And how did it get there?”

  “My guess is she brought it there.”

  Emma shoots me a doubtful look. “That’s impossible. We agreed no pets. Besides, Brynn is deathly allergic to pet dander. That’s why they couldn’t have cats or dogs growing up. I mean, they could’ve had a poodle, but there’s no way Uncle John would go for that.”

  “It’s pretty young. I’m sure she hasn’t had it very long. Maybe she’s fostering it.”

  “Still, she should’ve asked us before bringing the kitten here.”

  “She probably knew you’d say no.”

  “And we would have.” The kitten is starting to squirm. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “You could put it back where we found it.” And we could get back to what we’d been doing before the kitten crisis. I give her a hopeful look that she either doesn’t see or chooses to ignore.

  “I really should give Sarah a call.”

  “Didn’t you say earlier she has class until three?” It’s two o’clock now. Plenty of time for us to have some fun. But this is wishful thinking on my part.

  “I did.”

  Seeing Emma’s far-off expression, I decide to abandon all hope. There’s no way she’s going to be thinking about anything except the kitten in the near future.

  “I should probably take off.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I hadn’t exactly planned to have sex with Emma when I skipped work and came to have lunch with her, but now that the opportunity has come and gone, I’m feeling like very poor company.

  “You seem preoccupied,” I say, frustration leaking into my tone.

  She meets my gaze and I can see confusion and hurt in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” But it’s obvious something is. “We can get together and talk about the bachelor/bachelorette trip another time.”

  “You’re annoyed.” She cocks her head and something about my expression makes the corners of her lips rise. “Because this interrupted us?” She lifts the kitten.

  Now I feel like a total prick. Yes, I’m pissy because I didn’t get to have sex with Emma. Common sense takes a hike as I start to speak.

  “I’m a guy,” I start, probably not the best beginning, but it’s true. “Yeah, I wanted to have sex and I’m disappointed I don’t get to.”

  “You’re assuming we were going to have sex today.”

  Well, yeah. “That’s the way it was looking when we were downstairs.”

  My mouth on her breasts. Her fingers in my hair. The whimpers coming from her throat. I pretty much figured we would’ve been naked in ten minutes if the cat hadn’t interrupted us.

  “We’ve only been out three times.”

  “But you invited me over today when your roommates were out.”

  “So you assume we were going to have sex?”

  “Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to? That you weren’t crazy to rip my clothes off downstairs?”

  “Of course I want to have sex with you but I…” She frowns and seems to be fighting for words. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I thought I could be like all the other girls you go out with, but it’s not who I am—ouch!” Her attention whips to the kitten. It’s chewing on her thumb. “Stop that. I’d better put him back in Sarah’s room.”

  I follow her into the hallway. “All the other girls?”

  She puts the kitten in her cousin’s bedroom and shuts the door before whirling to confront me. “The ones you hook up with once or twice and never call again.” Standing with her hands on her hips, she lifts her chin in a confrontational angle. The gold flecks in her eyes suddenly seem more pronounced. “I want to have sex with you, but I don’t want that to be me—waiting for the phone to ring. Seeing you, knowing it’s never going to happen again.”

  She’s so fucking adorable. Instead of arguing with her further, or making promises neither one of us believes, I tunneled my fingers into her wavy brown hair and hold her still as I bring my lips to hers.

  It’s a friendly kiss without passion until her hands seek my wrists and her lips part, inviting my tongue into her mouth. We both groan. And then it’s game on once more. Only this time her hands move directly to the button on my jeans. She has it undone and is getting to work on the zipper before I can unfasten a single one of her blouse buttons.

  “Wait,” she says, gripping my fingers and peeling them away from her shirt. “Earlier I said you deserved enthusiastic sex for being so brave,” she says, her chest rising and falling as she gulps in air. “And despite everything I just said, I promised myself I would give you a blowjob to end all blowjobs.”

  She what? Fuck. I go even harder thinking about it.

  “You don’t have to.” I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there it is. And I’m even pulling her hands away. What the fuck am I doing? My dick was swollen to the point of pain before, and now, at the thought of her mouth on it, I’m in agony.

  “No. No.” She shakes her head in determination. “A promise is a promise.” She lifts my hands a
nd sets them on my head. “You keep those right there while I do this.”

  Keep my hands on my head? Why?

  I’m all out of protests as she kneels at my feet and works my jeans off my hips. My boxer briefs shift downward with the friction, but they’re prevented from following my jeans by the jut of my erection. She leaves my pants around my ankles and spends far too much time walking her fingers up my thighs while she considers the part of me pointing at her from the confines of my underwear.

  “You know, I’ve thought about doing this,” she murmurs, snagging my waistband. Her fingers are so fucking close to my dick I can’t help but rock my hips forward, thrusting it at her. “So many times.”

  “You have?” The question comes out in a strangled gulp as she frees my dick and works my underwear down. And then she’s tracing my length. I hiss out a breath as she stops tantalizingly short of the head. My hips jerk as her husky laugh blows air against my belly a second before her lips graze my skin. “Fuck.”

  She hums in some sort of appreciation and my muscles start trembling. Shit. She’s barely even touched me and I’m close to losing it.

  “When?” I pant, trying to focus on something other than the lust clawing at me. “Did you think about doing this?”

  “Lots of times.”

  Lots of times?

  “Emma.” Her name tears out of me as she wraps her soft hand around me.

  And then her tongue swirls around the head of my dick and I’m close to losing my mind. We groan in unison as she takes me deep. The feel of her mouth is incredible, but what really gets me revved up is the obvious pleasure she takes in treating me like the most delicious popsicle she’s ever had.

  I grip her head, my fingers tangling in her hair. I’m trying to be gentle, but the suction of her mouth and that extra flick of her tongue has me so fucking aroused I’m not in control. And she doesn’t seem to mind that my handling of her is a little rough. In fact, her movements grow more determined. She’s added her fist to the movement of her mouth on my cock.