by Jenny Penn
She didn’t hesitate to let him have it.
“What you did tonight was beyond despicable,” Maryanne snarled, her words trembling with the rage that had her ears flushed red. “I have never in my life been so disgusted by a single human being as I am with you now.”
“Oh, come on, honey.” Collin snorted, not looking the least bit ashamed as he grinned down at her. “Don’t you think you’re overstating the matter?”
“You unnecessarily endangered and terrified three small children tonight, and there is nothing lower than a man who puts his own fucking ego before the safety of innocent kids!”
That accusation had the smiles fading from every face in the room as the other men began to shift uncomfortably. Collin among them. He stiffened up, looking more defensive now than he had a moment ago as he repeated himself.
“Now you really are overstating the matter. We wouldn’t have hurt those kids.”
“You already did,” Maryanne spat back. “Or don’t you think they’re going to have nightmares now about people breaking into their house? Don’t you think you’ve completely fractured their sense of security? Can you even imagine how long those scars can last?”
There was nothing smart or funny Collin could say to that. Not that Maryanne gave him the chance.
“And accidents happen. What if Franklin had been armed? What if he’d shot at you and the bullet had gone through the wall and hit one of those kids? You took an unnecessary risk just to prove that your penis is bigger than the turd you have for brains because I know exactly what you are going to say…You didn’t think.”
“I–”
“Shut up!” Maryanne snapped. “I don’t want to hear any of your lame-ass excuses. Why don’t you man up and go back over there and look at the damage you’ve done? We both know you won’t because you’re nothing but an over-muscled coward!”
With that, Maryanne turned on her heel and stormed right out the door, brushing past Big Bob, who watched her go before turning back to smile slightly.
“I had some things to say, but I think she just said it all.” That didn’t stop Big Bob from pinning Collin and Tex with a hard look. “You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Why?” Collin demanded to know. “Because we did our jobs? Because we did them the way we always do them? Nobody got hurt.”
“You really believe that?” Big Bob asked. “Because I’m hoping you’re smarter than that. After all, why do you think I hired that girl?”
“To drive us nuts,” Jason muttered, drawing his father’s attention toward him.
“Boy, sometimes I am so glad that your mother isn’t around to see how stupid you turned out.” Big Bob shook his head at him. “You and all your cousins, you’re good at the hunt but bad with the big picture. Maryanne, she’s good with the big picture. She understands, in way you just don’t seem to get, the dangers of how you do things.”
“But, Dad–”
“No buts.” Big Bob cut him off. “I know she drives you nuts, son, but you ever consider why that is?”
Actually Jason had, and he had answer ready in an instant. “Because she’s a bitch.”
“Because you’re damn near half in love with her,” Big Bob countered just as quickly, causing Jason to cough up a laugh.
“You’re insane.”
“He’s right,” Tex chipped in, earning nods from almost every man in the room but Collin, who stood there glowering.
“And I’ll let you in on a little secret, son. She likes you, too.”
Jason couldn’t help but choke out a laugh at that, but nobody else joined him. In fact, from every corner of the room, his cousins were nodding. That left him stunned.
“You’re all crazy.” Jason shook his head. “The only thing Maryanne and I have in common is our mutual disrespect and hatred.”
“Wanna bet?” Bib Bob asked. “I’ll put a hundred down on things getting out of hand if you will man up and actually try to kiss the girl.”
Jason snorted at that ridiculous suggestion. “A hundred bucks isn’t worth whatever damage Maryanne would do if I so much as tried to kiss her.”
“Then I’ll make it a thousand,” Big Bob offered, and that caught Jason’s attention.
* * * *
Maryanne sat perched on the stool she’d dragged out onto her front porch. She’d positioned it between the three large pots she had arranged before her. One was full of shrimp. One was filled with the heads, the other the bodies. The heads would be turned into stock, and the bodies eaten after she boiled them up. There was enough to feed nearly a dozen people, which was just why she planned on sharing.
Sharing with her neighbors, not the jackass who pulled up into her driveway.
Eyeing the black SUV, she placed her money on just who would get out–Collin or Jason, maybe both. Not that it mattered which. Maryanne had no intention of welcoming either. Hell, she’d be happiest if she never saw either one again, but fate wasn’t that merciful.
It was Jason who hopped out from behind the driver’s seat. The sun glinted off the dark strands of his hair, making them look soft and silken, which was in sharp contrast to the scowl pulling on his brow. With his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark shades and heavily muscled body on display in a pair of fitted pants and tight T-shirt, he looked so serious, so dangerous.
Maryanne felt herself growing still as Jason finally turned in her direction. That damn strange sense of awareness tickled down her spine, making her silently curse. She wanted to hate the man, wanted to hate her body’s reaction to him, but that didn’t stop her stomach from quivering as he mounted the front steps to come to a stop on the other side of the pots.
Jason hesitated there for a long moment as the tension thickened in already heavy, humid air. It was summer. It was hot, but that didn’t explain the burn flushing through her. Nothing explained it but Jason himself. Maybe that was what made working with him so much fun, but he’d betrayed her now. Worse, he’d helped endanger children. That was a sin Maryanne couldn’t forgive.
Maryanne finally broke the silence, taking the lead in the conversation. “I’ll save you whatever you come to say. I quit. If you want to consider that your win, then…whatever.”
Heaving a sigh, Jason reached up and removed his sunglass, snapping them closed and dropping them over the collar of his shirt. “I didn’t come here for that.”
“No?” Maryanne lifted a brow. “Then what the hell you doing here?”
Jason frowned, looking pained by his own confession. “You were right, okay? We screwed up. I allowed my own childish need to get one over on you to overrule my common sense.”
“You don’t have any common sense,” Maryanne informed him, refusing to be moved by his admission, but instead of taking offense, Jason just snorted.
“You’re probably right about that,” Jason allowed with a slight smile. “But then that’s why we need you on our team, to remind us of the obvious.”
Maryanne frowned at that, not sure what the hell she was supposed to say to it. Normally Jason would be celebrating her departure. She could think of only one reason why he wasn’t.
“Did Big Bob put you up to this?” Maryanne couldn’t help but ask as she narrowed her gaze on Jason, smelling a rat on her porch.
“No.” Jason snorted and snickered. “Big Bob put me up to something else.”
“What?” Maryanne demanded to know, but Jason didn’t seem to feel like answering.
“Don’t worry, honey, we’ll get there.”
“Get where?” Maryanne really didn’t trust the size of Jason’s smile. God knew he looked too good by half to be trusted. “What are we talking about here?”
“Nothing.” Jason shook his head and then looked around the porch. “Nice place you got here.”
“No, it isn’t,” Maryanne countered, growing even more suspicious by that false comment. Jason redeemed himself with a little bit of honesty.
“Okay. It isn’t, but at least it’s yours, right?”
&
nbsp; “That you have right.” Maryanne nodded. “It’s owned outright. No debt.”
“Is that why you give your money away?” Jason gaze returned to hers, making Maryanne a little uncomfortable by the thoughtfulness she could see glimmering in his eyes. He was thinking, and despite what she’d said earlier, Maryanne knew Jason wasn’t any idiot.
Shrugging, she turned her attention back toward her shrimp before finally answering. “Others need it more.”
That earned her a snort. “You really are a soft-hearted woman, aren’t you, Maryanne?”
“No.” Soft hearts got beaten up on. She wouldn’t let anybody ever hurt her like that. “It’s just a cold, hard fact. I’m lucky. I’ve got everything I need.”
“Not everything,” Jason objected, causing Maryanne’s head to snap up in blind panic that he’d guess her greatest secret, but he just nodded toward the shrimp. “You could actually use some help because that is a lot of shrimp.”
“You want to help me de-head shrimp?” Maryanne repeated, unable to believe her ears. She hadn’t misheard, and Jason was already pulling up another chair.
“I insist.”
Chapter Five
Jason was having more fun than he’d expected, which left him wondering if his dad maybe didn’t have a point. All the tension, all the frustration, he felt around Maryanne was just unexpressed lust. Not love. That was a little much, though. Jason was discovering he really enjoyed talking to Maryanne.
She was kind of fascinating, actually. As the day bled into night and she showed him how she cooked her stock and shrimp, he began to realize something else. Maryanne wasn’t just cute. She was beautiful.
From the sleek curl of her chestnut strands to the soulful depth of her big brown eyes to the pert perfection of her features, she looked good enough to stare at all night. In fact, he did find himself staring at her, staring at her and wondering just what she’d taste like.
Jason also wondered if she would hit him afterward. Part of him was hoping so because he didn’t have an extra grand to pay off his dad. He knew Big Bob was serious about his bets. Then again, Maryanne might be worth a thousand dollars to kiss. He wouldn’t know until he made his move.
All he had to do was get up the nerve to make it. That was proving harder than it should. Harder than it ever had before because he was something he’d never been before–nervous. Despite the money, he didn’t want this to end badly. Jason didn’t want this to end at all.
That was just why he dawdled over the tasks she assigned him, dragging out every moment as long as he could until finally the stock was cooked and cooling in the sink. The shrimp were boiled and portioned out to be given out the next day. That was, the shrimp they hadn’t eaten.
It had been a good meal, good conversation, and a good night, but then came the awkward moment of silence when there was nothing left to say or do but bid Maryanne goodbye. Jason felt lame as shit doing it, but the words came out on their own, like a habit, only it wasn’t one.
He never said goodnight without making a move, but somehow he found himself on the porch with Maryanne’s front door closed behind him. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go at all. Not at all, but now what was he supposed to do?
Stand there like an idiot, because that was exactly what he did as he debated his options. If he went back home and admitted he hadn’t even tried to kiss the woman, Big Bob would be the least of his problems. His cousins would jump all over him, but that wasn’t what had him finally turning around and lifting his hand to knock on Maryanne’s door.
It was the thought that, if he didn’t do this now, he never would. Hell, he might never get another chance. That thought didn’t help the tension gathering in Jason’s muscles. In fact, it only fueled the anxiety growing within his stomach as it took a moment for Maryanne to answer. Obviously she hadn’t been standing on the other side of the door wondering what the hell he was doing.
For some reason, that fact annoyed the shit out of him. If Jason was going to be all twisted into knots, the very least Maryanne could do was be just as interested as him. All was forgiven, though, when she opened up the door to reveal just what she had been doing–getting undressed.
Standing there in a pair of shiny boy shorts and a silken robe that came only to her hips, with clearly nothing on underneath it, Maryanne looked ready for bed. Jason was ready to take her there. This time he didn’t hesitate.
“Hey, did you forget–”
Before she could get the rest of her question out, Jason struck.
* * * *
Maryanne didn’t know what the hell was going on. From one moment to the next, Jason was standing there, and then he was kissing her as if he planned on stripping her bare and devouring every inch of her right there in the doorway. That would be just fine with her.
Jason’s lips broke over Maryanne’s, forcing hers open for the invasion of his tongue and drowning her in the heady flavor of his kiss. Like a shot of well-aged brandy, his taste hit, warming Maryanne through with a delicious thrill that had her melting into his hard heat. He felt so good against her, making her flush with an overwhelming need for more.
Then she was kissing him back, her tongue lifting to duel with his in a carnal dance that had them both grinding against each other as the flames of passion burned out of control in an all-consuming inferno. There was no controlling it. Maryanne didn’t even try.
Giving in to the need that had simmered there below the surface all night, she played her hands down his back, her fingers balling in his shirt as she began to pull it up to reveal the smooth, heated skin to her touch. He felt hot beneath her touch, his muscles trembling beneath her fingers as she spread them up across his lower back.
Maryanne allowed just the tips of her fingers to tease the sensitive arch above the hard, rounded mounds of his ass, drawing an instant groan from Jason as he pressed closer into her. His kiss grew more dominant as his own hands lifted to all but tear the robe away from her body and expose the puckered tips of her swollen breasts to the teasingly soft grind of his T-shirt.
Maryanne moaned, arching into the sensation as wondrous flickers of pure, white-hot pleasure spider-webbed through her body. The sensation was addictive, driving the need for more. More is what Jason gave her as his lips broke free of hers and he began to place suckling, nibbling kisses down her throat and toward the aching buds her nipples had pebbled into.
He latched down on one of them, twirling his devilishly soft tongue across her sensitive flesh. Maryanne moaned, her nerve endings electrifying with a frenzy of delight that had her nails digging into Jason’s hips and arching them deeper into hers. She felt the hard length of his erection straining through the fabric of his pants to reach her. She ached for him, her cunt clenching with a desperation to feel his thickness stretching her wide.
That was what she wanted, what she needed, but Jason wasn’t done tormenting her yet. Instead, he licked his way across the valley of her breasts to capture the straining tip of her other one and devour her soft flesh with a hunger that left her gasping for breath. Jason didn’t give her a chance to catch it as he slid down to his knees, nibbling his way across the quivering muscles of her stomach, even as his hands brushed her shorts out of the way.
Maryanne wasn’t wearing any panties. She was swollen and wet, though, and eager to spread her legs as Jason scraped his teeth over the bare skin of her mound. Then he was licking the cream thickening on her pussy lips right off her pink folds, making her whimper at his teasing touch. It was deliciously provocative but not nearly what she wanted right then.
Burying her fingers in his hair, she pressed him closer in a silent demand that Jason immediately responded to, fucking his tongue right past her parted folds and deep into the tight clench of her cunt. Maryanne cried out at the sudden penetration, her body seizing with a sudden starburst of rapture as he fucked her hard and fast, taking her right to the edge and throwing her over it as his tongue licked out to tease her clit with a frantic motion that had her c
oming in just the same way.
The chaotic whirlwind of ecstasy spiraled through her, leaving Maryanne limp and unable to resist as Jason dragged her down into his lap. He’d settled back on his knees and undone his pants, allowing his cock to spring free and spear deep into the depths of her cunt as he guided her down his length. He was so thick, and he stretched her so wide, that all she could do was moan and shiver as her release collapsed in on itself, morphing into a inferno of need that had her bucking in a blind attempt to gain just a little more pleasure.
Jason had more than a little to offer. He had about twelve inches in total and had enough thickness to make her sheath pulse in ways it never had before, leaving Maryanne all but drooling as she moaned and flexed her hips. She rode him with slow deliberation, savoring every second and dragging each out as long as she could. That wasn’t long because the lust and want boiling in her veins soon became an uncontrollable inferno.
It consumed her, melting away all control and leaving her at the mercy of a primal instinct that had her bouncing in a maddening rush up and down the hard length of Jason’s cock. Still, she couldn’t move fast enough to appease the soul-blinding pleasure trying to bloom within her. She didn’t have that strength, but Jason did.
Holding her by the hips to assure that he didn’t slip free, Jason toppled Maryanne over and began fucking her with a hard, relentless fury as he unleashed all the power his thick muscle had to give. Still, she tried to force him to give more, wrapping her legs around his waist and arching her hips as she screwed herself down his dick in rhythm with his pounding thrusts.
Together they writhed in a frantic beat until the rapture ripping through Maryanne exploded into the most glorious climax she’d ever had. Every nerve ending in her body lit up as her muscles clenched down, her sheath tightening around Jason’s cock until he shouted out with his own release. Maryanne heard his roar at a distance, too lost in the magic of the pleasure flooding through her soul.
