Holiday Spice & Everything Nice

by Conn, Claudy

  She was nose to nipple with him with barely three inches of space between. The scent, the heat and power that radiated from him made her lightheaded. So, this is what it was like to be totally in lust with someone? Finally the phenomenon had happened to her. Not that she was surprised it had taken this long for her to experience a real knock-to-the-knees crush on someone. She’d always been a late bloomer.

  Deep breath.

  For once timing was on her side. She thanked her lucky stars that she’d made a stand with her parents. Oh, she’d eventually cave to their demands like she usually did, but as of right now? She was free to do what she wanted as she hadn’t agreed to their plans. She’d broken things off cleanly with Ken and now she faced her first and probably only chance to have a dirty, filthy, sex-fabulous disgusting weekend with her “dreamy Playboy”.

  That concluded the only thing left to do was seal the deal. He was feeling guilty over bugging her last night? So be it. He wanted to make it up to her? Alrighty.

  She put a hand on his chest and pretended to smooth a wrinkle while she copped a feel. “Okay, you make lunch and I’ll meet you under the blue umbrella at twelve thirty. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect, darlin’.” He wrapped his hand around hers and smiled down. “Absolutely perfect.”

  She waited until he was gone before she collapsed against the now-still washer and fanned herself. Seduction wasn’t her strong suit. Men in general made her slightly uncomfortable.

  Face it, the guys you’ve dated and the one you nearly got engaged to were intellectually pretentious, suit-wearing assholes.

  Riker wasn’t that kind of a guy. At least he didn’t have the usual characteristics of one. She’d never seen him in a suit and he hadn’t corrected her English or asked her to answer an impossible question. Nope and she highly doubted he’d ever spent a year backpacking in the wilds while attempting to achieve self-enlightenment. Not that she had anything against those things. It’s just when Ken got back from his journey of personal fulfillment he wasn’t interested in traditional ways to fulfill anything. Namely her and the sex life she was dying to expand on.

  She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Riker had strong hands and lots of muscle. She’d never seen him in anything dressier than a pair of khakis and a linen shirt. His hair was longer than the current fashion, and most definitely longer than Ken’s brush cut.

  And Riker was right. This lunch idea was absolutely perfect.

  “I got that,” Riker murmured, reaching over Sidney’s head and handing the delivery guy at the gates two twenties. “Keep the change,” he told him as he accepted the huge brown bag.

  Sidney turned and bent toward the food bag. She took a deep breath in and sighed it out. “Mmm. Lunch I take it? Italian, yes?”

  He laughed because he was reminded of the old cartoons he used to watch when one of the characters was smitten with the aroma on a plate of food and followed the trail of steam to the table.

  “Yes, with some regular old American standbys just in case you don’t like chicken parmesan.”

  Her jaw dropped and she playfully swatted his shoulder. “Who doesn’t like parmesan?”

  He’d been wrong about adorable. Sidney Capp was gorgeous. “I can see you’re going to be easy to please,” he said and nearly dropped the bag when her wide eyes darkened and she blushed. Jesus, was the woman’s mind always in the gutter? He had to bite his lip to keep from smiling like the Cheshire cat.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just perfect darlin’. Absolutely perfect.”

  Chapter Three

  An hour and a half later Riker refilled her lemonade and chuckled. “Sounds like teaching small children is a riot.”

  “Now,” she pushed her glass aside, “I wouldn’t go that far. After all, I’ve been giving you just the highlights.”

  He loved the way she twirled her finger in her hair when she spoke and how her eyes lit up when she laughed. He’d been hanging around the wrong kind of women so long he’d forgotten what flirting with the right kind did to a guy. How it stroked a man’s ego and made him sit up straighter and flex some muscles to show off.

  “You mentioned something about a relationship segment? Isn’t kindergarten a little early to start crushing hopes and dreams?”

  “Ouch.” She seemed to debate a moment and then shrugged. “It’s actually fun.” She held up a hand. “Not crushing little dreams, but listening to my guys’ pearls of wisdom before they get socially corrected.”

  “Don’t you mean morally hijacked?”

  She mouthed the word wow before she said, “With a cynical outlook like that I’m thinking you could use some cheering up.” He grinned. She really was something else. “On one condition though.”

  He waited until she stopped saucily wiggling her brows at him. “Shoot.”

  “If I tell you, then you have to promise to share some of your fun contractor moments with me.”

  He nodded, even though he wasn’t sure he had any. Work was work.

  “Let’s see, I asked one of my classes what was important to a mommy and daddy relationship. Mind you,” she pointed at him, “they had the answer in their booklets so I wasn’t asking them to be creative with this. But, you know, that didn’t stop them.”

  “No?” She was glowing and totally came alive when she spoke about her kids. The good and the bad.

  “One of the boys announced that a mom and dad needed to like the same thing.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me.”

  “Yeah, but here’s the rest of his answer and I quote,” she said, punctuating with air-quotes. “They need to like the same thing, like sports. When a mom likes sports she keeps the chips and dip coming.”

  “Still sounds pretty reasonable to me.”

  “Reasonable? How about needing something in common?”

  “I’m on board with that.”

  “Okay, I was too until he told me the one thing her parent’s had in common was they didn’t want any more kids after they’d had him.”

  Sitting back, he grinned. “You made that up.”

  “No, no I didn’t.” She pointed again, but huskily laughed this time. “I wish I had, but I can’t take credit for that one. Wanna know what the best age to get married is according to one of my treasures?”

  He was moving his glass in a circle, watching the ice cubes spin, when he stopped and looked up at her. “Sure.”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Interesting. Why?”

  “Well, you would have known them forever.”

  He chuckled. Not because of the answer, it was more the way she gave it. The ‘forever’ came out in three overdramatic syllables.

  “The best marriage philosophy I’ve heard from a student? No one decides who they’re going to marry. Only God decides and it isn’t until you get to be really old, like twenty, that you find out who you’re gonna be stuck with for the rest of your life.”

  That made him laugh. “It’s a wonder we don’t have a generation of single people walking around.”

  She plunked her glass down and playfully sniffed. “We could, but they’d all be girls as boys need to get married so they have someone to clean up after them.”

  “Ouch. Now who’s being cynical?”

  “Out of the mouths of babes.” She waggled her brows at him again and he’d be damned but he loved it. “Your turn.”

  “I’m afraid your ears would fall off if I told you some of the stuff that comes out of the mouths of contractors.”

  “You’re not getting out of it. Time to spill.”

  Leaning forward he said, “I assure you, I’m not trying to get out of it. The truth is now that I’ve been forced to find something amusing in my work I find there’s nothing to laugh at. Maybe I should just tell you the things that make me cry.”

  “Suit yourself.” She waved an arm across the table in a flourish. “The floor is yours.”

  “Okay. I once had to bid on a paint job because the wife of th
is poor bastard found out that he’d painted around the furniture. Every goddamn stick of it.”

  She blinked and then laughed. The sound warmed him up and also encouraged him. Soon he found his clients’ faux pas pouring out of him one jury-rig after another.

  He saved the best for last, though. “Then there was the guy, again a rush job. He and his wife had company coming and they’d broken their built-in bed. It was a one piece job, headboard and night tables all in one. Made out of teak and screwed into the wall with lag bolts. I didn’t want to ask how it broke but I had some ideas. Anyway, there I am trying hard to get what wasn’t broken unattached from the wall so I could take the whole thing back to the shop to repair it when I wedge my foot between the wall and a night stand only to stumble on his stash.”

  “No,” she leaned forward and slapped a palm on the table. “You found some marijuana?”

  He leaned forward too, keeping his eyes peeled to gauge her reaction. “No, it was much more interesting than that.”

  “It was?” she whispered. Curling forward, she breathed, “What did you find?”

  “The guy’s porn collection.”

  “P-Porn?”

  He loved the way her cheeks went all red and her eyes widened as if he’d just caught her red-handed watching one of them. “Yeah. He had all the old classics, too. Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat, Debbie Does Dallas and The Best of the Well Hung Heroes.”

  “The Best of the…?”

  “Well Hung Heroes,” he succinctly repeated. “Have you seen that one?” He knew she hadn’t because he made it up. He just wanted to see her squirm a little bit. She was cute when she squirmed.

  “No, I—I mean, why would I have seen something like that?” She sat back and quickly changed the subject. “Did you get it fixed for the guy?”

  “Of course, but it cost him.”

  “I imagine it did. I’ve heard teak is expensive.”

  He reached across the table and brushed her bangs to one side, countering the intimate gesture by grinning, “I wasn’t talking about the wood. I was talking about his collection”

  “You stole his stash?”

  Those words bursting out of her made him laugh. “Of course not. He gave it to me when I went to hand them over to him in front of the wife. According to him, he’d never seen the videos before. Which was kind of odd because he actually teared up when I put them in my truck.”

  Her head fell back and she laughed. Deep. Rich. Husky. And the urge to drag her across the table and kiss her until she quieted was so strong he nearly caved into it.

  Before he did she looked right at him and thrust a finger. “You made that up.”

  Shaking his head he assured, “Like you, I wish I had. The poor bastard. I don’t know about you, but when I find a decent raunchy flick you’d need a crowbar to get it out of my hands. They’re so hard to find, you know?”

  That question was met with silence. She wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t smiling even. No, what she was doing was stripping him again with those eyes.

  “Sidney?”

  She tore her gaze off his chest and looked up. “Yes?”

  “Do you want to go for a swim?”

  “A s-swim?”

  “Yeah” He nodded. “I put on my bathing suit and you—”

  “Yes.”

  She’d answered that so fast any lingering doubt he had about her being an angel-off-limits was gone. She had a dirty little adventurous side just dying to come out and meet him. He was sure of it. Just as he was sure they’d be watching pornos together by nightfall. With that in mind, he wanted to keep everything in a forward motion.

  “I’ll take care of this stuff before I get changed.”

  Standing she asked, “Are you sure I can’t help?”

  “I got this.” He waited until she reached the stairs. “Sid?”

  She spun around.

  “It’s a scorcher out here. Do you have sunscreen?”

  “Oh yeah. I won’t forget to put some on.”

  She’d almost turned away but his next words had her looking at him again. “Actually I was asking for me. I left mine up at the house and you know what this Florida sun can do to you.”

  “You want my cream?”

  Oh yeah. “Will you bring it down?” He stared right at her. “I’ll do your back if you do mine.”

  “O-ohay.” She cleared her throat several times as she attempted to recover from her Scooby Doo-like slip. “I mean, okay, I’ll meet you back here in thirty.”

  Turning, she bolted up the stairs so fast he didn’t get a chance to answer her. Instead he called, “Don’t forget the sun-cream.”

  Sexy, gorgeous, adorable and he added athletic to the list when he saw how fast she’d shot up those steps. Tilting his head, he followed her progress. She probably had great muscle tone. Strong thighs for sure. Now about those knees—he waited for her door to shut—he wondered if they were weak? No problem if they weren’t because they would be soon. Very soon.

  Maybe he could bring up her porn again after swimming. Eventually he’d get her to come clean over that and when she did it was bound to break some serious ice.

  Sidney closed the door and didn’t stop. She ran right into her bedroom and whipped open her dresser drawer. God may have taken a day to rest, but for her there wasn’t a moment to spare. If she was going to work her miracle, i.e. finding a bathing suit that made those extra pounds disappear, she needed every last one of those thirty minutes.

  “I should have said an hour,” she muttered as she pulled out a skimpy black and white string bikini. Holding it up, she groaned. “Why do you torture yourself, Sid? The last time you fit into this sucker you were sixteen and nothing jiggled when you walked.”

  She shook her head, tossed the set over her shoulder and pulled out another. “Green? Seriously?” She tossed that and then grabbed another. “Metallic? Stunning. Not.”

  “Ha! The old dependable iron-side.” It was nothing fancy. A plain black one-piece with high-cut legs. Couldn’t go wrong with a classic.

  Of course once she put it on and had a gander she realized there were several ways this could go wrong that had nothing to do with the bathing suit. She looked like Casper’s twin sister and the black wasn’t helping.

  Maybe? She rifled through her medicine cabinet and bathroom vanity. Drat, no self-tanner, not that it would instantly look good but it might have taken the edge off the pastiness.

  Huffing her bangs aside she critically eyed herself in the mirror. Turning while on tiptoe she was hopeful but then? Who was she kidding? She’d never be one of his supermodel skinny, blonde, beach ball breasted women. That realization made her land on flat feet with a small stumble. It wasn’t until she spied her diploma and numerous awards hanging in the hall that she got reinvigorated. Sure, she wasn’t a woman with numerously purchased assets, but she was reasonably smart with the added bonus of looking to experiment sexually. That had to bring something to the table or bed, as it were. All she had to do was convince him and the best way to do that was to find some cover.

  “Ah ha!”

  Chapter Four

  Riker took one look at her and sat up straighter in the patio chair. Holy hell, she’d been sleeping under him for six fucking months and he hadn’t ever noticed her? And she watched porn no less. Damn. “Nice wrap.”

  He didn’t know what color you’d call it. Maybe sky blue? All he knew for sure was that it was sheer, short and tight. It didn’t screw with his view of her legs which pleased the hell out of him.

  “Thanks.”

  She did the hair twirl thing again and he hissed in a breath. “I see you brought the sun cream.”

  “Sure did. Can I do you?”

  Oh hell yeah, she could do him. “Sure.” He stood up and walked over to her. There was no way he was going horizontal for this. He turned and presented his back. He even bent his knees so she had a better reach. “Good?”

  “Yes.”

  Half a minute in he was thinking he should
have gone horizontal. Talk about weak knees. The way she rubbed it in, the way she pressed and dragged her hand over his shoulder blades, it was lover-like and fucking slow. Torture. She moved over the surface of his skin as if she were enjoying every bit, loving it, and if he guessed, this wasn’t because she had aspirations of being a masseuse either. She was squeezing on him like he was a ripe piece of fruit she was looking to pick—she cupped his hip—fuck pick, devour.

  “Do you want me to do the backs of your legs?”

  “No.” His voice was hoarse, a clear sign she’d gotten to him. Had she noticed? Before he thought better of it, he turned. “If you take off your wrap, I’ll do you.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded without backing away. “Yeah, I’ll do your front and back if you like.”

  He waited. Watched. Sweated while she took off her wrap. She was almost shy about it. Definitely quiet when she answered, “Just my back. Thanks.”

  She handed him the cream and he didn’t know why he was on edge. He never got nervous and here he was nervous as hell. “Standing up or would you prefer to—”

  She turned her back to him and murmured, “Standing. Thanks”

  Her suit cut in a deep scoop. And when she brought her arms up to collect her hair off her shoulders the elegant lines of her back shifted and moved. Her skin was flawless with the exception of a beauty mark to the right on one shoulder blade. That’s what he homed in on now. What he wanted to touch.

  He squirted some lotion in the center of his palm and went right to town on her with one hand. Starting at that tempting beauty mark and working out from there. And when she shivered because he stroked too fast, his muscles tensed. Her automatic response told him one thing. She was sensitive and completely in tune with her body. He continued in that downward path until he reached the elastic ribbing of her suit. Just to test his theory out he let two fingers slip beneath the fabric to skate across the delicate dimples at the base of her spine.