“Myself, Helly, Lane, and my parents asked for a few things.”
He went over and retrieved a flat cart, rightly assuming we’d need one. I got another.
“They pay you to do their shopping?” he asked as we moved through the doors.
“They pay me to haul their groceries,” I said. “I was already headed to Costco, so it wasn’t too far out of my way to get a few things for them. They reimburse me.” Eventually.
He eyed my lists, probably noting each of them was verging on a foot long. “You do this often?” he asked.
“Every time I go to Costco,” I said, pushing my cart on ahead.
The truth? I’d done it once or twice as a favor, and now they expected me to get their items, too, every damn time I went to town. Yes, I was slightly irked by it. No, I didn’t want to discuss it with Ed.
We started over in the dried/boxed goods section, and we quickly realized there was no good way to be organized. There were simply too many lists, and as we moved along, we wound up running back frequently to get this or that.
I fully expected Ed to lose his patience. I’d brought Jimmie with me in the past, and had regretted it both times. His behavior quickly devolved into pouting, and I’d barely gotten him to help push a cart.
But Ed? He not only pushed a cart, but he also took two of the lists and busied himself finding things and crossing them off. He also found a fair number of items on my two lists, and made me tingle every time he looked over my shoulder.
I liked watching him move, the smooth way he walked. I saw more than a couple pairs of female eyes on him as he walked toward me with a 50 lb. bag of dog food slung over his shoulder. He had an understated attractiveness, I decided, a shy charm that seemed to draw women like flies. They kept striking up conversations with him about this or that—a spice they couldn’t find or the five gallon tub of mayo.
Their behavior was making me feel territorial, almost like I should go pee on his leg—except girls didn’t do that, did they? And he wasn’t really mine, dammit. Not yet, anyway.
He wasn’t returning their flirtations, so I carried on with my list. Walking past the refrigerated section, I paused, looking at the jar of pesto.
“Not finding what you’re looking for?” Ed asked.
I waved my hand at the jar. “I love pesto, but it seems like I’m never able to eat that much. I get about halfway through, it gets shoved to the back of the fridge, I forget I have it, and the rest goes bad.” Story of my Costco-shopping life. Usually I just took one or two of whatever bundled items I bought my parents. But they didn’t buy pesto.
“I’ll help you with it,” Ed offered.
I looked at him.
“I mean, if you’d like,” he said, literally backpedaling as he took a step back and almost tripped over his cart.
I smiled, appreciating how touchable he looked in that moment. Those heavy flannel shirts he favored looked so damn soft. I wanted to brush my fingers along the upper edge of his beard, and see if that pink tinge to his cheeks had made them warm.
“I’d love it,” I told him, and put the jar into my cart. Then I tilted my head, giving him a coy look because I couldn’t seem to help myself. “What else would you like to help me with?” I asked.
The lists crinkled in Ed’s hand. His eyes flared hot, and then shifted. He cleared his throat. “Um,” he said. And then, “Oh look, Honeycrisps.” He hurried away to produce, leaving me grinning in his wake.
Seriously, was he a virgin?
I’d been pretty goal-oriented for the first part of the shopping trip, but after the pesto, I started to have fun. I moved up behind Ed in front of the avocados, brushing against him as I peered at the display. At a sample stand, I popped a juicy chunk of blood orange in my mouth. Knowing he was watching me, I moaned with delight, and licked and sucked my fingers clean. My nipples hardened in the refrigerated room, and instead of pulling my hoodie closer around me, I made sure Ed had a good view.
I felt a little like I was torturing him, watching him stumble and stutter and run. And damn, but I enjoyed it.
But even more, I enjoyed the flares of interest there. His breath had caught when I’d moved against him in front of the avocados. He had stared at my mouth the whole time I was taunting him with the blood orange, his eyes dark. They’d flicked up to mine, and for the barest of moments, I’d thought he was gonna shove the tray with all the little fruit cups off the woman’s sample table, toss me in its place, and take me right there in produce. But instead, he’d taken a step back, pivoted crisply, and then hurried to the refrigerated room, which made me chuckle under my breath.
Of course I followed him.
I was going to ask him which lettuce he thought I should buy Lane, when he spun me around and pushed me back against the boxes. I gasped with surprise, but then he was there, blocking my view. He tilted my face up, and his mouth took mine.
Ed kissed me with hot, frustrated urgency, like I’d been teasing him for years. He cupped my breast, his thumb rubbing across my erect nipple through my shirt. The caress started a coiling, shocking heat.
I grasped his collar and pulled myself up into it. I tangled my tongue with his, moaning as the force of his passion pressed me back. The heat spread, plumping my breasts against his chest, making my limbs feel heavy.
Ed, with his hot hands and hotter mouth, took me by storm. I forgot where we were, and knew only that I wanted him.
My hips bucked against his—and he let me go. Just as quickly as he’d pressed against me, he stepped away. Leaving me cool and wanting.
Braced against the lettuce boxes, I stood on shaky legs, panting and disoriented. He looked down at me, his lips pink and wet. His chest was moving fast under that soft flannel shirt, his eyes darkened with lust.
Then he smiled, leaned closer—
I tilted my chin up, reaching for him again.
—and he came away with a bag of romaine.
“No!” I protested as he stepped away and deposited the lettuce in his cart.
He flashed a grin at me over his shoulder as he moved on to the minced garlic. I stared after him.
On the one hand, I wanted him back with an unfamiliar desperation. On the other, he looked pretty darn pleased with himself, turning the tables on me like that. I might have been irritated, but his smug expression was so damn cute.
I pressed my hand against my forehead, checking for fever as I reviewed what I’d just thought. Wow.
We finished up at Costco without further incident, checked out, and my ardor finally cooled as we packed about three tons of groceries into the extended bed of my F350. Then Ed navigated as I drove us up into an area of town called the Hillside.
“Seriously? Ralph lived up here?” I asked, not believing it. This was the rich part of town, populated with massive houses, each bigger and fancier, with more windows, retaining walls, and architectural detailing than the last. Each had a gorgeous view over the Cook Inlet, which I imagined would light up with dramatic oranges and pinks at sunset. Across the water was Mt. Susitna, and I could even see the snow-capped mountain range beyond.
Ralph had been a basic kind of guy, rough around the edges, and not at all hung up on appearances. I couldn’t imagine him living in one of these mansions, or being willing to pay to heat it in winter.
“He was here first,” Ed said. “He bought the land back in the seventies, built the house himself.”
We continued to climb up a network of switchbacks. “This is ridiculous,” I said, gazing down at Anchorage stretched out below us.
Ralph’s house was at the very top, at the end of the road. It was relatively small, a one-story ranch painted forest green. The yard was shaded by big, mature trees, and as we pulled into the drive, I realized it was out on the side of a bluff with sweeping, panoramic views.
I shook my head. “Wow. Just… wow. And he gave this to you?”
“Yeah. But it’s a bitch to get up here in winter.”
I gave him a look.
&nbs
p; Maybe he understood his complaint was ridiculous, because the corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Back up to the garage door. I’ve got a chest freezer in there.”
I did so, and we got the perishables unloaded and stored for the night. Then Ed hopped into his truck, which he kept at the house, and I followed him back down the hill.
From there, we each went our own way. I still had to go to the bank, and had a list of things I needed that I couldn’t buy at Costco. Steel-toe boots, a new prop, that kind of thing. And Ed had mentioned a welding supply store he wanted to visit.
We agreed to meet at the house later that evening.
“You’re still up,” Ed noted as I entered the living area.
I paused, squinting at him against the light. He sat at the bar, a pile of papers in front of him. With just the light over his head on, the rest of the house was swallowed in darkness.
Suddenly self-conscious, I pushed at my unruly hair. I wasn’t wearing anything under my knee-length Hello Kitty night shirt, and Ed’s gaze had snagged on my hardened nipples, which tented the cotton.
“I have trouble sleeping sometimes,” I admitted. Most of the time. My skin tingled as I watched him watch me, and remembered his touch from earlier today.
His eyebrows went up as his gaze traveled back to my face. “Have you found anything that helps?”
“Um.” Orgasms. But it hadn’t felt right, getting myself off in his guest bedroom.
I blushed a little. He was still watching me, those dark eyes strangely knowing.
He set his pen down atop the little pile of paperwork, and rephrased. “How can I help?” he asked, his smooth voice rolling over me like a warm wave.
I shivered, pulling my arms around myself as I took him in. Those broad shoulders were highlighted in the overhead light, which had also created deep, mysterious shadows under his brows. He wore night pants, and a gray undershirt hugged his chest.
“Can I get a bowl of cereal?” I asked before I could beg for something less innocent. He looked wicked in the low light, and excitement churned through me in a warm fizz.
“Cereal helps?” he asked. He stood from his stool.
I nodded. Your tongue would be better, I thought.
Ed hesitated. “I’m not sure what Ralph had, but I’ll check the pantry.”
Wordlessly, I followed him into the kitchen. He flicked on another bulb in the pantry, making me squint in the additional light.
As he dug around on the shelves, I admired the high shine of his hair, and the way his back and shoulders flexed under that thin shirt. He was long and lean, and had—I decided, as I looked toward the floor—really shapely feet.
“Boxed milk okay?” he asked, pulling a carton of the highly pasteurized stuff from a shelf.
I nodded.
“It won’t be cold,” Ed said, looking apologetic.
I shrugged. “S’okay.” I backed up so he could pass by me with his finds.
He pulled open a cabinet, set a bowl on the counter, and opened the cereal box. I leaned my hip against the counter next to him, content to watch him work.
“You’re not saying much,” he observed as he poured corn flakes into the bowl. It wasn’t my favorite, but it’d do.
I shrugged again. “It’s night. I’m tired.”
His lips quirked, and his eyes sparkled as he regarded me. “I never thought I’d see the day,” he said, “when the fountain of Suzy’s words ran dry.”
“It’s night,” I repeated, my tone dry. There was something so sensuous about the way he poured the milk, the white fluid flooding the flakes, making them pop softly and dance. My body reacted like he’d touched me, tightening. I almost moaned.
Looking away from the naughty, naughty cereal didn’t help either. Because beyond it was Ed, looking incredibly touchable in those polar fleece lounge pants. His graceful movements were hypnotic, the way his muscles rippled...
Had he brought me here for seduction? If so, when was he going to make his move? We’d had dinner, and I’d gone to bed, and he hadn’t said or done a damn thing.
He put a spoon in the bowl and nudged it toward me. “You sure there’s nothing else I can do…”
I searched his gaze, wondering if somehow he knew—
“…to help you relax?” he finished. There was a dark gleam in his eye that said he very well frickin’ knew. Somehow, some way, I got the sense this man knew exactly what he was offering.
“No, this is great,” I rasped, picking up the bowl. I held it between us like a shield. “Thank you.”
He nodded, and rounded the bar to go back to his paperwork.
I watched him go, wondering why I didn’t just take him up on it. I wanted him. But he still had a secret for me to unravel, and a strange hesitation where I was concerned.
What is he hiding? I wondered as I went to sit on the stool next to him. Behind us, the living room stretched in darkened, retro silence. The house didn’t have a shag rug, but it was a close thing.
I took a few bites of my cereal, watching him make notes on the paper. “What are you working on?” I asked.
“Still settling things with Dad’s estate.”
We drifted into a companionable silence.
I was the one who broke it, of course. “Your dad had a lot of dead animals,” I observed. They were looking at me from almost every bare surface with their empty, glassy eyes. A lot of fish, but also caribou, moose, bear, fox, wolf, ptarmigan… Pretty much any and every thing that was legal, or had ever been legal to hunt. The trophies had overflowed the mantle a long, long time ago.
“Want any of them?” Ed asked. He glanced up at me in a way I found ridiculously charming. “All of them?”
“Why? You don’t like them?” I swear that Dall sheep was following me with its eyes.
“Never have,” Ed said. “I have to figure out what to do with them.”
It was nice sitting next to him as he worked. Relaxing, even with a whole menagerie watching us. The only sounds were the ticking of an old clock, and me munching on my cereal.
He looked up again, and caught me watching him. “What?”
“What is your name?” I asked. “Your first name? Your full first name.”
“Just Ed,” he said.
“Your mom named you just Ed?” I asked, remembering Dotty’s story of Ed’s flighty mother.
His gaze sharpened on me. I returned his look, unperturbed. He finally glanced away, and ran a hand through his hair. “My mom,” he said, “named me Amedeo.”
I kept my face straight. “Huh. That’s…” Words failed me.
“It’s horrible,” Ed said.
I was nodding before I could catch myself.
“So, yeah, she named me Amedeo, but my dad legally changed it to ‘just Ed’.”
“Did he change your last name, too?” I asked.
“Yes. It’s Merritt, same as Ralph’s.”
I considered that a moment. Ed Merritt. It was a nice name, I decided. “What about your middle—”
“Nope,” he said.
I laughed. “But—”
“Nuh-uh.”
Eh, I’d get it from him later. Smiling, I found myself just looking at him, enjoying the vibrant life in his eyes. He returned my gaze for a few moments, then shook his head and went back to his paperwork.
I finished my cereal, and decided to give sleep another try. “Good night,” I told Ed for the second time that night.
“G’night,” he replied, his lips curving softly as he watched me go.
I got the hell outta there before I could ask him to join me. I lay in bed for a long time, listening to the faint rustle of papers. I turned over several times, unable to get the image of him out of my mind. Just being in the same house with him, at night, all night, had my body buzzing.
I couldn’t sleep. The gears in my mind kept turning, wondering about him, wondering who took my gold nugget.
The problem was compounded by being in a strange place. It smelled strange, the finishes an
d colors and furniture were different than what I would have chosen. The family pictures on the mantel, the view out over Anchorage with all the twinkling lights. The occasional sound of a car engine or thrumming truck brake. The marten staring at me accusingly from the dresser.
I should have just bit the bullet, made this a one-day trip. It would’ve been a long day for sure, but I’d be back in my own bed right now, probably fast asleep after a quick bout with my vibrator.
Finally, I gave in to the inevitable. There just wasn’t any help for it; if I wanted some sleep tonight, I’d have to rub one out. I could be quiet about it, and I knew the naughtiness of having Ed in the building would speed things along. It would only take a couple minutes, and then I’d be out like a light.
I slid my hand between my legs, and thought of Ed. He was right out there in those fuzzy lounge pants, with those solid shoulders, that dark, tousled hair. That tired little crease that I wanted to smooth from between his eyes.
I imagined him walking through the door. His gleaming eyes would find me in the low light. They’d be only for me, his gaze never wavering as he came closer. His muscles would flex as he stripped off his shirt, and again as he tossed it aside.
I closed my eyes, hips tilting as my fingers started a fire. My knees drew up, toes curling against the sheets.
The bed would dip as he climbed onto it. He’d crawl over me, bringing with him his intoxicating scent. His beard would tickle my face as he gave me a deep, hot, drugging kiss. I let the sensations take over, touching myself in time to the stroke of imaginary Ed’s tongue.
He dragged down the covers. I moaned, almost able to feel his hand smoothing up my thigh, the way his weight settled against me. He was warm, and firm, and heavy. I arched against him, flattening my breasts against his chest, and hooked a knee over his hip. Those polar fleece pants were soft against my inner thigh, a sharp contrast to the hard bulge pressing my clit.
Imaginary Ed didn’t need to do much. He just kissed me, and his hand came up to cup my breast. He rubbed me like he had against the lettuce.
Between that, the hot slide of his tongue, and my busy fingers, I came. It happened suddenly, so suddenly I hadn’t even really gotten into it, couldn’t fully embrace it. It was short, and weak, and gone.
Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy Page 14
