by Pippa Grant
Who among us has not played Candy Crush while using the facilities?
“No one’s taking any pictures you don’t want taken,” I promise. “Not on my watch. And I won’t breathe a word about this to anyone. Promise. You’re safe with me.”
She stares at me without blinking for three long heartbeats, long enough for me to feel the weight of the realization that I can’t always keep her safe, or protect her every minute of the day.
But I can shield her from Mortification By Toilet.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I take that as permission, close my eyes, wrap my arms around her warm tee shirt, and tug.
She makes a glerg noise, and I realize her legs are stuck pretty good.
“I have a defective bottom,” she grumbles. “I should change my name to Cassie Weirdbottom.”
I smile, but keep my eyes closed. “It’s not you. It’s the toilet. Where did Savannah get this thing?”
“Torture Toilets R-Us?” she guesses.
I stop myself from laughing, only because I don’t want her to think I’m laughing at her instead of with her. “Didn’t realize there was a market for those.”
She lets out a soft laugh, and that organ in my chest melts. I want to make her laugh like that every day. All the time.
But first I have to get her out of this toilet. I tug again, she yips and squeezes me tight, but she’s still not budging.
Her arms are twined around my neck, though, that fresh scent of salty flowers tickles my nose, and her breath is hot on my shoulder as she whispers, “Ryan?”
“Yeah?”
“While I’m already mortified, I have to tell you something.”
Thirteen
Cassie
* * *
Ryan starts to pull back, but I grip him tighter. I’m already embarrassed, and I don’t want to see his reaction.
I also don’t want to chicken out.
“I’m a virgin,” I blurt out.
His whole body goes as stiff as—well, as stiff as that part of him that was between my legs last night. Which I wouldn’t mind feeling again, because wow—how electric was that? And intense? And so all-over-buzzy-and-tingly that I finally get it.
I get why people like sex so much.
They like it because it feels so incredible, so close, intimate in a way nothing else ever has. It felt like I was touching something deeper than Ryan’s warm skin or rock hard muscles. Like my heartbeat and his were pounding in time, playing a song only the two of us could hear.
A beautiful song, so much sweeter than I imagined something sexual could ever be.
But sadly, this is not the time for romance.
He’s attempting to pull me out of a toilet. And going completely silent. And whatever sexy points I might have racked up yesterday, I have probably now ruined.
He disentangles himself and pulls back to look at me, his brows pinched while he squats to my level. I can’t tell if he’s disappointed or appalled or shocked or all of the above.
Also, my legs are going numb.
“Cassie.” He touches gentle fingers to my cheek. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“Mortified is the word of the day,” I whisper.
He doesn’t blink.
I clear my throat. “Right. Maybe not if you’re a normal, everyday, socially inept geek who isn’t running a sex toy company. But…”
He doesn’t laugh.
Nope. His eyes go dark and his Adam’s apple bobs and he glances down quickly before meeting my gaze again. “So you really…never?”
His voice is husky too, and even though I’m being eaten alive by a toilet, the sparks radiating between us are heating my skin, making it hard to breathe.
“Never,” I confirm, my lips continuing to flap, spilling all my secrets. “I’ve never even had a close encounter with a dildo. Van keeps suggesting I help myself, but I just…I’m not…” I exhale with a sharp huff. “And now I need to get out of this toilet and get downtown to help clean up the mess someone’s made, which means I’ll have to juggle dildos like I’m a pro. But I’m just not, and—”
He puts his fingers to my lips. “I’ll get you some gloves. And I’ll get my brothers. We’ll all help.”
“No! With your brothers and half the town watching, I’ll be even more embarrassed.”
His smile is growing. “I just realized, we missed part of our tour yesterday.”
“The part where there are sex toys everywhere and someone’s clearly using dildo graffiti to get more people on board with shutting down Sunshine Toys?”
“The part where, no matter how strange the circumstances, everyone pitches in to help during a crisis.”
“Everyone is not pitching in.”
“They are. C’mon. Let’s get you out of here, I’ll grab reinforcements, and we’ll meet you downtown for Operation Toy Clean-up.”
He leans down, looping his arms around me again. “We’re just gonna wiggle until we get it, okay?”
“That’s not how I hear it works,” I grumble.
He laughs, and I can’t help smiling back.
Because even though this is embarrassing, having Ryan here is all the reassurance I need that everything is going to be okay.
Fourteen
Ryan
* * *
Turning off the highway onto the gravel drive to Jace’s place, I force myself to keep my speed to a respectable thirty miles per hour. It hasn’t rained in over a week and I don’t want to coat Blake’s grape crop with dust.
My second to youngest brother is serious about starting a small vineyard in the next four years and has given each of us the “respect the fruit, assholes” lecture more times than I can count. He’s usually the most laid back of the four of us, but mess with his latest Big Plan and you’ll see a side of Blake that isn’t sunshine and rainbows.
But it’s hard to go slow, and not just because I’m past ready to be back with Cassie, helping her make downtown a sex toy-free zone while acquiring further information about how this whole “still a virgin” situation came to pass.
She’s a gorgeous, funny, sexy, intelligent woman who’s a blast to spend time with.
And sexy.
Have I mentioned sexy? Or that she kisses like a house on fire, which is something I know about from firsthand experience. It’s intense, awe-inspiring, scary and magnificent all at once.
Like Cassie Sunderwell, though it’s clear she has no idea how irresistible she is.
But even though she’s pretty much the only thing running through my head, I can’t fight the gut feeling that something’s wrong with Jace.
My brothers all joke about my “Big Bro-Dar,” but in all the years I’ve been keeping them out of trouble, it’s never steered me wrong. First, my shoulders get restless, then my stomach starts to ache, and before long I can’t stop pacing until I get whatever sibling is plaguing my thoughts on the phone.
Or, better yet, corner the kid in question in person.
Though, of course, they aren’t kids anymore. Hell, they haven’t been for a long time. I haven’t been a kid since I was ten, the day we almost lost my youngest brother, Clint, when he ran outside to play in the rain and ended up getting struck by lightning. I was supposed to be watching him.
He almost died because I hadn’t kept him inside.
From that day forward, I’d made it my mission to keep my brothers safe and to never, ever do anything to hurt them again.
Clint now credits his near-death experience for his dauntless, rise-to-the-challenge attitude that’s made him the most decorated young marine in his unit.
Which is fine and all—I’m proud of Clint, I really am—but I would rather keep the people I care about out of harm’s way.
As if summoned by my danger-avoiding thoughts, a red Jetta appears at the end of the road in front of me. Long before the car gets close enough to get a good look at the driver, I know who it is.
There’s only one red Jetta in Jace’s life, and
it’s driven by his heart-breaker of an on-again-off-again girlfriend, Ginger.
I slow down even more, forcing myself to nod civilly to the redhead behind the wheel as our vehicles pass each other on the road. For her part, Ginger is smirking as she wiggles scarlet-tipped nails behind her closed window. She looks pretty satisfied with herself, which can only mean one thing—she and Jace are back together.
“Shit,” I curse, my heart sinking. For a moment, I consider heading back to town without collecting Jace or Blake for help with clean-up—I’m clearly too late to pull my brother out of harm’s way —but I keep going. Cassie really could use the help and my Big-Bro-Dar is still blaring out a code red.
It doesn’t take long to realize why.
I reach the circle drive in front of Jace’s split-level ranch to find him sitting on the porch swing, his head buried in his hands, and his dark hair sticking up in a dozen different directions. The slump to his shoulders signals that this is bad, even worse than the time Ginger allegedly played beer pong with Bart Tompkins, only with golf balls. And her cleavage.
“What’s up, brother?” I slam out of the door, scanning the porch and the vegetable garden beyond. “Blake around? He said he was going to be out here this morning.”
“He’s around somewhere, but you’re not here to see Blake,” Jace says, followed by a heavy sigh so tortured the worry twisting in my gut ratchets up another notch. “Your tail was tingling again, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe.” I climb the four stairs to the porch. “What’s up? I passed Ginger on my way up the drive.”
He lifts his head, pinning me with a hard look. “You didn’t flip her off again, did you?”
“I didn’t flip her off last time,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I was adjusting my visor. The sun was in my eyes.”
“Adjusting your visor with your middle finger stuck out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t remember, which is why I apologized to Ginger for the misunderstanding.” I stop in front of him, leaning back against the porch railing. “You know me better than that, Jace. I believe in minding my manners, even with people whose behavior, in my opinion, isn’t always up to snuff.”
“My opinion either,” he says, surprising me. “Which is why I told Ginger it was over. For good.”
My jaw drops, but I snap it closed again before he can see my reaction.
“Wow.” I nod, fighting to keep my enthusiasm to a minimum. Jace and Ginger have been a couple for a long time. This can’t have been easy for him, no matter how sick he is of her head games. “So…how’d she take it? She looked all right.”
She looked weirdly happy, in fact, a condition that makes more sense when Jace says, “She took it just fine. We were back together again two minutes later so there wasn’t much time to get upset.”
I fight the urge to curse aloud. “Oh. Well then…”
“Yeah, I know.” Jace pushes to his feet, pacing restlessly away across the porch. “But it isn’t like all the other times, Ryan. I was going to go through with it. I was fucking done, I swear, and it felt so good.”
I shake my head. “So what happened?”
He turns to face me, his eyes tightening around the edges. “She’s pregnant.”
This time I can’t hold back the curse, or the question I know I shouldn’t ask. “Are you sure it’s yours?”
“Yes, I’m sure, asshole,” he says, his temper flaring. “She’s exactly two months along and you know where we were two months ago.”
I press my lips together. “In Mexico. At the beach.”
“At a deserted beach,” he adds, “without another soul in sight. For ten days. There’s no way that baby isn’t mine.”
I exhale slowly. “So it’s yours. That doesn’t mean you and Ginger have to be a couple. Lots of people raise kids together, but separately.”
His features stiffen and a familiar stubbornness flickers to life in his eyes. “Yeah, I know. But despite what the rest of you think, the black sheep of the family has a moral code, too, you know.”
“I never said you didn’t. And you’re not the black—”
“And I’m not about to bail on being there for my kid just because it hasn’t always been smooth sailing with Ginger,” he barrels on. “I don’t want to be an every-other-weekend parent. I want to be there full-time, every day, every night. I don’t want to be a stranger in my own baby’s life.”
Chest aching with a mixture of empathy and pride, I nod. “I get it. Point taken. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re going to be a great father.”
Jace crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. “Right. Sure you do. Don’t lay it on too thick there, bro.”
“I’m not laying it on thick.” I rest a hand on his shoulder, waiting until he grudgingly meets my gaze before I say, “Seriously. You’ve got this. You work hard, you’ve got a good heart, and you’re a lot of fun when you’re not being a cranky bastard.”
His lips quirk. “Yeah, well…I’m working on that too. I told Ginger we have to go to therapy. Get a handle on our shit before the baby comes.”
My eyebrows shoot up so fast for a second I think I’ve popped a contact. And I don’t even wear contacts.
He laughs in response. “You should see your face. I wish I had a picture to show you the next time you tell me you’re good at poker.”
“I’m incredible at poker.”
My brother smirks. “And I’m the King of France.”
“Fine. You’re on. As soon as Dad and Mom get back from their cruise, it’s family poker night, my house. I’ll make the queso dip and you can bring a jar full of nickels for me to take off your hands.”
“I’m in,” Blake announces from behind me.
I turn to see my second to youngest brother—the only one of us with Mom’s green eyes—bounding up the porch steps, his white tee shirt and battered brown Carhartt work pants streaked with dirt. “I’ve been jonesing for a poker night.” He shoves a hand through his sun-streaked brown hair, which is past his shoulders and nearly as long as our mother’s too, and squints Jace’s way. “What’s up? You okay? I saw Ginger head out.”
“Jace can fill you in on the way.” I jab a thumb toward my truck. “I need your help. A dildo bomb exploded in downtown. I told Cassie we’d come help with clean-up.”
Blake’s lips curve into a shit-eating grin. “Cassie Sunderwell, huh? I heard you were out with her yesterday. Didn’t she used to hate you in high school?”
“Like it was her job,” Jace agrees, nudging me in the ribs. “But you know Ryan. Never met a woman he couldn’t smolder into a puddle at his feet.”
“I’m not smoldering at anyone,” I say, though I’ll admit a part of me likes the idea of Cassie in lust-puddle form because of my smoldering skills.
The other part of me, however, is still stuck on the Big Reveal.
I’ve never been with a virgin before, not even when I was one. Assuming Cassie decides she’s ready for the next step, do I have what it takes to make sure she doesn’t regret her choice? That I don’t regret it too? If Cassie and I are together, I don’t want just a fling until she heads back to California. Even two days ago, that might have been okay, but it isn’t now. She’s under my skin and it isn’t going to be easy to watch her walk away.
The responsible choice would be to part ways as friends before we make a mistake we can’t take back.
Instead, I grumble, “I like Cassie. A lot. So be on your best manners, okay? She’s already upset enough about all the Sunshine drama.”
Blake nods, his smile fading. “Of course. We won’t embarrass you, bro. At least I won’t. You know Jace has a hard time not saying stupid shit.”
“Is that right, smartass?” Jace launches into motion and Blake bolts for the truck with a laugh, proving some things never change.
But some things do.
If I take Cassie to bed, things between us are never going to be the same.
But so what? Some risks are worth taking and Cassie is worth this
roll of the dice and so much more.
Fifteen
Cassie
* * *
Much like the farmers’ market the other night, Sunshine Square is once again full of people. Ryan was right—half the town turned out to help with clean-up.
The other half turned out to take pictures and protest Sunshine Toys.
I park Savannah’s bike against an old oak at the edge of the square and head toward Ruthie May, who’s already handing out job assignments and garbage bags. I do a double-take as I realize she’s standing under a birch strung with dildos tied to anal beads. It’s a Sexmas tree in June.
“Such a waste, throwing away all these perfectly good products,” she says. “But nobody wants to shop at a second-hand sex shop, no matter how much we clean and sanitize everything.”
“Where did they all come from?” I already checked the factory, and the building’s still locked tight. We’ll have to run inventory in the morning, but at first glance, it didn’t look like anything was disturbed or missing.
Ruthie May hands me a garbage bag. “Been getting reports that a few people’s orders never showed up. I’m wondering if one of our daily shipments got hijacked. But who’d steal a butt-load of sex toys just to dump them in a park? They could’ve gone to a sex therapist helping women in low-income areas. Instead, they’re trash now. All trash. What is this world coming to?”
“Cassie Sunderwell. There you are.”
The sheriff approaches from my left. He hitches his pants and gnaws on the corner of his mustache, and dread forces my heart low in my chest. I open my mouth to say something soothing, friendly, and Savannah-like—I swear, she could charm an alligator with a bee up its butt—but before I can speak, something beans the sheriff in the head.
Something long, tubular, rubbery, and very much resembling a penis.
“Hey, sorry,” a brunette teen with a friendly smile calls. She darts past, grabs the dildo, turns, and flings it back to her friends near the slide, who all shriek and dive for the missile, tackling each other to the grass.
