“Boo?” she echoed, cackling. “That’s dumb, and also, I’m not your boo. Or your bae.”
I shuddered. “Yuck—no way I’d ever say bae.”
“Good. But boo is just as passé as bae, I think.”
I pulled away from the curb and into the sparse traffic, heading back toward downtown Ketchikan. “So. Where to, June-bug?”
She glared at me. “Only one person has ever or will ever call me that, and hint—it’s not you.”
My brows rose. “Okay. Duly noted.”
She huffed a laugh. “Diminutives, nicknames, and terms of endearment tend to irritate me. Ink only gets away with it because he’s my cousin and we’ve been best friends since birth.”
“Anyway—where to, babe?” I asked, grinning at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Annoying me won’t win you any favors, Remington.”
“I’m just messing with you.”
“I know, and that’s the only reason I’m still in the truck with you.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I usually just go home after work, make some food, hang out with Kitty and Izzy, and then go to bed.”
“Lame,” I teased. “How about I take you to dinner?”
She didn’t answer immediately; she just stared at me with a curious intensity, and then spoke slowly and carefully. “Take me to dinner?”
I nodded. “Yep. It’s a thing people do when they like each other. We choose a restaurant, we have a nice meal together and talk, I pay…and then I take you home. At which point I either leave alone…or I don’t.”
She kept her expression neutral. “What if I don’t like you?”
I just laughed. “You could pretend you don’t, but you’d be lyin’, sweetheart.”
“So you’re asking me out on a date?”
I nodded, acting as casual as I could, leaning my shoulder against the window, my left wrist draped over the steering wheel, fingers dangling, right hand resting on the console between us. “Yes, I am.” I glanced at her. “You want me to do it more formally?”
She hid a smirk behind her hand. “Yes, Remington. I need you to formally ask me on a date.”
“Fine. Juneau Isaac, would you do me the honor of going on a date with me?”
“Yes, Remington, I will, but on one condition.”
I frowned. “Hmmmm. I don’t like conditions, but I’ll hear you out.”
“You have to be on your best behavior. That means choosing to be a gentleman.” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Which means no crude innuendos.”
“Jeez, take all the fun out it, why don’t you,” I muttered out loud, then: “I accept your condition. I shall be a gentleman for the entire duration of our date, Miss Isaac.”
“Very well. You may take me on a date, Mr. Badd.”
We were both laughing, because the arch formality of the whole thing was just so comically stupid. “All right,” I said. “Got anywhere you like best?”
She shrugged. “Not really. We can go wherever you want.”
I held up a finger. “No—NO. We are not doing that. I got stuck in an ‘I don’t know, where do you want to go’ time loop with a chick once, and I almost went bonkers.” I laughed. “So. I’m going to name three places I know of that I like, and you can either pick one, or tell me to pick.”
I named three restaurants in the area, and Juneau listened with a smirk.
“Gee,” she said in a breezy, faint voice. “I don’t know. I just can’t decide.”
I growled. “God, women are so difficult.”
She burst out laughing. “I’m trolling you, Remington. A burger and a beer sounds good to me,” she said, referring to the third of the places I’d named, which was actually a pretty direct competitor to both Badd’s Bar and Grille, and the soon-to-be-opened Badd Kitty Saloon, but they had great burgers and a killer IPA selection, so…
We chatted about our workdays as I drove to the pub, found a parking spot nearby, and headed to the pub. We got a booth after a few minutes of waiting and, once seated, we perused the menu, decided, and set them aside. Within seconds, a waitress appeared, took our order, and sashayed off—not without a noticeable huff at the fact that I’d blatantly ignored her attempts to flirt with me.
“So,” I said, when we both had our pints. “Here we are. On a date.”
Juneau sighed. “You know, honestly, I kind of can’t believe I’m here—that I agreed to this with you.”
I frowned. “Really? Why not?”
“Because this is blurring the lines.”
I nodded, taking a sip. “Ahhh, blurring the lines. A mortal sin, to be sure.”
She snorted at me. “No, but I just…I do like you—a tiny bit, at least—but I don’t have space in my life to complicate things…especially now that I’m taking steps toward tattooing.”
Our food arrived, and we spent a few minutes digging in, and then, after a few bites, I washed it down with a long swig, covered a burp, and eyed her. “It doesn’t have to be complicated, Juneau.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not interested in a just-sex thing with you, Remington.” she said. “I’ve read those books too.”
“I have no idea which books you’re talking about, number one, and number two, I’m not suggesting a just-sex agreement.”
“Good, because that’s not happening.”
“Good, because I don’t want that any more than you do.”
She stared at me, chewing slowly. “Then…what do you want?”
I blew out a sharp breath, and then lifted a shoulder. “I honestly don’t know. I just know it doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“It doesn’t?”
I tapped the table between us. “Is this complicated? What we’re doing right now?”
She shrugged, a tiny, unsure gesture. “No, I guess not.”
“Was what happened the last time we were together complicated?” I asked.
She stopped chewing and carefully set down her burger, wiping her lips with a napkin. “I thought we agreed to no crude innuendos?”
“We did. That wasn’t an innuendo, crude or otherwise. It’s just an honest question.” I let silence hang for a moment. “So? Was it complicated?”
She stared at the table, tracing lines in the sweat on her pint glass. “Yeah, actually. Kind of.”
I frowned. “How do you figure that?”
“What happened—the way it happened…it’s not how it usually works.”
“No?”
She shook her head, and then took a sip of her beer. “No. There’s usually a…a back and forth. You know…one thing leads to another.” She shrugged one shoulder, not looking at me. “In that instance, the one thing led to you stopping us and taking me home. It was confusing.”
“I thought you’d appreciate not being pushed into anything,” I said.
She let out a breath—somewhere between a huff and a sigh. “I—I didn’t feel pushed into anything. I showed up knowing something would happen. And, if I’m being honest with…well, both of us, I wanted something to happen.”
“Wow—some honesty about what you want, finally,” I said, finishing my burger and wiping my lips and fingers with a wad of paper napkins.
“Hey, don’t be a dick,” she snapped.
I reared back in the booth. “Whoa, okay. I wasn’t—it’s just the honest truth, Juneau. You haven’t been exactly truthful or forthcoming about how you feel about me, and whatever the hell this thing we’re doing is.”
“Because I’m conflicted about how I feel.”
“Clearly. And my decision to stop things last time was, at least in part, a way of…slowing things down for you, I guess. Giving you something to process in a…bite-sized chunk, you might say.”
She eyed me warily. “Make any jokes, Remington, and I swear I’ll smack you.”
I lifted both hands in surrender, laughing. “Never even crossed my mind.”
She sipped her beer, toying with her braid with her other hand. “So stopping things and making me leave wasn’t you play
ing mind games with me?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of mind game would it be?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Teasing me. Making me…” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Making me want…certain things…even more, because we got so close and then stopped.”
I groaned, rubbing my face with both hands. “I promised no crude innuendos, but I didn’t expect it to be this hard.” I cackled abruptly. “And no, that wasn’t one either.”
She covered her mouth, coughing through clamped lips as she tried not to spit out her mouthful of beer. After she’d swallowed, she glared at me. “Except you made it one by saying it wasn’t.” She wiped at her mouth and then her fingers. “So. Was it a mind game?”
I eyed her. “I don’t know—depends on if it’s working or not.”
Juneau huffed an annoyed laugh. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
I leaned forward, the humor gone from my face. “Yes, Juneau, I’d very much like to know.”
She knotted her fingers together on the table, her eyes dropping from mine to my lips, and then away. “A little. Maybe.” As if realizing that her knotted, fretting fingers were giving away her nerves, she flattened her hands on the table to stop them from fidgeting.
“A little, huh?” I traced a fingertip from her thumbnail to the web of her hand, and then down and back up each finger in turn. “So you’re just thinking a little bit about…what you want. And how you didn’t get it.” I grinned at her, keeping my voice nearly inaudible. “Thinking…long…and hard?
She frowned at me. “Hey, you agreed to no crude innuendos.”
I shrugged. “Sorry, I must have forgotten.”
“You’re a shitty liar, Remington.”
“What happened to calling me Rem?” I asked.
She just blinked at me. “That’s awfully familiar.”
I smirked at her. “I can still taste you, Juneau. That seems awfully familiar to me.”
I was beginning to be able to tell when she was blushing, not from the tinge of her skin, but by her body language—she shifted uncomfortably, ducked her head, avoided my gaze.
“Rem—don’t, please,” she whispered.
“Don’t what, Juneau?”
“Embarrass me.”
“How am I embarrassing you?” I asked.
“Talking about…that.”
I leaned even closer, trailing a fingertip over the back of her hand. “Talking about what? How I can still smell you on my fingers, and taste you on my lips? How I can still hear the way you moaned as you came all over my mouth?” My whisper was so low I could barely hear myself in the din of the crowded pub. “How I can still feel you writhing against me? How I can still feel you tightening around my fingers and squirting around my tongue?”
“Stop!” she hissed. “And I did not…squirt.”
I laughed. “No, but I could make you.” I eyed her. “Have you ever come so hard you squirted, Juneau?”
She shook her head. “No. There’s nothing special about it, though—it’s just pee, I think.”
“I’ve heard varying reports about that, actually,” I said. “And by all accounts, it’s wicked intense.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “And you can just make that happen, huh?”
I sensed a trap in her words. “I told you I was gonna give you the most intense orgasm of your life, and I delivered, didn’t I?”
Juneau toyed with her braid and looked away. “You’re pretty cocky, you know that, Rem?”
I noticed she was using the short, familiar version of my name—I didn’t call attention to it, though.
“It’s not arrogant if I’m just stating a fact. I know myself and my abilities, and I’m confident in them, yes.” I let a wicked grin curl my lips. “But yeah, Juneau—I am pretty…cocky.”
She bit her lip, and then huffed in irritation. “I knew you couldn’t keep your promise to be a gentleman.”
“What can I say? You bring things out of me, too.”
“Not yet I haven’t, but I’d like to.” She said this, and then abruptly clapped her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
I laughed loudly, unable to help myself. “Ho-ly shit—good one, Juneau!”
“If you make fun of me for that, I’m leaving.”
I leaned close again. “I’d never make fun of you, babe.” I shifted on the bench. “To be honest, it turned me on more than it should’ve.”
“It was a stupid joke, and a crude one at that.”
I slid one finger between two of hers, tracing between the knuckles and then over the back of her hand, and then up her forearm. “True, but it’s hot. And in my book, at least, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little sexual banter between two people who have seen each other naked.”
“Only one of us has seen the other naked,” she pointed out.
I grinned, her tilted lips and hooded eyes more of a heated, explicit innuendo than anything I could say. “We could leave right now and rectify that, if you want.”
She bit her lip. “We could.”
I wanted to exult in victory and excitement, but I’d worked hard to remain nonchalant. “Sounds like there’s a but in there somewhere.”
“But Izzy and Kitty are probably both home. And I’m assuming your brothers are too.”
“Do you have a door that closes?”
She frowned. “Yeah, but—”
“Then we can figure it out. You’ll just have to be quiet.”
“I will have to?” she said. “If we’re still playing tit for tat, then it’s my turn. Which means you will have to be quiet.”
“You put your hands on me, I can’t make any promises I’ll be able to keep mine to myself,” I said. “And if I get my hands on you again, what happened the last time we were alone together will seem like high tea with the goddamned queen compared to what I’ll do to you.”
“You can’t talk to me like that, Rem,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and raspy.
“No? Why not?” I leaned closer yet, so I was a few inches from her face, our eyes locked. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
She nodded.
“Does it make you want…certain things? Does it make you squirm?” I was barely even whispering now, so she had to lean close enough that my lips were touching the shell of her ear. “Does it make that sweet, tight, hot little pussy of yours all wet?”
“Rem…” She was breathing hard, her chest heaving, which was…distracting.
“Yeah, babe?”
She bit her lip, glancing down for a moment, and then her eyes met mine. Her fingers were knotted together again, twisting and fidgeting. “Get the check.”
I grinned, unable to restrain my eagerness. “Good idea.”
I got the check, tossed enough cash to cover the bill and a fairly generous tip, and then we headed out for my truck. Once again, I helped her in; this time, though, I planted a foot on the rusted metal step, leaned in, grabbed the buckle, and slid it across her body to buckle her in.
“I could have done that myself,” she muttered, as I adjusted the strap to sit nice and flush between her boobs. “You’re not subtle, you know.”
I laughed as I hopped down and circled around to climb in behind the wheel. “It’s more fun to do it for you,” I said. “And I wasn’t trying to be subtle. Not really in my repertoire, as you may have noticed.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said, her voice dry.
I pulled away from the curb and then stopped, idling partway out into the road. “My place or yours?”
“Mine,” she whispered. “If someone is going to know what we’re doing, I’d rather it be Kitty and Izzy than your brothers.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, probably smart. They’d be all over that shit like white on rice, and then neither of us would hear the end of it.”
We drove in silence toward her apartment, both of our hands resting on the console between us. Her eyes locked on mine, I tangled our fingers together, palm to palm, fingers
threaded. Intimate, more than just familiar. Juneau’s eyes widened, and her fingers tightened, squeezing hard as if to alleviate her nerves.
“You never cease to surprise me, Remington,” she murmured.
I grinned, a cocky smirk. “Sweetheart, I have so many more surprises in store for you…you don’t even know.”
“What kind of surprises?” she asked, her voice suggestive and her eyes sultry.
“You’ll see,” was all I could manage, sounding raspy and guttural.
Juneau’s laugh was amused and knowing—she’d seen exactly how affected I was. “Having problems, Rem?”
I growled, not liking the way the tables were suddenly flipped. “Nope.”
She let go of my hand, only to wrap her thumb and index finger around my middle finger, sliding her hand up and down in a blatantly suggestive movement. “No? No…issues…you may need help with?”
I shifted, trying to alleviate the aching pressure of my cock, which was folded painfully into my jeans. “Nope. No issues.”
“Now who’s lying, Rem?” she whispered. Her lips brushed my ear, her whisper tickling. “You’re so hard it hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Quit that, goddammit.”
She huffed a laugh. “Why? Does it bother you?”
The only way to reclaim the advantage was to play her game, but better. So, I met her eyes. “Yeah, sweetheart, I’m so hard right now it fucking hurts like a bitch. I’m so hard I could come just from the way you look at me. So anytime you want to reach down there and help me out, feel free.”
She gnawed on her lip, her gaze going from my eyes to my zipper—almost as if she was contemplating taking me up on my word.
I gave her a look of warning. “Don’t start something you won’t finish, Juneau.”
She only narrowed her eyes at me. “And you say I underestimate you.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to believe you’d help me with my little…issue…right here, right now, in the truck?” I indicated the road ahead. “Especially when we’re less than five minutes from your place?”
“You don’t think I would, if I really wanted to?” she said, challenging me.
“No, not really.”
She lifted her chin and her eyes blazed. “Both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.”
Badd Business Page 17
