“This will be perfect,” Mom said. “I’ll go call her right now.” As his parents left the room, Justin pointed at his brother. “You. You can’t let this happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” He couldn’t tell Brandon that he’d made out with Allie on the back porch of the country club last night. And that if she stayed at their house he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his grubby hands off of her. And that if he put his hands on her, he’d contaminate her with the crap that ran through his head on a daily basis.
Because if he told Brandon that, he’d have to share the crap…
Justin shook his head. “Talk.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“What’s Allie got cooking? I don’t think she’s skipping a vacation just to take a class that she could take any time.”
Brandon grinned and started talking. By the time he finished, Justin was nodding. He wasn’t exactly sure how, but he had a feeling that this was his way to both help Allie and satisfy his promise to Dave. And maybe get his dad off his back once and for all, too.
Chapter Four
Allie let herself into the Morgan family’s giant log “cabin” and tucked the key into her back pocket. She’d seen the Morgan and McGrath group off on their world cruise—at least, the airport leg of it—and was here to start the Great Justin Watch.
How had she gotten herself into this? Well, she reminded herself, she’d kissed him into diving headfirst down a stone staircase, so she kinda owed him. And then, if she hadn’t managed to get the whole fam-damily out of town by agreeing to Justin-sit, she wouldn’t have a chance to work on her double-secret project. As it was, she was going to have to scramble to get Rainbow Dog off the ground in time to get it ready for the On the Rocks liquor festival in Georgia week after next.
Because she was going to be busy trying to take care of a man she wasn’t sure she could keep her hands off of. And playing naughty nurse was a very distracting proposition.
Like Justin was going to willingly let her do anything at all to help him. He was probably just as shocked at the idea of having her for a nursemaid as she was of being it.
She wasn’t sure she could spend the next week or so avoiding talking with him, but she could probably keep things light and friendly and avoid any mention of their embarrassing encounter at the country club. It would all be okay. Really it would. They could hang out, renew their friendship, and she could purge herself of this newly reborn attraction. And maybe help lighten his load, because he was surely carrying some emotional baggage.
Unless she managed to make it worse by losing her mind and groping him or begging him to grope her. In which case she’d just convert to Catholicism and find a convent somewhere.
She tossed her laptop bag on the kitchen counter and dislodged a pile of papers.
“Crap.” Allie’s own mother was frighteningly anal about personal correspondence—probably a reactive measure to her father’s tendency to get involved in underhanded dealings that Lorena didn’t want anyone to know about—so it was weird to see a pile of mail lying around for any open eyes to fall on. Eyes that might read something like,
“Dear Sergeant Morgan, Operation Homefront would like to thank you for your generous donation of—”
“Holy crap!”
It looked like Justin had donated everything he’d made in the Marine Corps to the charity that provided emergency assistance to families of service members and wounded warriors.
She groped for a chair and plunked onto the seat, staring at the letter.
Justin had had a huge heart—that was why she’d idolized him when she was little. He’d always helped her with her moneymaking ideas, gone along with all of Dave’s wild schemes, been the manual labor for all of Brandon’s do-gooder Boy Scout projects… But this Justin seemed so different, so distant at times, and yet—who was Justin Morgan now?
Where was he?
“Justin? Where are you?”
The two-story great room was cool and empty, golden light amplified by the bare pine-log walls.
Her heart gave a little jolt of concern when she didn’t hear anything. “Justin?”
Nothing.
If he’d fallen, busted his head open, and died, she was going to kill him. She hurried down the hall that led to the bedrooms. Justin’s room was at the end, Brandon’s was closer to the living room, and there was a bathroom in between. Their parents had a suite on the second floor, above the guys’ rooms. When she was little, she’d run in and out of these rooms, playing hide-and-seek and war, and whatever other crazy game the five Morgan and McGrath kids cooked up, but it had been a good twelve years since she’d been past the living room.
Justin’s door was ajar, and Allie gave it a cursory knock before pushing it open. His bed was unmade, sheets and comforter tossed to one side and half a dozen pillows arranged here and there, no doubt to support his injured leg while he slept. She’d noticed a similar mountain of pillows on the recliner in the living room.
Breathing deeply, she shivered, turned on just by standing this close to his bed. And, really, after eight years—even with a coatroom debacle, and one two-story stair stumble—she had no business reacting to this man at all. For all intents, he should be a stranger now. A man she recognized but didn’t know. A man who gave all of his money to help military families in need and kissed her like there was a conduit from his lips to her power switch.
She straightened one of his pillows. The familiar smell of clean laundry was underlain with Acqua di Gio and something richer. She was surprised to realize that she could have identified the room by Justin’s scent after spending those few drunken minutes wrapped in his arms. She had imprinted on him. Like those baby geese from that Jeff Daniels movie, except the baby geese hadn’t wanted to roll around on Jeff Daniels’s bed and touch themselves. Okay, McGrath, move your libido away from the bed. There’s nothing for you here.
There was a prescription package from the pharmacy on the nightstand, but it didn’t look like it had even been opened. Pain pills. She snorted. Tough guy. He was probably getting by on Advil and Blue Mountain Seven Year Special.
She pulled her ponytail tighter and took the phone from her pocket, ready to pull up Justin’s phone number and call if she couldn’t find him. Though where he’d go by himself, and how he’d get there, she had no idea.
Something white on the outside deck caught Allie’s eye. She pushed open the sliding glass door and froze.
Justin lay in a chaise longue, sleeping in the warm spring sunshine wearing nothing but a towel. One arm lay above his head, and she visually traced the line from his curled fingers, over the pale underside and dark hair of his underarm, to his chest. His pecs had always been well-developed—he and Dave had had this ridiculous push-up competition every spring, and Justin always won. He apparently hadn’t let that habit slide. He was relaxed, so his abs weren’t all six-packy at the moment, but he could have had a keg belly and she’d probably still want to trace the line of hair that bisected it to the top of that bath towel—and below.
His other hand rested right there, below.
Allie flushed. He had his hand over his…his…region. She gave herself a mental eye roll. His cock. She could think that word; she was an adult. Hell, she’d felt it pressing against her the other night on the patio. It was a funny word, though. Although no funnier than anything else—penis, dick, junk, rock-hard rod… Why was she standing here trying to decide what to call it, when she could be appreciating that it appeared to be happy for the attention it was getting from outside the towel?
Oh, dear. As she watched, Justin’s fingers flexed slightly, and his…cock…grew. He stroked himself.
She stifled a whimper.
Her gaze shot to Justin’s face. His eyes moved under his closed lids and his lips were parted, tongue darting out to wet them, biting his lip. She wanted to do that. Bite his lip. He was muttering, low, and then louder, “Yeah. Come on, Allie.”
She nea
rly screeched out her surprise, but clapped a hand over her mouth in time. The last thing she wanted to do was wake him up. She was finally getting to give him a blow job, apparently, even though she was only participating in his sleep. Years of fantasizing about being on her knees in front of him, stroking, looking up into his eyes as she licked, then opened her lips and…
But now this was going to be cued on repeat in her dream repertoire.
He moaned again, arching and squeezing himself, moving his hand over the towel, pushing it out of the way.
Oh, God. It was so hard, so perfect. He brought his other hand into the action, running it across his chest, pinching a nipple.
She had to get out of here before he woke up and found her standing there, perving on him. Although maybe, if he woke up and— The phone in her hand let out a squeal and began to play “I Got You (I Feel Good)” by James Brown.
Shit.
A text from Eve, letting her know they’d all made it onto the ship.
When she looked again, Justin was sitting up, squinting, towel pulled back over his lap.
“Hey!” she said, pretending that she’d just come out onto the deck. “There you are.”
“Have you been here long?” he asked, looking away from her to adjust a strap on his leg brace.
“Nope, just came in…er, out. Here. On the deck. When my phone rang.” Way to sound guilty, dumbbutt. “How are you feeling? Did you have lunch? Can I get you any pain medicine?”
Justin rubbed his head, long fingers scratching through his hair. “No. I’m fine.”
“Don’t you want something to eat? I can make grilled cheese and tomato soup. Or macaroni and cheese. Or I can see if there’s any—”
“I don’t want anything. You’re not here to wait on me. But thanks.” He tempered his short words with the world-famous panty-melting Morgan smile.
In case her panties weren’t already damp. “Well, yeah, I kinda am. Here. To wait on you.”
He turned up the wattage. “In that case, some caviar and a bottle of Angus’s Single Barrel would be good. Buffy and Tiffany are coming over in an hour or so.”
Her heart sank. “Seriously? You know someone named Buffy who hangs out with a Tiffany?” She shouldn’t have been so crushed. Justin was the party king of the universe. Or at least, he had been before—
“No, I’m just screwing with you. Strippers of that caliber don’t start work until way after dark, even for house calls.”
“Very funny.”
He laughed.
Crap. She would do better at remembering that he was a player if he didn’t laugh when she teased him. She was no more “his girl” than any other female on the planet. Although he had kind of just been having a sex dream about her, hadn’t he? No. Not. His. Girl.
“So, food?”
“No, I’m good. I really can get to the kitchen on my own when I choose to.” He pointed at the crutches next to his lounge chair.
“Okay. It’s not like I don’t have work to do. My to-do list is a mile long.” She turned toward the door to his room, but then looked back at him and couldn’t resist one more remark just to torment herself. After all, she hadn’t suffered enough over the past eight years? “Hey, are you planning to lie here naked all day? Because I have a lot of work, and I was thinking I could bring my laptop and keep you company. But if you’re going to be flapping your johnson around, I might as well be naked, too. Except, if we’re going to start the Blue Mountain Nudist Resort, we should probably see if we can find some sunscreen.”
He smiled, and his eyes, as endlessly blue as the spring sky, held hers for a long moment. Then he looked away, over Blue Mountain and beyond, clearing his throat. “Actually, I was going to get cleaned up, but I couldn’t get my brace off. So I came out here to wait until you got back. Do you mind helping me take a bath?” Asking her that was clearly hard for him.
Ha! It wasn’t going to be a walk in the park for her. Because she was going to be in the bathroom with him. While he was the-rest-of-the-way naked. Because people didn’t bathe with their clothes on. And she was going to have to find a way to keep her hands to herself.
“No problem,” she said. Oh, boy.
…
Had she noticed how fucking hard he was when she’d walked out on the deck? Justin didn’t think so; she was standing in the doorway looking at her phone, so she probably hadn’t seen him. He was going to go with that assumption.
He would have preferred to wait until Brandon or his dad came home in two weeks so he didn’t have to ask Allie to help him bathe—except he had visions of smelling like that batch of sour mash he’d been experimenting with, but forgot about before the family left for vacation one summer.
But Christ. Waking up and seeing Allie there—he’d been having the hottest potentially wet dream of his life. Allie had been kneeling between his feet, wearing that thong, and the heels from the anniversary party, and a smile…
“Well, come on, then, let’s get you de-grungified.” She padded across the deck. No Victoria’s Secret angel looked as hot as she did in jeans, a Blue Mountain polo shirt, and flip-flops, her tight curves just begging to be explored.
But Justin reminded himself that he was impervious to her curves, begging or otherwise, because they were off-limits.
Once, back when Allie was still sending him packages while he was deployed, Dave had teased him about it. Said he didn’t want to have to kick his ass for whacking off over his little sister. Justin had looked at the photo of the round-faced, straight-hipped redhead, who looked so much like her brother at that age, and laughed. Now he tried to visualize a mental “hazardous” sign, held by an M15-wielding Dave McGrath, but the sign just added on “when wet.”
And then Dave’s glare got more ferocious. Justin tucked the towel around his waist and hoisted himself up onto his good leg, holding on to his crutches with one hand. Allie put a shoulder into his side and an arm around his waist. He tried not to lean on her, he really did. He tried not to put his free arm around her and smell her hair.
“Holy shit, Justin, you’re heavy.”
He couldn’t think about her soft body beneath his, those green eyes staring up at him, all soft and wanting. He was Justin the Buddy, not Justin the Creeper. “It’s because my manly muscles are extra dense. Like Superman, except instead of steel I’m a man of granite. I’m thinking of volunteering to serve as a human grain mill. It’s going to be the newest thing in bourbon—whiskey made from literally hand-ground corn. My hands.” He could probably use his dick, as hard as it was every time he thought of Allie on the country club patio. Or here on the back deck.
“You are the most full-of-crap person on the planet, do you know that?”
And yet she didn’t pull away. If anything, her hand tightened on his waist.
“Let me go, babe. I can hobble in there under my own steam.”
She let him go, but hovered close by. From the corner of his eye, he could tell she was checking him out.
He tried to gimp a little faster to keep her from noticing that his towel wasn’t hanging flat in the front. “You’re making me nervous,” he told her.
“Good.” Her grin had a hint of evil. This was good. This Allie he was comfortable with—the Allie he remembered as a teenager, who gave him shit and took none. It was the newer Allie, the Allie who looked at him a certain way when she thought he wasn’t watching, who was the dangerous one. “You don’t know if I’m going to trip you or steal your towel, do you?”
Well, hell, he hadn’t thought of that.
They made it to the bathroom, and Allie turned on the faucets to fill the tub. She patted the edge, and he lowered himself to sit, his bum leg sticking awkwardly out into the room. He had to put his hand in hers to steady himself.
She knelt and began unfastening the Velcro strips holding the brace in place.
Jesus, Mary, and Uncle Steve. She was on her knees in front of him, and he was wearing a damned towel. He had a moment of dream déjà vu. A strand of ric
h honey hair had come loose from her ponytail and curled in the steam rising from the tub. He reached out to tuck it around his finger, but then pulled up short of actually touching her. She was Dave’s kid sister. No touching.
She looked up, something like heat in her eyes that was quickly masked by humor. “Do you want some Mr. Bubble in your tub?”
He actually considered it. She was going to have to help him in and out of the tub. But he couldn’t quite figure out how he was going to casually scoop a handful of bubbles over his semi-stiffy between dropping his towel and getting into the water.
It wasn’t that he was overly modest. He’d actually been awarded a Most Likely to Get a Ticket for Public Nudity certificate by his unit before he left Afghanistan. But this was Allie. And he was still half hard, er, three-quarters, maybe. Well, fuck it. He’d already scared the crap out of her the other night. If she thought he was some kind of dirty old man, she was probably right.
He turned a little, to maneuver his good leg into the tub. He took a breath and grabbed the side of his towel, ready to yank it off.
Allie must have realized the reality of his predicament, because her face was red. She met his eyes with a stricken expression, then dropped her gaze like his groin was an eye magnet.
“It’s just a dick, Sneezy,” Justin said, pulling the towel off Band-Aid-style—all at once, to get the agony over with. He lowered himself into the water while she cradled his damaged ankle.
She stared at his crotch. And kept staring.
Justin almost reached for the towel again.
“You’re right. It’s just a dick,” she said, once he was settled. She turned to walk out. “I’m going to get started on some work. Holler when you want to get out of the tub.”
“It’s not just a dick,” he called after her. “It’s a really nice dick!”
Drunk on You Page 4
