Fire & Ice (The Locklaine Boys #1)

by Jessica Prince

  He didn’t let me go. He rolled his body so that I was pinned between him and the mattress, holding just enough of his weight on top of me that there was no escaping him.

  “Listen,” he bit out as that muscle in his jaw ticked. When I remained silent, he continued. “This relationship is brand new. We haven’t exactly had the best track record for getting along the past couple of years—” he put his hand over my mouth when I opened it. I was really getting tired of him doing that. “And I know it was totally my fault. But think about it, sweetness. If we tell everyone now, we’ll have to deal with all their bullshit and opinions about our relationship. I’m not trying to keep this a secret. I just want us to have enough time together to build something solid, so when the shit finally does hit the fan, we’re in a good enough place to handle it together.”

  That was a valid point, and I had to admit I agreed. So I did the most logical thing that came to mine. I licked his palm so he’d get grossed out and snatch it away so I could tell him so.

  “Jesus!” He pulled his hand away, his face twisted in a look of disgust. “Was that really necessary?”

  I giggled and cocked a brow. “Well how do you expect me to tell you you’re right if your hand is covering my mouth?”

  “Wait…” He stared down at me, concern etched in his features. “Did you just say I was right, or did I stroke out a little bit?”

  I smiled brightly. “You’re not stroking out. I mean, you are getting up there in age—” I started to tease before he began tickling the hell out of me. “Stop! Stop!” I laughed before trying to suck air back into my lungs.

  “Say it again,” he demanded once I’d gotten the giggles out of my system.

  “You were right… for the first time ever. We should mark the occas—AGH!” I finished with a scream just as he licked the side of my face from chin to forehead.

  IT HAD BEEN A week since my and Griffin’s relationship had changed, and it had been going surprisingly well. Other than Rowan and Tomas, we’d kept everything to ourselves, building a solid foundation with each other before having to deal with the other people in our lives. I had to admit, I was pretty happy with how it was shaping up so far.

  Especially at that very moment.

  “Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgod. I’m coming!” Griffin’s hand shot up and covered my mouth. I really needed to have a talk with him about that. My thighs clenched around his head as his wicked tongue flicked at my clit and the fingers of his other hand curled up deep inside of me. I thrust my hips against his face as my release washed over me, so strong I thought I might pass out. He stayed at it until the very last tremble left my body.

  My back collapsed against the wall behind me. If it hadn’t been for the table I was sitting on I had no doubt I’d have been a puddle on the floor of my sewing room just then. Griffin rose from his knees in front of me, a shit-eating grin plastered across his smug face. “God, I love that you’re a screamer.”

  “Shut up,” I laughed, giving him a playful slap before taking his hand and letting him help me off the table. I brushed at the skirt of my adorable green cap-sleeved dress, trying to get out any wrinkles as I scanned the floor for my discarded underwear. “Have you seen my…” I trailed off when I saw my bright red tanga-cut panties dangling from his index finger. “Give them to me,” I warned after I reached for them, only to have him snatch them away.

  “Hmm,” he hummed. “I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of you going pantie-less for the rest of the day. I think I’m gonna hold on to these. You know, kind of as a memento.”

  “You’re such a jerk,” I muttered as he stuffed my underwear into the pocket of his jeans.

  “You love it,” he teased back. He was right. I kind of did. I walked over to the full-length mirror in the back corner of the room and went about trying to fix my hair, attempting to tame the unkempt curls into something that didn’t look like I’d just been ravished for the past half hour. Once I was happy with it, I moved on to re-applying my red lipstick that had gotten smudged off by Griffin’s kiss the moment I shut the sewing room door.

  “Have I told you how much I love your lipstick?” Griffin asked as he came up behind me, looping his arms around my waist. “Never wear anything but red. You look amazing with red lips.”

  “It goes with the hair…”

  “And the fiery personality,” he added, leaning over and placing a kiss against my neck. “It’s all you.”

  A sigh escaped my lips as I closed my eyes and dropped my head to the side. His fingers dug into my waist as his teeth nipped at the sensitive skin of my neck. The feel of his erection poking against my back caused heat to coil between my thighs. It had been less than three minutes since Griffin had given me a world-class orgasm and I was already ready for him again.

  I was just about to suggest we go for another round when there was a knock on the door. “Uh… Pepper?” My newest employee, Tara, called nervously from the other side of the door. She knew the rules on interrupting me when I was in this room, but she was still new enough to not fully understand how everything in the store worked. “There’s a woman in here who’s demanding the blue blossom maxi in a size two. I told her we didn’t have any in stock and, uh… she kinda got a little… um… rude.”

  “Okay, sweetie. I’ll be right there,” I called out, then turned around to face Griffin. “Duty calls. I gotta go.” Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pushed up on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips.

  “Come over to my place tonight,” he said in a gravelly voice that told me he was still just as turned on as I was.

  “Can’t. I’m having a girls’ night with Navie and Tomas.”

  He pulled back and shot me a look. “Explain to me how Tomas fits into girls’ night again.”

  I smiled. “I would, but it involves talk of penises and reach-arounds, things not appropriate for delicate ears.”

  “Yeah. Good call,” he grinned, kissing me again. “At least try not to get arrested again. Can you do that much for me?”

  I looked up and scrunched my lips together as if in thought. “I make no promises. We can only follow wherever the night leads us.”

  I gave him one last kiss before pulling from his hold and heading to the door. Dealing with belligerent customers wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but it came with the territory.

  “Give her hell, sweetness,” Griffin leaned in and whispered in my ear just before we exited the mouth of the hallway into the front of Fire & Ice. I smiled at the light brush of his hand against my ass as he walked by while eyeing the woman at the counter at the same time. Griffin gave a little wave to my employees as he headed for the door and turned to shoot me a wink over his shoulder just before he disappeared. I could feel the goofy smile stretching across my face. God, I was falling for that man like crazy.

  “Uh, hello!” the bitchy woman demanded. “Is it too much to expect a little assistance here?”

  I wiped the happy expression from my face, making sure to replace it with a neutral mask as I went to deal with the entitled, self-involved, spray-tanned bimbo currently standing in my boutique, making a scene.

  Time to show this bitch her place.

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU told her she wouldn’t be able to squeeze her fat ass into a size two!” Navie cackled loudly. Once that girl had too many drinks in her, the filter came off and she yelled everything. You could go deaf if you were sitting too close to a drunk Navie.

  “I can’t believe I missed it,” Tomas pouted, still butt-hurt he wasn’t on the schedule for today and missed out on seeing me lay the smack down on the bleach-blonde oompa loopma earlier.

  “She made Tara cry!” I exclaimed, lifting my drink in the air, sloshing my dirty martini all over the place. Okay, so I might have been about three steps passed buzzed, but I was still at least two way from being totally sloshed. I hiccupped with my arm raised in the air, spilling even more. All right, one step away from sloshed.

  “Excuse me,” the bartender called out to get
out attention. “I’m gonna have to ask you to lower your voices. You’re disturbing the other patrons.”

  Navie let out an affronted gasp at the same time Tomas propped his elbow on the bar and rested his cheek on his fist. “And I’m gonna have to ask you for your number,” he purred. “Mmm, boy. You’re just too sexy for your own good.”

  Bartender Boy’s cheeks turned slightly red as he grinned shyly at Tomas’s blatant flirting. The situation might have been defused right then if not for Navie’s tendency to, in her words get country on peoples’ asses when she was drinking and got pissed off. I’d seen it before. It wasn’t pretty.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Bartender Man,” she snapped her fingers. Her head waved from side to side and I couldn’t tell if it was from attitude or if she’d just had so much to drink she was having trouble holding her head up. “We weren’t being loud.”

  Uh oh.

  “I disagree,” some hoity-toity man a little further down from us chimed in. “You’ve been disrupting me and my date all evening.”

  It had to be said, the man’s date was obviously with him for one thing and one thing only… and it wasn’t his stellar conversational skills or good looks. If gold digger was a scent, it would be whatever cheap-ass perfume she’s bathed herself in was.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Navie mocked loudly.

  “There a problem over here?”

  Shit. That voice was familiar. As I slowly turned on my barstool, I sent up a prayer that it wasn’t who I thought it was.

  “Not you again!” Navie shouted. Yep, it was him. The same burly bouncer she’d lovingly referred to as cue ball the one and only night I’d ever been arrested. Shit was about to go down. I needed to prepare. I started pulling off my earrings and reached into my clutch for a ponytail holder.

  “What are you doing?” Tomas whispered from beside me.

  “Getting ready,” I answered as I secured my hair to the back of my head. “Shit’s about to get real.”

  “Uh…” he muttered worriedly as Navie stood to address the bouncer.

  “We weren’t doing anything wrong. It’s not our fault Mr. Peanut over there has the personality of that stupid cat from all those Grumpy Cat memes. Hey!” she said, turning her attention back to the man who, surprisingly enough, looked almost exactly like Mr. Peanut. “I bet if you give her a hundo you’d at least get a blowjob out of the date. I promise, she’s not with you for the stellar conversation, dude.”

  He gave an offended snort as his date mumbled, “She’s not lying,” loud enough for all of us to hear.

  “Okay, that’s it. You guys are out,” the bouncer announced.

  That was all it took.

  Navie started bouncing up and down on her toes like a boxer while I climbed off my stool and prepared to have my girl’s back if necessary. “You wanna dance, Mr. Clean? Let’s dance.”

  “FOR FUCK’S SAKE! I feel like I’m dealing with children!” Rowan shouted as he paced in front of the couch where Pepper, Tomas, and Navie sat, trying their hardest to remain stone-faced as their drunken giggles threatened to break free.

  I’d been expecting my phone to ring well after midnight with a drunken booty call from Pepper. What I hadn’t expect was a call after midnight from Dex asking me if I could get down to the precinct because Pepper and Navie had arrested again, and he was stuck at home with a sick baby and wife and couldn’t go get her himself.

  Needless to say, even though my dick was hard at the sight of her in those damn leather pants, I was pissed as hell. Rowan and I got to the station about the same time, and since I’d cabbed it, we decided to take the damn hooligans back to his and Navie’s apartment so we could yell at them without an audience.

  “It’s not our fault!” Navie stated obstinately. “If Mr. Peanut hadn’t opened his mouth—”

  “I’ll have you know,” Rowan interrupted. “The man you’re referring to, you know… the one you told to pay his date for a blowjob, is a goddamned state senator.”

  She grew understandably quiet for a few seconds before whispering “Whoops,” earning a snort of laughter from Pepper and Tomas. When I shot them both a seething glare, they wisely shut up.

  “I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal?”

  “You don’t…” I had to stop to pinch the bridge of my nose. My eyelid had started twitching before I even made it to the station. If I didn’t rein myself in, I was going to have one bitch of a headache soon. “The man you attacked for a second time threatened to get a restraining order against you two,” I pointed at Navie and Pepper, “if he ever sees either of you again! You’re lucky he didn’t file charges.”

  “Oh please,” Navie scoffed, plopping against the back of the couch and crossing her arms.

  “We didn’t attack anybody,” Pepper objected.

  “Navie, once again, ended up on the poor guy’s back. And you tried to clothesline a man more than double your size!” I yelled, finally losing hold of those reins.

  “And it woulda worked too, if I hadn’t hurt my shoulder and fell down,” she mumbled under her breath, thinking I couldn’t hear, as she reached up to rub her shoulder.

  “You fell down trying to clothesline a three-hundred pound man!” Rowan and I shouted at the same time.

  Tomas raised his hand like he was in a goddamned classroom and stated, “I’d just like to point out that I wasn’t a part of that altercation. I was merely a bystander.”

  The looks Pepper and Navie shot him could have peeled the paint off the walls. “Yeah,” Pepper growled. “Because you were too busy making out with the bartender like a punk-ass bitch.”

  “I shoulda cut you,” Navie seethed, the ass-kicking redneck side of her having come out in full force.

  “That’s it!” Rowan bellowed, drawing the attention of the room. “I’ve had it. Navie, go to our room.”

  She looked at him in bewilderment. “Huh?”

  “Go to our room. I can’t even look at you right now. I’m so disappointed. You need to get in there and think about what you’ve done.”

  “But—”

  “Go!” he snapped, pointing toward the hallway. Navie stood up and headed in that direction without another word, head hung and shoulders slumped. “And you,” he pointed at Tomas. “You’re in the guestroom for the night. Get your ass in there, and I don’t want to hear a peep from you. Understand me?”

  Tomas stood from the couch with a “Yes, sir,” before scurrying away.

  He turned his attention to Pepper, but she was ready for him. “I’m not attracted to you, nor am I afraid of you,” she snarled with a ferociousness that made my cock stir. “Boss me around, and I’ll punch you in your dick.”

  He looked at me. “You got his little hellion here?” he asked, pointing in Pepper’s direction.

  “Absolutely.” I looked at her and pointed at the front door. “You’ll move your ass if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Listen here, you—” she started, but I cut her off with a hand over her mouth.

  “One more word. Just one more word, and I swear to God, I’ll spank your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a goddamned week.” Her wide eyes bounced between me and Rowan, but I was beyond caring just how much my friend knew about my relationship with Pepper. “Now, if I uncover your mouth are you gonna say anything else?” She shook her head quickly. “You gonna move your ass?” That got me a nod.

  I pulled my hand away and she shot from the couch and into the foyer. I looked over my shoulder as I made my way after her to see Rowan standing in the living room, arms crossed and a shit-eating grin on his face. “Not so fun when the shoe’s on the other foot, is it? This is what you get for giving me shit the first time they got locked in the drunk tank. Karma’s a motherfucker.”

  “So are you, cuz,” I replied with a middle finger. The last thing I heard before closing the apartment door was Rowan’s loud laughter.

  “MORNING, PRINCESS!” TOMAS CHIRPED as he walked through the door of Fire & Ice. “And h
ow are we feeling this morning?”

  “Tired,” I answered as I sucked down the last of my venti Macchiato. I could tell by his disappointed look that he was expecting me to be severely hungover this morning, but that wasn’t the case. I was pretty sure I had the hangover thoroughly fucked out of me last night at Griffin’s place. He spent hours “punishing me” after we left Rowan’s, and I was woman enough to admit I liked it so much I was already planning another night out with Navie just to make sure it happened again.

  He made good on his word. My ass was definitely still feeling the effects of his handiwork. It wasn’t so painful that I couldn’t sit down, but I was able to feel him with every step I took as tiny twinges stung my butt cheeks whenever I moved. I’d been at the boutique for all of an hour and I was already drenched just from feeling that.

  Tomas’s eyes narrowed as he scanned as much of me as he could, considering I was sitting behind the counter, chin in hand, trying not to fall asleep. “You dirty, dirty slut!”

  “What?! What?!” I yelped, sitting up straight and looking around for what, I had no damn clue.

  “You spent all last night getting punish-fucked, didn’t you?” His tone was a strange combination of admiration, shock, and accusation.

  “Is that even a thing?”

  He joined me behind the counter. “You know damn good and well it is, considering that’s what you spent all night doing!”

  My cheeks heated and I could feel the flush creeping up my neck as I scanned the shop to make sure there as no one that could have overheard. “Will you shut up?” I whisper-yelled. “And how could you possibly know that?”

  “It’s a gift,” he shrugged. “Some people can read auras, I’m able to see people’s sexuality.”

  All I could do for several seconds was stare. “You know, sometimes you’re too gay for your own good.”

  “Bitch, that’s what makes me fabulous.” He sang the last word as he snapped his fingers.

  “Uh huh,” I grumbled as I stood from behind the counter. “You just keep being fabulous then. I’m going to the break room to get more coffee.”