Stripped Down

by Erin McCarthy

  “My brother is being an idiot,” Sloane seethed. “Who doesn’t know anything about what he’s talking about.”

  Lilly tried to do her magic trick, where she touched Sullivan’s arm and about fifty percent of the time he calmed down. It didn’t seem to work this time though. Sullivan was fuming.

  Liam turned to Rick. “Are you and Sloane dating?”

  Oh, shit. He did not want to be put on the spot like this by a man he respected. He cleared his throat and told the closest approximation to the truth. “No, sir.” Technically they were not dating.

  “That’s true,” River said.

  He could have kissed his sister for backing him up. He was going to buy her ice cream for the rest of the week.

  “I mean, he has a lot of girlfriends but Sloane isn’t one of them.”

  And… she blew it. “River,” he said, giving her a warning look.

  Emily laughed, biting a carrot loudly in the awkward silence.

  “What?” River asked, pulling a super innocent face.

  He wasn’t buying it. She could manipulate circles around everyone in the room. She was just stirring the pot for excitement.

  “Does someone want to explain to me what is going on?” Liam asked, scooping baked beans onto his plate. “Sullivan?”

  “My best friend is trying to get with my sister.”

  At least Sullivan thought he was still in the trying phase. “That is not true.” Because it wasn’t. He’d already got with her.

  “And that’s your business, why?” Liam asked calmly. “Sloane is a grown woman.”

  “Sloane is straight off a divorce.”

  “And my wife left and your wife passed and neither of us want anyone to have any sort of opinion on us or what we do now. Extend the same courtesy to your sister.”

  Sullivan threw his still-empty plate down and stomped off. He went down into the basement, slamming the door behind him.

  “Should I go after him?” Sloane asked her father.

  “Nah. Let him work it out. He’ll come around.”

  “Give me that baby,” Bridget said to Sloane, reaching for Finn. “Go talk to your brother. None of you do enough talking.”

  “Don’t do it,” Liam said.

  This was getting awkward. “Grab a burger, River. Let’s go back outside.”

  “I’m a vegetarian, remember?”

  “Right. Grab your fruit and let’s go outside.”

  River was studiously sorting through the fruit tray. She seemed to have an aversion to melons, which took up fifty percent of the tray. Rick sighed.

  This was the downside of having impulsively—after fifteen years of wishing for it—having sex with Sloane. The O’Tooles were his second family and now he’d changed the dynamic. There was tension in the air.

  His fault. He hadn’t been discreet enough when he was talking to Sloane. He’d touched her neck. And he’d talked to her too long.

  He should fucking know better. He was used to being discreet. With River, it was essential. Sure, his kid sister was smart enough to put together two and two when it came to his dating, but she never saw anything first hand. He did all his dating when she was with their father or Rachel. He should have used the same rules when it came to Sloane. No leaning in to whisper in her ear. No singling her out.

  So for the rest of the cookout he studiously ignored Sloane.

  Even when Bridget lit candles on a cake for her, he hung back, trying to emulate what would be his normal behavior.

  It didn’t matter that when she bent over to blow out her candles he could see down her shirt, just a teasing glimpse at the pale flesh he’d in his mouth the night before. It didn’t matter that he was picturing her lips wrapped around his cock, something he hadn’t had the pleasure of enjoying yet.

  He just shifted behind the breakfast table so no one could see the growing hard-on in his jeans.

  Sloane tried to blow out all thirty candles in one fell swoop and failed miserably. A solid third of them were still burning and there were groans of disappointment. Her father said, “Geez, kid, you need to work out more.”

  “Yeah,” River said. “You’re really bad at blowing.”

  Fuck. The kid had no idea what she was saying obviously but he was already fixated on a blow job and this wasn’t helping. He wanted to laugh, desperately. Rick tried to look anywhere but at anyone.

  He almost succeeded to holding it together.

  Then Sloane said, “Maybe I need to practice.”

  Maybe she didn’t mean it dirty. But he fully aware of his thoughts taking a nose dive straight into the gutter. Without intending to, he lifted his eyes and met the amused gaze of Sloane.

  He felt the power paradigm shift ever so slightly in her favor. She had him by the balls, wanting more, and she knew it.

  Oh, hell, no. He wasn’t giving up control that easily. He’d pined for Sloane all through school and then the night before the ball had been solely in his court.

  He was going to wrestle it back.

  Not now, with her family and friends standing around all watching them intently. But back at his apartment building, where the other two neighbors were a ninety-year-old woman, Mrs. Williams, who was hard of hearing, and a guy in his fifties who worked nights at the convenience store and slept all day long.

  “Well, isn’t this just so sweet?” Sloane’s aunt Bridget said, looking intentionally clueless.

  No. Sweet was Sloane’s lips. Sweet was Sloane’s pussy, hot and wet beneath his tongue.

  Rick went and grabbed a beer. He was suddenly very thirsty.

  Nine

  Sloane was lying in bed Monday night, exhausted and wishing whoever was banging around in the shop downstairs would die a painful, torturous death. She had put in another full day at the groomers and then had come home, eaten a store-bought salad, and attempted to create some sort order to the chaos that was her apartment. She had reached the horrible point where you still have a dozen boxes but no damn clue where to put any of the items in them.

  Really, why did she have an egg cooker? Her new kitchen was about five by five, with exactly four cabinets to store everything. The counter space was exactly three feet. She knew, because she’d measured it. Her kitchen in her house with Tom had been enormous, with professional grade appliances. Not that she was a gourmand by any means but she had liked to cook. The irony of that being Tom was almost never home; he was either at the hospital or getting called back to the hospital. She’d made herself some very delicious meals in a beautiful, big, lonely as hell house.

  But here, she was struggling to figure out what to do with all her equipment and had come to the sad conclusion she was going to have to either ditch about half of it or take it to her dad’s house. Which wasn’t a horrible idea, either. She could cook for him once a week. The man lived on beer nuts, which could not be healthy.

  As her thoughts spun around and around, she listened to the sound of an air compressor going off downstairs. Really? Her own thoughts were clanging and loud enough, she did not need Rick’s night owl work habits preventing her getting a decent night’s sleep. It was his fault all the way around she was sleep deprived, now that she thought about it. Saturday, he’d kept her up half the night—which was worth it—but then Sunday night she’d been exhausted and unable to sleep because she was worried about her brother. Sullivan had clearly sensed the sexual tension between her and Rick.

  Now he was fixing something at midnight? Who did that?

  Sloane closed her eyes and counted to ten, breathing deeply in and out. Draw the air in through her nose, push it out her mouth. She relaxed her shoulders, one at a time. Wiggled her fingers. Forced herself to relax the muscles in her thighs, her calves. Let her feet droop. The temperature in the apartment was perfect. She had the window cracked for a cool breeze and her sheets were crisp and new.

  She started to drop into sleep.

  Wham. The compressor went off again, jolting her out of her zen state as she jerked up off the mattress. H
er heart rate increased twenty-fold. “That’s it.” She threw the sheet off of her legs and sat up. She was groggy and dizzy from the tease of repeatedly almost reaching REM and then being yanked back into reality.

  Sloane stood up and stumbled across her bedroom. She’d decreased the number of moving boxes in there only marginally, not having enough time to deal with any of it, and she stubbed her toe on a heavy box corner. “Ow. Damn it.”

  Grabbing her keys off the kitchen counter so she didn’t get locked out of the exterior door to the building, she left the apartment in sleep shorts and a tank top, shoving her hair out of her eyes. She wanted to murder Rick.

  He may be sexy and he may have given her the best sex of her life but she needed some motherfucking sleep or there would be hell to pay.

  She came tumbling out onto the sidewalk, not even caring if anyone saw her. But of course, no one did, because everyone else in Beaver Bend was, you know, asleep. Except for her landlord. The air was cool and downtown was quiet in either direction. Most of the buildings were shops, not residential, and it struck her now as a little eerie. Fear started to creep in to mingle with her anger.

  The front door to the auto shop was locked but she hot-footed it around the side and found the garage door wide open. Rick was whistling along to the radio, which was turned to a low volume. He had a car up and was clearly working on it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. Which was a pointless question. She could see what he was doing. He was working. At midnight. On a Monday.

  His whistling cut out and he turned. “Hey, Sloane. I’m working. What are you doing?”

  “I’m not sleeping, that’s what I’m doing.” She moved into the garage, feeling like hissing as the bright lights hit her in the face. “You’re really loud, are you aware of that?”

  “My radio is on low.” He gave her a smile. “You look very cute right now, did you know that?”

  He put down whatever tool he was holding and came toward her. Sloane paused. Oh, hell, no. She knew that look. He was stalking her. He wanted her. Nope. Not happening. “You can’t distract me, Rick. I’m exhausted and I’m pissed off. You either need to be quieter or quit working for the night.”

  “Sorry, beautiful.” He came up to her and brushed her hair back off of her face. “I got behind on my regular repairs because I’ve been busy working on my bike you wrecked.”

  Oh, he was good. “That’s not going to work, Ryder. I refuse to feel guilty because you are stubborn. It was an accident.”

  He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Hey.”

  She shivered, crossing her arms over her chest. “Hey, what?”

  “We’re alone and no one can see us in the back of the garage.” He put his hand to her lips. “Unless you don’t think you can be quiet.”

  His other hand was teasing at the front of her sleep shorts, right between her legs.

  And just like that, she proved herself just as stubborn as him, because she was not about to let him think she couldn’t control her volume.

  She reached out and grabbed his cock through his jeans. “I’m not the noisy one. I think we just established you are.”

  * * *

  Rick sucked in a breath. Damn, Sloane had turned the tables on him. Completely.

  She had stormed in there, looking sleepy and sexy, her hair a mess and her nipples jutting into the cotton of her tank top.

  He did feel bad he’d woken her up. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take advantage of it though. So while she stroked his cock, he stroked her pussy through the thin fabric of her shorts. He dipped his finger deep, right between her lips. She sucked in a breath.

  “Come here,” he said. “Come see my handiwork. Truthfully, I owe you a thank you. The bike needed some TLC anyway.”

  He dropped his hand and reached for hers. She sucked in a disappointed breath. He grinned, wanting to draw out the anticipation. Sloane in his garage at midnight, ready and willing? Dream come true. He wanted to see her straddle his bike. Arch her back. Show him those nipples.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, dryly.

  That made him laugh. “I feel like you’re being sarcastic with me.”

  “Then you feel right.”

  “At least your insurance premium won’t go up. You should be grateful to me.”

  Her eyes darkened. “Oh, I am.”

  Fuck. He tugged her hand and drew her to the back of his garage, where his bike was parked, ready to ride again. Shiny and polished, his pride and joy. “There she is. Better than brand new.”

  “Looks nice.”

  “Nice? All you can say is nice?” He was only half-kidding. “This is not a nice bike. It’s bad-ass. It’s a bobber style Indian.”

  “I have no idea what that means but if it makes you happy.” Sloane yawned.

  That was not acceptable. “Here, climb on.” He held his hand out. “It’s thunder black smoke, with a custom trim color. I had this thing built exactly the way I wanted it. I’ve had a thing for motorcycles since I was a kid.”

  Just like he had with Sloane. Now as he helped her climb on, he figured this was as good as it was going to get. Sloane on his bike in a tight tank top. She looked hot as hell. She had long lean legs, spread wide to accommodate the bike.

  Glancing at him, clearly amused, she tossed her hair, raking it off her face. It did fantastic things to her chest. Rick reached out and cupped her tit, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t you feel bad ass?” he asked. “Because you look bad ass.”

  “I feel a little bad ass,” she admitted. She grabbed the handlebars. “Are you going to take me for a ride?”

  Rick adjusted his cock in his jeans. “On the Indian? Another day. But I can give you a different kind of ride.”

  She laughed softly. “Four on the flirt scale. Too predictable.”

  He thumbed her nipple, which had gotten nice and firm for him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. “Oh, and you’re unpredictable?”

  She nodded. “I can be. I used to be all the time. Then I seem to have forgotten now. But now that I’m back in Beaver Bend, I’m remembering how carefree I used to be.”

  He liked where this was going. “That’s a good thing then.”

  She sat up again and peeled off her tank top, exposing those delicious tits for his full view. Rick swore under his breath. She tucked the tank top into the waistband of her pink sleep shorts and rose up a little, clenching her thighs. Hands in her hair, she gave him a sassy look. “Do I look like a pin up girl?”

  He nodded, slowly, backing up so he could really appreciate the view. “I’d buy this calendar that’s for damn sure.” He pulled out his phone.

  “You are not going to take a picture of me.” But she didn’t change positions or look alarmed in any way.

  “I am if you say it’s okay.” His dick was so hard it was throbbing painfully in his jeans. His tongue felt too thick for his mouth.

  “I should be worried about an evidence trail.” She bit her lip, which only made him groan again.

  “And?”

  She threw her leg back over the bike, disappointing him even more than he had been when the Vikings lost in the playoffs. But then, magic happened. Sloane didn’t dismount the bike. She just eased her sleep shorts down, giving him a flash of her dark curls before kicking the shorts onto the floor.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, fucking scandalized and as turned on as maybe he’d ever been.

  “This.” She lifted her leg again and the view he got nearly killed him.

  “Fuck,” he said, already reaching for her.

  But she waved him away and settled down onto his bike. She shivered. “Oh, that feels kind of dirty.”

  “It’s a lot dirty. And gorgeous.” He had to shift his feet apart to give his dick more room.

  “No, I mean it’s cold steel on my warm body.”

  He could see goosebumps were marching across her arms. “Your body or your pussy?”

  She bit her lip. “Pussy.”

/>   He’d never be able to ride the Indian again without thinking of Sloane straddling her, bare ass and pussy resting on the machine. She had no idea what she was doing to him. None. Or maybe she did and she liked torturing him. But he didn’t think so. She was just exploring, having fun.

  “I should keep you awake more often.”

  That made her laugh. “Please, I beg you, no.”

  “You’re begging me?” Rick put his phone back in his pocket. “I like the sound of that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Where is River, by the way?”

  He did not want to think about his sister. “Tucked in bed, asleep. I have the building under surveillance and she’s all locked in. Both to the building and the apartment. Please don’t call me a bad parent. I get that enough from my father. He thinks she’d be better off living in his mold-infested hellhole than with me.”

  “I wasn’t going to judge you, trust me. I think given you’re right downstairs, it’s totally normal. How it is any different from parents hanging out in their suburban garage when they’re kids are inside sleeping?”

  That made me feel better. She had a point but he’d been feeling too guilty to even consider that. “Thanks, Sloane. Now can we talk about the fact that you are completely naked on my motorcycle and there is no one to hear us or interrupt us?”

  The tip of her tongue crept out of her mouth and slid along her bottom lip, moistening it. She made a show of spreading her legs even further, and leaning forward. It was an absolutely fucking fantastic view. The curve of her ass rose, beckoning him to grab on and squeeze. Her tits jutted forward, and her neck was long and graceful. The perfect silhouette. She was a motorcycle magazine cover.

  “We can talk about it,” she said. “Or we can just do something about it.”

  “Ride or die?” he asked, as he pulled his wallet out of his jeans and grabbed a condom. Then he ditched his t-shirt and his jeans and approached the bike.

  Sloane gave him a sly smile. “Definitely ride or die.”