by Rie Warren
I’d been getting some all right.
Without a word, I jumped up, hustled to the reception, and poured a mug of coffee into my favorite cup. The one Luke, Dane, and Aiden had given me for mother’s day. The one that said Best Effing Mom Evah. Now Luke was a budding delinquent, Dane too smart for his own good. And Aiden was . . . fapping?
My entire body shuddered. Not from the caffeine intake.
And I’d left them in the care of Jude. Jeeeeesus Christ. The man who made my dirtiest dreams come true was suddenly, completely, firmly in my life.
And my phone chimed from inside my office.
Taking one deep breath, I walked back inside.
Joelle still stood by my desk, but her head was craned as she peeped at my iPhone.
“Didn’t see a thing, boss lady.”
Uh huh. Like I believe that.
I took one sip of coffee. Took one look at the text flashing up. Dropped back down into my chair.
And groaned.
“Problem?” Joelle asked.
“Just a reminder.” And now Jude had my number. Out of necessity. But still.
“Why all the scowling? Reminder for a mammogram? Pap smear? Something else super fun for us gals?”
“A reminder for Luke’s football game tonight.” I flipped the phone upside down on my desk. “From my new . . . babysitter.”
“Babysitter?”
“Nanny.”
“Nanny?”
“More like manny. Okay? My damn sexy stud of a manny, who just happens to be a former NFL football player. He’s also the semi anonymous boy toy I’ve been meeting every Thursday night for the past two months for a naughty assignation! Are you happy now?”
“Well alrighty then.” Joelle feigned indifference. Or tried to.
Actually, she took the seat across from me and avidly leaned forward like I was feeding her reality TV obsession.
“Now he has the key to my house. My phone number. And he’s seen me naked. He’s done a lot of things to me naked that no one’s ever done before.” I cupped my forehead in my hand. “I thought Coach Jay would send one of the cheerleaders, not this . . . this . . . this . . . gorgeous, sex-god, hothothot HOT man. And he’s young. He’s so young. He’s only twenty-six!”
Exhaling a breath, I took another sip of too-hot coffee.
Joelle sat wide-eyed and rapt.
I barely saw her.
“So now Jude’s probably thinking win-win, because he has an in into my life. What isn’t win is I can’t even look at him without—you don’t even want to know what the sight of that man does to me. I can’t . . . He can’t . . . Just his smell, and I’m . . .”
“I think I need to turn up the AC.” Joelle leaned back with a pleated piece of paper fanning at her face.
“I was just scratching that itch, you know? No names. No details. Then he arrives at my house. He’s too young. Too brawny. Too . . . ohmygod he’s really talented. How am I supposed to look at him like I don’t want to have him in bed every Thursday night?”
“Sounds horrible.”
“It is. It’s too much. He’s too much!”
Joelle adjusted her glasses in lieu of commiserating with me.
“Then he found my missing stiletto this morning, and he kneeled down in front of me. He asked me if he could put the shoe on my foot. It was—”
“A Cinderella moment!” Her eyes lit up.
I scowled. Even though my heart pitter-pattered like it had earlier. “I was going to say mortifying.”
“So you hired him?”
“Yes.” I bit out the word like it left the bitterest taste in my mouth. “He’ll probably start sending me dick pics next.”
“Does he have a nice one?” Joelle asked, no boundaries.
“You have no idea.” Apparently I had no boundaries either.
“Did you Google him yet?”
“No.”
“His last name?” Joelle pulled out her phone.
“Raleigh.”
Phone forgotten, she babbled, “Jude wha-oh my God!”
“What?”
“He was only the hottest man in the NFL, playing for the Jacksonville Charge. How could you be screwing him and not recognize him?”
I looked askance at Joelle.
“What?” She held up her hands, phone and all. “Just because I’ve been married forever doesn’t mean I’m dead.”
“I never knew you followed football.”
“I follow sports, and hot men.”
Taking her phone in my hand and shutting it off, I opened my laptop. “We have a brief to prepare for Linda’s settlement on Monday.”
“I’d like to see Jude in his briefs.”
“He usually doesn’t wear any.”
“And I’m actually dead.”
Joelle and I spent the next hour compiling all the information we needed to nail Linda’s extremely rich husband to the wall. She’d been smart when she’d signed the prenup prepared by me.
Joelle looked at her watch then placed a quick lunch order for delivery. “You have the Ashtons’ mediation in an hour.”
Head meet desk. “Oh God, not another one today.”
“It’s just Esther and Bill.”
And Gregory, Joelle wisely left out.
****
Settled at the table in the conference room, where there were always vases of seasonal fresh cut flowers, carafes of water and coffee, little nibbles—everything on offer to ease the inevitable tension of husband-versus-wife divorce wars—I sat beside Esther Ashton.
And the other lawyer, Gregory Dalton, lowered into a chair next to Bill. That was right, my ex, my wasband, was also a divorce lawyer.
I was just better at it than him.
The sniping back and forth between the golden age couple began immediately.
“Oh you ignorant old coot! I don’t want the damn house on Kiawah!” Esther made the first stab.
Bill—bless his receding hairline—placed his palms on the table. “What exactly do you want?”
“For you to put your pecker back in your pants for a start. That’d sure be something.”
I patted Esther’s hand as her gigantic diamond necklace bounced against the linen jacket of the Jackie O suit she wore.
“Remember, this isn’t a reconciliation, Esther. We just need to come to an agreement.”
Bill opened his mouth to counter. Gregory—bless his cheating heart—placed a hand on his arm to still and stop him.
“I want the money,” Esther countered, not letting her big wobbly tears fall.
Go girl.
“I want the accounts and financial investments,” she persisted. “You can have the houses and the land. All the real estate—”
Bill pushed his fists against his chin. “You’ll end up with more than me.”
“You were a scalawag when I married you, William. Count your carpetbagger blessings I’m letting you get away with anything at all.”
And there we go.
I knew I liked Esther for a reason. The woman had some major fucking chutzpah.
The unhappy couple shook on it, and I closed my folder. “I’ll have Joelle get the agreement together for signing.”
After Esther and Bill departed—exchanging more barbs—Gregory hung back for a moment.
“Are you still having the boys this weekend?” I gathered files together from the table.
“Of course. I’ll pick them up in the morning. Said I would.” His tone was immediately defensive.
“You also said you’d honor our marriage vows.” Perhaps Esther and Bill had left some of their bad juju in the room. With a short sigh, I straightened up to face my ex. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t care anymore.”
His shoulders relaxed. “At least we can agree on someone else’s divorce.”
“And there’s that.” I looked at the man I’d been married to for over fifteen years and wondered if I’d ever truly known him.
If he’d known me at all the way Jude did.
/> “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” he said.
“Do you know anything about fapping?”
Gregory sputtered so hard I thought he might choke. “What?”
“Fapping?” I repeated.
“Oh. We’re talking about Aiden then.”
We laughed quietly together. The moment was strange and odd and different, but far better than all the shouting, hating, and blaming. Gregory must’ve felt the same, because before he left, he patted me gently on the shoulder.
But by the end of the day, I was simply done. My feet hurt. My head hurt. And I had yet to figure out how to proceed with Jude.
“I so need a drink,” I said to Joelle when I passed her the arbitration agreement for Esther and Bill.
“Excellent. Where shall we go?”
“Can’t. The football game, remember?”
She stood by my desk, clapping her hands. “Can I come along?”
“Don’t you have a husband to go home to?” I collected my briefcase and purse, standing on my aching feet.
“Honey-chile, just because Rick and I celebrated our twenty-fifth last year doesn’t mean I’d ever say no to getting an up-close-and-personal with Jude Raleigh.”
“It’s couples like you and Rick who are bad for my business.”
“But to be fair, I also run your business.”
I halted. “True.”
“So am I due another raise?”
Joelle already had to be the highest paid paralegal in Charleston, because I just wouldn’t function without her. “Leave your request on my desk.”
“Booyah!”
For one moment the older woman sounded exactly like Luke.
CHAPTER SIX
Jude
“ARE YOU WORKIN’ TODAY or what, Raleigh?” That was Jay Turner, my old coach, busting my ass on the sidelines at the Patriot’s Point fields just like the good ol’ days.
He still worked at Wando High School, but he volunteered for the intramural thing too, just for the fuck of it. Coach was the most dedicated man I’d ever met. So when I’d come home to Chucktown after a career-ending injury—my confidence blown along with my ACL—he wouldn’t let me quit on life either.
He was pretty much the man who fought for me to make it as a pro athlete. Got me seen by all the right schools, and after a stellar run with the Clemson Tigers, I’d been drafted by Jacksonville in the first round—Carolina Crush losing out during draft pick.
“Yeah. I’m working. Working for Cady Dalton, like you asked.”
“Oh yeah.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “How’s that going?”
“You didn’t tell me it was Cady Dalton.”
Coach lifted the bill of his baseball cap and scratched his forehead. “I sure as hell did.”
Well, he was right. Except Cady turned out to be Catherine. My Catherine. Now Cady. I reckoned she wouldn’t want anyone knowing anything about her moonlighting as a sexpot in a hotel room with me once a week.
“You’re right. Never mind.” I folded my arms over my chest. “It’s going great.”
“Good distraction?” Coach Jay was such a close friend he was one of the only folks who knew about my dad and what we were going through.
“You could say that.”
Jay—the big bear of a man at six foot five—squinted at me with his I’m intrigued look, but he said nothing else.
As Luke’s game got underway, I found myself surrounded by soccer moms, or, I guessed, football moms. But I was used to the flirting by now. Women recognized me, and maybe they just wanted a little playtime. I kept it light and casual because the only MILF I was interested in was Cady.
Man oh man, was I ever interested in her.
And I was really liking all the new shit I’d found out about her. That Dane sure was a talker. One might even say an over-sharer. Luke was also pretty damn loose-lipped. According to those two, Mom didn’t date. Little did they know about the Thursday night trysts. Their folks had split a year and a half ago and been officially divorced for a year. Cady liked flowers, she only wore one brand of perfume—the scent I still hadn’t figured out yet—and she spent most weekends at home, playing board games and swimming in the pool with the kids. Aiden alone, after he got over being starstruck by my former NFL status, had clammed up. Maybe because everyone but his mother knew about the fapping.
Oh yeah. Working for Cady Dalton was gonna be all kinds of fascinating, and I couldn’t believe my good luck turning up on her doorstep the way I had.
Divorce lawyer made sense. I’d already known she was smart as shit. And her house in the heart of Charleston’s historic peninsula was swank. Not as big as the one I’d had in Florida, and she probably didn’t have the kind of financial portfolio I did. My dad had taught me to make good investments and save for any eventuality because anything could happen in the blink of an eye . . . or during a really violent pro-ball tackle.
I’d found that out the hard way.
Cady’s crew all attended Porter-Gaud, which made me feel like I’d been slumming it at Wando in Mount Pleasant. No wonder Luke had a bad habit of getting detentions, the wily kid should never be seen in the requisite private school tie and khaki slacks uniform combo. Just wrong.
Tonight was Luke’s game. I’d safely deposited Dane and Aiden at their practices—after learning Dane was also on his school’s chess team while Aiden played bass guitar in the jazz band. And now I was here to cheer on the Firestarter.
From the very start, Luke impressed me on the field. The kid had grit-and-no-quit as a fledgling defensive linesman, despite his rangy build.
And the Cougar Brigade roamed closer to me as I cheered Luke on:
“Is he yours?” one of the women asked me.
I didn’t have to answer because a blonde cut in. “He can’t be. Don’t you know who Jude Rally Raleigh is?”
Then came the woman in super-tight lycra all over. “Wow. Jude Raleigh. I think you went to Wando with my little sister, Julie Giles?”
I sort of shrugged and stepped away, but the trio was tenacious. One of them even had the balls to accidentally bump into me, brushing her hand across the seat of my jeans.
They were so forward, their advances left a bad taste in my mouth, and I hadn’t even done anything to encourage them. Just my luck Cady showed at the exact moment Tight Lycra pretended to be celebrating something on the field by grabbing my arm and squeezing it against her spandex-bound breasts.
Cady had put in a full day at the office. Had to be tired after such an early start to the day. Yet she still wore the sleek stilettoes and strutted like she owned it, and her hair was once again perfectly in place.
My God.
She was beautiful. Just one look at her, and my body heated up. I couldn’t help remembering just last night when she’d slinked down to her knees and begged for my cock in her mouth. Or how she’d ridden me with sexy teasing rolls of her hips.
I wanted to open my arms to her, kiss her hello, tangle my fingers in her hair and pull the auburn tresses free so I could bury my face in it.
As she approached, she flashed me a brilliant smile, which I found immediately suspicious. But hell, I’d take it.
I grinned right back at her. “Hey, darlin’.”
And alllll the cougars fled, leaving Cady humming in satisfaction.
Huh. Was my delicious woman jealous?
She gave no more indication that she wanted to scratch the MILFs’ eyes out, but as soon as they departed, so did her bright smile.
“Any incidents today?” she interrogated me.
“No fires. No fapping. No new freaky facts from Dane.”
“Stop with the fapping!” she hissed.
“I don’t do it myself. Save it all for you.”
A pink blush swept across her cheeks, and she pressed a finger against my mouth to silence me.
I kissed her fingertip then circled her wrist in my hand. “What about you? Any jilling?”
She yanked her hand away. �
�What?”
“What it’s called for girls.”
“I’m not a girl.”
“I’m well aware.”
“I . . . no.”
“No? Never? I guess we still have a lot to explore.” My voice dropped and became huskier. “I’d like to see you, so nice and juicy, slipping a single finger into your hot pink cunt.”
Cady’s eyelids fluttered down, and her breath hitched.
Just then I spotted Coach Jay approaching. I gave Cady a reprieve, moving just a bit farther away from her. Jay was no fool though, and even as he greeted her familiarly, he managed to shoot a look at me that I understood to mean interesting and interesting-er.
“How’s this kid workin’ out for ya?”
Great. Just what I needed. Coach reminding Cady of our age difference.
“Well, I’d expected you to send a cheerleader or an older sister or something. Not . . . this.” She flapped her hand in my direction.
I grunted, staring at the game in progress in front of us while those two annihilated my character.
Coach chuckled. “Aw. Jude ain’t all that bad.”
And thanks for the vote of confidence.
Suddenly Luke made a winning sack that ended the friendly game, and I pumped my fist into the air, bellowing, “Yeah. Pancake him, son!”
Cady smiled, shaking her head.
“Love the game, babe. Love the game.”
Coach ambled away after a back slap, and Luke loped over as Dane and Aiden joined us fresh from their practices.
All three started chanting, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
“Um, we usually grab a pizza after a game,” Cady mentioned.
“Are you inviting me to tag along?”
No answer forthcoming, which I took as a solid yes. “Who wants to ride with me?”
All the boys clamored to ride along with me. Hey, at least somebody liked me, right?
****
At the pizza place, I’d already commandeered a table by the time Cady arrived. The boys started begging her for money to play the arcade games in one corner of the restaurant, but all she said to them was, “Where’s your allowance?”
