Scarlett looks up, giving Emmaline a dry expression. “You don’t own a cat, so don’t even try to tell me…”
Emmaline gives up, hiding her hands in her face.
“I meant exactly what I said,” I say, biting my lip.
Emmaline groans and Scarlett laughs.
“I think I’ll work from outside for a little while. Just uh, let me know when it’s safe to come back inside.”
Emmaline keeps hiding her face until Scarlett leaves. She looks up finally and tries to swat at my shoulder. I grab her wrist, locking eyes with her. “Careful, Kitten. I have you right where I want you now.”
I move into her, pushing her back until I have her pinned to the wall with my body. She looks up at me, licking her lips. “We have to get this order ready.”
“It was ready the second time you checked it, Emmaline. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
She starts to breathe more heavily, blinking and looking down. “I don’t think I can have sex with Scarlett right outside, if that’s what you’re trying for.’
“Who said anything about sex?” I ask. I force her legs around my waist, turning her and setting her ass down on a table. I work my fingers under the waistband of her pants and panties. “I said I would eat that pussy, and I follow through on my promises.”
I wait just long enough to see the faintest hint of a smile touch her lips. I rip her pants down and take a second to admire her.
“Your pussy is so fucking sexy,” I growl, lips so close to her that they brush the skin of her mound as I speak.
She writhes against me. “Scarlett is right outside…” she says softly.
“So you may want to avoid moaning too loudly this time.”
Emmaline’s glare melts away as soon as my tongue flicks out across her slit, circling and plunging inside her. She squeezes her soft thighs around my head, using her heels to push my face farther into her, begging me for more. I give her what she wants and more. She bucks against me, grinding herself into my face in her desperation for friction, for more.
Soon she’s moaning so loud Scarlett could easily hear if she’s right outside. I plunge two fingers inside her and finger fuck her while I work her clit with my tongue. It puts her over the edge. Her pussy clamps down on my fingers and her body shakes. She lets out a strangled cry, clapping a hand to her mouth to stifle the sound.
I straighten, grinning as I lean forward and make her kiss me hard while she still shakes with orgasm. Making her taste herself has my cock hard as a rock, but I can’t give her everything she wants all at once. That would ruin the fun. She’ll have to wait for tonight to get the rest.
She clears her throat, hopping down and sliding her pants back up.
I step outside and see Scarlett sitting on the bench a little ways down from the office. “It’s safe now.”
She looks up. “You’re sure?”
I laugh. “Yeah. Positive.”
Scarlett and Emmaline spend the next hour working on ideas for the design of their newest piece of clothing. I’m perfectly content to watch. The last four months have given me a lot to think about, and I feel like I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all.
My company is gone. As expected, Dean threatened to leak thousands of client’s personal information if I didn’t step down. I made a show of putting up a fight so he wouldn’t be too suspicious, but ultimately handed the company over to him. I had enough time to liquidize my assets and walk away with more than enough money to be comfortable for a few thousand lifetimes. He took over the helm of a ship he didn’t know was sinking.
Two months ago, my trap sprang fully. Dean was first slapped with tax evasion charges when the IRS caught wind from my anonymous tip, and then the real charges came of insider trading. Last week he was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison. The company is now publicly run by a committee. They’ve since offered my position back to me, but I declined. I have other plans now.
I’m mentoring Emmaline. I’ve been teaching her everything I know about business, and she’s the fastest learner I’ve ever seen. I haven’t given her a cent. Everything she has done for her business has been on her own. Two months ago she was earning enough from her sales to quit working at Club Crave. Now she only goes with me as a patron of the club, not an employee. And we make full use of the facility.
The boxes stacked up are for several major retailers. She managed to land shelf-space at some of the biggest stores in the country, and is planning to upgrade her office space soon and start hiring more employees to meet the contracts. I’ve never seen her so happy. It helps that Ronnie got put away for a long time for attempted murder on my PI and a slew of other charges. It turns out his rampage that night didn’t start outside Emmaline’s house. He left a drunken trail of carnage about four miles long and was caught on several security cameras.
I just have one more surprise for Emmaline, but she’ll have to wait a little longer for it.
Emmaline
Logan’s arm is possessively splayed across my back as we walk inside Clothes for Crawlers. It has been a dream of mine to have my products sold in a store like this for so long. I’ve thought so many times about what it would be like to walk through a big name store and see my products hanging on display, watching person after person admire my work. I just never imagined the tall, dark, and sinfully handsome man at my side.
I never would have imagined losing his company could revitalize him so much. Logan has been anything but idle since. His fresh start has brought about such a wonderful change in him. While I wouldn’t have called him brooding and depressed before, there was always a slight darkness around him. He doesn’t like to talk about himself much, but I think he had reached the top and had nothing left to strive for. I even think he’s glad that he was forced to start over.
The best part is he has been working with me as a business partner. He doesn’t give me money, but he has taken me under his wing and started teaching me everything he knows about growing a business from the ground up. And he’s a damn good teacher.
I was able to quit working at Club Crave two months ago after the business started really moving in full swing. Our sex life wasn’t magically perfect after the time he took me blindfolded up the hiking trail, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Logan’s creativity. He never seems to run out of ways to chip away at the wall of resistance the years have built up around my sexuality. We’ve also been able to enjoy his play room again, and our newfound trust has helped me to enjoy whatever he’s in the mood for, whether it’s light bondage or the paddle.
I also gave Scarlett a raise, which she was ecstatic about. Her outfits have become even cuter, and she’s starting to talk about opening her own dance business some day. I love that she’s looking at her own future outside of my company. I’ll miss her like hell if she leaves, but I want her to find her own niche too. If graphic design isn’t doing it for her, then I don’t want her stuck in it.
We quickly find the display with my products. Monthly milestone onesies from “I can walk!” to “I can sit up!”. Each onesie features what I hope will someday be our recognizable trademark: the cute cartoony elephant Scarlett designed. Each onesie shows him doing the milestone, whether it’s walking, sitting up, or celebrating his first Christmas. I feel my eyes welling with tears as I lean into Logan and look at the display.
Logan squeezes my shoulder and steps toward the clothes, picking up a little boy’s outfit for “I used the potty!”.
He turns toward me and makes a confused face. “I didn’t realize you included gifts inside the clothes.”
I scrunch my forehead. “What?”
He motions to the pocket on the front of the onesie. My heart stops when I see the circular outline. The small, circular outline.
“Yeah,” he says, smirking and falling to one knee. He reaches in the pocket and pulls it out. “Look at this thing. You’d have to really be head over heels in fucking love with someone to give this to them. You’d have to want to marry them.”
“You would…” I say, voice barely a whisper. The tears that threatened to fall when I saw the display are falling now for a completely different reason.
“Will you marry me, Emmaline?” asks Logan.
I don’t notice the small crowd forming around us. I don’t notice the way my heart is about to explode from overwork. I only see him. I see not just the drop-dead gorgeous man staring up at me, but the patient, thoughtful man who has been willing to work through my problems with me. I see the man who realized I didn’t need his money, who understood me so completely that he never needed to even ask. I see my soulmate. The only man I ever want to be with. Now and forever.
“I do. God. I do,” I say.
He slides the ring over my finger and I notice it for the first time. If I had any breath in my lungs, the sight of the ring would take it away. It’s not so big it’s gaudy, even though Logan could afford a ring like that. It’s elegant and in exactly the style I would have chosen with an almost antique flair to it. He stands, pulling me in for a kiss and then embracing me, just as blind as I am to the applauding crowd around us.
I couldn’t hope for anything more, except maybe a baby of my own to wear the onesies his mommy designed. I smirk into Logan’s shoulder. He may think he has complete control, but I have a feeling I’ll be able to convince him to try for a baby.
41
Sneak Peak: Single Dad Next Door
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Prologue
“No one can know,” she says, breaking the kiss just long enough to gasp out the words. “They can’t know the truth about us.”
I find special pleasure in running my calloused, dirty hands across her smooth and flawless skin. Women like her are supposed to be off limits for guys like me. Her family is old money rich. Just imagining the look on their faces if they found out she was sleeping with a mechanic never fails to put a grin on my face.
I kiss her while I guide her to the back of my truck.
“In the truck, sweetheart.”
She hops up, not taking her hungry eyes off me. I jump up beside her, sliding her back so I can lay her out like the prize she is in the bed of my truck. Long legs, long lashes, and an even longer list of reasons why I shouldn’t even be thinking of touching her. I strip her clothes unceremoniously, yanking her panties off in a single, hard jerk.
She quivers, completely naked. She’s already wet for me.
She has brown, curly hair that catches the moonlight through the open garage door. When I think about how much she must look down on me for being a lowly mechanic, I just want to give it to her that much harder, that much rougher. I want her to have to scream my name in this filthy garage and know it would enrage her parents. She should’ve known it would come to this when she moved in next door. She should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to stay away for long.
I slide my calloused hand along her smooth leg, up the inside of her thigh. I trace the soft curves of her body with my eyes, from her full lips all the way down her slender neck and to the sweet swell of her breasts. She stretches out luxuriously, arching her back and biting her lip while squeezing her eyes shut tight.
“Open your eyes,” I growl. “I want you to see who you’re fucking.”
She obeys. I grip her chin and kiss her hard--relentlessly. Whether she knows it or not, and even if her rich parents would never approve, Sandra Williams is mine. She may think she’s too good for me, but I know exactly how to keep her coming back for more. And if she thinks we’re going to keep the truth about us a secret forever, she’s wrong. There’s only going to be one secret between us. There’s only one thing that she can never find out, that no one can ever find out about.
If she knew… Fuck. I kiss her even harder, using my fingers against her pussy to make her squirm against me and gasp. Just thinking about what would happen if she found out makes me want to take her like it’s the last time. Because hell, if she finds out about the terms of my grandfather’s will, this will be the last time.
42
Reid
Two Weeks Earlier
I clutch the letter from my grandfather in my fist. The paper is soft and wrinkled from years of being handled. I know every word in it by heart. Every single fucking syllable is burned into my brain like a cancer. But the last line is the worst. It’s the one that haunts me. It taunts me every morning when I look in the mirror. It’s the line of text that hangs over me like a fucking time bomb, waiting to explode and tear everything in my life to pieces.
I leave my shop and property to Reid William Riggins under the condition that he is married with children by the time he is thirty-five years of age.
There it is in plain black ink. Children and a wife. I have one child and no wife. So that puts me in a very shitty place--one child, one ex-wife, and no prospects of that changing anytime soon. My grandfather went and threw me the shittiest curveball he could with his will. I shouldn’t even be surprised. My younger brother practically exiled himself from the family after college, and my grandfather was obsessed with the idea of the Riggins family name carrying on to a new generation. I’m thirty-three years old now, which doesn’t leave me much more time to satisfy the conditions. Either I marry someone and knock them up this year, or I lose my shop. I lose my house. Everything.
I shove the letter back in the drawer and slam it shut.
Tyler sticks his head in the small office at the back of my shop. “‘Ey, Reid. You’ll want to see this.”
I’m not in the mood for Tyler’s bullshit right now, but if I stay in this office any longer, I’ll just keep getting more pissed. I push out of my chair and cross the distance toward him in two long strides. The shop isn’t much, but it’s mine. For now. I’ve run the place since grandpa died six years ago. We have two bays for cars, one of which I built myself on the weekends. It took close to a year, but it’s good, solid work. Everything is to code and sturdy.
When I see my little guy kneeling to watch Garry work on an old Acura’s brake lines, the hot anger in me cools a little. Roman is the only good thing that came out of the two years I spent married to Tara. His brown hair is a tangled mess of brown and he has a thick streak of black on his cheek. I smirk, spitting on a rag then cupping his cheek to clean the grease from his cheek. He scrunches his face and tries to escape, but I manage to get the spot before he can slip away.
“You learning about brakes, bud?”
Roman is turning five next month, but he probably knows more about cars than most adults already.
“Yep!” he says cheerily.
I ruffle his hair and move to follow Tyler. As soon as Roman is out of my sight, the heat of my anger rises up again. I see what Tyler was calling me out of the office to see now. The shop sits directly in front of my house. The house next door has been abandoned for years, but there’s a moving truck parked outside in the shade of two big oaks. I tuck the rag in my jeans and cross my arms. I have to squint against the sun to see, but there are three guys from the moving company bringing box after box inside while a woman with long legs and short shorts follows them around, fussing over everything they move.
I take a few steps closer, eyebrows drawing down in frustration and confusion when I realize I recognize her. “Is that fucking Sandra Williams?” I ask.
Tyler spits between his teeth, nodding. “Sure is. Ain't she like, best friends with your ex?”
There’s a bad taste in my mouth as I answer. “Yeah. That’s the one.”
“So your wife’s best friend is going to live next door. What’re you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna set this shit straight. Keep an eye on Roman. This won’t take long.”
Tyler nods, walking back toward the shop.
I realize I’m not wearing a shirt when I’ve already crossed half the distance to her house. Fuck it though, I’m too pissed to go back and put one on. Besides, the shirt I had on is covered in oil. I
don’t bother thinking about what I’m going to say. The message is simple. She’s going to keep her fucking distance and I’m going to keep mine, or we’ll have a problem. The last thing I need is a reminder of Tara and the crap she pulled living next door, let alone some rich daddy’s girl like Sandra Williams.
She looks up when I’m only a few steps away.
“Reid…” she says slowly. Her tone says it all. It’s a placating tone, like she has been planning what she would say to try to calm me down. She knew exactly who lived next door when she decided to move here. How could she not? She’s been best friends with Tara since long before I even met Tara. She’s also the one Tara moved in with after the divorce. Her old place was just a few miles away on the other end of town.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demand.
She crosses her arms, eyes flashing with anger. I can’t help noticing how the motion pushes her full tits up. I never paid much attention to her before because I could write a book on the reasons she’s wrong for me, hell, I could write a few books. I don’t need books to tell me why I should keep my distance from Sandra. Two words are good enough. Off limits. Simple as that.
“I’m moving into my house. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Like hell it isn’t,” I say. I half-turn, pointing to my house and shop that are less than fifty yards away. “Your business just came and took a huge shit all over my business.”
The anger in her eyes falters briefly when they flick down to my bare chest and stomach. She sucks in a sharp breath and looks away and then back once more. “Can you put a shirt on or something?”
“Sure. As soon as you pack your shit up and leave, I’ll put a shirt on. ‘Til then, I’ll walk around butt ass fucking naked if I want to.”
Single Dad's Virgin: A Fake Marriage Romance Page 31
