by Grant, Pippa
“Back out now if you don’t want to do this,” I tell her.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to do this.”
“One time only.”
“If you say so.”
“One time only.”
“Then you better make it good.”
That mouth of hers makes my dick strain even harder.
Walk away, dumbass, that snide fuckwad in my brain hisses.
I mentally flip it off, then grab Tillie Jean’s hands and brace them behind her. “Stay.”
“Bossy.” She pushes her breasts out, and this time, when I bend to worship them, I stroke the wet lace between her thighs with my knuckles too.
She replies with a garbled moan that I take as encouragement, especially when her hips buck against my hand.
Heaven.
And it’s all mine.
One time only.
I lick a path between her breasts, down her belly, swirl my tongue over her tight little belly button, and lower.
She spreads her legs wider.
I slip my finger under the fabric and feel her hot, wet, silky skin, the delicate folds, that tight bud of her clitoris, and yes.
Just yes.
Her hips jerk in my hand as I thumb that magic button. “Don’t stop, Max. God, don’t stop.”
The table creaks under her thrusting hips. I push the lace to the side, lean in, and lick her seam, but it’s not enough.
Not with her pressing her most intimate parts into my mouth, gasping my name, fisting my hair in one hand while she braces herself with the other.
I don’t want to lick and savor.
I want to devour.
Claim.
Conquer.
This pussy?
Mine.
So long as she’s on this table, her legs wrapped around my head, pumping into my face, she’s mine.
I haven’t shaved in two days, but she seems to love the feel of my rough whiskers on her delicate skin, so I’m not gentle.
I’m hungry.
I’m desperate.
I want Tillie Jean to come all over my face and feel me imprinted on herself every time she takes her panties off for the next week.
“Oh, god, Max, more,” she pants.
I can barely hear her with her thighs clamped around my ears, but I hear enough, and it’s driving me fucking wild.
I’m so hard diamonds would feel like cotton balls next to my cock. I want inside her.
I want inside her now.
But she comes first. She always comes first.
I’m selfish a lot of places. But in the bedroom—or the shower, the couch, in front of the fireplace, on the beach at midnight, on my kitchen table, behind the stadium, in a broom closet, wherever—I’m a goddamn fucking gentleman.
Tillie Jean’s thighs clamp around my head and she muffles a scream as she grips my hair so tight I feel it all the way in my balls. “Oh god, yes yes yes.”
Her breathy orgasm moan makes my cock weep, and the taste of her climax on my lips gives me a euphoric high.
Fuck, yeah, I did that.
And I lick and lap at her until her thighs fall open and she collapses back on the table, which squeaks, sputters, and then gives up the ghost.
“Aah!”
“Fuck!”
Her hands and legs flail as the whole table tips sideways.
I grab her around the waist and shoot to my feet, except they’ve lost all feeling, and I sway backwards across the kitchen until my ass collides with something furry.
Furry?
“Maaaa!” a goat bleats.
“What the fuck?” I spin, still holding Tillie Jean, who squeaks as we trip over a massive furry goat with just one horn.
“Oh my god, the door.” She squirms. “Turn around. Turn around!”
“Maaa!” the goat bleats again.
“Sue?” a voice calls in the night.
Tillie Jean squeaks harder.
“Maa maaa MAAAAAAAA!” the goat yells.
“Dammit, Sue, where are you?” someone answers.
Grady.
Tillie Jean’s brother is out looking for his goat, who’s standing in my kitchen, right on top of Tillie Jean’s pants.
“Bad Sue,” TJ hisses. She finally gets herself disentangled and hides behind me as I realize it’s chilly in here, and anyone can see us if they happen to be strolling along the alley behind the house. “Go away. Go! Shoo.”
Sue eyeballs her, then dips his head—yes, his head—grabs one of her shoes, and turns away.
She starts to dart after him, looks down at her own bare breasts and her crooked thong, gasps again, and does the lady squat, attempting to cover all of her naked parts while penguin-walking after the goat. “Sue!”
I lunge for the goat myself, and it breaks into a jog while Grady calls its name again.
Running with the hard-on from hell?
Not awesome.
In case you were wondering.
Also not awesome?
Suspecting that my own fist is the only thing that’ll be giving me relief tonight.
Again.
I turn the corner of the house and am halfway to the sidewalk when Sue drops Tillie Jean’s sneaker at Grady’s feet in my front yard.
Grady looks down at the shoe, then up at me. He has the same sly grin that Cooper wears when he’s being an ass, but it’s not quite as hard as it should be. “Is that TJ’s?”
“No idea,” I lie. “He broke into my back door with it in his mouth. Not mine. That’s all I know.”
Grady stares me down.
I stare right back.
If he asks what’s up with my boner, I’ll tell him I was watching porn and invite him in.
Swear to god, I will.
Jesus.
I need to get out of this town.
“Heard you’re abandoning us for the holidays,” Grady says.
“Miss real sunshine.”
“Gonna miss Tillie Jean’s Christmas log too.”
That should not sound the least bit erotic, but my cock still twitches like he wants to hear more. “Mojitos and steel drums top Christmas logs every time.”
He’s still grinning. “Suit yourself, dude.”
I start to reach for the shoe the same time he does, realize I probably smell like his sister’s pussy, and back off.
What the fuck am I gonna do, tell him I’ll take it back into my house for her?
“You seen Tillie Jean?” he asks.
“No.”
Shit. Shit. That was such a bad lie.
He glances at my junk.
I scowl at him like he’s Anthony Bryant digging in at home plate with the tying run on first. Don’t ask how many times that fucker’s hit a home run off me when we’ve played Milwaukee. I don’t want to talk about it.
Just want to throw better so he can’t do it again next year.
“Sure you haven’t seen TJ?” Grady asks.
“Not since dinner.”
He doesn’t believe me, but I stay stone-faced. I won’t crack. I won’t.
He lifts the shoe. “Guess I’ll leave this in her mailbox. Thanks for finding my goat. Enjoy the tropics.”
I grunt.
Another goat bleats somewhere in the distance.
Sue answers.
A third goat maaas from another direction.
Grady takes Tillie Jean’s shoe, crosses the yard to her mailbox, taps the damn box, then whistles as he continues down the street, his goat trotting along with him.
And when I turn back to my own house, I catch sight of a Tillie-Jean-sized figure darting half-clothed in the moonlight back to her own place.
Fuck.
Not how that was supposed to go.
Not at all how that was supposed to go.
But it’s probably for the best.
Maybe she’ll get a boyfriend for Christmas, and then I can legitimately wipe her off the list of eligible women around here.
At least, a guy can hope.
&
nbsp; 22
Tillie Jean
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder.
In my case, it makes the heart obsess, cringe, re-imagine a different ending—no, I don’t want to talk about sneaking out of Max’s house while he was talking to Grady, because even I know I’m lying when I say I didn’t want word to get back to Cooper that I was there—question why I can’t stop thinking about him, get irritated all over again since I don’t even have his phone number, start to ask my friends a million times over the holidays if I’m being ridiculous, realize yes, I’m very much being ridiculous if I have to ask and then stop myself this many times.
Max Cole is a freaking drug.
He’s a hot-mouthed, hard-bodied, sometimes broody, sometimes happy, sometimes funny, well-equipped—oh, yes, I felt that—growly bear drug.
It’s been three weeks since he left, and I haven’t heard a peep from him or about him. Cooper’s not saying a word. Trevor and Robinson left for shorter holidays and came back and haven’t said a word either.
Not that I’ve seen them much.
I even made a couple trips into the city to see my Fireballs girlfriends, and they didn’t mention him either.
And now I’m standing in my studio at home, paintbrushes in hand, glaring at the painting I was working on last night after my shift at Crusty Nut.
It’s a bear.
It’s a freaking bear with Max’s eyes and Max’s smirk, which doesn’t fit at all with the blues and greens and purples of his fur.
He’s a technicolor hippie bear hiding dark secrets in his beautiful brown eyes.
I groan and toss my brush down, wipe my hands on my smock, and grab my phone.
Seventeen missed calls and four texts.
That’s weird.
It rings silently in my hand again as I’m swiping it open. “Hello?”
“I waffled on whether or not to tell you this,” Georgia says, “but basically every horny woman and gay man in the county is gathering at Sunrise Ridge, because…well, you know that sports magazine that does those naked athlete shoots, and how Sunrise Ridge overlooks—”
“Oh my god, tell me everyone isn’t gawking at Cooper. Ew. Ew. Gross. Why would they do that?”
“Tillie Jean. It’s not Cooper. It’s Max.”
My mouth goes dry, my knees buzz, and my nipples tingle, making the skin across my chest shiver as goose bumps erupt across my breasts. “What? No. He’s not back. I’d know if he was back.”
I march to the window and peer through the blinds.
No car at Max’s house.
Duh, Tillie Jean. Not if he’s at Sunrise Ridge.
But I would’ve heard his car. I would’ve heard him coming and going.
Unless he moved so he doesn’t have to live next to me for the rest of the post-season.
My stomach drops.
Georgia’s talking again. “—your Aunt Bea told my mom that the photographers are staying at the inn, and that she’d heard from Dita, who heard from Vinnie, who heard from Yiannis, who served a gyro to a very talkative stranger who’s apparently in the know, that they were doing a naked shoot with Max at the ball fields at the high school, and they had to do it today since it’s the only day there aren’t any extracurriculars going on, and—”
“Are you there?” I have my keys in hand and am headed to my car without thinking about taking off my paint clothes, and I don’t know if it’s because I want to see Max totally naked, throwing a ball around, or if it’s because I want to tell my friends and neighbors to stop gawking at a naked Max.
Definitely the second.
I mean, the first too, but no. Not like this.
“No,” she groans. “I’m at work today.”
“Would you be there if you weren’t at work?”
“I don’t know.” She heaves a sigh. “I mean, they’re not going to show his ba-dingle-do in the pictures, so it’s like, my only—”
“Georgia.”
“What? I’m not there, and it’s like forty degrees, so it probably wouldn’t even look all that impressive.” I can hear her grinning. “But you should go. Sloane and I counted the number of times you looked out the window at his house and sighed dramatically last week at movie martini night. She tried to take a drink every time but realized she’d be wasted before we got through the opening credits, and gave up. So either you want to see his ba-dingle-do, or you’re about to chew out the half of Shipwreck who are up on the ridge with binoculars. No, Grady, I’m not talking about your ba-dingle-do. Go back to being disgusting with your donut dough. Jesus. Your brothers. I swear.”
“I know. They’re such guys. Back to Max—”
“Customers. Have to go.”
She hangs up, and I dive into my car.
Twenty minutes later, I’m pulling up behind a line of cars at the hook in the road for the Sunrise Ridge viewing area. I should’ve worn my boots, but I didn’t, so I tromp along the dirty, snowy edges of the road to where a dozen women from Shipwreck are all leaning over the fence, most of them with binoculars. “What are you doing?”
“Tillie Jean.” Nana makes a come here gesture. “Come look. Are all the kids these days packing packages like this?”
“Nana. Give him privacy. He signed up to do a photo shoot, not to have half of Shipwreck gawking at him from—”
“Whoa, TJ, we have permission.” Aunt Glory steps back from the railing and lets her binoculars dangle from their strap around her neck. “We bought tickets.”
“You bought tickets.” Right. “From who?”
“Cooper and Max. Hundred bucks a pop, and all the money’s going to Robinson’s niece’s charity. Except Max’s ten percent cut. He and Cooper rock-paper-scissored it out until Max agreed to take a cut. Cooper insisted.”
My jaw flaps open.
“Wait a minute.” Ray turns from peering down in the valley too. “Tillie Jean, are you allowed to be up here? Where’s your ticket? Did you sign the waiver?”
“Tickets?” It’s all I can manage.
“I got you covered, TJ.” Nana flashes me a wide grin. “You know Cooper’ll take late payment for a ticket, but you have to promise me you’ll sign the waiver too. No pictures. If we take pictures, that magazine paying Max to strip down will get really mad at us and probably never sign Cooper up to do the same. Put your phone in your car and come have a looky-loo.”
“They did not sell tickets. Also, please don’t ever mention Cooper doing a naked photo shoot again.”
Aunt Bea reaches into her back pocket and waves something at me without looking away from the ballfield in the valley below. “They did sell tickets. You really think we’d be up here ogling a naked visitor to town without his permission otherwise? Also, if that’s what he looks like with shrinkage from the cold, can you imagine what he looks like when—”
“Aunt Bea.” I glare at her even though I very much want to know what his package looks like.
I’ve felt it.
I know it has to be glorious.
Even in forty-degree weather.
Possibly especially in forty-degree weather.
Oh, crap. Was he showing his package to someone else the past three weeks? Did he hook up with a beach bunny? Has some other woman had her hands on what half of my town currently has their eyes on?
It’s not like he’s mine. I have no right to be jealous.
But I am.
I’m jealous of the beach bunny in my head who got to hook up with Max Cole.
And now I’m also jealous that my family bought tickets to see him naked, and I didn’t even know he was back in town.
I whip out my phone and text Georgia. THEY SOLD TICKETS?
Her reply is nearly instantaneous. I started to try to tell you, but you were on such a roll, I figured it was best to let you figure it out on your own.
I pocket my phone and glower at my family. “You paid for a peep show!”
Total honesty here—I’m not mad that Max is comfortable enough in his own skin to fleece my
family in the name of charity.
I’m mad that they got the option of buying a ticket and I didn’t even know he was back.
Ray shoots me a glance and goes wide-eyed next to his mom. “Uh-oh. Prude police.”
I can see figures on the ball diamond behind the Blue Lagoon County High School, and I can see skin on one of those figures, but I can’t see anything else clearly.
Not on the field.
The sheriffs’ cars with lights flashing blocking the entrance to the school and a few other streets?
Yeah.
I can see those clearly down in the valley.
But I can’t see any portion of Max’s anatomy, other than enough to be able to tell that there’s a man, possibly with a tan, down there on the pitcher’s mound, and one or two clearly dressed people with equipment around the field, which is still littered with snow over the brown grass in the outfield.
Does he have a tan?
Does he have tan lines?
Was he sun-bathing nude in paradise for the past three weeks?
Am I sweating?
Yep. Definitely sweating.
And don’t ask about the state of my panties.
I shake my head and point to one of the cars with flashing lights around the roads to the high school. “No, I don’t want a ticket. And you guys shouldn’t have bought any either.”
Aunt Bea squints at me. “Tillie Jean, the man was shoveling snow naked here not that long ago, and throwing snowballs with you at the same time to boot. You really think he’s not comfortable in his body?”
“But you’re—this feels so—”
“You’d deprive an old lady of a thrill?” Nana demands.
“You and Pop watch porn every Tuesday night. You get your thrills.”
“Not in person.”
I step up to the railing and hold out a hand. “The binoculars, Nana. Aunt Bea. Ray. Aunt Glory. Dita. All of you. Put them down or hand them over.” I am such a stick in the mud.
“Holy shit,” Ray breathes. “The muscles on that guy are like…this isn’t fair. Women can get turned on and nobody knows, and here I am, popping—”
“Gah. Enough.” Aunt Bea snatches his binoculars with one hand and waves him away with the other. “I don’t care who you pop for, but you don’t do it in front of your mother.”
