Stiff Suit: A Ponderosa Resort Romantic Comedy

by Tawna Fenske

  “LBD?” I try to puzzle out the acronym but come up empty-handed. “I don’t know what that is, but an LBD seems right for TPing.”

  “Little black dress,” she says as she bends to grab the jumbo pack of toilet paper from my backseat. “Not quite what we’re going for here.”

  What we’re going for is an opportunity to get Jonathan back for his pranks. If all goes according to plan, he’ll return from his trip tomorrow to find his cabin professionally toilet papered.

  I lean close to take the case of TP from Lily’s arms, breathing in her flowery scent. A few red curls have escaped the edges of her hood, giving her a slightly feral look. She’s fucking stunning. I can’t stop picturing her in my office with her hand in her panties, head tipped back, fingers grazing her—

  “It’s eco-friendly,” she says.

  I blink myself back from fantasyland. “What’s eco-friendly?”

  “The toilet paper.” She nods at the package in my hands. “One hundred percent post-consumer recycled and processed without chlorine.” She shrugs and tucks a fiery curl back under her hood. “I figure we might as well be environmentally conscious if we’re using this much of it.”

  Color me impressed. “I had no idea how much forethought went into toilet papering someone’s house.”

  She laughs. “Well, you’re the one who came up with the idea to do the inside,” she says. “Good thinking on that, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” I clear my throat. “No need to create an eyesore for resort guests just to spite my brother.”

  She grins as we head up the walkway. “Indoor TPing. That’ll be a first for me.”

  “Glad we can both experience a first tonight.”

  I’m not trying to sound sexy, but her eyes flash with anticipation I’m guessing has little to do with toilet paper. She doesn’t comment, though. Just leads the way up the path to Jonathan’s cabin, her cat tail swishing behind her as she walks.

  It kills me that she’s so knuckle-bitingly sexy while I’m dressed like a homeless guy in a grungy black hoodie Jonathan left in the back of my car, paired with slacks still marred with dog slobber. Magma rested her head on my knee while I devoured a second slice of lasagna, so I’ve got slug tracks on the front of my pants now, too. Try as I might, I can’t bring myself to care. I haven’t been around many dogs, but Magma’s growing on me.

  Following Lily up the path, I breathe in the night air spritzed with atoms of juniper and sage. Somewhere in the distance, a symphony of bullfrog and cricket song proves the humans aren’t the only ones with sexual companionship on their minds.

  But first things first.

  Setting the TP on the porch, I slide my master key into the lock on Jonathan’s front door. Funny how I’ve come to think of it as his place, how deep down I’m hoping he’ll eventually take a break from saving the world and join the rest of the family at Ponderosa.

  “Wow, this place is nice.” Lily steps inside as I push open the door and turns a slow circle in the entryway.

  “Most of it’s what Brandon left behind,” I say. “Bree had a heavy hand in the decorating.”

  “Bree has terrific taste.”

  I survey the caramel-hued leather sofas and the red wool rug in front of the fireplace. The cedar walls glow like embers, making the whole place much homier than mine.

  “Maybe I should think about doing some redecorating at my place.”

  Lily looks thoughtful. “Your place is nice. But it could use some touches that are more you.”

  “So I should ditch the zebra.”

  She laughs. “The zebra is all you.”

  That is either the kindest or weirdest compliment I’ve ever received. Maybe both.

  I carry the TP to the kitchen counter and set it down, surprised to discover there’s a lump in my throat. I clear it away and survey the room. “How should we start?”

  Lily saunters past, hip brushing the side of my body as she tears open the wrapper holding the TP pack together. “Never thought I’d see the day I’d give lessons to a business tycoon on how to use toilet paper.”

  “There’s probably a lawyer joke in there somewhere.” I grab a roll of toilet paper and toss it from one hand to the other. I can’t help noticing Lily’s eyes on my hands, so I throw in an extra toss or two for good measure. “Now what?”

  “Normally, you’d wrap the TP around things like trees and trellises,” she says. “The idea is to make sort of a pain in the ass for someone to clean up.” She frowns. “Wait, he’s not just going to pawn off the cleanup on some poor resort housekeeper, is he?”

  “Definitely not.” I may not have grown up in the same house as Jonathan, but I know my brother pretty well. “He’s not into having someone else clean up after him.”

  “Good to know.” She surveys the space, gray eyes taking in the entirety of the living room, kitchen, and dining area. “Why don’t you start wrapping up things like his coffee maker and fridge. Maybe string some between the handles on the cupboards.”

  “Can do.”

  “I’ll get to work on the living room,” she says. “Those light fixtures are just screaming for some two-ply.”

  “Indeed, they are.”

  I move around the granite island to get to work, but I can’t help stealing glimpses at Lily. The cat costume covers her from head to toe but leaves little to the imagination. Every dip and curve and swell of her body is outlined in tight black Lycra.

  I’ve seen that body in the flesh.

  I want to see it again. To touch her this time.

  “How’s it going in there?” she calls over her shoulder.

  “Great.” I haven’t started yet, so I order myself to stop ogling and get to work.

  Unoccupied with thoughts of Lily, my mind gallops cheerfully toward darker corners. Toward my father and that goddamn note he stuck on my tie rack.

  Thanks for the fucking hospitality. I promise to stay gone this time, but I need you to contact your sister. Not Bree, Isabella. She’s sniffing around shit she’s better off not knowing, so you need to head her off. Reach out, see what the hell she wants. Control the shitstorm, son.

  No “thank you” or “love you,” and he didn’t sign it, thank God.

  I don’t know how much Lily read before I shoved the damn thing in my pocket, but the last thing I need is for her to know my dead dad is alive and there’s another Bracelyn spawn running around out there. It’s been hard enough keeping this from my own family, but Lily—God, Lily’s different.

  So different from anyone I’ve ever met. It’s never bothered me keeping people at a distance. That’s been my MO my whole life, and I’ve been fine with it.

  But it’s harder with Lily. Harder to keep her from wriggling warm and necessary into the tiny cracks in my brittle, icy heart.

  That’s what I need to do, though. Keep her at a distance, keep her from taking over my mind or my heart or any other vital organs.

  I take a deep breath and start stringing toilet paper from the light fixture over the kitchen island. In the other room, Lily’s humming while she works, and the sound sets something thawing in my chest. I steal another glance at her as she bends to wrap the legs of an end table in TP, and I stop what I’m doing to stare.

  My God. I can’t get enough of her. Can’t stop staring, sure, but I can’t stop thinking about her, either. The sound of her laugh, the smell of her hair, her soft moans as she threw her head back and—

  “You planning to keep staring at my ass all night?” She straightens up and grins at me.

  “The idea does hold some appeal,” I admit.

  “Get to work, Bracelyn.” She chucks a roll of TP at me before grabbing a couple more for herself. “I’m going to work on the bedroom.”

  The bedroom is precisely where I’d like to be right now with her, but I manage to hold that thought inside. “Good thinking.”

  I focus on crafting an elaborate web between the handle of the refrigerator and the door of the pantry by the stove. There, that
should annoy the hell out of my brother.

  Kitchen complete, I wander down the hall to the guest bath, where I spend a few minutes looping big swaths of TP between the towel rack and the shower curtain rod. Nice. Very nice.

  I wander down the hall in search of Lily. “We should try the fork thing next,” I call out.

  She turns from where she’s wrapping a bedside lamp and grins. “Forking’s really more of an advanced move.”

  “You don’t think I’m ready for advanced moves?”

  She laughs and puts a hand on her hip. “You’re getting there,” she says. “I’d say you’re almost ready.”

  “Almost?” I step closer, aching to be even a fraction of an inch nearer. Aching to touch her.

  I shove my hands in my pockets instead. “What would get me safely in the zone?”

  “Mmm, any number of things.” She tips her head back, gray eyes flashing as she looks up at me. “You’ve come a long way toward proving you’re willing to try things that are a little naughty. A little taboo.”

  “I see.” I can’t stand it anymore. I drag my hands from my pockets and step closer, curving one palm into the hollow of her waist. “So you’re suggesting I should make more of an effort to unleash my demons of disobedience.”

  “That would help.” Her voice comes out high and shivery as I slide my hand up, grazing the edge of her breast. “Very much.”

  “Does kissing you in someone else’s house count?”

  “Most definitely.” She presses closer, breasts flattening against my chest.

  The soft heat of her body infuses my chest with warmth as I lean down to claim her mouth. I kiss her hard and deep, and she kisses back with fingers lacing behind the back of my head.

  I slide a hand into the small of her back, loving the way she curves against me. The bed behind her is like a magnet, pulling us toward the closest horizontal surface. I know we can’t have sex in my brother’s bed. I’m not that big of an asshole, but God it feels good to press against her, to cup her ass in my palm as she grinds against my leg.

  Could I make her come this way? I want to. I want it so badly I could—

  Bang bang bang!

  I jerk back and blink down at her. “For the love of Christ.” My voice is a growl as the door pounds again. “Whoever’s at the door needs to go away right now.”

  Lily nods in wide-eyed dismayed. “Is there some cosmic reason we keep getting interrupted?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t care who it is. I’m not going to—”

  “Security!” A voice booms from the doorstep.

  Wait, no—the voice is in the house.

  Footsteps thud through the living room, confirming my fear. “Oh, shit.”

  Lily jumps back and attempts to smooth out her cat suit. “Does this place have an alarm?”

  “Of course.” And of course, I failed to disarm it.

  “I’m an idiot.” I spin around and sprint toward the front of the house. Lily’s right on my heels, scrambling behind me. Rounding the corner at the end of the hall, I nearly collide with a uniformed guard.

  “Patrolman Schmidt.” I right myself and struggle to regain some semblance of dignity.

  “Sir.” The security guard gapes at me. “Mr. Bracelyn?”

  Lily slips a roll of TP into my hand, clears her throat, and nods at the front of my pants.

  Hell.

  Shifting the TP to hide my obvious hard-on, I address the security guard again. “Good evening, Patrolman. I apologize; I may have failed to disarm the security system.”

  His gaze sweeps the room, lingering on the chandelier trailing with long streams of tissue. “Right.” He looks back at me. “We got a call about some suspicious activity.”

  That’s one word for it. “Yes, I can explain.”

  Can I? Really?

  I glance at Lily. A six-foot stream of TP dislodges itself from the blade of the ceiling fan onto the security guard’s shoulder. He stares at it a moment, then turns back to me. “Another patroller noticed unusual activity and noted that Mr. Bracelyn—the other Mr. Bracelyn—”

  “Jonathan.”

  “Yes.” He gives an authoritative nod. “Was scheduled to be off premises this evening.”

  “Right.” I clear my throat. “I’m preparing a—a surprise for my brother.”

  “I see that.” He surveys the white-swathed legs of the dining room table, the big-screen TV wrapped neatly in TP. “You’ve done one helluva job. Sir.”

  I glance over his shoulder to take in our handiwork. There’s toilet paper around the armchair. Toilet paper covering the coatrack. There are even festive loops of it hanging from the exposed cedar beams that span the ceiling.

  Damn, we’re good.

  Lily’s uncharacteristically quiet beside me, and it’s all I can do to keep my expression stern as I turn back to the guard. He’s frowning down at my legs.

  “You have something on your pants, sir.”

  “What?” I glance down and pray to God my hard-on’s gone down. “Oh. That’s dog saliva.”

  “Dog saliva?”

  “Totally unrelated to the situation at hand.”

  “This whole thing is a prank.” Lily steps closer, resting a helpful hand on my elbow. “Just a friendly little prank between two brothers.”

  “The toilet paper, not the dog slobber,” I clarify for the guard, who’s looking more befuddled by the moment. “The TPing, it’s for Jonathan.”

  Patrolman Schmidt scratches his cheek and consults the mental manual on how to handle the situation. “You have a master key, of course.”

  “Certainly.” All of us do, all the Bracelyn sibs. I slip mine out of my pocket just to prove I’ve been entrusted with such a weighty responsibility.

  His expression suggests he’s questioning that decision. Or maybe he’s just unsure how to respond when the CEO breaks into resort property to toilet paper the inside of a cabin.

  The guard clears his throat. “I’ll just write up the incident report as ‘domestic misunderstanding.’”

  “Yes,” I agree. “That would be good.”

  He takes one more look around, then nods like he’s seen everything now. “You two have a good night.”

  “Thank you for your time, Patrolman.” I extend my hand, and he shakes it with a sturdy grip. “I’ll be sure to make note of your alertness in the face of a potential security breach.”

  “Thank you.” He clears his throat. “Sir.”

  “Have a nice night,” Lily calls cheerfully as he pulls open the door as though he can’t get out of here fast enough.

  As soon as the door closes, Lily bursts into laughter. “Oh my God.” She braces herself against my chest, laughing so hard she nearly falls over. “That was epic.”

  I find myself laughing along with her, which is crazy. I’ve just humiliated myself in front of a staff member. I should be mortified. I should be apologizing. I should be calling the head of security to explain myself.

  But as I look down at Lily’s flush cheeks and gray eyes filled with tears of laughter, all my shoulds fly right out the window.

  All but one.

  “We should get out of here.” I thread my fingers through hers, and when she meets my eyes, I see she’s reading me clearly.

  “We definitely should.” She flashes a smile that’s laced with suggestion, and it’s all I can do not to throw her over my shoulder and carry her to the car.

  “Let’s go.”

  It’s after ten by the time I pull up in front of Lily’s house and kill the motor. The sigh of the car’s engine reminds me of the end of a date. Like I’m dropping her off after dinner and the opera instead of an evening spent stringing toilet paper around a log cabin.

  She turns to face me, her face radiant in the glow of her porch light streaming through the moonroof. “Here’s where I’d normally come up with some sort of thinly-veiled excuse to get you inside.”

  “Oh?” I shift so I’m facing her, draping an arm over the steering wheel. “W
hat, like you need a hand changing a light bulb? Or there’s this bottle of wine you opened a couple days ago and you’d like some help finishing it?”

  “Please,” she scoffs. “I change my own damn light bulbs. And I can sure as hell kill a bottle of wine on my own.”

  She’s peeled the cat suit hood off her hair, letting her curls spill wild around her shoulders. I reach over and tuck one behind her ear. “Well, here’s where I’d happily go along with your thinly-veiled excuse and follow you inside if you asked.”

  Her throat moves as she swallows. The smile still teases the corners of her mouth, but her eyes glint with heat. With the suggestion that we’re about to go careening around a corner we’ve been hurtling toward since the first time I was here at her place.

  “Come inside, James,” she breathes. “I’ve been dying to get you naked for weeks, and I don’t see any point in playing games.”

  Jesus.

  Her frankness spears right through my core, sending sharp arcs of lust from my chest to the tips of my fingers. I struggle to breathe, to produce the one word I want to scream from the goddamn rooftop. “Yes,” I tell her. “I’d like that very much.”

  Like is the understatement of the fucking year, and we both know it. I reach for the door handle, surprised to discover my hands shaking from the force of fighting the urge to reach for her. To leap over the gearshift and pounce on her right here, right now. Waiting even thirty seconds to get to her bedroom seems like an eternity, like I couldn’t possibly make it.

  I practically chase her to her doorstep, hands reaching out to cup her waist as she fumbles with her key.

  “Damn.” She drops it on the ground, and we both reach for it at the same time.

  I swear to God that lightning bolts burst through me as our fingers touch. “God, James.” Her laugh comes out breathy and eager. “I want you so much I’ve lost control of my limbs.”

  “Need me to carry you?”

  She shakes her head and shoves the key in the lock. “Not if it means slowing down even a little.”