“If I did use ibuprofen secretly, don’t you think that I would be able to get it myself?” Paige asked.
“Where would you get it? You wouldn’t want anyone in town to know that you were using a real medicine.”
“First, the things I use to deal with aches and pains are just as real as this,” Paige said. “And secondly, I’m not trying to say that ibuprofen doesn’t work, Mother. I don’t judge people who use it. If I needed it and wanted to use it, I’d go buy it at the store.”
“You wouldn’t,” her mother said. “You want people to believe that what you do is the best choice.”
“It’s the best choice for me.”
“So you wouldn’t go buy ibuprofen at the store.”
“Because I don’t use ibuprofen. Not because I’m trying to trick people into thinking that what I do works when really I’m using over-the-counter painkillers secretly.”
Mitch had to squeeze his hand into a fist to keep from bursting through the door and interrupting. Paige’s mother was annoying her and he wanted to intervene.
Which was absolutely ridiculous. He barely knew her, and he sincerely doubted that she needed his help. Plus it was her mother. That was not the right first impression to make. Probably.
It was possibly because her mother was meddling and he knew a lot about that. Meddling in the Landry family was like game night in other families. Something they all got together to do on a regular basis.
“How’s your head today?” Paige’s mother asked.
“Fine.”
“So you could help your niece and nephew with their projects tonight?”
“No. I have plans tonight.”
“Doing what?”
“Mom, we’ve talked about this. You don’t need to know every single thing I do.”
“So it’s a boy.”
“I’m twenty-two. I don’t date boys.”
“But it is a date?”
“No, it’s not a date.”
Mitch grinned. So wild, up-all-night sex wasn’t a date in her book? He could live with that. He was hoping for some snow time though, he wouldn’t lie. Snow was a novelty to a guy born and raised in Louisiana. He’d seen it twice and it had lasted for about two hours each time. It had been years. When Tori, his cousin’s fiancé and the Iowa girl who had introduced him to Paige in the first place, had been preparing him for this trip north in January, she’d talked about boots and coats and gloves and when she’d told him that Appleby had about six inches of snow on the ground currently he’d admit that he’d felt a definite boyish rush of excitement. Maybe he could talk Paige into making a snowman or sledding or ice skating. He had no fucking idea how to ice skate, but he felt that was very winter wonderland-ish and that he might regret returning south without having at least tried.
And hot chocolate. He really wanted hot chocolate.
“But it involves a b—man?” Mrs. Asher asked.
“Mom, I said I have plans. I can’t help with an art project. That’s all you need to know.”
“I just care.”
“You’re just nosy.”
“I just think you could help your sister out once in a while.”
“I just think my sister could have figured out how to use her birth control before she had little people she needed help with.”
“Paige Elizabeth!” her mother gasped.
“You act like that’s the first time I’ve said that,” Paige said. Her tone was exasperated but also held a hint of amusement.
Mitch wished he could see her face.
“I’m always shocked when you say things like that,” her mother said, definitely sounding shocked. “I keep thinking that you’re going to get over this anti-marriage and family thing you have going on.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
She was anti-marriage and family? Mitch felt his eyebrows rise. A part of him liked that. All the women he knew back home were very pro-marriage and family. He was twenty-seven. The girls on the bayou had been trying to tie him down—or their mamas had, at least—for five years now.
His own family had laid off on that for the most part. Or the attention had been focused on his older cousins. Until recently. His cousins had all spent the past summer falling ass over boots in love. Even his new buddy, Chase, who spent most of his time in medical school at Georgetown, had found himself smitten, somehow. Mitch had really thought Chase would be immune. They’d had a hell of a good time partying together. But Bailey Wilcox had happened and Chase was now a goner too.
Now the attention had shifted to Mitch. No one had yet said anything like, when are you going to settle down? But if they knew he was up here visiting a woman he’d met in July and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, they’d all be very interested.
There were three things the Landrys believed in with their whole hearts. One, crawfish boils were the way to fix any rift, disappointment or broken heart. Two, everyone’s business was everyone else’s business. And three, falling in love was the ultimate goal in life… even if you had to do it a few times to get it right.
Mitch couldn’t help but wonder what his family would think of Paige. She was a yoga-doing-meditating vegetarian who clearly liked to keep her personal business personal. None of that would make sense to them.
And the Landrys would, most likely, horrify Paige.
He grinned thinking of it. His family was loud, and their idea of meditation was sitting in a boat and fishing without talking for twenty minutes straight. Other than swearing at the fish, and the fishing line, and the tree branches hidden under the surface of the water that messed with those lines.
He’d known Paige was a fling-with-no-strings girl. He’d texted her first and it had taken a couple of days for her to respond. He’d given up on hearing back from her by the time his phone had dinged with the message from her. The message that read I can’t believe you texted me.
He’d laughed and texted back—right away, incidentally, which might have been a mistake—and said, why can’t you believe it?
Because I’m not sending you naked photos.
I don’t need photos. I got a very good look at everything and I have a VERY good memory.
It had taken a few minutes after that and he’d wondered if he’d screwed up but then she’d replied, so what do you want?
And he’d had to really think about that.
Clearly, she hadn’t been thrilled to hear from him. She hadn’t been waiting with bated breath to see if he’d text or call. She hadn’t been flirtatious or encouraging in keeping the conversation going.
At first.
But as long as he was okay with twelve to twenty-four hours passing between messages from her, he did hear from her, and every damned time she made him smile.
He’d ask stupid shit like, what did you do today?
And she’d say, scooped cat poop, did yoga, rinse, repeat.
He hadn’t been able to resist asking, what about a shower? You probably took a shower right?
She’d reply, eventually, I did.
That was it. Nothing flirtatious or dirty.
Until about three weeks in when, in answer to his question about what she did that day, she texted, scooped cat poop, did yoga, got off with my vibrator while thinking of you, rinse, repeat.
He’d almost swallowed his tongue. He’d typed three messages before finally sending, please tell me the repeat was with the vibrator and thinking of me too.
Her reply, Definitely. Twice last night. Once this morning, Once just now.
She’d texted him right after using her vibrator and thinking of him.
Now that was what he was talking about.
Strangely, from there, their conversations had gotten more in depth. She’d told him more about her cats and why she loved yoga and she’d even drunk texted him after a girls’ night, and, instead of getting dirtier, she’d told him that she wished they’d had more time together and that she’d made vegetarian gumbo. Which wasn’t really gumbo at al
l—how could it be without shrimp or sausage or at least chicken?—but he’d been stupidly touched that she’d tried something from his world and he hadn’t had the heart to tell her it didn’t count.
He’d told her about the bayou and what he loved about it, how he loved the outdoors, and about his family. Which now, listening to her and her mother, he realized might have been a mistake.
He came from a very big, very nosy, very involved family. If she had too much of that here, she would have very little desire to meet his intrusive relatives.
But why was he thinking about her meeting his family?
That wasn’t going to happen. That was the beauty of this situation. She lived far away. To see her, it took him miles away from the bayou and his family, and their time together would always be temporary. It would be impossible to get serious. Even if either of them were interested in that at all. Which they clearly weren’t.
Suddenly the closet door opened and Paige stood there.
He must have missed her mom leaving.
“Sorry about that.”
“No problem.”
She grimaced. “I’m not so sure about that.”
He reached for her. “I have lots of other things for your mouth to do rather than apologize.”
But she backed up before he could catch ahold of her.
“And while I would very much like to use my mouth in all of those ways and few others, we need to cool it for a little bit.”
He frowned, stepping out of the closet. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are going to be other family members stopping by over the next few hours.”
“There will be?”
“Oh, for sure.” She paced away from him. “Mom’s suspicious now, and I kind of admitted, stupidly, that my plans tonight involve a guy.” She turned back to face him from several feet away. She was frowning. “That was really careless of me, of course. But I blame you.”
“Me?”
“You scrambled my brain and then you were just right in there.”
“I was totally quiet,” he protested around a grin about her scrambled-brain confession.
“Yeah, but you were there. Just a few feet away. Being all hot and stuff.”
“I was being hot? From inside a closet? With the door closed?” He liked that a lot. And knew what she meant, actually. He’d been very aware of her just on the other side of the door as well.
“Yeah.” She shook her head. “It must be the testosterone. You’ve got so much oozing out all over that it got on the floor and seeped out from under the door and soaked into me.”
He laughed softly and crossed the space between them. He reached out before she could move back and caught her wrist, bringing her up against him. He bent to put his face against her neck, breathing deeply of her scent and loving the feel of her hair against his cheek and the way she shivered in his arms.
“The oozing doesn’t sound particularly sexy, but I love the idea of soaking into you,” he said, gruffly against her ear. “Does it make you hot?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“So you were distracted because your panties are wet, and your pussy is aching knowing that the cock you want more than anything is just a few feet away and is all ready for you.”
She shivered again, and her arms went around him as she arched closer. “Yes.”
“You want my cock so much you couldn’t even come up with a lie for your mama?”
She huffed a soft laugh. “I guess.”
“So we just have to hide out while these people stop by. We’ll keep the lights off, and I’ll just flip you on your stomach while I’m fucking you so you can scream into the pillow.”
Paige gave a lusty sigh and then shook her head. “Won’t work unless we hide my car. And change the locks.”
He pulled back. “They have keys?”
“A few of them. My two sisters do. And one of my friends. She won’t give it up though.”
“Your sisters might?”
“You don’t understand my mother’s powers.”
Actually, he kind of did. In his case, it was his grandmother, but he understood how manipulative a matriarch could be when she really put her mind to it.
“So what’s the solution?”
“I answer the door each time and convince them that nothing is going on and that I was making the guy up and that I’m just a bitch who doesn’t want to do art projects with her niece and nephew.”
He squinted at her.
She laughed. “You’re nice not to ask it out loud, but, yes, they will be able to believe that.”
“Your family will believe that you’re willing to lie to get out of family activities?”
She shrugged. “They think the fact that I like cats better than people is a huge character flaw and they mourn my lack of maternal instinct. They also think that I’m selfish when I don’t want to be Super Aunt. Especially because my other sister Josie is a super aunt. And she’s completely into romance and marriage and family. It took her until age twenty-five to find Mr. Perfect, but she was always hopeful and open to it. So they never gave her any crap about being single and nearing spinster age.” Paige rolled her eyes. “They secretly hope that if I spend time around my sister’s kids that it will flip the biological clock switch in me, but the truth is, I’m not that into kids. Even ones I’m related to.”
He was from a family where everyone helped raise all the kids, and the kids were as close to their aunts and uncles and grandparents as they were to their own parents. In his case, he was closer to his relatives than to his mom and dad. His dad had been a single dad and had happily accepted the help offered from his extended family. Mitch had been an only child but had essentially grown up with a huge family with cousins that felt more like siblings.
His Aunt Hannah had absolutely been like a mother with plenty of influence from his grandmother, her best friend, and his other aunts as well.
He had to admit, as much as he related to Paige not enjoying the nosiness of her family, he didn’t really understand her not wanting to be involved in their lives, at least to an extent.
But it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know how Paige Asher felt about kids. He needed to know how she felt about incorporating flavored body lotion into foreplay. At most.
“So how’s this going to go?” he asked, focusing on her breasts and hips and the fact that it was awesome that she wasn’t looking at him as potential marriage material.
She rolled her eyes. “Various people will need to borrow something or drop something off, or they’ll claim I wasn’t answering my phone, and they had to know how I felt about something. So we can hang out and make out,” she said with a mischievous smile. “But I’ll have to stay somewhat dressed, and we won’t be able to get totally into it until my grandpa comes and goes.”
“Your grandpa?”
She nodded. “He’s always the last one. Because he’s the one I have the hardest time saying no to. Because he’s actually sweet and sincerely concerned about me. But once he leaves, we should be good.”
“So…” Mitch settled his hands on her hips and brought her close again. “Kind of like the ghosts in A Christmas Carol.”
She looked surprised, then laughed. “How so?”
“Visitors over the course of the evening trying to teach you something.”
She laughed again. “Trying to teach me what exactly?”
“About keeping secrets from your family?”
“Maybe.”
“That they care and just want to be sure you’re okay?”
She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Nope. You can’t get soft. If you start to side with them, you’re sleeping at Tori’s tonight.”
He wasn’t worried. He knew she wanted him in her bed. He shook his head. “Can’t. They dropped me off and left me. I’d have to hitchhike. And I don’t have a winter coat,” he added with a grin. “I’d freeze my nuts off. And you like my nuts.”
“I might like them less if yo
u start to sympathize with my busybody relatives.”
He pressed said nuts—more or less—against her. “Nah. You’re addicted.”
“I’ve gone without them for six months.”
“Ridiculous to go without them any longer,” he said with a nod. “I promise not to say nice things about your family as long as you have your mouth or pussy against those nuts.”
Her eyes flared with heat. “Hmm… you drive a hard bargain.”
He pressed his cock against her. “Very hard.” He couldn’t pass that pun up.
She licked her lips and he swore that he got even harder. If that were possible.
“So you’re up for this?” she asked, emphasizing up.
“What I heard you describe was lots of foreplay and creativity with prolonged release,” he said. He dropped his voice. “Basically it means that you’re going to be hot and dripping and desperate by the time you shut and lock that door for the last time. That sounds like a fucking fantastic belated Christmas present with a big old red bow around it, sweetheart.”
She just looked at him for a long moment.
Sweetheart hung in the air between them.
He wondered if she’d call him on it. She didn’t seem like the type to like endearments. She wasn’t soft and sweet and romantic. She was sassy and sexy and fun.
And that’s what he wanted.
Never mind that he had a package of the pancake mix his grandmother’s best friend used in their restaurant in his bag. Just in case Paige would let him make her breakfast in the morning.
“Fine,” she finally said, her voice a little husky. “Then you can stay and help me… kill time… in between visitors.”
“It will be my pleasure.”
3
She was playing with fire. And it was so much fun.
Paige was grinning as she stepped in front of the mirror that hung in her office and straightened her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair.
Mitch was here.
It was going to be a pain now that her mother had smelled a secret, but it was also going to be fun. He hadn’t batted an eye at the idea of multiple relatives stopping by and repeatedly interrupting their naked plans.
Oh, Fudge: Hot Cakes Book Five Page 3