by Roxie Ray
“I know, Gramps,” I said, trying to keep my voice from being sullen.
“But I know you work hard. That’s who you are. So, you’ll request the appraisal and inspection, and that should get you through the weekend, if your realtor friend is willing to work with you.”
I nearly bounced in my seat. “Gramps, you’re the best. What would I do without you?”
“I hope you don’t have to find out for a very long time.” I opened my mouth to agree, but Gramps kept talking. “Remember that fellow, Porter, that interviewed the last time you came to the office?”
I nearly hung up the phone. He’d had no idea we were already talking about Porter with the bidding war on the house. “Yeah?” Now my voice was sullen for sure. “What about him?”
“We offered him a position. He starts Monday in our family law department. I thought I sensed some hostility between the two of you. I wanted to make sure you were okay with him working for me. If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll withdraw my offer.”
Oh, man. That was hella tempting. Shit. It took all of my willpower to say no. But I wouldn’t be the reason the man lost his job. If Gramps wanted to hire him, he must’ve been a good lawyer, even if he was a shit person. “No, Gramps, it’s fine. I don’t care what he does one way or the other. I just know him through my friend Bri.”
“So, I didn’t sense any hostilities?” he said with an edge to his voice that said he knew damn well he’d sensed something.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “He’s the one I’m in a bidding war with for the house. But I don’t want you to let that influence his position. I’m not that kind of person.” I knew my grandfather pretty well by now. He would’ve fired Porter for looking at me wrong.
“Oh, I see, I see. Well, a little healthy competition never hurt anyone. It must be a gorgeous house.” He chuckled to himself.
We talked for several minutes about his firm and caseload and he asked me to come next weekend for dinner. By then, hopefully I’d be well on my way to purchasing my new house and could dial back my live streams a bit, so dinner with Gramps sounded perfect.
After talking to Gramps, I called Gazelle and asked her for the paperwork, and asked her if getting that together would delay anything. She said she could easily take all day tomorrow getting it, giving me the rest of the weekend.
I hung up in triumph, the knowledge that I’d soon have everything I’d ever wanted solidly settling my anxiety. I was going to do this.
And the good news deserved a treat. Wayne never made desserts for me, which was an intentional request on my part. I rarely indulged my sweet tooth, but what better time than after getting that great news?
I headed down to Main Street and walked a couple of blocks up to the ice cream parlor. It was so cute, all old-fashioned. Every time I went in, it was like being transported to the fifties.
Briana’s little sister, Bianca, was already at one of the tables nursing a milkshake. She looked upset. I put in my order at the counter, then walked to the booth where she sat. “You okay?” I asked.
Bee looked up and smiled at me, but it was a watery, tremulous smile. “I’m fine.”
Plopping down across from her, I called her out on the bullshit. “You’re not fine. You’re sitting in an ice cream parlor nursing a chocolate milkshake with tears in your eyes.”
She sighed. “Benson broke up with me.”
The cashier walked over with my ice cream cone. “Thanks,” I said warmly and went to town. Returning my gaze to Bee, I arched an eyebrow as I enjoyed the decadent treat. “Spill.”
“It’s not Benson. He was just another guy. Nothing special, not really. But it was what he represented. I’ve had so many guys just barrel through my life lately.” She sighed and took a long drink of her shake. “I’m having feelings.”
I chuckled. “Lady, I’m the queen of guys barreling through my life.”
She looked hopeful. “You are, aren’t you?”
“You don’t have to look so happy about it,” I said with a laugh. “But yeah. You sound like me, except you let your feelings get in the way of your fun.”
“Why do all my relationships go bad?” she asked with big, pitiful eyes.
This was my best friend’s little sister. Should I give it to her straight or butter it up? “You want the truth, or do you need me to do that thing girls do where we bash Benson and get a second dessert?”
She stirred her milkshake and heaved a deep, weary sigh. “Give it to me straight.”
“Okay. You’re missing something in your life. You’re trying to find it in men.” Lord knew that was my problem. I wanted a family, deep down, so I compensated with a revolving door of good sex and great dates. Or reverse that. Good dates and great sex, if possible. “You’ve got wonderful parents and an enviable family. What exactly is it you’re trying to find that these men can’t give you?”
Bee furrowed her brow and sat back, her finger idly twirling her straw. “Good question. The only thing I can think of is my career. I’m floundering, with no purpose.”
“Okay, so that’s a great start,” I said encouragingly. “What interests you?”
“I want something of my own. I work part-time, dead-end jobs for spending money. My parents pay for my rent. That sounds great, and it is, but it’s not mine. I want to do something for myself.” She looked encouraged just talking about it. Sitting up straighter, she held out her chin and smiled at me. “You’re right. The thought of making something of myself makes me almost not sad at all about Bobby.”
“Benson,” I corrected.
She rolled her eyes. “Benson, of course. Bobby was last week.”
After a good laugh, I leveled her with a stare. “Okay, so what do you love to do? What are you passionate about?”
She shrugged, and then her shoulders slumped. “I guess that’s the next problem. I’m not good at anything.”
Immediately, I knew that wasn’t true. “You do your makeup beautifully. Have you thought about doing a beauty blog? And do you do your own hair?”
She nodded. “I thought about going to beauty school, actually, but I just… never did.”
“What about a beauty blog? Influencers are enormous nowadays.” Bee was gorgeous, with high cheekbones and perfect, poreless skin. I’d seen her without makeup on, and to be honest, she didn’t really need foundation. But with it, she always looked like she could walk onto a movie set.
“Not to speak out of turn, but I watch a lot of those beauty videos online. There are not enough women of color out there, showing other women with some color to their skin how to do the whole contouring, shading, and all that other stuff I still can’t get right.”
Bee burst out laughing. “It’s easy. I could show you.”
“See?” I said. “If you can teach me, you can do a blog on it. I’ll be your first model, if you’d like.”
She sipped on her milkshake and shifted her eyes, deep in thought. “Women of color, huh?”
There was a market there. She had the talent to take advantage of it and provide a service most women would love. “I mean, I don’t go searching them out, since I’m pale enough to guide in a ship in the fog, but when I’m just scrolling through, yeah. You are grossly underrepresented.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I could get in front of a camera like that.” She cut her eyes at me. “I mean, I know you do it all the time in more invasive ways, but…”
“Hey, what I do is certainly not for everyone. I don’t even want to do it long-term. Why don’t you come over Saturday morning? I’m not doing any streams until later in the day and you can use me as a test, get me ready for my live shows.”
She perked up. “That would be cool. I could bring my tools and use your makeup since our palates are so different.”
“It’s a date. And if you like it, I’ll start teaching you how to edit video.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even think about that part of it. I actually think I might enjoy doing that. The editing parts.
” She seemed excited, and my heart swelled knowing I might’ve just helped her change her career.
If it worked out for her, I’d be able to say I had a hand in it. My little duckling.
We sat a while longer while I finished off my cone, talking about bits of nothing.
Out of the blue, the hairs on my arms stood on end, and my heart beat double fast for a second. Turning my head when the bell over the door rang, I caught Porter walking in with Jace. Both men were laughing and talking until Porter stiffened and frowned.
Jace leaned close, looking at his brother in concern as Porter’s gaze landed on me, and we proceeded to have an intense stare-off.
I wasn’t one to back down, at all. Given how Porter stayed in one spot with his gaze glued to mine, he was as stubborn as me.
It was okay. I could be stubborner. Was that a word? More stubborn.
I’d win.
Finally, Jace noticed what Porter was doing and rolled his eyes, then shoved Porter toward the counter. But Porter continued to glance at me repeatedly over his shoulder.
After they got their order, they walked over to our table, and Jace slid in beside Bee. “I hope you’re not corrupting my little sister,” he said, referring to Bee.
I scooted over to make room. “If you haven’t done it by now, she’s not corruptible.”
Porter hesitated before sitting beside me. “Corruption?”
“Everything is innocent,” I said with my hands up. If Porter came back with something about my job, he was getting a jab to the ribs with my elbow.
But he didn’t. He just stared at me until it was weird or uncomfortable.
“Well, we came for this cake,” Jace said, holding up a pink box that I knew from experience held an ice cream cake. He nudged Bee. “See you at family dinner on Sunday.” He got up to leave, but Porter had caught my gaze again.
There was something in his stare that unsettled me to my bones. My breaths came a little quicker and my heart did that weird pounding again.
I didn’t know what the hell was going on with Porter, but as he got up and left, nodding once to both me and Bee, I was more confused than ever. He was supposed to be totally anti-Kaylee. What was with the intense stare that didn’t feel hostile in the least?
8
Porter
My feet pounded a rhythmic tune on the treadmill. I didn’t normally like running indoors, but I’d wanted to just put on some headphones and hightail it today, so here I was.
With my mind whirring, I kept running, like I was running away from the confusion. But that wasn’t possible, or I would’ve done it when my dad took off. What the hell had that been yesterday with Kaylee? She’d been in the ice cream parlor when Jace and I had stopped in to get the ice cream cake for dinner with Briana’s family.
I hadn’t mentioned it to Jace. Maybe I should’ve. It wouldn’t have hurt to talk it out. It might’ve kept me from feeling like I didn’t even know myself. But I’d said it was nothing when he asked, because I didn’t know what it was myself. Not yet.
After watching her videos, and knowing she was more than just trying to make money with her body, seeing Kaylee had affected me. Her elegance shone through more than it had before. When I’d met her, every time before, her stunning beauty had been dwarfed by her enormous attitude.
I liked a woman with spirit, and Kaylee certainly had it in spades. Maybe I’d caught her at bad times to have her so argumentative before. She’d been all doe-eyed and pleasant at the ice cream shop.
The pull toward her was slight but undeniable. Barely there but still magnetic. As I jogged, I pulled up my sleeve to check my inner arm, and sure enough, my clan’s emblem wasn’t there.
There was no burning sensation or slight appearance of it at all. Whatever I was feeling for Kaylee, it wasn’t a mating, at least not yet. Who was to say what it could turn into, though?
Now we knew dragons could mate with humans, at least in Bluewater, and history had now proven two dragons in the clan had fated mates who were human. But no one had chosen a human mate just yet and I didn’t know the process of what would happen if I did choose one. Not that I was even remotely choosing Kaylee. She just wasn’t in the least bit suited for me. Still, the mixed-up, topsy-turvy feelings I’d had for her made me think. What if I did find a woman that made me think about a chosen mating?
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t in a place to take a mate, Kaylee or otherwise, so I pushed it aside and finished my workout. I was starting at the office tomorrow and wanted to get a head start on the case they’d sent over since I’d managed to get all my paperwork squared away to legally practice law in Maine.
I decided to hit the showers before I went home and take advantage of their water pressure. After my relaxing shower, as I walked out of the back part of the locker rooms, a familiar voice made me tense up all over again. But it was distorted. What in the world? Was she in the changing area? No, it couldn’t have been her in here, the sound was tinny and… sounded small, if a voice could sound small. It was definitely her though.
It was my advanced hearing. Kaylee wasn’t actually here. Someone was listening to her through headphones. I walked quietly around a row of lockers, looking for the source, to find a kid, barely old enough to be watching porn. The boy was probably sixteen, maybe seventeen, and he sat with his back against the lockers, and his phone was turned so I mostly couldn’t see the screen, but I heard the words clearly.
Kaylee sounded like a sexy teacher. “And if you curl your fingers with them inside her, here, you’ll hit her G-spot every time. Your woman will never stray if you’re giving her G-spot orgasms followed by a few hard sucks on her clit.”
Her voice floated through the air toward me, hitting me in the chest. She was giving a lesson on how to pleasure women. I hadn’t seen this video, but by the sound of it, I wanted to, and soon. Slipping a little closer, I tried to peer over the kid’s shoulder to see the phone screen, but at this angle, all I could catch was a few glimpses of red. Didn’t stop her voice though. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to pop a boner right there in the gym.
This poor kid was glued to the screen. If I’d been human, I wouldn’t have been able to tell what he was watching though, so he must’ve been hiding in here, watching away from his parents. Little perv. He should’ve done this shit in the privacy of his bathroom like the rest of us. Hell, I hadn’t even had a phone at his age. I’d had to swipe my dad’s old Hustler magazines like a respectable teenage boy.
“Now, if you fuck at this angle, the head of your dick will hit her G-spot every time you thrust.”
I groaned and wanted to slap the phone out of the teen’s hands. He shouldn’t have been watching this shit at the gym, anyway. At least the video wasn’t a full-on self-indulgence session.
When I began to smell the kid’s arousal, I slammed myself into the lockers, then tried not to laugh as he jumped and whirled around, stuffing his phone into his pocket, and looking like he’d just been caught watching porn.
‘Cause he had been, technically.
The last thing I wanted to smell at the gym was a snot-nosed teenager’s arousal as he looked at videos of the woman I wanted to date. Well, at least now I could be sure I was interested in Kaylee. Shit. I glared at him and walked around to grab the rest of my things out of my locker before heading out. As soon as I was past, the kid snatched his bag up and took off out of the locker room.
Of course, as I left the gym, the video played on a loop in my head. The sound of her voice, sweet and sultry at the same time. I couldn’t stop flashes of all the videos I’d watched the day before from marching quick step through my mind as I walked toward my apartment.
I’d walked to the gym since it was just a few blocks to my small apartment. For a Sunday, there were a lot of people milling around town.
The video was still on loop when I spotted Kaylee walking out of the bank a few seconds later, looking furious.
How could someone be so pretty while so angry? But I pushed that away.
I didn’t want to think about her at all, whether angry or turned on and having an orgasm like in her videos. Damn it.
I just wanted to get to my house and not deal with any of this. I had a case to prepare for.
But that wasn’t how life worked. She saw me from across the street and stopped short as if shocked to see me. Her shock quickly turned to a glare as she stared at me. Someone walking behind her nearly slammed into her back in the middle of the quaint, small-town street.
Barely looking to see if any cars were coming, Kaylee marched across the street toward me. I braced for impact because she looked furious.
“Retract your bid!” she yelled.
“On the house?” I asked in confusion. Was she still going on about that?
“No, on the whale we’re both trying to buy.” She threw her arms up in frustration. “Of course, on the house!”
“Kaylee, that’s the house I want. I haven’t found another I liked anywhere near as much, and I did try. I’m not retracting my offer, and in fact, I’m prepared to up it.” I didn’t want to be a dick, I knew she wanted it as well, but I didn’t owe her anything. She was a virtual stranger and a hateful one at that.
“Find another house,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Why don’t you?” I asked. “I’m being perfectly reasonable, Kaylee. If you want the house, put in a bigger bid. I’m sorry.”
“I want that house, and all I need is one more weekend to have enough. I’m going to get that house.” She turned to leave, but I just had to have the last word.
“Why don’t you look for something in your price range, or ask your grandfather to help?” My voice could’ve been kinder, but shit. She was being totally unreasonable asking me to withdraw my bid.
She stiffened and clenched her fists at her hips as she slowly turned back to me. “I’ve never borrowed money from anyone. I’d never take advantage of my grandfather that way. And I can afford that house. The stupid laws won’t let the bank consider my increased income to get the loan.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and jutted out her perfect chin. “You’re a condescending prick and…” She sputtered. “And I put a curse on your dick!” She cackled and pointed at my crotch as I recoiled out of instinct. “I hope it never gets hard again!”