When we reach the Franklin bungalow, Pierce pauses. “Do you mind if we stop here for a minute?”
“Sure. Are the renos coming along okay?”
Pierce nods, his face lighting up with his smile. “We’re making good progress.”
The smell of fresh paint and new finishes are sharp in the air as he opens the door and ushers me inside.
“Are you doing most of this yourself again?” It’s a lot of work in a short span of time.
He shoves his hands into his pockets, regarding the space with a critical eye. “Since the goal is to rent and not flip, it doesn’t make sense to put the same amount of time and energy into the project. We want to get it on the rental market as quickly as possible.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that.”
He lifts a shoulder. “We could’ve gotten top dollar with higher-grade finishes if the point was resale. This is like half-assed cosmetics. It’s not economical to go high end if we’re renting. Things are going to get damaged no matter how good the renters are. Plus, I’m committed to having pet friendly rentals, so I have to take that into account with the finishes.”
“Makes sense. Does that bother you?”
He runs his hand across the counter. It’s granite, so he certainly hasn’t cheaped out there. “I’m not big on half assing.”
Flashes of how not half assed he was when we last had sex have my stomach and thighs clenching. “No. You certainly aren’t.”
One corner of my mouth turns up and his eyes heat. “I’m not sure you’re referencing my carpentry skills anymore.”
I mirror his smile. “It was sort of an all-encompassing statement.”
He steps over Trip, who’s plunked himself down on the floor at his feet. I have a moment of panicked conflict. The intimacy that comes with his honesty pushes at the boundaries I keep in place. The chemistry between us is ever present and undeniable, but this emotional connection scares me because it’s only a matter of time before I can no longer keep them separate from each other.
His rough, callused fingertips glide gently up my arm. I shiver and my skin breaks out in a wave of goose bumps. I can handle this, the physical need. I can focus on this. He drops his head, lips close to mine. I don’t dare move, already aware of how much joy he seems to derive from tormenting me. “I’m so glad you stopped fighting this.”
“Fighting what?”
“Us.” The tip of his nose brushes mine. “I want in you.”
Panic flares at the possibility that he means it beyond the literal.
I slip my hands under his shirt, fingers gliding over bare skin as I lift my head. It’s too late to stop this. Whatever the consequences, I’m already in this so much deeper than I mean to be, but I can’t seem to walk away, even if it’s the safer option.
Pierce’s lips find mine, and my worries get lost in the spark of desire.
CHAPTER 21
ALTERNATE LOCATIONS
PIERCE
Rian’s tucked into my side, her head resting on my chest. She’s a limp noodle. I managed to move us from the living room floor to the bedroom before we really got going.
“Well, that was something,” she mumbles. It’s half slurred, like she’s drunk on orgasms.
“Fun, huh?”
She snorts. “Intense is more like it.”
She’s silent for a minute and I close my eyes, relaxed and content to lie here and bask in the afterglow.
She lifts her head off my chest. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I’m groggy post-sex and prone to drifting off when I’m in this kind of Zen state.
“Oh shit. That’s my phone. How long have we been here?” She looks around for a clock, but I haven’t put one in here yet. It’s on my to-do list. I need to go shopping later this week. Maybe Rian and I can go together.
She tries to push up, but I tighten my arms around her, unwilling to let her go.
“I need to get that. Marley and I were supposed to go for lunch, and I’m not sure if she’s still expecting me.”
“Guess you’ll have to tell her we’ve already eaten.”
“Haha. Vagina is not a meal.” She pinches my nipple. “Let me up. I need to call her.”
“To tell her you’re sorry, but you won’t be home until tomorrow.” I arch a brow.
“Yes.”
“Okay. You can call her.” I unbar my arms.
She laughs, a little incredulous, but mostly amused. “I wasn’t asking.”
She slides over my body, her face still mashed into my chest as her feet hit the floor. I grin as she pushes to an awkward stand. She stumble-walks across the room and has to use the wall to steady herself.
“You all right? You need help with the walking?”
She flips me the bird over her shoulder and disappears into the hall. Naked. There are a million things I should do this afternoon, but Rian has moved to number one on my list.
I can hear her talking in low whispers to her sister. She laughs at something. “I’ll be home in the morning. Not early. You’ll survive boot camp without me.”
She ends the call as she appears in the doorway. She saunters across the room, soft breasts bouncing and hips swaying.
She tosses my phone on the bed. “Your brother called while I was talking to Marley. Not sure if you care to respond or not.”
I check the alerts. He’s called three times and there are eleven messages. It’s already four in the afternoon. I move my phone to the nightstand. “He needs to unknot his balls first. Besides, I’m going to be busy until tomorrow.” I pat the mattress. “What do you feel like for dinner since we missed lunch?”
Rian climbs up on the bed and straddles my thighs.
“We should do delivery.” She drops something on my chest, between my pecs. “Look what I found.”
I glance down. It’s an extra condom. I snatch it up. “Where’d you find this?”
“On the floor.”
I roll her over and fit myself between her thighs. “First, we use this, then we order dinner.”
“We should do Post Mates. I bet they’d make a stop at the pharmacy and pick up a box of condoms.”
“You’re a smart woman, Rian.”
“Only sometimes.”
“All the time.” I kiss her neck.
“I’m a little stupid over you,” she whispers.
“Same.” I roll my hips and whatever worries she might have about that disappear on a moan.
* * *
I order Italian, a box of condoms, and a bottle of wine. I specify the brand and type—of condoms, that is. Rian is wearing my shirt and I’m in my shorts. We’re sitting on the couch in the living room, working our way into a carb coma with takeout containers of pasta in our respective laps.
My phone lights up with yet another call from my brother.
“Should you get that?” Rian asks.
“No. He’s being an asshole and completely irrational.”
“Why is he so upset about the house?”
“Honestly? Your guess is as good as mine. He gets like this sometimes. Obsesses over things. He’ll have ideas, and then when it doesn’t go exactly as he plans, he gets pissed. Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”
“I’m not worried for me. I don’t want this to cause issues between you and your family. It’s obvious you’re close.” She spins noodles on her plastic fork, her focus staying there. I make a note to bring over some real silverware and dishes so next time we can eat like civilized human beings. Not that I mind this. It’s refreshing not to sit at a dinner table with seventeen different utensils to choose from.
“Law and I will be fine. He’s been doing this on his own for a while, and I’ve jumped in with both feet over the past couple of months. I have a tendency to take things over, and this is a reminder that it was his project first, not mine.”
Her nose wrinkles. “You are kind of pushy.”
“You like my pushy.”
“Pushy sounds a lot like pussy.” She
slips her fork between her lips, slurping up a rogue noodle, grinning as she chews and tacks on cat at the end.
I leave that comment. We have all night for more sex, and I plan to capitalize on the hours between now and tomorrow morning. “What prompted the sudden move into flipping houses?” I ask, moving the conversation away from the negative aspects of my personality and the similarities between words that start with p and end with a y sound.
She glances up at me. “It’s not really sudden. We’ve always planned to flip; we just needed the capital to make it happen.”
“How long have you been in real estate?”
“We started pretty young. It’s hard to get people to take you seriously when you look like a college freshman, but the past few years have been good. We’ve built a solid reputation and a base of clients.” She worries the inside of her lip. “You don’t think Lawson will say anything bad about us, do you?”
“Because he wasn’t the first person you called when a potential property came available? Unlikely, but I can talk to him if you want.”
She sweeps her fingers back and forth over her lips, considering. “I don’t want to ask you to do that. I don’t want to be the reason for dissention between you and your brother.”
“You aren’t the reason for dissention. His reactive personality and my need to come in and takeover everything is.”
She laughs. “You’re an interesting man.”
“Good interesting or bad interesting?”
“The good kind of interesting. You’re kind of a walking, talking oxymoron. You’ve got a background in law, so you could work this supercushy office job, and make great money. But you choose to get your hands dirty instead and dabble in an unstable, sometimes unforgiving market.”
“Well, to be fair, the Hamptons are pretty consistent in terms of profit and desirability, so I’m not really rolling the dice and taking chances. And if I’m totally honest, I’m only a lawyer because I’m usually good with details and facts. Recent events excluded.”
“You mean the patent issue?”
I’m not sure how much I want to divulge. It’s not like she can’t look up my family if she wants to. Although my father has done a good job of paying people off to keep the blow-up dolls out of the direct line of the media, things slip through no matter how diligent he is. My sister happens to work for one of the biggest media corporations in New York, and the wife of the CEO adores her, so that definitely helps. “Mmm. Yes, that.” I steer the conversation away from me. “Anyway, tell me more about the flip. What’re your plans?”
“Well, the obvious, for starters, exterior and interior cosmetics. I want to preserve the quaintness, but bring it into the twenty-first century with a new kitchen, paint, refinished floors, you know, standard updates and upgrades. It’s a great location with a nice yard and a gorgeous view, so we should be able to get top dollar for it if we manage to keep the renovation costs down.”
“If you need help with trades or anything, let me know.”
“Won’t Lawson be angry if he finds out you’re helping me?”
“He can be angry all he wants. It’ll give me an excuse to see more of you.”
Rian drops her head and laughs. Eventually she peeks up, smiling softly. “I had you pegged all wrong.”
“People usually do. What misaligned assumptions did you have?”
“I thought you were a rich, cocky a-hole. Well, you’re cocky, but you can get away with it, considering.”
“Considering what?” Maybe she means the rich part. I’m sure she already has an inkling, considering we put in a cash offer for the Franklin place. Most people can’t come up with a hundred grand in cash, let alone three-quarters of a million plus. If that wasn’t a giveaway, my car, my suits, and the fact that I’m walking around on the beach with two grand in my wallet should be.
I’m kind of a spoiled shit, if I think about it. Which is probably one of the reasons I’m struggling to walk away from law. More than that, I don’t want to disappoint my dad by bailing on him when the business is already starting to fail, or create more dissension between him and my mother, although they can always seem to find that on their own.
Rian gestures to me as if it’s obvious.
I look down and run a hand over my bare chest. “I can be cocky because I have a six-pack?”
“It’s not just about the six-pack.”
“So, it’s because I work out.”
“Not exactly.” She bites the end of her finger then taps my black nail. “This is sexy.”
I arch a brow. “I didn’t realize having a black nail that’s probably going to fall off in a few weeks could be considered sexy.”
She sighs. “It’s not the nail. You don’t look the way you do because you go to some gym and pump iron in front of a mirror with fifty other grunting men and a bunch of women in sports bras.”
“Are you familiar with that scenario?” I don’t like the idea of anyone other than me experiencing that view.
“Marley buys Groupons and makes me go to the gym with her.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway. You look like this because you push yourself physically. Like this muscle.” She pokes my forearm. “What is that, even? It looks like you have a golf ball hiding under there.”
“It’s from swinging a hammer.”
“See? So sexy.” She runs her fingers down my forearm, skirting the healing nicks and cuts on my knuckles. “You kind of break all the molds. You have to be able to see why I was reluctant to go out with you.”
“Because I fit some kind of stereotype?”
“Because you look like you’re good at breaking hearts and bed frames.”
“I promise the latter is far more likely than the former.” I wink on reflex.
“And you have all the lines.”
“That’s not a line, that’s me being honest. I’m not a heartbreaker. Remember, I’m the one who had my heart broken in the past.”
She settles into the corner of the couch, spinning noodles on her plastic fork. “You can’t tell me you didn’t break any girls’ hearts along the way. You must’ve had a sow-your-oats phase in college or something.”
“I dated, but I didn’t make a habit of stringing girls along.” Back then I’d had freedom, at least a little, and being here now feels like I have it again, even if it’s only temporary. In some ways, what we’re doing reminds me of college nights spent eating takeout and putting off homework or studying in lieu of hanging out with a pretty girl. I should be working on this house, but instead, I’m spending time getting to know Rian.
“Tell me what you were like in college. Did you always have to keep Marley in line? Were you a math tutor? What did you study?”
Rian sets her food on the coffee table and folds her legs under her. “Marley can’t be kept in line by anyone. I probably would’ve tutored if I’d had the chance. I started in math, finances actually, but it got complicated.” She pauses and worries her lip before she continues. “So I ended up dropping out partway through my first semester.”
She’s clearly math brilliant, so that’s a shock. “What happened that you had to drop out?”
Her gaze flicks up to mine before dropping again. “My, uh … grandmother passed away, and we ran into some financial difficulties that made college tuition a problem.”
I think about the time I followed her around the grocery store and how she’d been price matching everything in her cart, about the way she’d wrangled the repair bill down and avoided insurance, how she drove a beater and her sister drove a nice car. “What about loans?”
“We were left with some debt; it took a while to sort it all out. Anyway, eventually Marley and I took real estate courses and here we are.” She smiles, but she looks sad.
“Is this the grandmother who was friends with the people who owned the Mission Mansion?”
She nods. “We spent most of our summer with her. I miss her, a lot. She was an incredible woman.”
I grab her ankles and pull her across the couc
h into my lap. “So are you.” Skimming the hollow under her eyes with gentle fingertips, I expect the almost-tears there to fall, but they don’t.
She shakes her head. “I’m really not.”
“Stop being disagreeable.”
She laughs, her eyes warming. “Says the most antagonistic man on the planet.”
“That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
“At least in this zip code, then.” She runs her fingers through my hair and down the sides of my neck. Goose bumps rise along my skin, a visceral reaction to the way her touch affects me. “Do you know what we should do?” she asks softly.
“What’s that?”
She reaches over my shoulder and grabs the unopened box of condoms and pats my stomach. “We should work off some calories before we feed your six-pack dessert.”
“Good idea. It’s my best asset. We need to keep it that way.”
“I don’t know if it’s your best asset.” She skims my lips with her fingertip. “If we’re talking physical assets, I’d say this mouth is a winner, and then of course there’s one below the waist that’s pretty amazing.”
“I have a great idea.” I slide forward to the edge of the couch.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s take this to the bedroom and we can do a thorough examination of each other’s assets.”
I wrap her legs around my waist and carry her to the bedroom. We eat dessert for breakfast.
* * *
Despite her assurance that she can get home fine on her own, I drop Rian off at her place the next morning. Well, it’s close to noon, but I have all afternoon to deal with work. Trip is annoyed that he’s been relegated to the back seat. He’s currently resting his chin on Rian’s shoulder. If she minds, she doesn’t say anything. She woke with Trip between us. He was not impressed when I kicked him out so we could have sex without an audience.
“Am I sitting in your spot? I’ll be gone soon and you can have our man all to yourself again.”
I Flipping Love You Page 19