by Knox, Abby
Lars laughs. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
I look at the knife and say, “Maybe don’t chuck these at trees, man. Not good for the blade.”
“Sure that’s all that’s bothering you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, starting to get irritated again.
“Look,” Lars says. “I might not be the sharpest knife in the knife-throwing kit, but I can tell when a dude needs to get laid.”
I shake my head as I walk back to the starting point and take aim at the target with my axe. I prefer a good axe over a knife for target training. Much better handling.
“I’m not talking about that with you. Since Wendy moved in, you’ve got sex on the brain. More than usual.”
“Dude. We used to talk about honeys all the time.”
I grit my teeth and hurl the axe as hard as I can. It whaps into the target, dead center.
“Nothing to talk about,” I say with a shrug as I stretch out my throwing shoulder.
“Bullshit. Out with it.”
I nod to the target. “Go get the axe, wise guy.”
He eyeballs me suspiciously before walking over and wrenching the axe out of the wood target.
Just then, the source of all my reasons why I can’t talk about sex with Lars walks out into the yard.
This unusually warm winter morning, LuLu’s got her hair done up in a cute milkmaid-style braid. It’s catching the sunlight and looks like a halo. Instead of all business, she’s wearing a flowing off-the-shoulder blouse with feather earrings that are so long they just brush the tops of her shoulders. The entire look—her exposed, tan shoulders and tempting neck, cute little ears—is giving me an insta-boner.
The little dip between her collarbones, the spot that was hiding from me when she wore that halter top the other day at the coffee shop, is mocking me.
If Lars were not here I might claim that little spot. I could grab her soft shoulders and kiss her right there. Lick that little recess. Feather my lips across those collarbones, and up the side of her neck until she moans for me.
Her face falls when she sees me. She looks startled or scared by something she sees. I would be scared too, I’m covered in sweat and man stink from working outside with Lars all day. Even if Lars weren’t here, I wouldn’t blame her if she ran away screaming. I must look and smell like a mud-caked water buffalo about now.
“Hi,” she says, looking down at the pink binder in her arms, which she shifts to cover her breasts.
“Hi back,” I say.
She looks up at me and her lips are parted and her neck is turning pink. For a second, I forget Lars is there and I give her a grin. “How’s the planning coming?”
LuLu nods. “I um…have a really big favor to ask you,” she says.
“Anything,” I rasp, and it comes out sounding more earnest than I intended. I can see Lars staring at me out of the corner of my eye. Shit.
“Well, under the circumstances…you know, the ones we talked about, just for my own safety…I wondered if at the day of the event if you might not mind, if it’s not too much trouble, to pretend to be my husband?”
Lars scoffs, but neither LuLu nor I pay any attention.
I need to get her out of here before Lars makes an ass of himself.
“Sure. Yes. Of course. Not a problem.”
She beams at me. It’s as bright as sunshine and it makes my chest ache with joy.
“Great!” she says. I’ve made her so happy she does the last thing I expect her to do. She trots close to me, stands up on her tiptoes and kisses me on the cheek.
“Thank you, Fletcher. You are the world’s best assistant!”
Lars mutters, “An assistant who’s up for some sexual harassment.”
LuLu backs away and my instinct is to grab her and kiss her deeply and properly. Instead, I let her go. I watch her trot happily back to the house, nearly skipping, her ass giving me a nice show in those skinny jeans. “I’ll let you know what I decide about the centerpieces!” she calls before disappearing into the house.
I turn back to retrieve my axe from Lars. He holds it out to me, staring at me like a damn wolf.
“You got a thing for my baby sister?”
I consider my options. I could tell the truth. Or, I could lie, and he could find out later that I am, in fact, completely head over heels for his sister, at which time he could pound me into the ground.
I choose door number one. “Yep.”
“Dumbass. She’s half your age.”
“Thank you. I hadn’t noticed.”
Mercifully, he changes the subject. “What’s this about some weird guy bothering her?”
I explain the situation, and tell him everything I’ve dug up on him, and Lars’s hackles go up. Way up. He grumbles about me not telling him about this threat before. So I ask him to help me out with a security detail at the Single Mingle event.
Lars looks at me suspiciously. “I’ll help you. But it sounds lame.”
“Don’t talk shit about your sister’s event.”
“Fine,” he says. “But I want walkie talkies.”
“Done.”
“And she needs one too,” Lars adds.
“Obviously,” I reply.
“And I’m giving you guys some real stupid walkie talkie nicknames.”
I sigh. “Fine.”
“Peanut Butter and Jelly.”
“No.”
“Mac and Cheese?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Lars, no.”
“Fine, I’ll think of something.”
“Whatever you need to do to entertain yourself, buddy.”
8
LuLu
I stumble into the house, throw my binder on the table next to my open laptop, and open the freezer. I spin around and let the cold air cool off my aching, hot pussy.
It’s ridiculous how hot this man can make me, even with my brother standing right there. Watching him train outside was a favorite pastime when I was a teenager, and nothing has changed. Hell, this is all probably hard-wired to give me this roaring lady-boner that I have right now.
And now, I’ve lost my mind and asked him to be my pretend husband at the event so I can keep the other women away from him. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep my hands off him until Valentine’s Day and concentrate on my job.
The freezer air isn’t working to cool me down.
I whine and slam the door shut. There’s only one thing left to do before I get myself back to work in the right frame of mind.
As I dash toward the back stairs, close to the French doors that lead out to the backyard, I try to avoid looking.
But I can’t.
I see him. And now, he’s shirtless. He’s rearing back with his axe, and letting it fly. All the muscles in his arms and shoulders and back ripple. It’s cold out, and I can’t help but notice his little man nipples are tight and hard. I wonder what he would do if I walked right up and started nibbling on them.
My own nipples are aching and getting mighty tired of not being manhandled. While talking to him earlier, I had to hold my binder in front of me to hide them, just like a damn schoolgirl.
God.
I sprint up to my room and lock the door.
I go to my nightstand and retrieve my little battery-operated friend. I call him Big Daddy. I’ve managed to get by with my little Bullet whenever I’m horny. But this is different.
I require a workhorse to get Fletcher out of my system.
I roll down my skinny jeans and my undies and touch the button on Big Daddy. Mercifully, he still has a charge, even though it’s been a while since I plugged him in. I lie back on my bed and slip Big Daddy inside.
I’m so hot and horny, the silicone tip goes in easily without any lube. I work it back and forth, in and out. I close my eyes and of course, all I see is a shirtless Fletcher, throwing an axe, muscles rippling in the sunshine. If I concentrate hard enough I imagine he’s a Greek god battling it out for me.
I don’t h
ave to concentrate that hard.
Any fantasy I’ve ever had while Big Daddy is inside me is now playing out with Fletcher as the main character.
I slip it in deeper. Oh god, if I don’t bang him soon, I’m going to have to get one of those remote-controlled toys.
Imagining his lips, his salt-and-pepper scruff on my collarbone is all it takes to send me over the edge, exploding with a convulsion that makes me see stars.
This small relief, though, is not enough. I just want him all over every inch of me.
I dress myself and head back downstairs to look for my binder and laptop. I turn a corner and smack straight into Fletcher’s bare, sweaty, musky chest.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Whoa. What’s the rush?”
There’s something husky in his voice.
“I, um… I’m looking for my binder.”
He smiles. “It’s in the kitchen, next to your favorite mug. I m-made fresh coffee for you.”
He likes this. He genuinely enjoys taking care of me, says my heart.
But this is nothing unusual. This is his job, says the logical part of me.
My hope doesn’t know where to land.
“Thank you, Fletcher. You’re so good to us,” I say.
“Anything else you need from me?”
His naked chest is inches away from me. I look into his eyes and I want to tell him yes, there is one more thing I need from you. One very specific thing.
I can’t think of how to break through this hard shell exterior of his but to simply ask for what I want.
“I was just thinking.”
“Yes.”
His “yes” is darkly curious, as if he already knows where this is going. His “yes” causes a little contraction inside my panties. Thank god women don’t have such an obvious “tell” when they want someone’s lips on their throbbing little clit, in the way that men have to hide their erections.
“Well, I was wondering if, since we’re going to pretend to be married, if we should practice.”
“Practice what?”
“Acting like a couple,” I say, kicking myself for sounding like I’m in high school.
“You mean like I should make actual eye contact with you?”
I laugh a little and say, “That’s a nice start.”
I bite my lip and it seems as if he’s just inched in a little bit closer. It’s hard to tell. He’s smiling with his eyes, those sexy crow’s feet. But his mouth is doing something else. It looks like he’s got something to say but he’s hesitating.
“And w-we should probably try this,” he says.
Before I can respond, it happens.
He’s kissing me under the stairs. In the spot where I used to sit and finish my trigonometry and pretend to not watch him work in the yard.
His lips are soft in contrast to his rough whiskers. Soft but intense. Not pushy, just assertively kissing me.
It feels like I’m being kissed for the first time, but by someone who knows what he’s doing.
Oh god. He really does.
Fletcher has expert lips. He’s not slamming his tongue into me right away. It’s sweet and giving and warm. His lips taste salty from all the hard work outside. He kisses in that mature, romantic way I’ve seen dozens of time in old romantic black-and-white movies.
He wants to know every inch my lips and wants my lips to know his. It’s just pure pleasure. A kiss that can make a woman swoon and fall apart. An intensity that can make a girl, when apart from him, lock herself away to write mad poetry in her journal.
I’ll bet he’s driven dozens of young females—and maybe even males—half insane with that kiss. There’s nothing trifling about this way of kissing. It’s all business. All serious.
I could happily do nothing for hours but taste his lip. I could starve to death and die happy doing only this.
The moment when I think he might finally dare to sweep his tongue into my mouth, and when I think my knees might buckle, my phone rings.
Fuck.
There’s only one person in the world who calls me on the phone.
Fletcher’s lips let me go and I float back to reality.
He turns and slips away without a word. I sigh in frustration and answer the phone, turning back to the window.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
Mom starts in on a conversation about Wendy’s wedding gown. I turn and glance behind me.
But he’s long gone, and we hadn’t had the chance to talk about the realness of that kiss.
Like a ninja who was never there, the only evidence is the pile of smoldering, quivering ashes he’s left behind in his wake.
9
Fletcher
If Mrs. Anderson hadn’t called and interrupted us, I might have ruined that girl right there under the stairs.
I still taste her on my lips as I go into the kitchen to steady myself.
I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and gulp the entire thing.
As I do this I can't help but notice her laptop is still open it. I run my finger over the trackpad just to check… I am by default her IT manager after all … and I see she doesn’t have it set up to automatically go back to a coded login screen whenever it goes to sleep.
That’s not safe, so I take it upon myself to look at her preferences. Before I do that, I notice her email is open. I happen to see she’s got a new message from that Chad guy.
“What does that little fucker want now?” I say aloud.
I scroll down before clicking, and I see there have been several messages back and forth. As I read them, my blood starts to boil. I know I shouldn’t be doing this but I can’t stop now.
He misses her. He wants to take her out when she gets back to Austin. She declines, repeatedly. She asks him to stop contacting her, repeatedly.
It’s a different email address than the one he used before. Of course it is, since I had her mark that address as spam, and he caught on.
The new message at the top remains unopened and has an attachment. I consider for a moment whether I’m invading her privacy. Fuck it. She hired me to do this.
I click on it.
And for the rest of my life, I will never be able to unsee it.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
That little shit for brains has sent LuLu — my LuLu — a dick pic.
My head explodes.
I remember to breathe and think as logically as I can. I screen grab it, grab the email address and gather every bit of information I can to determine where this came from.
I forward the message to myself and to Lars before deleting it.
No way My LuLu is going to see this.
I rush to my office and log on to my computer. Pretty soon I’ve tracked down his ISP. After a few minutes, I’ve worked enough magic that I’ve got address.
As I drive to the rental car place, I voice text Lars and tell him what I’m up to, and I tell him not to do anything stupid while I’m gone. Next I text LuLu and tell her I’ll be back in time for the event, but that something came up and I have to address it. I promise to tell her about it later.
“And… LuLu, I’m sorry we ran out of practice time. But I want you to know, I’m thinking about your lips. All of them.”
I look down at the phone and what I just said is staring back at me. I delete the last paragraph and hit “send.” She doesn’t need to deal with me hitting on her right now; not when she’s got a potential predator stalking her online.
Twenty minutes later I’m renting a car using a fake ID and credit card I keep around for some of Lars’s shadier undercover assignments.
I don’t want any security cameras able to identify my car on this mission.
I’m going to find the little fucker and end this shit once and for all.
10
LuLu
“Where did he go, Lars?”
Fletcher hasn’t answered any of my texts or calls, so I know the one person who could tell me the truth is Lars.
Lars and Wen
dy are thumb wrestling in the den. I don’t even want to know what kind of foreplay this is.
He shrugs and says, “I don’t know, sister.”
“Yes you do. He works for you. And you guys have some kind of bro code that I can’t translate. What happened? Where did he go?”
He laughs just as Wendy is having to climb on top of him to pin down his thumb. “Cheater!” He roars.
“It’s not a fair fight!” Wendy giggles.
I sigh and rub my eyes.
“Lars, I’m a week away from the Single Mingle and my assistant has up and vanished.”
“Ouch!” He yells as Wendy bites his hand.
“I’m done here, I have to go study. LuLu, let me know what I can do to help you,” she says before trotting off to the library.
“Thanks, hon,” I say to her sweetly, before turning back to Lars with ice in my eyes.
“Spill it,” I hiss.
“Let me ask you something, sis. What’s left to do? You got all your frou-frou canapés and shit taken care of?”
“Yes. Fletcher had everything done weeks ago.”
“Exactly. There is nothing left to do. So why do you care?” He throws up his arms, as if I’m the exasperating one.
I don’t normally raise my voice to anyone, but Lars is the rare exception. I’m fully shouting. “I care because he’s gone and says he’ll be back in time for Valentine’s Day, and no other explanation! What if something blows up?”
“Then you’ll handle it?”
“Of course I will! That’s not the point!”
Lars narrows his eyes at me. “Then what’s your damage, Heather?”
“Oh my god, you’re an infant. Forget it.” I turn to walk away. As I head out the door I hear him say, “It’s too soon, LuLu.”
I spin around. “What?”
“Shooting Slate took a lot out of him, whether he shows it or not. He looks and acts like he’s got himself together. But down deep, that kind of shit fucks with his head. He’s got shit to work through. As much as I hate to admit it, we both do. A fling with my little sister is just going to postpone his problems.”
I throw a withering last look at my brother before I leave. “That is not what this is. And it’s not your job to tell him how to deal.”