by Cate Ashwood
There was confusion and anger, and I had no idea what to think. But behind all that, lurking in the background, was lust.
I was still turned on.
I wanted more.
I wanted him.
Fuck.
The ride back to Holden and Gage’s place was nearly silent. There was no traffic, and more than once I had to remind myself to relax. Every muscle in my body was tense, my hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel.
The drive that was normally twenty minutes or so seemed to take hours. Frankie’s scent filled the cab of the truck, and it took everything in me to concentrate on the road and not how close he was sitting to me.
Finally, I pulled into the driveway.
The sound of his seat belt unbuckling made me flinch.
I stared straight forward because I wanted to put my hands on him, and I didn’t trust myself to look at him. If I looked at him, he’d know, and if he touched me again, I’d be fucking done.
“I’ll see you Monday,” I said.
“Seriously?”
I finally turned to look at him. “Are you quitting?”
A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
“No. But I didn’t think—”
I said the only thing I could think of. “Tonight didn’t happen. I’ll see you on Monday.”
Frankie nodded, and something—hurt or anger, or maybe it was understanding—flashed in his eyes. “Got it.”
He climbed out of the truck, slammed the door, and walked away.
Frankie
This was why I didn’t do closeted guys.
It was way more fucking trouble than it was worth. Barrett had been… well, stunning, his body bowed tight, his muscles quaking under my hands. He’d lost control and fucked my throat for everything he was worth, and he’d loved every second of it.
And then the taste of his come was still on my tongue when the regret flooded in. I’d been down this road more than once, and I should have listened to the reasonable part of my brain that said it was a really bad idea.
I watched through the window as Barrett’s taillights faded into the distance, then headed farther inside, sneaking into the bedroom as quietly as I could. Holden was a light sleeper, and if I woke him up, he’d want to know why I was just getting home at almost two in the morning.
I wasn’t sure I could explain it because I still didn’t totally understand what had happened.
The house was still and quiet, and I lay awake for way too long, replaying the night over and over. I knew Barrett was going to pretend nothing had ever happened, but I didn’t know if I could do that. Sure, I’d blown guys off after hooking up with them—forgotten they’d existed the day after we’d fucked—but this felt different.
The image of Barrett, lost in pleasure, was seared in my brain, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face, mouth hanging open like he couldn’t believe how good it felt to have my mouth on him.
At least I had the weekend to gain some distance from the situation before I had to see him on Monday. He’d seemed surprised that I was willing to come back. To be fair, I was surprised that he wanted me to.
I was nothing if not the picture of professionalism, at least, when I needed to be.
Resolved to do what Barrett had asked, and forget the whole thing had ever happened, I closed my eyes and finally drifted to sleep.
“Where the hell were you last night?” Holden looked up at me from where he was sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through his phone.
“I met a billionaire in the bar, he took one look at me, fell instantly in love, and he flew me to Paris to watch the sun rise.”
“Frankie…”
“He’s decided to take my name, and I’ve decided I’m keeping the baby.”
“Seriously, Frankie.” He set his phone down and gave me his best you’d-better-tell-me face. I wasn’t persuaded.
I tilted my head sideways toward the ceiling. “Ours is a forbidden love—”
“For the love of Christ, Frankie. Where the hell were you?”
Shifting my attention to Holden, I tried to look as unimpressed as possible. “I was working.”
“Logan called me at 1:00 a.m. for a consultation and you still weren’t home.”
“I was working late.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you have trust issues deeply instilled in you by a lying, manipulative, uncaring father and the resulting childhood trauma?”
“Ouch.”
Okay, so maybe I was feeling a little grumpy. It wasn’t Holden’s fault I hadn’t followed my gut and tried to get involved with a man living in deep denial.
I softened my tone. “Your childhood trauma makes you human. Without it, you’d be this perfect specimen, and no one would like you.”
“You’re not gonna tell me why you were out so late?”
“The quarterly excise tax was due before midnight, so Barrett and I stayed late to get it in. We had a beer downstairs after, then he drove me back so I wouldn’t have to call and wake you or Gage up.”
His eyes were narrowed as he looked at me, assessing the truth of what I’d told him. It was technically the truth. I’d just left out a detail or two. Like the fact that I’d sucked Barrett’s dick and he’d been lying to everyone about being straight, and now I was feeling totally rejected because he, well, rejected me right after.
“Okay.” He was seemingly satisfied for now. “You got plans today?”
“I was going to scout some bakeries for your wedding cake. You wanna come?”
Holden brightened. “Cake samples? You know I do.”
For a place as small as Sawyer’s Ferry, surprisingly, there were a couple of options. We decided to start with Queen of Tarts, mostly because I liked the name slight better than Ferry Cakes. I’d called ahead in the morning to let the owner, Bridget, know we were coming and were hoping to sample some cake flavors.
Walking into the bakery, I was immediately overloaded with pink. Everything in there was pink, from the floors, to the walls, to the light fixtures. At first glance, there was a splash or two of white to break things up, but upon closer inspection, it turned out it was just a very pale blush.
“Hello,” I said to the woman at the counter. “We’re looking for Bridget.”
“You found her!” The apples of her cheeks became even rounder as she broke into a wide smile. “Welcome to Queen of Tarts. Are you Frankie?”
“That’s me.”
“Well, have a seat. I’ll bring out the samples for you.”
We found a booth with pink sparkly vinyl and slid in. Less than a minute later, Bridget was back carrying a three-tiered cake stand, crammed to the tits with cupcakes. Each one had a little calligraphic sign, indicating the cake, filling, and frosting flavor.
“I wish I’d skipped breakfast,” Holden said, his eyes going wide.
“Your loss is my gain.”
Over the next hour, we sampled a thousand different cupcakes until all the flavors started running together in our heads.
“I don’t think it matters what flavor I choose,” Holden said at last. “You should just choose.”
“But you’re here, and it’s your wedding. Don’t you want a say?”
He shrugged. “Seeing Gage there in his tux, ending up married to him by the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.”
“I’m going to barf up all the cupcakes I just ate. Hope Bridget has some heavy-duty floor cleaner.”
“That was pretty fucking schmoopy, wasn’t it?”
“Over-the-top schmoop. Like, I kinda wish I could erase ever hearing it.”
“Sorry.”
But he didn’t look sorry. He looked like a man in love, sitting down to sample cupcakes for the wedding of his dreams. It was disgusting. Except there was a teensy part of me, buried down somewhere deeper than deep, that was slightly, minutely, marginally jealous.
But hardly at all.
Normally, keeping reality in hard c
heck was easy for me. I didn’t believe in soul mates. I didn’t believe in true love. Most of all, I didn’t believe in marriage.
People are inherently selfish—I was more than most—and I wasn’t willing to give up any part of myself for someone else. Ever. And that’s what marriage was. A series of compromises until the resentment became too much and one person filed for divorce.
I’d seen it a thousand times. No one I knew was still married to the same person they started out with. It was a revolving door of wedding ceremonies and a whole lot of drama.
No, thanks.
But since I’d been in Sawyer’s Ferry, I was readjusting my viewpoints. Just a little. Because if anyone could make the marriage thing work, I was convinced it was Gage and Holden. After seeing them together since I arrived, witnessing their little quiet moments, things began to shift a little.
“Is it all right if I bring these two samples over to my fiancé? He’s on shift at the hospital right now.”
“Of course. Let me get you a couple of fresh ones, though. You eat with your eyes first!”
She disappeared into the back of the bakery and came out a minute later with a little pink box, wrapped in a pink ribbon that cascaded in curls over the side. She handed it to Holden.
“If you have any questions at all, or if you’d like to try more samples, you just come on by.”
“Thank you,” Holden said, taking the package and holding it carefully.
“Thanks!” I shouted, and Holden and I walked out of the bakery and onto the street. “Should we head to Ferry Cakes?”
“Yeah. On the way, let’s swing by the hospital and drop these off for Gage.”
“Sure.”
Holden texted ahead to let him know we were coming and to make sure he wasn’t in the middle of a surgery.
“He’s in his office. Next surgery isn’t for a couple of hours,” Holden informed me. “We’ll be quick, and then we can head over to the second bakery.”
“Sure. Oh, and we should drop by the post office as well. I’ve got your invitations to send off.”
“Fantastic.”
“I’ve honestly never heard of a wedding invitation going out with ‘location TBD’ written on it, but considering the wedding is so small and pretty much everyone is local, I guess you can just announce it in the town square the night before and everyone’ll be good.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“You think your mom will show up?”
Holden shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“I wonder if she still looks as pointy as she did the last time I saw her.”
He burst out laughing. “Pointy. That’s… accurate.”
“Well, she is. Everything about her. Her nose, her heels, her fangs.”
“I sincerely doubt she’ll show. Last I heard from her, she was bouncing around spas in Europe.”
“Oh, to live that life. If all it takes to get to that level is marrying a complete narcissist and sociopath, count me in. Because I could get behind that for those kinds of perks.” We crossed the street toward the hospital. “If she does come, do you think you could get her to set me up with some contact info for her friends?”
Holden shook his head. “I’ll see what I can do.”
When I walked into Copper Creek, I felt like everyone was staring at me, and briefly, I wondered if Barrett had said something.
As quickly as that thought came, I dismissed it. He was so filled with shame that night he’d told me it had never happened. I couldn’t see him changing his mind now and blabbing to everyone who worked for him that I’d sucked him off behind the bar.
I said hello to Dee and slipped upstairs to the office, which was thankfully empty. I didn’t know where Barrett was, but I was glad not to see him, at least for the first while.
Maybe I should have quit after all. I did need the money, but not desperately enough to subject myself to the humiliation of the walk of shame right where I worked.
I sighed. But here I was, so I might as well get started.
The payables system from the last three months was a fucking mess. I leafed through pages and pages of invoices from vendors. Some had “paid” scrawled in the corner with a date, some had initials, and some had nothing.
Barrett didn’t strike me as the type not to pay his bills on time, and if I were a betting man, I’d put money on the fact that he’d paid them as they came in and only sometimes remembered to log it.
I’d need to call the vendors and ask for any outstanding amounts on the account, but first, I needed to know who I was calling.
One by one, I grouped invoices from the same companies together. I was halfway through the pile when the office door opened.
Without turning, I knew Barrett was standing in the doorway. He had a way of filling a room, just with his presence.
“I didn’t know if you were coming in today.”
“I told you I was.”
I turned to look at him and immediately noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “You look tired.”
“Didn’t get much sleep.” His arms were crossed over his chest, and his voice was gruff.
“Me neither.”
Fuck, this was awkward.
He took a step forward into the office and froze, then took a half step back.
“Do you need anything from me?”
For some reason, that question stung. “Nope. I’m just fine on my own, thanks.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
And with that, he was gone.
Barrett
I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I’d been pacing back and forth at the bottom of the stairs for nearly twenty minutes.
I didn’t know Frankie. He’d been in my life for a couple of days, and in a matter of a few weeks, he could be out of it. I didn’t know why I gave a shit. I should have just fired him, told him I’d deal with the mess Lily had left myself.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I’d felt guilty as fuck over the cold expression he’d worn when I walked into the office. I’d only made it a couple of steps inside, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with my hands because the last time I’d been around Frankie, my fingers had been tangled in his hair as I thrust down his throat.
“Boss.”
I turned around to find Mason standing behind me.
“Yeah?”
He peered at me, his eyes narrowed. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I called your name five times, but you were completely zoned out. And you look like shit. Worse than usual. You sure you’re good?”
“As delightful as this conversation is, why you don’t you tell me what you need?”
“Russell’s on the phone.”
The nearest phone was in the office. “I’ll take care of it.”
I hesitated, but I was being ridiculous. Shoving aside any misgivings, I headed upstairs. The door was closed, and I could hear Frankie singing as I walked toward it. His voice was low but melodical. Whatever song it was, it was one I’d never heard before, and I paused, my hand on the handle, listening for a minute.
I turned the knob, pushing the door silently open, and just as I’d suspected, he was dancing, his hips swaying as he sung. His back was to me, and he was sliding folders into the silver cabinet at the back of the room.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
He’d haunted me, awake and asleep, since that night. He was all I’d been able to think about, and the thoughts running through my head weren’t limited to memories—though those had been on a loop as well—but the fantasies that had filled my brain seemed to be getting filthier and filthier as time went on.
And no matter how hard I tried to tamp them back down, they reared back up.
He moved like liquid, everything about him fluid and smooth. Without thinking, I crossed the room, coming to stand right behind him. He was inches away. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to.
He turned then, gasping in surpri
se as he realized I was there.
“You’re like a fucking cat. I don’t know how you manage to walk so quietly.”
I stared at him, focused on his mouth.
Christ, that mouth. It was the source of so many headaches for me, and one of the best experiences of my life. And I had no fucking idea what to do about it.
But my body seemed to know what it wanted to do.
I was already getting hard, every ounce of blood in my body, redirecting straight to my dick when Frankie was around.
Electricity arced between us, and I could see Frankie’s chest rising and falling, his eyes trained on me.
“You okay, boss?” His voice came out low and silky. “Anything I can help you with?”
I took one step closer, and Frankie opposite me, his back hitting the front of the filing cabinets, making them rattle. I took one more step forward. We were almost touching now, the space between us tenuous, crackling with heat and energy.
It was more desperate than desire, more provocative than lust, and I knew, three heartbeats from now, my mouth would be on his, and there’d be no turning back.
The sound of the phone ringing split the room, cutting through the haze of sexual tension and hormones. My body felt like jelly as I backed up, reaching for the handset. I never took my eyes off Frankie.
His cheeks were flushed, and he licked his lips, his tongue coming out slowly to wet them. I swallowed hard.
“Copper Creek.”
“Hey-o, I’m looking for Barrett.” The chipper sound of Russell’s voice pulled me back to reality.
I’d been about to shove Frankie on his knees right in the middle of my office. In the middle of the day. Where any-fucking-one could have walked in and seen. What the hell was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I seem to keep myself in control around him? How was it possible that I wanted to simultaneously run as far as I could from him, and hold him down and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe?
I forced myself to put all my focus on the voice on the other end and stood straighter. “You’re talking to him.”