Donna was shaking her head furiously. ‘Filler, filler, filler,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘We carry Nature’s Cat.’
I repeated this info and hung up, wondering why she stocked cat food if it was a dog salon. But who really cared beyond cat owners shopping for food. Sipping coffee, I busied myself patting Brutus on the head as he shamelessly demanded even more attention.
‘So as you were saying,’ Joy said. ‘You foolishly believed not one, not two, but three grown men when they said they could share and keep it casual.’
She was practically giggling and I bristled. ‘I took them at their word.’ I tossed my shoulders back, putting on my fuck-you armour.
Joy shook her head. ‘Men are worse than women. It was only a matter of time, hon.’
I felt myself deflate. ‘I guess so.’
‘Who’s your favourite?’ she asked, not looking at me.
Deke
It popped into my mind unbidden and I shook it off. ‘None. I’m not in it for anything serious.’
‘You need a man who doesn’t live across the street from you.’ Donna bustled from the room and returned with a prancing poodle. ‘Sheba,’ she said. ‘Isn’t she precious?’
I petted the black poodle that stood stoically as if she were merely tolerating me. ‘Precious, as in adorable, or precious, as in high-maintenance?’ I asked, giving her one more scratch.
Donna looked at me. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘When Keith comes in, we’ll introduce you. He’s cute. He’s single. He’s not looking for marriage or anything serious and he lives a block or two from here. Not across the street from you.’
‘Who’s Keith?’
‘The mailman,’ they said in unison.
‘Of course he is.’ I finished off my coffee. ‘I’m still learning to deal with this small town life.’
‘That’s not the worst of your problems,’ Joy said helpfully.
‘Oh yeah?’ I asked, confused.
‘Yeah. You still need to figure if you’re doing the charity dance or not.’
Fuck. I’d forgotten all about that damn thing. She was right. Three men acting like children was the least of my problems. I was supposed to shake my moneymaker for charity because of that asshole, Coop. If I was brave enough. Or was it stupid enough?
* * *
How to describe Keith the mailman?
Here’s one way: yum.
‘Hi there.’ I smiled at him. All broad shouldered, slightly freckle faced, reddish-brown hair, six foot of him. I heard the girlish trill in my voice and internally winced. Jeesh.
‘So you’re her,’ he said.
I straightened some papers on the small desk that were already perfectly straight. ‘Her who?’
Keith leaned over the counter and set the stack of mail, mostly fliers it looked like, on the blotter. ‘The new girl. The one from not here,’ he said in a jovially eerie voice.
I laughed. ‘They make it sound like I’m from over a vast and great ocean.’
‘Where there be monsters,’ he said in a terrible pirate voice.
‘On the edge of the world where it’s flattest.’
‘And your ship might sail right off the edge.’
I laughed. He was nice. Most importantly, he seemed normal. Not the guy who’d sneak into my house at night for head. Or let me jump him in an elevator. Or who’d get crushed and hurt puppy dog eyes should I ask someone else to spend the night.
Normal.
Boring.
I ignored that voice and stuck out my hand. ‘All of those are me,’ I said. ‘But my actual name is Farrell McGee.’
‘Oh, I know. Donna is “Farrelling” me to death at night.’
‘At night?’ I snorted. ‘Something I should know?’
‘Only that she lives in my neighbourhood and comes to spoil my dog with homemade biscuits. Those,’ he said, pointing to a giant cookie jar of bone-shaped biscuits on the high counter. ‘They’re like doggie crack,’ he laughed.
‘I’ll remember that. She suckered me into Brutus.’
At hearing his name, Brutus came galloping in and the mailman laughed. ‘That killer there, hunh?’
‘Yep.’
I twirled a pencil. Tried not to stare at his broad shoulders and what appeared to be a hard toned chest under his pale-blue uniform shirt. ‘So …’
He held up a hand. ‘Allow me. Can I take you for a drink later, Farrell? I mean, I don’t know if you’ve met anyone so –’
This time I held up my hand. ‘I’d love to and I’m not looking for anything serious at this point in time, so there’s no conflict.’
He grinned at me and I saw a flash of white even teeth and a pink tongue. The tongue part turned me on, I admit. ‘I’m Keith Rossi, by the way.’
We shook again and he eyed the wall clock. ‘Better get going. The lady two doors down in the dentist’s office spins completely out of control if she doesn’t have her mail to process by noon. And they’re open for emergency patients today.’
‘Right. Don’t make her wait.’
‘Meet me at Mamma’s tonight? Seven?’
‘Mamma’s?’
‘I bet Donna will give you directions –’
Donna yelled, ‘I will!’ from the back where she was clearly eavesdropping.
We both laughed.
‘It’s the only Italian in town and they have killer homemade wine.’
‘I’m in.’ I now felt nervous and fluttery. The three little pigs had been thrust upon me and I’d adapted. We’d all become neighbourly incestuous and oddly connected in a short amount of time.
This … this was a date; a date with a normal guy who wouldn’t be demanding blow jobs at 3 a.m. I assumed, anyway.
He gave me another smile and another wave before pushing out the door. Donna wasted no time scurrying in. She rubbed her chubby little hands together like an excited elf. ‘Now isn’t he just adorable.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
But now that I’d made a date with him, I was a nervous wreck. It was all too normal and tame and I was anything but those adjectives.
Chapter Twenty-One
There was an eerie ghost town quality to my stretch of the street. I could feel the phantom of harmony when I drove past Deke’s house to park in front of mine. It was Saturday, I had no idea who was home and who wasn’t. I had hours before I needed to meet Keith and little to do to occupy my mind from the goings on of the morning.
‘Wanna go out and tinkle?’ I asked Brutus, who vibrated joyously at the idea. ‘Come on. I’ll take you out to gallop through the woods.’
I dropped my bag in the kitchen and we both exited the house by the back door. Brutus took off at warp speed, chasing a rather startled squirrel. I laughed to see him run, his entire rear end swinging sideways with every leap he made.
I followed him, boots crunching through the leaves. How in the hell was I going to clean all this up, I wondered. Or did I have to. Technically, it was all mine. I didn’t have to clean it up if I didn’t want to. I wondered if leaf burning was legal in Tower Terrace.
The wind was less today, the temperature a bit higher. It was sunny and extremely bright. The sun so startling, the way it only seemed to be in the fall.
Brutus’s barks stopped and I walked further. I wasn’t worried because Donna had told me despite his breed, he was a homing pigeon kind of dog. He might run off but he always came home to roost. Most dachshunds, she said, were vagabonds and once they took off they kept going until someone made them stop.
I wandered and kicked up plumes of leaves, wondering if I’d been too harsh or too irrational with the boys (pigs). Maybe they had been behaving normally and I had been the illogical one.
Ears straining to hear the dog, I caught a different sound. A soft whispery kind of cry. Bird? Cat? I had no clue. I was a city girl and even Tower Terrace’s mild form of wildlife was overwhelming to me.
I walked further, hoping it wasn’t a bear, though I was almost positive a bear – even a small o
ne – would make a much bigger noise than that. Big hungry noises, I imagined.
I found myself tiptoeing and feeling like an ass for it, but doing it anyway. I followed the muffled sounds back to the right of my property. I’d yet to venture this far back and soon I was pressing into a thick gathering of evergreen trees. My nose tickled – evergreen usually irritated me and it left welts on my skin when the needles scraped me. But the sound turned to a distinctive laugh – a woman’s laugh – and I pushed on. Now I was hellbent on finding out who was on my property.
A very real sense of foreboding – as if I would not like what I found at all – filled me. My bones were heavy with it.
And I was correct. Though I had no right to be, except for the fact that they were technically trespassing. I could only assume this wasn’t a first time thing. The property had been deserted for a while now.
She was tied to the base of a very tall fir tree with –it looked like – her own sweater. Unless Coop had taken to wearing soft, pink cardigans. And that jackass was kneeling on the pine needle littered ground with his face buried between her legs. Nose nudging her pert little ass, and no doubt his tongue doing things to her that I wanted him to do to me – again. As much as I hated to admit it.
She was wiggling and cooing and I watched as he pulled back, licked his lips and pushed a finger into her slick cunt. Even from where I stood spying, I could see her eyelids flicker and dance at how good it felt. Like she wanted to shut her eyes, but was afraid to.
Before returning to his exuberant oral work, he drove another finger into her ass and she moaned, loud enough for me to hear, ‘Oh, Jimmy …’
Jimmy? He was so very much Coop or Cooper to me that I’d almost completely forgotten he even had a first name. And the thought that someone would shorten his to Jimmy was almost laughable.
She must be a fine piece of ass.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud, but it was becoming increasingly hard to ignore the fact that I was getting aroused. More from watching him do his rough, gruff, I’m-a-top-look-at-me routine. He could be a royal ass, but he was a gorgeous man and he knew his way around a woman’s body.
Stick to your guns, I reminded myself. But I feared, watching him go down on her that way, that my guns were insane for missing out – on him, on Deke, on Stephen. They all had their perks and I enjoyed every one.
Tiny bursts of white light winked in my vision and I realised I was holding my breath. The wind blew, tossing my hair back and making my eyes water, and she said, ‘I’m so coooooold, Jimmy.’
The urge to slap her was sudden and vicious and I curled my toes in my boots to ward it off.
But Coop did what I anticipated and stood, ripping at his button and zipper, hauling his cock out and pushing her thighs wide. He was in her on a long, slow stroke that made them both groan and I had to swallow my own sound so I wouldn’t give myself away.
His hands were rough on her skin and I could see her pale flesh blanch further in his grip. Her nipples were hard knots of rosy flesh and her breasts bounced as he fucked her. Coop leaned over and bit her shoulder, driving deep and making her shake. The girl – probably a Bambi or a Barbie or a Brittany – moaned loud enough to make me cringe. But the sound of her pleasure also kicked off a rush of blood and arousal in my pelvis. My cunt thumped in time with my heart, and I hated that I was reacting so viscerally to their display.
And that I was still watching. I should have turned tail and left the moment I’d stumbled over them. And yet, I hadn’t.
When he smacked her ass, the wind blew her long blonde hair back and I saw her flinch, but then smile. ‘Again,’ she said, just loud enough for me to make it out.
‘I tell you again, Christy,’ he growled. But he laughed and smacked her ass again, his hand assaulting the opposite ass cheek.
Christy pushed back shamelessly, forcing him deeper still and when she said, ‘Again, baby,’ Cooper froze for an instant. And then he really let her have it.
The sharp reports floating to my ears as he lay down criss-crossing blows so that she gripped the tree and bent lower under him. The skin of her ass shone red in the low light. I could imagine the fire and pulse that had taken up residence in that flesh.
And even as I imagined it, moisture slid from me to wet my panties. My face was hot, my heart thundering.
Coop murmured something, reached under her to touch her and bit her shoulder again. Hard enough that she cried out in surprise and then she was coming. Loudly. Christy was vocal and she let loose with noises that made birds take flight.
I heard Coop growl, watched his face as his orgasm hit him. Then when he reached from behind her to clamp a hand over her open mouth – stopping those lusty cries – I nearly came right there.
I owed him one for shutting her up.
My pulse was a thick pounding sound in my ears and my neck, and I needed to run home. I had to find Brutus. I turned and walked face-first into Stephen. I bit my tongue to stifle my cry of surprise.
‘I came to say I was sorry,’ he said, peeking over my shoulder.
Then Brutus came running out of the trees on the other side. Now it was a party.
* * *
‘Back up, back up, back up!’ I hissed, pushing him back and the dog hurried after us.
I got free of the thick cluster of trees and grabbed his hand, hightailing it more toward my house, yanking Stephen. He had very little choice but to follow me.
‘Why are we running?’ Stephen gasped when we reached the barbeque where our first date had started.
‘Because I don’t want him to see. The last thing I need is to give him more reason to give me shit.’
‘He’s on your property,’ Stephen reminded me, pushing my wild hair off my face. His clear-water eyes were intense and I could feel how badly he wanted to kiss me. It felt like his energy was meshing with mine, probing to find a way in. It made me want to kiss him, too.
I took a step back and he moved to follow me so I stiff armed him. ‘I know, but … I was …’ I shook my head, my face blazing despite the fact that I was getting cold as hell. My nipples pushed against my sweater, two hard visible dots beneath the charcoal-grey cable knit.
Stephen thumbed them, watching my face, focusing on my mouth. A bold move for him – the one who was usually shy and reserved for the most part.
‘You were watching.’
I nodded. ‘Yes. I didn’t mean to …’ My voice dropped. ‘I just sort of stumbled on them and was … swept away.’
‘He’s a slut, you know,’ he said. Stephen leaned in and I could smell the warm yeasty bakery smell on his skin. I shivered when his thumbs pressed my erect nipples once more.
‘A slut you apparently want,’ I blurted.
It was his turn to blush and he shrugged but didn’t back off. ‘I admit it. I wanted him. Sometimes I still want him. There’s something about him –’
‘That makes you want to hit him or fuck him. Sometimes both,’ I said.
Stephen grinned. ‘Exactly.’
‘So you do still want him,’ I said.
Another shrug and he kissed me on the nose. My pussy flexed, my stomach tingled. ‘So do you.’
‘Touché.’
‘Touché,’ he repeated.
He kissed me on the mouth this time, our breath pluming around us, his tongue hot against my own. Brutus barked and ran off in another direction and it snapped me back to attention. I backpedalled and pulled free of him.
‘Maybe on some level,’ I said, clumsily. ‘But I meant what I said. I don’t want to see any of you until you act like adults and not children.’
‘I came to say I was sorry. We all acted … like you owed us something.’
‘Good,’ I said, smoothing my sweater.
I could hear other feet plodding through the leaves. They were coming.
‘Now go home,’ I said. ‘They’re coming.’
‘Can I at least offer to make you dinner?’ Stephen asked. He was so pretty. So nice. So so
ft spoken.
Made it harder for me to say, ‘No, Stephen, you can’t. I’m done with you all. At least for now. Now go home.’
Then I ran toward my back door whistling for my dog. I didn’t want to see Stephen or Coop or his wood nymph of a bimbette.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Odd. And creepy. Creepy and odd,’ I muttered, hopping in the shower. I had time to kill before dinner at Mamma’s with Keith, the wholesome freckled mailman. I would have dinner with a normal guy. I would chat. I would … ‘Not fuck him,’ I muttered.
The entire bathroom was fogged with the scent of lavender and hyacinth and yet I couldn’t wash the image from my head. Cooper on his knees in my woods – my woods – eating out that little blonde chicklet. Fucking her. Sticking his finger in her ass. Biting her!
‘It doesn’t matter.’
And it didn’t matter. Except it did.
I feared I was doing the classic, I don’t want him but don’t want anyone else to have him. Stupid and petty and childish.
When I wrapped a towel around my wet hair I heard the dog barking. He barked at everything. Other dogs, squirrels, people, even leaves.
In my robe I hurried to look out the bedroom window. It looked down over the porch and if anyone was there, I should be able to tell.
But no one was there. No one was on my porch or my walk. But in the darkling air of twilight, I saw that someone was somewhere – on his bed. Stephen. Pretty Stephen, splayed across his neat but masculine bed with nothing on but his skin. So fucking perfect he looked like a staged and airbrushed cologne ad as he handled himself.
‘Oh fuck, it’s voyeur day,’ I groaned, letting my head hit the thick window glass. The dog barked again and I sighed. This was all his fault.
He had his eyes shut as he stroked his cock – looking very much the part of tortured angel fallen to earth. Big hand stroking big cock, broad fingers gripping hot flesh. A tremble started inside of me. Somehow seeing a man touch himself always made me unravel. It always brought me down to my most animal urges. And as my pulse quickened and my blood thickened, I pressed my face more firmly to the cool window glass and watched him.
Boys Next Door Page 14