by Taryn Quinn
“Hmm.” My best friend was with me in the form of her favorite dubious expression even when she wasn’t. “I could fit my whole apartment in here like six times over. Your hall closet is bigger than my bathroom.”
“Your point?”
“Doesn’t this strike you as weird?” I motioned between us, but he didn’t seem to have any interest in looking my way.
“That we’re still talking when we’re both hungry, and I have a refrigerator full of food? Absolutely. I’ll go get things ready.” He disappeared down the stairs before I had a chance to follow.
Maybe he needed a moment too. Goddess knew I needed about a hundred of them.
I had friends from all walks of life. But I didn’t know anyone with this level of wealth. I’d gone to the bathroom midway through the house tour and looked up the model of his new car on my phone.
The thing cost six-freaking-figures. And he’d never mentioned having another car when I teased him about his grandpa-mobile, so that meant it was probably new. Plus, this model was the latest one on the market. So, not only was it expensive as hell, it was also trendy.
That wasn’t me at all.
Now I was probably going to go down there to discover he’d set the fancy dining room table with Irish linen and heavy cut crystal candlesticks that could kill a man dead. The ornate armoire beside the table held enough china—probably some family heirlooms—to fill that long table and then some. Our dinner would probably be the finest cut of salmon or filet mignon and lobster tails with new potatoes in a delicate herbed sauce.
I was a Moons Over My Hammy sort of girl.
“I’m wigging out,” I whispered to the cat, digging my toes into the thick, expensive Aubusson rug beneath my feet.
One of my mother’s “boyfriends” had bought her one in this style a million years ago, and she’d gushed over it for weeks. Then he’d cheated on her with the neighbor and demanded we move out by morning.
Fancy things meant our van would have a Tiffany lamp crammed against the back window before we had to pawn it for rent money for the in-between times.
I held Smoky tighter, and he made a little squeak. Or that could’ve been me. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
The cat stared up at me, his unblinking green eyes steady on mine. He didn’t fight to get down, just bumped his head against my chin in silent solidarity.
There was no reason at all tears should’ve sprung to my eyes. It was just sex and dinner. Dinner and sex. Easy, enjoyable stuff. I’d been dating since I was thirteen, for pity’s sake.
I was making this way harder than it needed to be.
But that didn’t stop me from sitting on the edge of the neatly made guest room bed with its plush dark green comforter to give myself another minute. Smoky decided to jump down and do a big stretch before coiling into a perfect circle in the center of the mattress.
“Are you allowed on the beds?”
Unshockingly, he didn’t answer.
I sighed and did a quick centering spell using the smoky quartz at my ears as my crystals to focus on. Then I took out my mini tarot deck and did a fast throw of the cards.
“What will happen with this?” I asked into the silence, feeling a bit like a kid waiting for her mom to walk in and catch her with her hand in her panties.
No one walked in, and the two cards I drew didn’t quiet my nerves.
The Tower and the Star.
All the changes, but ultimately, they would be good ones. Upheaval could be positive in the end, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt in the middle.
I really liked my life as it was. Sure, I wished some things would improve. Like I wanted to make a real go of it with my art.
But even there, that pesky cat kept sneaking in. I wasn’t in control. I could keep fighting it, or I could let events unfold as they would.
If this was my Tower moment, I had to trust I would make the right choices. Part of that included really being present tonight.
No distractions.
I shut off my phone and made myself smile at Smoky, who was watching me with one slitted green eye. And maybe I could even have a few more orgasms along the way.
Twenty
I wasn’t sure how, but I was fairly certain I’d scared off Ryan.
I puzzled over it as I took containers out of the bags in the refrigerator. I didn’t know if she’d think I was strange for grabbing this stuff for our dinner. Not to mention I did not know how to properly reheat egg sandwiches.
Typically, if I wanted to charm a woman with a meal, I would’ve made reservations at my usual seafood restaurant. Or if it was a nice night, we could’ve gone to Sherman Inn, a place across from the water in Crescent Cove. But neither of those options felt like Ryan, and besides, I wanted her to see my house.
To see me, when it came right down to it.
I finished unbagging then faced down my loaded kitchen table. I didn’t know how to properly prepare our dinner, but she wasn’t coming down in a hurry anyway.
Maybe she was still tired despite her assertions to the contrary. One thing I had was plenty of comfortable beds. All unused, waiting for my supposed baseball team.
As if I was ready for a family.
I mean, someday, sure. I’d never thought of it in depth, but I’d hoped one day that I would have something in my life besides work. Whether that was a wife and kids or not…well, I wasn’t set on that precise outcome, but it wasn’t an unpleasant thought.
More and more, I liked the idea of a house filled with noise and life. Man couldn’t survive on NPR and The Wall Street Journal alone.
Even if admitting that to Ryan would probably be tantamount to saying I was into sacrificing flamingoes or something in my backyard.
A fruitless search on my phone didn’t give me the details on how to reheat this stuff for maximum palatability. Even if I’d been able to stumble through, I didn’t want to have to reheat it twice if she’d fallen asleep or something upstairs.
Or if she was fashioning a rope of bedsheets to escape with minimum fuss.
I moved to the counter and started hacking at the plastic packaging of the next item on my list. If she wasn’t going to come down on her own, then she could just stay up there. Or climb out the window. Or send out for help from her best bish.
I had these attractive paw-shaped lights to put down in the backyard for reasons I’d yet to fathom.
Fifteen minutes later, I’d finished placing the lights in a meandering fashion on a path in the backyard to the rarely used picnic table. Since I’d neglected to consider ahead of time that they were solar and therefore needed to charge, the paws looked like scattered little bubbles due to running off their weak battery backup.
Hey, I’d tried, and Ryan was still nowhere in sight.
So, I took my cold food outside and also brought along a couple of old Coleman lanterns I still had from my camping days. Within a few minutes, I was wishing I’d worn Citronella cologne thanks to the swarm of mosquitoes, but good enough.
Cold Moons Over My Hammy wasn’t really that bad. Who knew?
I’d eaten my sandwich and moved on to hers—you snooze, you lose was an edict applicable to business and life—when a dark figure finally appeared in the doorway, backlit by the kitchen light.
“PMS?”
I didn’t answer. That was not my name.
She tried again. “Yoohoo, PMS?”
I took an exceptionally big bite of her sandwich and chewed it with relish.
She eventually decided to cross the deck and head down the side steps to the backyard. A flash of skin beneath her dress alerted me she’d taken off her shoes. I wondered if she still had on her anklet. I’d forgotten to check when I was fucking her from behind on her painfully small bed.
“Are you even Irish?” she demanded upon seeing me eating at the picnic table.
“Not the question I was expecting.” I patted the bench beside me, but she bypassed my chosen spot for her to sit across from me and frown at all of the s
tyrofoam boxes.
“What is all of this?”
“I’m a quarter Irish. A quarter English. I believe almost half Scot, with a small amount of Norwegian and Scandinavian—what are you doing? Hey, that’s mine.”
She grabbed several containers, after having peered inside them with obvious disgust. “Cold Denny’s is the absolute worst.” She pried the hunk of sandwich out of my hand and dumped it in one of the containers. “And I believe that is mine, thank you very much.”
“You took forever. I’m hungry.” I licked my lips as she leaned over and the bodice of her dress dipped just enough for me to see the side of her unencumbered breast, cloaked in shadows. “Extremely so.”
“You’re eating my sandwich after clearly eating your own and—” She noticed the probably glazed expression on my face and set down the boxes with an altogether disturbing smile. “Oh, is that why?” She undid a few buttons while I tried to swallow over the sudden grit in my throat. “And here I’m so hot…”
I was five seconds away from undoing my shorts for necessary breathing room. “You certainly are.”
Her smile grew as she stacked the boxes again and glided across the lawn. I stared after her like a lustsick puppy.
Rather than waiting for her to come back, I followed. I walked through the path of her honey and floral scent and breathed in deeply, knowing I would never forget how she smelled mixed with the scent of lush greenery in high summer.
I swallowed again for a much different reason as bittersweet longing twisted inside me. Not the kind that came from anticipation, but loss. As if I already knew she was a fever dream, and I was on the verge of waking up.
But if that was the case, I was going to focus on where we were right now.
I opened the back door and couldn’t help but grin at how she looked in my kitchen. Her curls hellbent on escaping their loose topknot, the gap in her dress revealing enough skin to make me grip the door, and her clear annoyance as she turned dials on the oven and pushed buttons on the microwave like a pro.
My grin faltered. Like she lived here.
Like she belonged. Not just for a night, but a lifetime.
Instead of that thought making fire ants crawl over my skin, I leaned against the door jamb and let myself pretend that we were a couple for real. Maybe we’d gotten home late after a long day at the office, and she was irritated at me because I burned dinner. If that was the case, I probably wouldn’t be smiling and undressing her mentally.
But hey, it was my fantasy. I could do whatever I wanted.
“Why are you smiling?” She didn’t look up, just kept moving about efficiently.
“Why did you ask me if I was Irish?”
“The Irish linen. The tiny shamrocks on the china.” She gestured impatiently as she took down a pan from the ceiling holder above the island. “The Irish prayer banner thingy in the bathroom.”
“It’s a crocheted scroll made by my Grandma Doyle.”
“It’s pretty. I got a little nervous thinking it was a Catholic prayer until I looked closer. You know, since I follow a loose form of Wicca.”
I snorted. “If you knew my grandmother, you’d realize how ridiculous that possibility is. She’s a chain-smoking, rollerblading, kickass poker player who thinks the main reason churches form is for organized thievery.”
“Oh, I think I’d like your grandmother.”
“I think so too. My father hates her, and the feeling is mutual. Dex said it’s like a rite of passage. If the in-laws like you, it’s not meant to be.” I scratched my stubble. I hadn’t bothered to tidy up this evening, and my whiskers were already intense. “My mom loves you though.”
I expected Ryan to screech about the association I’d made with in-laws, but it was her turn to snort. “Your father covers the hatred bases for both of them. He wishes he could scorch the place where I’m standing with the power of his mind.” She shoved a pan of hash browns under the broiler and closed the oven door. “Speaking of him, what happened after he almost saw me naked?”
I shut my eyes and held up a hand. “Uncomfortable imagery.”
“Seeing me naked?”
“Hardly. Him seeing you naked.” I walked fully into the kitchen and let the door slap shut behind me. “Now where were we?”
She stuck the sandwiches in the microwave. Guess she’d found the extra sandwich I had gotten for us to share. “Did he ream you?”
“Your word choice leaves something to be desired.”
“So, in short, yes.” She hit a button and turned to look at the clock. “No wonder I’m starving.”
“You took forever in here. Did you take a nap?”
“I already slept once this evening, remember? Do you think I have narcolepsy?”
“Did you go through my drawers?”
“You wish, buddy.”
So, she wasn’t going to tell me what she’d been up to. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Actually, I would wish more to go through yours.”
“You had your chance while I was asleep.”
I couldn’t stay away from her any longer. It was physically impossible. “I wouldn’t violate your privacy like that.”
“Oh, right, Mr. Morality.” She tucked her tongue in her cheek. “What’re you doing with me, hmm?”
I ignored her question as I steadily came closer, boxing her in on the other side of the island. “Also, if I looked, I’d have to keep stuff.”
“Like my panties and bras? Or maybe my red string teddy?” She ran her fingertips up and down the partially open placket on her dress.
“All of them. You’d be forced to go to work bare beneath your clothes.”
“And sleep naked?” She looked up at me, bracing her hands on the island behind her as I loomed over her. “I sleep in that teddy.”
I knew she was bullshitting me. It was basically her number one skill. That witch T-shirt I’d seen today was more her idea of sleepwear, not candy-colored butt floss meant to torment men.
“Yes. You would have to join a nudist camp, and I would join just to become the camp leader so I could spend my time worshipping your gorgeous tits.” The word made her sexy eyes flash as I slid my hand under her dress and grasped her breast.
She pressed up against me and reached up to feather her fingers through my hair. I wanted to turn my face into her hand. “Mr. Shaw, I’m scandalized by such filthy talk.”
“Just wait until we get down to more filthy action.” I gripped her hips and brought them flush against mine as I lowered my head to kiss her.
Her moan at my very obvious erection spilled into my mouth, and I boosted her up onto the island, ready to take her right here and now.
She broke away, breathing hard. “You have impressive stamina for an esquire.”
I laughed and pressed my face into the very alluring curve of her neck. “Only for you would that be an insult.”
She undid a couple more buttons on her dress. Now it was open all the way to her navel. Next stop was her pussy, and by the gleam in her eyes, she knew I was all too ready to get another glimpse.
“I’m unique. Now what do you say if I finish undressing and—” The microwave dinged and she hopped down, neatly evading my greedy hands. “Oops, saved by the bell. I’m dying of hunger, aren’t you, PMS?” She opened the microwave and pulled out the sandwiches. “Oh, that’s right. You already ate…mine.”
“And I’m going to eat it again. For hours. Until you beg me to stop, and you know what I’ll do then?”
“Call 9-1-1 and request oxygen?” she asked innocently as she turned to slide the sandwiches into the pan under the broiler.
Once she closed the over door, I reached for her wrist and spun her back into my arms, our bodies colliding in a way that felt entirely too right.
“Hey Alexa, play ‘Jailhouse Rock’ by Elvis.”
Ryan grinned and reached up to loop her arms around my neck. “You dance?”
“Not exactly.”
I spun her around a few t
imes anyway, just for the enjoyment of drawing her back against me. Then I added some flourishes and dips, combining every dance move I knew into a terrible mishmash. But she was laughing, and I was laughing, and by the end of it, we were both breathless and flushed and more than a little sweaty.
The song ended too soon. I tugged her arms behind her back and held them there with one hand, using the other to tuck her hair behind her ear.
And then we weren’t laughing anymore.
“The food,” she said as our lips hovered a hairsbreadth apart.
“The food,” I agreed, searching her eyes. Needing to see in their blue depths even a hint of the chaotic emotions rocketing through me.
She was right there with me. I was sure of it.
I rubbed my thumb over her silken cheek. “It doesn’t happen anymore.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my tone.
“What?” Then the side of her mouth lifted. “You mean the fire.”
“Oh, the fire still happens.” Lightly, I ground into the apex of her thighs.
There was no denying that the temperature between us was hot enough to leave only destruction in its wake. And I wanted more.
Wanted everything with her.
“The spark when we touch,” she amended. “I couldn’t really shield myself at first with you. I didn’t expect anything like that.”
I frowned. “You’re shielding yourself now? Whatever that means?”
She flexed her wrists in my hold. “Sometimes. It’s also kind of like static electricity. Your body gets used to the charge. But opening yourself up to it changes the intensity.” She looked up at me under her thick dark lashes, as if she knew what I was going to ask.
Steeling herself for it.
“Will you open yourself up to me?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“So, show me. Teach me.”
Her breath caught. “You can’t control something like that. Once you open the door, anything can happen. It’s not something you can turn on and off.”
“You don’t have to hide yourself with me.” I dropped my forehead to hers and let her feel the weight of my words against her trembling lips. “You can trust me, Ryan. I swear.”