by Kyle Autumn
“Well…” I flick my gaze to the rearview mirror again and catch Meli staring out the window, chewing on her thumbnail. “You guys have enough food for five?”
“Five? Who else is coming?” he asks.
“Our neighbor came out with us today. She’s joining us for dinner.”
“Oh? Is that so?” he asks, more than just that simple question in his tone.
I choose to ignore him. “Everyone cool with dinner at the house?” I ask Dani and Meli instead.
“Does that mean Matt and Cade are coming?” Dani asks beside me.
“They’re already there with food,” I tell her. Then I peek in the rearview mirror again. “That okay with you?”
With her gaze on me, she nods in small movements. “Sure.”
For some reason, I don’t believe her, but I tell Matt that we’ll be there anyway and make the turn to head home. We’re not that far, so I’m glad he called when he did.
“Um, who’s Cade?” Meli asks from the back, her voice less confident than it was when we were golfing.
Dani answers for me while still scrolling on her phone. “Cadence. My brother’s fiancée.”
When I can, I sneak a peek at Meli, and her face has gone white. Her thumbnail is probably almost gone from all the chewing she’s doing, and if the car weren’t moving, I bet she’d make a break for it. The car stays quiet until we pull into my driveway.
And, just like I predicted, she tries to bolt the second I put the car into park.
Ignoring my brother, Cadence, and my sister, I get out of the car and go after Meli. We’re halfway into her front lawn when I reach her and touch her elbow.
“Hey,” I say as she spins toward me. “What happened to dinner?”
“You know,” she starts, staring at the ground, the sky—anywhere but at me, “I’m not feeling all that well, so I think I’ll just—”
I shake my head. “Nope. Not buying it. What’s going on?”
She opens her mouth but can’t seem to say anything. Then she looks straight at me. Finally. Still, nothing comes out of her mouth, so she crosses her arms over her chest and stares at me like I should be able to read her mind.
“Is it because they’re here?” I gesture toward Matt and Cadence. “Because I’m sure they’d love to meet you too. The woman behind the muffins.”
At that, her arms fall to her sides and she scoffs. “Right. The woman behind the muffins.” Then she twirls around, her ponytail swishing against her back as she goes.
I start forward to catch up with her, and when I pass her, I step into her path. “Whoa.” I hold her arms to keep her in front of me and find her gaze. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. One minute, you seem interested in me, and the next, you can’t get away fast enough. What’s the deal?”
“Look, I just…” She shakes her head as she tries to find the words. Then she scoots out of my grip and says, “I just can’t do this. I don’t understand what’s going on here, and I’m not ready.”
With that, she reaches her front door, peeks over her right shoulder toward my family, and then hangs her head. After twisting the knob, she lets herself inside and closes the door.
Leaving me on her lawn, confused as fucking ever.
~~~~
Once I’ve said goodbye to Matt and Cadence, who blessedly didn’t ask many questions about what happened in Meli’s front yard, Dani starts in.
“So, you wanna tell me what happened out there?” She points outside, her arms crossed over her chest, as we stand by the front door.
If I deny that something happened, she’ll know what’s up. But, if I confirm it, she’ll know what’s up. So, instead, I give her the same excuse Meli gave me: “She said she wasn’t feeling well and went home.”
My sister squints at me and tilts her head like she isn’t sure if she should believe me, but then she says, “Well, maybe someone should go check on her to make sure she’s okay.” Then she pulls her phone out of her back pocket. “I’d text her, but she’d just say that she’s fine. That’s how she is.”
“So, are you going over there, then?” I ask her, hoping she’ll say no. This is the perfect reason for me to go to her house and find out what really happened.
“Can you do it?” she asks, her face glued to her phone.
“Oh, you trust me around her now?” I tease.
She gives me a death glare before returning her gaze to the screen in her hand. “I kind of want to catch up on my show and relax. And I can do that while allowing you to earn your trust back.”
I want to ask how she gets any show-watching done when she’s always staring at that screen, but I don’t. I’m too anxious to get back to Meli. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take her to go get her car too.”
“Oh, good idea.” Then she starts bounding away, up the stairs. “Thanks, Jer. Goodnight!”
“Night,” I tell her as I shoot my arm out for the doorknob. In seconds, I’m down the porch steps and across Meli’s front yard. Then I knock on her door and wait for her to answer.
It takes nearly a minute and a few more knocks for her to open the door, but she does it. And she looks much different than she did when she bolted away from me earlier. Gone are her work clothes, and in their place are baggy sweatpants and a small, cropped T-shirt that manage to show her curves off. She’s gorgeous as always. Which does nothing good for the rapid beat of my heart.
Or the hard-on I might be unable to stop in a second. Deep breath.
“Hey,” I say when she doesn’t do or say anything in the doorway. “Dani said I should come check on you to make sure you’re feeling all right.”
“Dani said that?” she questions skeptically, her hand on the edge of the door.
I nod. “Yep. She said she’d text, but you’d just say you’re fine and she wanted to make sure.” Then I put my hands in my pockets and add, “Probably for work tomorrow. You know.”
“Well, here I am, fine as can be.” She throws her arms out to her sides so I can see how “fine” she is.
“That you are,” I tell her, rocking back onto my heels. When my toes tap the cement of her porch, I repeat myself and give her my best smile.
Her nostrils flare as her gaze pins itself to my mouth. But then she brings her eyes up to mine. “Is that all you wanted? I’m not sick anymore and Danielle can ride with me to work in the morning.”
“Great. Okay. Thanks,” I say. Then I start to back up. That is all I came here for, right?
No. No, it’s not.
Just before I’m facing my house again, I spin back around. She’s about to close the door completely, but I reach a hand out and stop her. “No, that’s not all I want.”
She pulls the door open again and steps closer to me. I can almost hear her heart beating as fast as mine is, which gives me the reassurance I’m always looking for from her: She’s in this as much as I am, so why are we playing these games?
With my hand on the door, I push it open and let myself in. “I want some answers, Meli.” Once I’m all the way inside, I twist around and face her. “I want answers, and I want you.”
Chapter 7
Jeremy
“Jeremy…” she starts, but my name on her lips only spurs me on.
I stalk toward her, which makes her back up. But all that does is close the door so we’re in her house. Alone. In privacy. For the first time. And I’m not going to waste that.
When I reach her, she presses herself as close to the door as she can, her palms flat on its surface. I don’t know why she’s fighting it, but I don’t want her to run away from me again without telling me, so I box her in, my arms on either side of her face.
Her eyelids flutter shut as her mouth parts and she gasps. Her shallow breathing speeds up, her chest rising and falling in rapid succession with the effort. When her eyes open again, she stares straight into mine, almost like she’s daring me to make a move. She even inches closer to my face, getting more into my space than before.
Then I lean forward, my
mouth a breath away from hers, and say, “Why aren’t we acting on this? Is it that guy from the bakery? Jacob?”
Her forehead and her nose scrunch up. “What? No! He works at the bakery. That’s it.”
“Okay,” I say, relief coursing through me. If it’s not him, though… “Then what is it?”
I expect her to say something about Dani. That she shouldn’t sleep with her employee’s brother. That it’d complicate things more than they need to be. So I have responses for that. What I don’t have a response for is what she actually says.
Her head falls back against the door as she closes her eyes. “No matter how much I want you, I won’t be the other woman.”
I’m so taken aback that I step away from her. For a moment, I’m frozen, wondering what in the fuck she’s talking about. Then I think that maybe she’s heard about my past. Heard what I did in high school. In the age of the internet, word travels fast, and you can find just about anything on Google. So maybe she knows.
But that wording doesn’t seem right. So I put my hands on my hips and flat-out ask. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she says as she pushes off the door and marches past me. Jutting an arm toward my house, she raises her voice. “Uh, maybe you’ve forgotten that you’re engaged, but I haven’t.”
My brow furrows as my eyes narrow and I jerk my head back. “What the fuck?”
“Hello!” She gestures toward my house again with another thrust of her arm. “Your perfect fiancée? Cadence? How could you do that to her?”
My brain scrambles to understand why she’d think Cadence is my fiancée. I don’t know why she wouldn’t know when she works so closely with Dani, because surely Dani has mentioned Matt. But then I remember the conversation in the car.
“Cadence, my brother’s fiancée,” Dani said when Meli had asked who Cade was. And that’s when Meli went paler than a bedsheet.
Now, it all makes sense. So I do the only thing I can do in this moment. Laugh. Hard.
“I swear to god,” she tells me, pointing her finger my way, “if you spew some bullshit about an open relationship, I might—”
“Stop,” I laugh, waving my arms at her. “She’s not—” God, I can’t stop chuckling. This whole thing was a big misunderstanding, and the relief has me losing my mind.
“She’s not what?” she demands, her hands on her hips now. “Did you break up or something? Because I don’t understand how you could break up with someone so perfect—”
“Oh my god, woman.” I stalk over to her and pull her into my arms. “We were never together,” I say through a chuckle, pressing her up against my body. “You can stop the crazy now.”
“W-w…” She shakes her head, unable to form words. “You weren’t?”
I rest my forehead against hers. “Nope. Cadence is my brother’s perfect fiancée. Not mine.”
“Your brother?” she questions, squinting at me.
“Yeah. Matt. My older brother. He lives in town too.”
It takes a moment, but she dissolves into laugher, her warm breath coating my lips. And this sight of her, lost in giggles, much more carefree than before, grips my heart. She’s always beautiful, but there’s something about her when she’s not wound so tight. I hope to see so much more of this side of her.
Now that she’s not so tense, I revel in the smell of her this close. Just like always: cupcakes and something floral. The hint of coffee is gone, but that makes the other two stronger, and I’m more than okay with that.
“You’re always doing that,” she says, a smile on her lips as she steps out of my embrace. “I can’t possibly smell that good.”
“Trust me,” I tell her as I close the space between us again. “You do.”
But she evades me and walks behind me. “Look,” she starts as I spin to face her. “This”—she waves a hand between us—“still shouldn’t happen.”
This time, I give her the space she wants. I’ll hear her out. “Do tell.”
She looks surprised, like she thought I’d still push the issue. And I will—but only because I know she feels the same way. For now, I’ll see where she’s going with this.
“Well.” She gazes at the floor, crosses her arms, straightens them out again. Then she steps toward me. “I guess…” Another step. “I just…” Another.
I stay right where I am, a knowing smirk on my lips. “You just…what?”
“Danielle?” she squeaks out, shrugging as though she’s unsure if that’s enough. After yet another step in my direction, she’s close enough to trail a finger down the middle of my shirt, her gaze pinned to its wake. “I mean, she works for me. It’s probably not right.”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “It’s probably not right at all.” Behind me, I brace my hands against the dining room table. I have to dig my fingers in so I don’t reach for her.
The need hits epic proportions when her fingers land on the button of my jeans. But I squeeze the edge of the table instead of helping her undo them.
Then, much to my utter dismay, her hand falls away and she steps back.
“Seriously, Jeremy.” She shakes her head, starting to pace. “I shouldn’t do that to her.”
“And what would you be doing to her?” I ask, my shoulders falling and my fingers releasing from their death grip.
“Betraying her trust?” She raises one finger as she paces the room and then adds a second. “Sneaking around behind her back?” Her third one rises in the air. “Sleeping with her brother?”
I raise my eyebrows at that last one. “So you do want to sleep with me?”
Her hand falls to her side as she pauses in her spot a few feet away from me. “Seriously? That’s what you took from all of that?”
Pushing off the table, I close some of the gap between us. “Of course that’s all I took from that. She doesn’t want me to hurt you or embarrass her. But we’re adults. You didn’t promise her to avoid me like the plague or anything, did you?”
She eyes me warily. “Well, no.”
“And she won’t lose her job if we sleep together, right?
“Of course not,” she insists. “I’d never do that to her.”
“Okay, then.” I chance another step forward, and when she doesn’t move back, I reach a hand out. “Can we stop fighting this now? I’m not about to be married. You’re not breaking any trust. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t—”
But I don’t get to finish because she launches herself into my arms and plants her lips on mine, her hands cupping my face. I’m momentarily stunned, but I wake up quickly, her scent my favorite aphrodisiac, and wrap my arms around her to hold her up. Her feet dig into my back as her mouth seals over mine and her tongue plunges inside. Then she’s waving an arm behind her, and I take it as a direction to follow. So I carry her forward, down a hall, kissing her the whole time.
We nearly run into the wall, but I course-correct enough to get us down the hall without any bumps or bruises. With her other hand, she reaches to the side and pushes the door to my left open. Then she points inside, so I cross the threshold. Her hair is pulled back, so I can see around her between kisses. In blinks and snapshots, I think I see a bed behind her. I stumble that way, and when we reach it, I toss her onto it.
“We’re doing this?” I ask, mostly because I can hardly believe it. But she had a lot of reasons not to and I don’t want her to regret anything.
“Don’t ask,” she answers. “Just do.”
I like the sound of that. So I start unbuttoning my shirt, kicking my shoes off, and undoing my jeans. She undresses too, losing her sweatpants and her small T-shirt. To my surprise—and happiness—she’s bare under both articles of clothing. So she’s naked while my pants are barely around my ankles. I nearly trip in my haste to get to her, my boxers still on. But she makes short work of those and slides them off as I crawl up to her. They join the rest of my clothes, and now, nothing’s between us.
No assumed boyfriends or fiancées. No f
ighting or resisting. No worries about betrayal or sneaking around.
We’re two adults who are clearly attracted to each other, if the wetness pooling between her legs and my hard-as-fuck cock have anything to say about it.
I press my lips to her neck. Her chest. Her sternum. Her belly. I work my way down, peppering kisses along the way. I may be ready to go, and she may be too, but I have to taste her. I have to know if she tastes like she smells: delicious.
One flick of my tongue along her slick, wet folds confirms my suspicion. Not only does she taste spectacular, but that one taste, this one time, will never be enough. I’m an addict for her through and through, and one hit will only tide me over until it’s time for the next.
∞∞∞
Amelia
God, I’ve missed this. This carnal need to be naked with a man. This intense sexual desire. This place where I don’t have to think or make decisions. I just have to do. I can do that.
He laps at me, spreading me open for his tongue. Something about his movements seems rusty, like he’s out of practice. But he quickly finds a rhythm and brings me so close to the edge that I have to scoot up the bed before I come.
“Too much?” he asks, but he knows that it wasn’t. It shows in his eyes, the way he’s looking at me. He’s proud of himself.
But it’s my turn.
I shake my head and reach over to my nightstand. While keeping eye contact with him, I open the drawer and pull a condom out. As I hold it out to him, his eyes sparkle. Then he takes it, gets up onto his knees, and rolls it onto his length.
His glorious, thick length.
Licking my lips, I watch him get ready for me. When the condom is secure, he strokes his erection. And then he speaks, shaking me out of my erotic trance.
“You like what you see?”
I meet his gaze and nod. Then I meet him in his spot on my bed and use one finger to push him over toward the head of the bed. When he falls to his back, he takes me with him, his hands on my hips, and I straddle him. As I fall forward, his arms shoot up and his hands grab my wrists to keep me upright. And then we move.