Foundation

by Lainey Davis

  I’m fully dependent on Isaac to save my home and keep me from bankruptcy. I’m not even in charge of my own weekends anymore since my boss strong-armed me into an athletic activity I hate. And my dad isn’t even aware of the strange entanglement between Isaac’s family and my career trajectory right now.

  Somehow, when I was too distracted by getting fucked in my kitchen, I let go of everything that makes me me. Everything I’ve become, I did to escape this life I’m surrounded by at the country club. I took my own direction with school, took charge of my career, and took charge of my own living environment.

  And now what is happening to me? I’m becoming a woman who swoons over a man, someone who depends on his problem solving skills and hell, I’m even depending on his dick to bring back my lost orgasms. The second my mother sets down her fork, signaling that she’s finished eating, I turn to Isaac. “We need to go,” I tell him, my breath coming fast and shallow. “Now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Zack

  I REALLY THOUGHT Nicole and I would spend the afternoon defiling her parents’ country club under the guise of going running, but something shifted in her mood after talking with her mother. I can tell she is upset because she doesn’t say a word as I drive back to the city.

  Not concentrating, driving on instinct, I realize I drove toward my house. I am almost ready to turn onto my street when I notice, and I pull over abruptly. “Hey, I wasn’t paying attention. This is my neighborhood.” I run a hand through my hair and look at her, expecting her to lash out and call me an idiot.

  “That’s fine,” she says, looking out the window. “We can run in the park, right?”

  “Sure,” I tell her, pulling out again as she stares at my hand on the gear shift. “You can change at my place.”

  I had gradually loosened my tie and unbuttoned my shirt along the route home, and it’s a small hit to my pride when she doesn’t even stare at me. I chose this outfit carefully, wanting her to like how I look when I’m dressed up. Now, she’s so affected by whatever happened at the country club, she’s not yelling or even talking. “Can I do anything,” I say, feeling an urge to make things right somehow.

  She sighs. “Take me running and don’t baby me about our pace.”

  Well that I can do. I take mental stock of the condition of my house—I wasn’t expecting anyone. But things are generally pretty tidy in there unless I’ve had my family over. It’s been awhile since the four of us Brady kids hung out.

  “The bathroom is at the top of the stairs,” I tell her, gesturing for her to enter the front door ahead of me. Nicole sort of mopes her way up there, and I follow to go change in my bedroom.

  I shed my suit quickly and toss on running shorts with a tech shirt. It’s probably 45 degrees but I know I’ll be sweating between staring at Nicole’s ass and running a few miles. Stepping into the hall, I gasp, realizing that Nicole hasn’t shut the bathroom door all the way.

  My house is one of the old ones, built around 1920, and half my doors don’t shut at all in the humid summers and none of them latch the rest of the year. So the bathroom door is cracked a full inch, just enough for me to see the swell of her breasts as she wrestles into her sports bra. She’s already wearing her running tights.

  If this were another day, I’d kick the door open and tackle her into my shower.

  I close my eyes and remind myself this woman is upset. Not wanting me to invade her space and bend her over my bathroom counter. But fuck, do I want to. It’s worse that she’s upset. Sex, I can deliver. Emotional comfort? I have no idea what that even looks like.

  I head downstairs to check my phone, noticing about ten thousand texts from my family.

  Cal: Can I bring a date to the wedding?

  Liam: Cal, don’t be an asshole. Of course Zack’s family gets a plus-one.

  Orla: I want to know what she did to get you into your best suit. You usually only dress that nice for court.

  And on and on.

  Me: I hate all of you.

  Call responds immediately. Ooh, he’s done with brunch. Probably sat with Nicole’s Mom and Dad in a super comfortable conversation.

  Before I can decide on a witty retort, I hear Nicole making her way downstairs. “Can you show me the route we’ll take?” She gestures outside toward the park. I had been planning to just play it by ear and weave through Frick Park, but Nicole seems interested in something more structured.

  Parameters for everything, I think.

  I flip over my tablet on the counter and pull up one of my running apps. “You feeling like hills or flat course?” I raise a brow at her. I know she’s had a hard morning, but I still don’t know if that makes her more likely to pound out a challenge or if she feels so mentally drained she can only go for a flat run on street level.

  “Show me the hills,” she says, and I feel myself fall for her a little bit more. Careful, my inner voice warns. I go over the map of the Tranquil Trail, a stretch of park I run with my brothers. It’s kind of a brutal path, despite the name. It changes elevation, winds along Fern Hollow Creek and eventually spits you out in Homewood Cemetery, intersecting with other trails whose names reference the ravines and hollows that contribute to Pittsburgh’s reputation for hilly terrain.

  “I can’t believe all this is right in the city,” she says, staring.

  “You don’t ever wander around Frick Park?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not really an outdoorsy person.” She shrugs. “Let’s get out there.”

  We head out from my house and down the wooden stairs into the woods. I let her set the pace, and it feels faster than her usual. “Don’t blow your wad on the downhill,” I try to warn her.

  “I asked you to push me,” she snips back at me. “I’ve been practicing.”

  It has been over a month since we started this, but that’s not really enough time for her to build enough endurance to go from passing out to what I estimate is an 8-minute mile pace on steep hills. But, I figure, she’s feeling salty and she’ll probably just stop if it gets too hard. “You asked for it,” I tell her.

  We make it a mile and a half before she spies a picnic table just off the path, makes a beeline for it, and collapses on top. She lies on her back, her chest heaving, arms spread wide beside her. I follow and lean over her. Once I make sure she’s ok, I nudge her with my sneaker. “Come on, Hoss. Want to be out here till dark?”

  She raises a brow. “Did you call me Hoss? Like from Bonanza?”

  “Your dad watch that show, too?”

  She starts laughing, and I can feel some of her stress melt away. Her whole demeanor changes, and I’m glad I made the joke about the old western.

  “Are you implying that I have ample girth?” Nicole sits up on the table, hugging her knees into her chest and compressing her tits. I stare and I don’t try to hide it.

  “I’m implying that you’re falling behind.” I decide not to mention that I like her girth, and that she’s thick in all the best places. Maybe later when she’s in a better mood.

  As we meander through the woods, Nicole comments on the way a lot of the land seems washed out, how some of the paths seem likely to crumble down into the ravines. “A lot of it is similar to what we’ll be talking about in Paraguay,” I tell her. “There’s actually some interesting research at the university about the landslides in the Pittsburgh region.” We run along while I tell her about the machine learning algorithms working to predict which hillsides will fail.

  “You working on all that stuff with Ray-Ray?”

  I nod. “He and his team are hooking cameras up to commuter buses to track hillside conditions. I’ve actually been consulting with them a little bit, to help analyze their images, from a soil composition standpoint. That was going to be something I focused on if my dad had given me the promotion.”

  Shit. I hadn’t intended to air all this deep shit to Nicole. Hand’t wanted to whine to her about being passed over for the department head.

  “I didn’t kno
w you were up for a promotion.” She slows down some more and this pace seems sustainable. I can tell by her breathing that she can keep this up for a long time. I try to keep her talking.

  “Yeah. I had big plans for some industrial projects. When the guy in charge of the geotechnical engineers retired, I really thought I was a shoe-in. Not even because my dad owns the company.”

  “Well what happened?”

  I kick a stick out of the path and weigh my words. “My dad got a bug up his ass about Paraguay and sent me to your house. I still have no idea what his end goal is with all that.”

  “Well I sure don’t know either, but my boss has a hard-on for that project, too.” She looks at me, her eyes serious. “I’m glad you’re on my side, about that whole thing feeling like an overreach.”

  “Everything with my dad is an overreach,” I tell her. But I’m not able to articulate what feels off now that she’s said it. Was that a threat? Is she threatened by my family? I mean, probably. My dad is really fucking weird and bombarded her with personal drama basically as soon as he met her. I shake it off. “Except his claims about our running speed,” I say. “Team Brady is going to kick Team Stag’s ass in that race.”

  I laugh and we finish out our run without any further incidents.

  Back at my house, her mood is definitely lighter, but I’m not catching a sex vibe from her. I feel awkward again, wondering if I’m supposed to ask her again if she’s ok. I opt to make her a sandwich instead, and I love how her face transforms when she watches me squirt an N shape with the mustard on hers, and a Z on mine.

  “Zack is still a stupid nickname for Isaac,” she says, softly. She turns my plate so it looks like the mustard is an N. “I’m going to eat both of these.”

  She starts to, her eyes sparkling as she takes a bite out of each sandwich, but eventually she hands mine to me and we eat standing in my kitchen, the way my family does. It feels so natural and so right to have her here, that I want to detain her when she says she needs to get going.

  I try to drive Nicole home and, if I’m honest, try to convince her to let me come inside her house, but she insists on calling her friend Emma for a ride. “They’re all at family dinner on the east end anyway. It’s on their way to take me home after.”

  Eventually, I figure she needs a chance to unload on her friend, work through whatever made her so upset at her mother’s birthday party. So I try to be a gentleman and kiss her cheek before she leaves. “Thank you for letting me be your date today,” I whisper, and I lean toward her. But Nicole stiffens and closes her eyes. My lips barely brush her cheek as she rushes toward Emma and Thatcher’s Audi SUV.

  She climbs in the back and wedges herself between the two carseats and I furrow my brow, waving as they drive off, wondering if I fucked everything up before I even decided whether I was able to move forward.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Nicole

  I HAVE NO idea what to pack for a trip to Paraguay. All that talk with Mick about landslides left me thinking the country is covered in mud, but the internet shows me that the capital city is…well, a city. I sigh. I start filling my bag with things for both an expedition into a rainforest and a boardroom. I spy the purple Babe Rocket on the floor of my closet where I threw it the last time it didn’t help me get off.

  I bite my lip. I could tell Isaac wanted me yesterday. I sure as hell wanted him. My god, the way he looked in that suit. And then he made me a fucking sandwich and that was somehow even hotter than him in the suspenders and dress shirt with his tie loosened on the drive back.

  I don’t know why I had to get all weird. Isaac did absolutely nothing to indicate he even wanted anything more with me than casual fucking. We both have talked about how we’re not cut out for long term relationships. He was mostly putting on an act for my parents because I’d asked him to.

  Because I didn’t want my mother to think I wasn’t capable of hanging onto a man longterm, of getting married like my perfect sister. I sigh.

  I pick up the vibrator, thinking I should at least rinse it off and find someplace to stash it. If I’m going to blow Isaac off, I’m going to need this until I find someone else to meet my needs. Hm, I don’t love the idea of that. First of all, none of the other men can get me off the way he can.

  The man is a magician. Like, how does he know exactly how to create friction on my clit when nobody else seems to be able to figure it out? It’s not like I haven’t tried with enough men. I scowl at the vibrator, then toss it in my suitcase.

  My phone pings with a new text message and I feel my heart race. Stop it, I chide myself, angry that I’m hoping to hear from Isaac when I have no reason to hope he’d reach out. I didn’t even let him drive me home from our date yesterday.

  The message is from Emma. So excited for your trip! Bring me back something interesting? Don’t forget to pack chapstick.

  I roll my eyes, but smile. It’s going to be humid and 90 degrees in Paraguay.

  The next day, on the flight, I sit next to Tim but glower at him the entire time. Augusto is of course flying down on a chartered flight that better suits his schedule. I can’t put a finger on what specifically has been bugging me so much about this entire ordeal, so I chew on it along with the ice from my drink until we roll up to the hotel.

  Tim checks in ahead of me and heads straight up to his room. With nobody else around, feeling a bit of a buzz from the jet lag and long hours, combined with the bloody Marys I gulped on the plane, I lean in to ask the clerk, “Has Isaac Brady checked in yet?”

  He squints at his monitor and nods. “Yes, ma’am. But unfortunately I am not at liberty to tell you which room he is in.” When I pout and sigh, starting to gather my bags, the clerk asks, “Can I deliver a message to Mr. Brady for you, perhaps?” His eyebrows shoot up.

  I don’t know what I’m thinking. I have no earthly reason to reach out to Isaac…except that I enjoy spending time with him and looking at his abs. Ok, and I like the way he takes me apart from the inside and puts me back together again with orgasms as glue. The clerk slides me a pad and pen, and I write, “Call Nicole, room 687.”

  Two minutes after I toss my purse on my hotel bed, the little phone on the nightstand starts buzzing. Suddenly I’m blushing like it’s middle school or something, and I chalk that up to the jet lag, too, before I stride over to the phone and clear my throat. “Hello?”

  “You summoned me, madam?” I can hear the smile in his voice. Snarky prick. Whatever.

  “Yes. Do you want to go for a run?”

  We meet in the lobby and head out along the river trail. The hotel is nestled along the Paraguay River, with views of the mountains of Argentina in the distance. The humidity has burned off a bit by mid afternoon and the air starts to feel crisp.

  Isaac runs in just a pair of shorts, with his t-shirt stuffed in one of the loose pockets. It’s all I can do not to drool as I keep pace beside him. “You’ve got that Monica Gellar hair,” he jokes, referencing my favorite episode of Friends when the gang goes to the Caribbean and the humidity makes Monica’s hair go haywire.

  He’s not wrong—my curls are unruly on the best of days, and as I run, they fly into my mouth, stick to my shoulders, flap in the breeze. I don’t mind it, though. It feels so good to be out here, pushing myself. I’ve come a long way since January, damn it. I’m not pounding out ten miles a day like Isaac, but according to him we are doing a 5k in about a half hour.

  “We should do a half marathon together this summer,” he says, and I stop in my tracks to stare at him.

  “A half marathon? Are you kidding?”

  His eyebrows shoot up into his head. “Would I ever joke with you?” When I smack his arm, he pretends to collapse in pain, and we wrestle around for a little, eventually coming to sit on a bench by a fountain. “Seriously, Nicole. You’re becoming a bonafide runner.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “You could hang with the Brady clan.”

  “A half marathon? Come on.” I clutch at my elbows and lean back on the
bench.

  “Nicole, you’re doing four miles regularly without much distress. If you can do four, you can do eight. If you can do eight, you can do 13. I’ll help you.”

  I look at him, his face totally serious. Like he’s suggesting I do this thing he enjoys, this difficult and inconceivable thing, just for fun. “You’re nuts, Isaac Brady,” I say, quietly. But I like that he thinks it’s possible for me to run a half marathon. That he isn’t suggesting it to help me burn calories or as a way to get glory for his business. He seems to genuinely enjoy running and wants to share that with me for some reason.

  He stands and offers me his hand, pulling me up from the bench, and then blowing a raspberry against my forearm before running off ahead. So of course I chase him, smiling when I’m able to keep up with him without much effort.

  We finish our loop and walk back into the hotel, the air conditioning feeling especially grand after running in the heat. Isaac leans over the water fountain in the lobby, and I stare at him openly, my tongue sweeping along my lips at the sight of him.

  I drink my fill after he’s done, closing my eyes in relief. Then I feel his hand on my back. The heat of his palm practically melts the shirt off my back. I forget why I was ever upset with him, why I felt off kilter earlier.

  Fuck it, I think, straightening up from the water fountain. “Want to help me stretch my muscles? In my room?”

  His brows fly up and he nods his head toward the elevator. He presses the button with his knuckle and when we get inside, he says, “Just to be clear, you were using a euphemism?”

  I shake my head, laughing. “No. I need your help stretching my hamstrings.” He starts to frown a bit and I dig my key card out from the snug pocket of my leggings. “I always feel so loose after you bend me over and ram that big dick into me.”