I drop to the floor in front of her, gritting my teeth. My vision blurs and then clears.
“Miller?” She’s all breathy and confused.
I feel her palm on my cheek. Her piercing scream makes my ears hurt as much as my balls. Then she faints again.
I wipe at the damp spot on my cheek and check my fingers. There’s a faint streak of red, almost dried already. I wet the paper towel and wipe my cheek until it comes clean. Then I wrap a clean paper towel around her bloody finger and wait for her to come around a second time. My balls still really fucking hurt, but they’ll be fine in a couple hours. A face-butt to the groin is nothing like a puck or a stick to the cup.
Her eyes flutter open.
“Hey.”
She glances around, taking in her position on the floor. “Did I faint?”
“Twice.”
“I don’t handle the sight of blood well.”
“I figured that out.”
“Sorry.”
“Aside from the face-butt to the balls, it’s cool.” Chicks don’t understand how much it hurts to get bagged. I’ve heard Vi talk about how chicks give birth, and I’m sure that hurts like a motherpucker, but at least there’s the option for drugs to take away the pain. When a guy gets a shot to the nuts, there’s nothing we can do but put a bag of frozen peas on it and wait for our balls to come back down from our throats.
“The face-butt to what?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to get you a bandage now, ’kay?”
At her nod, I stand and turn toward the cabinets she pointed to in the first place.
“You’re naked.”
“Yup.” I open the drawer and rummage around, looking for a bandage. I move aside a ball of elastic bands and a million pens and pieces of scrap paper.
“Why?”
I glance over my shoulder. “I’m giving being a nudist a shot. What do you think?”
“Naked looks good on you.”
She gives me a weak smile and sits cross-legged on the floor, showing me her lack of panties under her shorts.
“Not as good as it looks on you.”
I find the bandages at the very back of the drawer, along with some antibiotic cream that’s two months out of date. It’ll do.
Getting back down to her level, I sit on the tile floor. My balls clench up, and my dick shrinks, trying to get away from the cold. Sunny closes her eyes as I unwrap the paper towel and check the cut again. It’s stopped bleeding for the most part, and it’s already clean, so all I need to do is cover it up. I use two bandages instead of one, in case there’s some bleed-through.
I toss the bloody paper towels in the trash and kiss the back of her hand. “All done.”
She peeks up, her expression wary until she sees the bandage.
“How’d you ever manage to make it through a hockey game?”
It’s kind of a joke, but kind of not. Hockey players get roughed up all the time. Everyone who plays professional sports should expect a few stitches along the way, especially with skates in the mix. I’ve had at least five occasions I can think of where I’ve needed stitches, whether from skates, a fast-moving puck, or a stick to a place without much padding. Most of the time, if it isn’t too bad, I get sewn up on the bench and get back in the game.
“I try not to look when people get into fights. I can handle it on TV, but in real life . . .” She shudders and pales.
The oven beeps, and she uses my shoulders to pull herself up. I stand along with her, gripping her at the waist when she falters.
“Why don’t you let me get it?”
“I’m fine. I can do it myself.” She’s almost snippy.
I let go, and she face-plants into my chest. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I lift her easily on to the counter. She grunts and makes an attempt at resisting, but she’s too unsteady, so she ends up gripping my arms instead.
“I can take a pan out of the oven, Sunny. Heating frozen food until it’s edible is one of my specialties.”
She makes a sound somewhere between a stifled laugh and an aggravated sigh.
“I’m not joking. I’m the best cook of frozen food in all of Chicago. I’d go as far as to say all of Illinois, but I don’t want to seem like I have a big ego or anything.”
“Miller.”
“Sunny.”
The oven beeps again. This time she lets go of my shoulders and motions toward it. I grab an apron off the counter and tie it around my waist to protect my dick before I open the oven. Inside is a huge pan of cinnamon buns, covered in pecans and bubbling around the edges. I put the mitts on and take them out, setting them on the granite counter.
“Where did you get these?”
“I made them.”
“When?”
“This morning, while you were sleeping.”
“Like, from scratch?”
“Yup.”
“Dough and all?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what scratch means.”
I stop ogling the buns and look over my shoulder. I’m almost a hundred-percent sure that was sarcasm. She’s still sitting on the counter, her feet and head dangling.
“I’m impressed.” I search the cupboards for a couple of plates and rifle through the drawers until I find something to help remove them from the pan.
“They still need to be iced.”
“I don’t need icing.”
I’m about to dig in when I hear the soft thud of her feet hitting the ground.
“You’re impatient.” She hip-checks me out of the way and grabs a serving tray.
I step aside and lean against the counter while she places the tray over the buns and then flips the whole thing upside down. Jiggling it around, she lifts the baking pan to reveal glistening, pecan-and-syrupy rolls. Fragrant steam wafts into the air. My mouth is watering, and I’m starving. My post-sex wings last night have already been burned off. I need to feed the beast.
I go to grab one, and Sunny smacks my hand. “They’re too hot.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Let me put the icing on first so you don’t burn off your tongue.”
“I’m hungry.”
“As hungry as you were last night?” She’s looking at the bowl, not me.
“Is that an invitation or a request for a repeat?” I move in behind her, pressing my sort-of hard-on against the small of her back. “Because I’m definitely interested in more of last night, and more of this morning.”
“This morning?”
“Well, maybe not the fainting part, or you trying to dice off your fingertip, but this—” I gesture to the kitchen and kiss her shoulder. “What we’re doing here, I like this. I’ve never done it before.”
“Had someone faint on you?” She stirs the icing, but her breath hitches and a flush creeps up her neck.
“Woken up to someone I like making me breakfast.”
“No one’s ever made you breakfast?”
“Nope. Except for Skye, but that doesn’t count since she’s my stepmom, and everything she makes comes from a package.”
Sunny turns around in my arms, her expression pensive. “What about when you were a kid? Didn’t anyone make you breakfast before school and stuff?”
“Mostly I ate cereal in the morning, since it was just me and my dad and he’s a sucky cook.” I stare at the cupboards, taking in the details. Memories of my mom are vague. Also, most of them aren’t nice, and it’s not something I talk about much. Up until now I’ve avoided it with Sunny.
Sunny runs a finger up my arm and over my shoulder until she reaches my jaw. She curls it around my chin and angles my head so I’m looking at her, not into space. “What happened to your mom?”
I twirl a lock of her hair between my fingers, considering how much I want to share. Fanning out the end, I brush it back and forth across my lips before I speak. “She had an inoperable brain tumor. She died when I was three.”
Sunny strokes my cheek. Her affection doesn’t feel like it’s
made of pity. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. “I don’t remember her much. She got headaches a lot. They thought they were migraines. Mostly I remember her being in the hospital. Then it was me and my dad for the most part. Even before she was gone it was my dad taking care of things.”
“That must’ve been so hard.”
“It was hardest on my dad. I was too young to get what was going on. I wasn’t an easy kid. I had lots of energy. School was hard for me. I needed a lot of attention, and my dad worked long hours.”
I leave out the hardest part to talk about: that none of Dad’s attempted relationships worked out because of me. Single dads are only cool in movies. It was clear early on that school wasn’t going to be my thing. I didn’t pick things up as fast as I should have, so I lagged behind the other kids. One chick told my dad she didn’t sign up for a special-needs kid. She dropped the “R” bomb. I never saw her again after that.
There weren’t any other girlfriends until my junior year of high school—none that I ever met until my dad started dating Skye, Vi’s mom, anyway. She was nice and fun to be around.
“Sidney raised you on his own?”
“Yeah, for the most part. I spent a lot of time at Randy’s when I was growing up. His mom cooked and stuff, but it was different.” Not that his situation was much easier. His dad played professional hockey and was gone a lot. His parents divorced when he was eleven.
Sunny’s eyes go the kind of liquid I equate with sadness.
“Anyways, it’s nice to have someone want to do things for me.”
I don’t want to talk about depressing shit. It reminds me that this thing me and Sunny have going is complicated. Before her, I never would’ve considered spending a weekend with the same woman. In the past, last night would’ve been followed by either more of the same come morning, or a quiet departure on the part of the bunny. If it was one of the girls I saw more regularly, I might make coffee or order in some breakfast before I sent her on her way, but none of them ever went out of their way to make breakfast for me. It feels good—less like I’m an occasional convenience and more like I’m important beyond my ability to provide orgasms in bulk.
I reach for one of the cinnamon buns, done with talking. A puff of steam follows, and my fingers instantly heat to the point of being uncomfortable. Still, I want to end this conversation, and I’m hungry.
“Those are still too hot!” Sunny grabs it out of my hand.
I hold onto her wrist and try to pull it toward my mouth, but she drops it.
“That was a waste!” I debate eating it even though it’s been on the floor.
“It was burning my fingers!”
“Let me see.” The tips are pink and covered in cinnamon-bun goo, so I suck each one into my mouth and finish cleaning them off with a kiss. “Better?”
“Better.”
I push the bowl of icing out of the way and lift her onto the counter. “I know what we can do while we wait for those to cool.” I part her legs with my palms and step between them, pulling her close to the edge. My erection sticks straight out under the apron. Sunny reaches around and pulls the tie, setting me free.
“You have the best ideas.”
“I know, right?” I pull her tank over her head and palm her breasts.
She wraps her warm fingers around my cock and starts stroking. We make out, feeling each other up until Sunny lets go and shoves her shorts down her thighs. Everything goes from playful to frantic when she hooks her legs around my waist and pulls me in tight against her. I rub my cock against wet pussy. Which is when I remember that all the condoms are upstairs, in the bedroom.
I drop my head into the crook of her neck as I slide through that heavenly, hot wetness. I’ve only had sex without a condom once. It was back in high school with the girl I thought I was in love with. The paranoia after the fact was almost worth how good it felt. Almost. The two weeks I spent terrified I’d gotten her pregnant ruined all the fun.
I groan as she swivels her hips. “We need to go upstairs.”
“I like it here just fine,” she says.
“The condoms are in your bedroom.”
“I’ve been on the pill since I was sixteen.” She’s giving me permission to go bareback. It’s hard to say no to that.
“It’s not a hundred-percent effective.” It sounds more like a question than it does a statement.
“You can pull out at the end if you’re worried.”
I bite her shoulder and then along her neck. Sunny gasps and shifts her hips. I slide low. Really low. Almost to door number two.
“Oh no! You’re not pulling that trick on me!”
I lift my head, confused. “What?”
“Nuh-uh. We’re not doing anal.”
I almost do a spit-take. “Say what now? I wasn’t trying to—”
Her voice is high pitched. “My ex-boyfriend tried to get me to have anal all the time because he said it was less risky, and we wouldn’t have to use protection.”
It sounds like Sunny’s had some douchey exes. I sure as hell hope this Kale dude isn’t the one she’s talking about. “What did you think I was going to do, Sunny? Just try to slip it in there?”
“That’s what he used to do!”
“How small was his dick?”
She holds up two fingers.
“Is this the same guy who couldn’t get you off?”
I’m not surprised when she nods. I mean, seriously, that’s a way-below-average dick. I grab the hand she’s holding up and wrap her fingers around my cock. Talking about anal gets me stupid hard. I can’t help it. I’m a guy. I want to go where I’m not supposed to.
“Baby, do you think I could slip this into your ass without you noticing?”
“Well, no, but—”
“But what, Sunny? You think I’m gonna sneak-attack you?”
“I’m just saying, you wouldn’t be the first to try it.”
“But would I be the first one to actually succeed is the most important question.”
I’m totally joking, and then she says, “I’m not answering that.”
I don’t get to ask any more questions. All of a sudden Andy and Titan start barking their heads off. It’s only eight. Sunny’s ride isn’t supposed to be here yet.
“Sunshine? Sweetie? We’re home.”
Oh shit. The ’rents are back early.
CHAPTER TEN
SURPRISES SUCK. SO DOES KALE.
I’m naked. Sunny’s naked, and we were about to fuck on her mother’s counter. It would’ve been superhot.
I grab Sunny’s tank from the floor, toss it to her, and wrap the apron around my waist. Then I bolt. My first thought is to go for the pantry, but then I’ll be trapped in the kitchen. My rental is in the driveway. They know I’m here.
I bust it down the hall toward Robbie’s office, skidding to a stop before I hit the living room. I can hear her parents, but I can’t tell where they are. The stairs are too risky, being close to the front door.
A pair of my swim shorts is hanging on the line outside by the pool. If I can get to them, Sunny and I can avoid this being more of a shitstorm. I’m not sure the ’rents are going to be all that happy about my presence this early on a Sunday morning. It makes it questionable whether I slept over. Sunny might be an adult, but her parents are damn protective of her. I haven’t had to deal with a disapproving dad since I was drafted and gave up the girlfriend bullshit.
I’m about to hit the sliding door when Daisy’s voice filters down the hall. “It smells wonderful in here! Oh! Those look delicious.”
She’s in the kitchen. This is perfect. It means I can make it without being seen.
“Whose car is in the driveway?” Robbie asks.
“Miller stopped by to visit.” Sunny’s voice has that high, reedy quality that comes with getting caught doing something she shouldn’t have.
“Miller’s here? That’s great! I was afraid you weren’t seeing him anymore!” Daisy replies, her enthusiasm appreciate
d on my part.
“Mom!”
“Well, it’s been a few weeks. I know how Alex feels about all that stuff on the Twatter. I was worried maybe you’d changed your mind.”
Jesus. Daisy knows what Twitter is? That’s not good. I have no idea what the content of “the stuff” could be, but it can’t be very flattering if Waters has mentioned it. I need to be more careful about things like that. And not just because it makes Sunny look bad. It makes me look bad, and it makes her parents less likely to like me.
“It’s Twitter, Mom.”
“Right. The Twitter. Anyway, I’m pleasantly surprised. Well, where is he? I’d love to say hello.”
“Yeah. Where is Miller? When did he get here exactly?” Robbie’s usually calm voice has an edge to it.
“Um . . . Well . . . He, uh . . . He was visiting a couple of friends in Toronto, and he’s got this camp thing he’s volunteering at in Muskoka—did you know it’s close to Alex’s cottage?” She’s stalling, trying to come up with a lie. Sunny’s not an inherently good liar. She’s too honest and sweet. I slip out onto the patio, accidentally kicking Andy’s favorite ball. He rushes past me, running after it. I don’t have time to corral him. I need to be not naked. I jump up and yank my shorts off the line, almost falling on my face as I drag them up my legs.
Birds tweet overhead, their stupid oblivious happiness getting on my nerves. I glance around as I stuff my now ninety-percent-soft dick into my shorts and make sure everything is done up. Across the yard I see a flash of white hair and what I’m sure are binoculars. I’d call Mr. Woodcock out, but I don’t have time. I toss the apron over the line and cover the distance to the pool in two long strides, diving in.
I swim across to the other side. Andy drops the ball at the edge when my head pops out, barking excitedly. I snatch up the ball, toss it across the yard, and pull myself out.
“We’ll play later, buddy. Come on, let’s go in and see Sunny.” Grabbing a towel from the back of the chair, I run it over my chest and wrap it around my waist. Andy trots behind me with that ball in his mouth, desperate for more attention.
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