Because Forever (The Avenue Book 2)

by B. Cranford

  Grabbing her phone, she checked out the screen. Another message from TrueMates.

  TM.App: Lasagna Lover, you have a NEW match!

  TM.App: Log in to see if Lookin4Foreva is your True Mate™!

  Shaking her head at the idea of anyone else matching her Austin-customized profile, she stuffed her phone in the back pocket of her jeans before reaching for her keys.

  She had a first date to get to.

  And apparently, someone looking for forever to turn down.

  Austin had arrived at the bakery early, eager to get on with his first date with Odette. He’d already decided that, instead of being worried about or ashamed of his eagerness, he was going to embrace it.

  Just like he’d embraced the buy four, get one free special on donuts the bakery was running that day.

  He had ten donuts in front of him. But if Odie didn’t arrive soon, that might become nine.

  Or eight.

  Okay, seven, but that was where he’d draw the line.

  The bell over the door rang, grabbing Austin’s attention away from the tempting, doughy goodness on the table in front of him.

  It was Odie. In yesterday’s tight jeans and a navy-colored wool coat that spoke to the cold weather outside.

  “Are you expecting more than one date to show up, CrocMan?” she asked as she approached, stepping into his arms when he stood for a hug.

  He couldn’t wait until the end of the date to get his hands on her.

  Pressing a kiss to the top of her red-head, he replied, “No, I just know how you get when I don’t feed you.”

  “Um, excuse me? I’m not the one with the window,” she retorted, ending the hug by stepping back and poking him in the chest with her finger.

  “Touché.”

  “They were having a sale, weren’t they?”

  Austin nodded guiltily, sitting only after Odie had taken her seat. “And then I couldn’t decide which ones looked best. It was hard enough resisting the Danishes to take advantage of the donut deal. You can’t expect a man to not get a taste of all of his favorites.” He looked his girl up and down, knowing that his face was translating his words for him—I wanna taste of you, my favorite girl.

  “No, why deny yourself?”

  He nearly groaned at the way she said it—an invitation if ever he heard one. But they weren’t there to taste anything other than the delights of Madison’s Main Street Bakery.

  The taste-testing would have to wait, but that was okay.

  He could be patient now he knew that Odie was going to be on the menu . . . soon.

  “Missed you this morning,” he said instead of continuing the flirty, sexy innuendo.

  “You saw me less than twelve hours ago.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t really see you for weeks before that, so”—he smiled at her to let her know he was teasing, but part of him was telling the truth. Being without her since their fight had been far, far harder than he’d ever admit to.

  For all that she was a fighter and strong, his Odie had a soft heart, and he didn’t want to give her reason to feel bad. What had happened had sucked, but it had led them here. And here was exactly where he wanted to be.

  She blew him a kiss over the table, then reached for a chocolate glazed donut, that he thought might have some kind of fruity filling. “Is this one mine?”

  “Everything at this table is yours, if you want it, Odie.” Himself included.

  The way she bit her lip told him that she’d heard his unspoken add-on and that she’d liked it, and for a minute, Aussie couldn’t help but just look at her.

  But then common sense kicked in. This was their first date—the getting to know you phase was beginning, and he needed to kick his wooing plan into high gear.

  “So, Lasagna Lover—can I call you Garfield?” he asked, grabbing his own donut from the tray in front of him.

  She laughed and nodded, her mouth too full of chocolate-and-fruity goodness to be able to reply properly. But that was okay, Austin was more than prepared to steer the conversation.

  “Wonderful, so, tell me about yourself. Where are you from, what do you do, when will you marry me?”

  The last question earned him an eye roll—or maybe it was all three questions that caused that reaction in her—but instead of laughing it off or changing the topic, again, he waited.

  She swallowed and then leveled him with a look that said she was on to him. “You know all about me. Why are you asking me these questions?”

  With a who me? gesture, he explained, “You asked me for this, remember? To treat you like any girl I’d be interested in getting to know. So answer my questions.” He paused, unable to help himself from adding, “Especially that last question. It’s very important to me.”

  “Funny guy. But okay,” she said with a giggle, “I’ll play along. For now.” She took another bite of her donut and he waited, feeling slightly odd that the way her mouth moved around as she ate made his cock thicken.

  Pegging. Biting. All of it sounds good with her.

  “Okay, Mick,” she began, using the name he’d given himself on his TrueMates profile, “I’m from Winslow, which is about an hour from here. Have you heard of it?”

  “Funnily enough, I have. I’m from there, too.” He covered his mouth to illustrate his shock, then rolled his hand in a gesture for her to continue.

  “How about that? What a coincidence.” She shook her head, then kept going. “I work part-time at a bar here in town, and have a personal training business at the gym on Ace Boulevard.”

  “A bartender? Waitress? Sultry singer earning her bread by laying on a piano in a slinky dress while singing the blues?”

  “A bartender, but umm,” she bit her lip again, this time with a hint of mischief in her eyes, “I should warn you—I have a bit of a thing for one of the owners. That–that won’t be a problem as we get to know each other, will it, Mick?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me more about him? Is he handsome?”

  “Oh, he’s so handsome.”

  “He’s smart, too, right? And funny?”

  “Mmm,” Odie practically moaned, closing her eyes and making Austin’s dick perk up even more. “So smart. So funny. And just, like, his body. You have no idea.”

  “Jesus, Odie, stop.”

  “Odie, who’s Odie?” She opened her mouth in fake surprise, but all Austin could picture was her opening her mouth for another reason. “I’m Garfield, remember?”

  The absurdity of the conversation made him want to laugh, but hearing her talk about him like that—even though he knew it was just her flirting and playing around with him—was starting to kill the humor.

  He needed to get the conversation back on track. He cleared his throat and asked, “So, personal training, huh? Tell me more.” Propping his elbow on the edge of the table and resting his chin upon his palm, he leaned in and whispered, “Do you work out in tiny lycra shorts, Lasagna Lover?”

  “I do, sometimes. Sometimes lingerie though, if my clients have been very good about doing their home exercises and following their diet plans.”

  “Realllllly,” he replied, drawing the word out in interest. Not because he really believed she did that, but because he was picturing drunk Odie answering her door in black silk and lace and wondering if she’d give him a show sometime.

  “Yes, really. But make no mistake, in addition to all my personal training certifications, I also have a degree from the Rory Meyers College of Nursing at New York University. ”

  “So, what you’re saying is you can train me until I can’t move, then nurse me back to full health?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Do you miss it? Nursing?” he asked, the question a serious one. After she’d returned from New York with her degree, she’d worked for only a handful of years in her field before becoming a trainer.

  Her years spent boxing had given her an appreciation for the miracle of the human body, and as her amateur boxing career—such as it
was—wound down, and her dissatisfaction with nursing grew, she’d found herself gravitating more and more towards helping others get themselves into shape.

  She smiled, recognizing the genuine question among the fun. “No, not really. You know how hard it was for me.” Her smile faded a little, remembering some of the harder things she’d seen and done in her brief nursing career. “I loved helping people but it was hard when we couldn’t. Plus, the egos and the politics and the, ugh, everything else.”

  “The doctors hitting on you constantly?”

  She laughed, “Yes, I was beating them off—”

  “You were what?!”

  “—with a stick, you idiot.”

  “You’d call a man you just met an idiot? What kind of lady does that?” he teased, slipping back into their “we’ve never met” game and earning another laugh from Odie.

  “I’m no lady.”

  “Which, it must be said, makes you exactly my kind of lady.”

  “I’m taking this one next,” she said out of nowhere, pointing to a donut that sparkled a little like unicorn poop, “so if you have a problem with that, you’d better speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  “I don’t want a donut that looks like something that a horned horse would shit out, but thanks for the warning.”

  “A horny horse? What the hell?”

  “A horned horse—a unicorn?”

  “Oh, well, I happen to love rainbow sprinkles and edible glitter so . . .”

  “I only like edible glitter on a lady.”

  “But as we’ve just established, I am, in fact, no lady,” she retorted, her enjoyment of their playful back-and-forth evident on her face.

  “Which we also established makes you my kind of lady, thus you should strip and coat yourself in edible glitter for me later, yeah?”

  Her laughter made the people sitting around them look over, and a surge of pride hit Austin that he’d done that—he’d made her laugh so happily that others sat up and took notice.

  God, he wanted to keep doing it.

  “So, Mick,” she said, getting back to their game, “tell me about you. Since now you know more about me . . .”

  “Well, let’s see. I’m also from Winslow, I own a bar here in town with my sister who is very pregnant. Oh, and I have a thing for my employee, but that won’t stop us getting to know each other, will it?”

  “No, I don’t think it will,” she winked, taking such a big bite of her unicorn donut that Austin had to shift a little in his seat, her mouth giving him ideas.

  Deep-throating ideas.

  He was just a man, after all.

  “Aussie?” Odie asked after a beat. “Can we go back to us now?”

  He nodded, happy that she’d played along, but equally as happy to get back to them. “Sure thing, Garfield.”

  Her next question startled him a little. “Are you Lookin4Foreva?”

  “Um, yes? I mean, we already kind of talked about this, didn’t we?” he responded, trying to figure out her angle. “If it’s with you, that’s what I want. At least, I want to try for that.” He was decisive in his answer, having decided that maybe she needed reassurance. “You have to know that I mean that.”

  She dropped what remained of her donut on the tray, crumbs scattering this way and that, but stood without uttering a word. Soon enough—or maybe not soon enough, since it had been years that he’d waited for her—she was sitting in his lap again, kissing him hard and deep and Oh, God, I’m going to come in my pants.

  Her mouth was insistent, his working to match her pace but enjoying just being kissed like Odie’s life itself depended on it.

  Pulling away, Odie dropped two more quick pecks on his lips before explaining. “I meant on the app, since I got another match just before I came here, but I swear, Aussie, that was the best answer.”

  “You got another match?” he asked, unable to process the rest of her words, his mind frozen on the idea that someone else had matched his girl.

  His girl whose profile he himself had created with every quirky answer he could think of through the questionnaire to ensure that no one else would.

  Except . . . someone did.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck?

  “Delete the app,” he demanded. “Now. Or better yet, give me your phone and I’ll delete the damn thing.”

  “Um, you put it on there. Why are you mad at me?” She looked beautiful but indignant, not that Austin could muster any remorse for his tone—at least, he wouldn’t be able to until the app was gone and she wasn’t being wooed by anyone but him.

  “Odie, I’m not kidding. Some weirdo matched you and all the stupid answers I gave those questions. Delete the app.”

  She tried to stand, but Aussie locked his arms around her waist. “Odette.”

  “Austin, I can’t delete the app unless you let me up. My phone is in my back pocket.”

  The mood changed almost instantly. The idea of sliding his hand into her pocket and getting the phone out himself broke through his ire and annoyance over the TrueMates debacle, and he didn’t just let her go, he helped her to her feet.

  “Let me,” he said once she was standing, her ass practically in his face, the outline of her phone pressing against the denim of her tight jeans.

  Instead of pinching the top of the phone and pulling it out, his hand started on the back of her thigh, palm flat, just the slightest grip testing the strength in the muscle there.

  These legs. He could just picture them around his waist again, only this time, she’d be naked and he’d be balls deep inside her and—

  “Austin.” The moan in her voice told him that her mind had headed to the exact same place as his and damn, if that didn’t make it harder for him to keep it PG when they were in public.

  With that thought in mind, he gripped her hips and turned her so she faced the group, her ass hidden from the view of anyone else—as well as it could be in an open bakery filled with Sunday morning brunchers. Then, replacing his one hand on her thigh, he slowly, slowly, slid it up and over the curve of her ass and the hard rectangle of her phone, finally plucking the device from her pocket.

  “Got it,” he croaked, his throat almost as constricted as his pants. “Sit down, Odie.”

  She started to move away from him—back to her own chair, he assumed, but he wasn’t interested in that. He wanted her to sit down in his lap again. Let her feel the evidence of what that mostly tame little interlude had done to him. He gripped her hand and pulled her until she tumbled back on him and laid a kiss on the side of her neck for no other reason than he could.

  She was playing along with everything that had happened on their first date—planned or unplanned; gentlemanly or ungentlemanly—and that deserved a reward.

  And fine, the reward was also for him, because the feel of her creamy, soft skin under his lips was already addictive. Hey, what was wrong with everyone being a winner?

  “May I?” he asked, shaking her phone out in front of her.

  “Of course.” She turned, far enough that she was practically straddling him, and looked him in the eye. “I would have deleted it before I ever answered. But if it was you, I was going to play along again.”

  Damn. She knew just the right thing to say to settle his possessive side and satisfy his playful one. “You liked the app?”

  “Only once I realized it was you, which was about twenty seconds after I read the messages on my phone.”

  “I’m sorry, babe.” He apologized for getting angry even as he swiped open the phone and removed the app without looking at any more messages. “Overreacted.”

  “Just a little, but it’s okay.” She took the phone when he held it out, but didn’t move from where she sat.

  He liked that. He’d be her chair anytime she wanted.

  “So, anyway. Did you talk to your brother this morning?”

  He didn’t mind moving on from the odd moment, shaking his head as he answered. “No, but I’ll probably call him later. Wild to think that
he’ll be back here with a kid soon.”

  “I hope–I just don’t want it to get messy. For the little boy, or for Simon and A. I can’t imagine.”

  “If anyone can handle it though, it’s them, right?” He laughed. “Well, Simon can, anyway. He’s the responsible one.” It was their family joke—Simon had been the one they all went to for advice when it was needed from pretty much the start of his and Aaron’s relationship. “Did I tell you he and I had a come to Jesus moment over you?”

  She frowned at him. “What? No, what?”

  “Right, so, you remember when Ash kicked Andrew out?” He waited for her nod, then continued. “We all got a little drunk that night—except Simon—and offered Andrew advice.”

  “Oh Lord, I can just imagine it. You and Aaron suggesting sex as the answer, Simon giving him actual, usable advice?”

  Austin nodded sheepishly, then stopped. “Well, actually. Apparently, I couldn’t stop talking about you.” He shrugged. “I missed you. I wanted you. And I had about seven too many whiskeys commiserating with Dunk.”

  “Seven too many, meaning you had how many?”

  “Seven.”

  Odie couldn’t deny she was a more than a little curious about Austin’s “Come to Jesus” moment. “Simon—he gave you advice about me?”

  “Not that night. Later. Something along the lines of ‘For the love of God, don’t do anything other than apologize because you were wrong.’ Which I totally heeded.” He paused, thinking it over. “Eventually.”

  “And that night?”

  “We—and by that I mean Simon—sorted Andrew out, and I thought about you non-stop.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

  She lifted her hand to cup his cheek, wanting to apologize for cutting him out of her life for those few weeks, even though she knew it had been the right thing for her, for them. But still, “If it helps, I was probably at home reminding myself to be mad at you. I had to keep listening to that damn message you left so I wouldn’t cave.”

  “I knew it,” he laughed, “I knew you’d have kept it and listened to it more than once.”