What to Do With a Bad Boy

by Marie Harte

  “About the only thing you have going for you,” she cut in.

  In a lower voice, still looking out for Colin, he added, “I have a big cock. One that made you beg and scream for more. Oh yeah, there go those hard little nipples. Ones I sucked until you came.”

  “Shut up. The kid’s in there.” She flushed, and that red over her cheeks reminded him of how hot she’d been when he’d spanked that glorious red into her delectable ass.

  “Say what you want, but you and I are magic in bed. Trouble is, we’re probably magic out of it too.” That hurt to say, but the truth kind of set him free. Clichéd, but there all the same. He let out a frustrated breath, missing her and the way she’d felt beneath him, and ran a finger down her cheek, risking her wrath.

  Her pupils dilated, and her breathing grew raspy. “Yeah? You think?”

  “I—”

  “Dad. Pizza guy. Can I open the door or not?” Colin paused at the kitchen and stared at them with wide eyes. “Oh boy. Are you gonna kiss?”

  “Hell.” Mike walked around her, praying his erection wasn’t noticeable, and hurried to the front door, where he took out his wallet. He paid the guy, grabbed the pizzas, and put them on the dining table. Then, as if he hadn’t started a wicked war of words with Del, he smiled. “Hungry, friend?”

  ***

  Del stared at him, wanting nothing more than to get back to their argument. The man got her blood racing. Yes, her nipples had grown hard. Because what woman wouldn’t react when Mike McCauley reminded her of that amazing sex while standing almost on top of her smelling so damn good?

  Still, she thought she’d hit on something when she’d accused him of being into her. A gamble, considering she didn’t exactly believe her own bullshit, but he’d grown pale, then flushed and slapped that challenge right back at her.

  What was it about him that made arguing so much fun? She loved talking to him, almost as much as she liked fucking him. And yeah, she hadn’t missed that giant pole in his pants. All for her.

  She wanted to take a picture and send it to Grace. “See, Mouse? This is all mine.” Immature, and nothing she’d ever stoop so low to doing, but it pleased her to think about it just the same.

  She liked the glint of challenge in Mike’s dark blue gaze. He didn’t back down, except when it came to broaching his emotions, apparently. The more she thought about it, and the more she remembered what Rena had kicked around the other night, the more she considered the notion Mike was running. From her.

  Baring her teeth at him in a smile before sinking into some mouthwateringly cheesy pizza, she listened to him and Colin, entertained by Mike and his little clone. They looked so much alike, had so many of the same mannerisms. Yet Colin also had that sly charm not present in his dad. With Mike, it was what you see is what you get. A big dude with a big heart buried under bluster and sex appeal.

  Del found herself wanting a real relationship for the first time in a long time.

  “Another slice?” Mike asked, looking down at her nearly finished piece.

  “Heck yeah.”

  “Me too.” Colin glanced from her to Mike and grinned, a little too widely for her peace of mind.

  Mike must have seen the look too, because he frowned. “What’s in that head of yours, boy?”

  “Nothing but rocks, according to Grandpa.”

  She laughed. “Your grandpa is funny.”

  “Do you have a granddad?” Colin asked her.

  “Well, my dad’s parents are dead. And I never new my mom’s parents, so no.”

  “She died when you were little.” Colin nodded. “You can have mine if you want.”

  Mike blinked. “Ah, what’s that?”

  “Del needs a grandma and grandpa. She can use mine.”

  Del coughed, choking on her crust. She could just imagine Beth’s face if Del called her Grandma. Hmm. Might be worth it to see the woman speechless.

  Mike started laughing, apparently thinking something similar. “Seriously. Fifty bucks if you call her Grandma to her face.”

  Del grinned. “No way. I like living without artificial lung support.”

  Mike shook his head. “Colin, you sure can make your old man laugh.”

  “Yep. I’m a funny guy, just like Ubie and Uncle Flynn.”

  “But not your Uncle Cam?” Del asked.

  “Nope. Uncle Cam is more serious and almost never curses. He’s not as much fun as Ubie and Uncle Flynn. And Vanessa is kind of scary. But I like her.”

  “We all feel that way, son.” Mike sighed. “My poor little brother, taking on that viper.”

  “Mike.” Del didn’t want to laugh and encourage him. Minutes ago she’d wanted to strangle him, yet right now she didn’t want to be anywhere else but with him and Colin. It was like the man had hexed her into some serious crushing.

  “I’m telling Vanessa you said that,” Colin said.

  “Narc.”

  Colin frowned. “I’m telling her you called me that too.”

  Del couldn’t help it. She chuckled.

  Mike laughed with her, and she felt an instant of true communion, two adults laughing over the innocence of a child. With humor and affection, never the condescension her mother had once shown.

  Mike’s gaze met hers, and she was astonished at the warmth there.

  Confused, aroused, and alarmed, because maybe he was right about her being the one doing all the falling, she shored up her sarcasm and let the insults fly.

  “So, Colin, do you think your wussy dad would have run screaming if he’d held Alice today? Because I think that’s why he didn’t make the field trip.”

  “Oh.” Colin regarded his dad with a crafty sneer. “Wussy man.”

  “Colin. Del,” Mike tried to growl but couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “Wussy? Wussy is your Uncle Flynn when I gave him his first swirly. Or Ubie when I pantsed him in fourth grade in front of Suzie Belcher.”

  “Oh wow. And I thought I was a delinquent.” She listened to him recount all his misdeeds as a kid, wondering if he realized the many bad ideas he was planting in his son’s head but too captivated to care. “Mike, you did not try to shave all Cam’s hair off.”

  “No. I was trying to give him a mohawk, because one of my sports heroes had one and I thought it would toughen him up.”

  Colin nodded. “Yes, Uncle Cam was not a tough kid.”

  “Mike. You can’t be talking about your brother like that to Colin.”

  Mike frowned. “Why not? Colin knows. Hell, you’ve met Cam. I love him, but he’s a little, ah, sensitive.”

  “A Nancy,” Colin corrected.

  “Colin,” Del chastised.

  “What? That’s what Grandpa called him. Dad too.”

  Mike coughed and focused on his pizza when Del glared at him.

  “Calling a boy a girl’s name as an insult is, well, insulting.”

  “Huh?” Colin looked puzzled.

  “It’s like, if there was this dorky boy at school, and no one liked him, and we all called him a Colin.”

  “Dorky? Not great?” Colin asked.

  “No. Quit calling people a Nancy. Call them something else. Like a knucklehead. Or a dork.”

  “Okay.” Colin didn’t even need to mull it over. He returned to his pizza.

  Mike smirked. “What if she’s really cool and has big muscles and scares boys? Can we call her a Del?”

  “Oh, that’s good, Dad. Yes, let’s call the good ones Dels.”

  Touched that Colin thought of her as one of the good ones, Del tried not to grin and encourage him. “Never mind that, goofy. Tell your dad about Brian and how he scared your teacher with the iguana.”

  Colin launched into more stories about his field trip. Before Del knew it, the pizza had all but disappeared. Good Lord, but Mike could eat. Colin had shocked her too by putting away so much food.

  “Maybe next time you should get three pizzas.” She stared at the remaining two slices in shock.

  “Maybe.” He winked at her.
“You have a healthy appetite.”

  “What? I’m supposed to nibble at the edges and pretend I’m full? Please. I work for a living.”

  Mike laughed. “Exactly.”

  He seemed inordinately happy over her pizza consumption, but whatever. He wasn’t making fun, that she could tell.

  “So where’s the cake?”

  “Cake?” Colin perked up. “There’s cake?”

  “I was running behind before you arrived or I’d have picked it up already. I’ll be right back.”

  “You provided pizza. I figure I can pick it up if you want,” she offered.

  “Awesome. It’s next door. You offered, no take-backs.” He blew out a breath. “Whew. Now I don’t have to answer twenty questions from Abby.”

  “Great.” So much for being nice.

  Del walked next door and knocked. She’d barely put her hand on the wood before the door opened. Abby and Maddie crowded the doorway. Then Abby’s smile split wide.

  “Come on in, Del.”

  “Said the spider to the fly,” Maddie intoned, then laughed. “So how’s the date?”

  Del entered and closed the door behind her. “It’s not a date. I’m just here to get the cake I was promised.”

  “The one I baked because Mike finally answered some questions for me for my book.” Abby smiled. “It’s coming along great, by the way. My characters feel so alive.”

  “I am not in it. Promise me.”

  “Of course not.” Abby sniffed. “It’s fiction.”

  “Hey! I saw that wink.”

  The one Maddie returned.

  “You should see the Mike character. So strong and handsome. So…sexy.” Maddie gently shoved Del toward the kitchen. “So was he good in bed? We’re all dying to know.”

  “Maddie.” Abby frowned. “Forgive her, Del.” Abby grabbed a Tupperware container housing the cake and handed it to Del, but she didn’t let go. “Well? Is he?”

  Del had to laugh. “You two are ridiculous. You’ve seen him. Of course he was good in bed.”

  “I knew it. No way he’s a dud. Just still lingering over Lea,” Abby muttered. At the silence that settled, she shook her head. “Del knows what I’m saying, don’t you? Maddie and I have talked about Mike and his solitude for months. The man needs to stop living in the past and move toward the future. Apparently his other lady friends are way on the periphery. No one meets his parents, and he has sex to sate an itch. But not with you, Del.”

  Maddie grinned. “Yeah. You’re like a major case of poison ivy he can’t stop scratching.”

  “Lovely.” Del tried to pull the cake away, understanding why Mike hadn’t wanted to be the one to get it. “Can I have my dessert?”

  “I assume you’ll be getting it soon enough.” Maddie laughed at her own joke. “Sorry. Too easy.”

  “That’s what he said!” Abby joined her laughter. She let go of the cake, and Del made a beeline for the back door. “Hold on, Del.”

  “I’m in hell.”

  “With chocolate cake. Things could be worse.” Abby’s laughter faded. “Look, we’re pulling for you. Grace is not invited to any more book clubs.”

  “Thanks, Abby. I’m touched you’re ostracizing neighbors for me.”

  “I don’t like her on principle,” Maddie added.

  “Don’t let Beth hear that. She’s in love with the woman,” Del cautioned, trying not to smile.

  “I don’t think so.” Abby opened the door for her. “Not from the reports I’m getting.”

  “Wait. Reports?” This sounded interesting.

  Maddie pushed her out the door. “Bye, Del. Do everything we would, and then some.”

  Del returned to the house, mulling over what to do with the rest of the evening. After dessert, then what? Colin would go to bed soon. Then it would just be her and Mike. They hadn’t had sex since last week. Granted, she’d gone for much longer stretches of celibacy, but she’d never been so hot for a guy before.

  And she’d have him all to herself in an hour.

  Still… He’d been obnoxious about acting like she was the one with all the emotional issues. Should she ignore him or confront him about feelings he’d buried? Leave after cake and put Mike back into a platonic pocket? Or should she try to get the man naked again?

  Decisions, decisions.

  She entered the back door without knocking and found Colin sitting at the kitchen table in his cartoony alien pajamas. He grinned at her, his focus quickly centering on the cake. “My favorite.”

  Mike joined them, and just like Colin, he lit up when he spotted the Tupperware in her hands. “Oh, chocolate cake. Yum.”

  “I thought you hated sweets.” Del calmed her racing heart, and the ball of affection inside her swelled into an uncomfortable longing as she watched the pair of them.

  “I do, but if I have to have something bad for me, I go for cake.”

  “You know, beer isn’t exactly its own food group, despite you treating it like it is. Matter of fact, it’s fattening.”

  He frowned. “Beer doesn’t count. It’s a beverage.”

  “Man, you sure do like to make your own rules about things, don’t you?” she asked, referring to more than just the beer.

  By his narrowing eyes, he understood what she hadn’t said. Funny, but it had been like that between them since their first conversation. She understood him, and he her, on another level she didn’t know how to describe.

  “You going to put the food down or what, sweetness?”

  Colin guffawed. “Get it? You’re just like the cake, Del. Sweet and chocolaty.”

  “Chocolaty?” She frowned. “That I don’t get.”

  “Well, it’s my favorite and Dad’s favorite, and you’re our favorite.”

  Mike gave her a wicked grin as he withdrew plates, forks, and a knife to cut the cake. He set them down on the table before musing, “I bet she tastes good too, son.”

  She blushed. The jerk. He well knew what she tasted like. And wow, but she could say the same about him. “Oh, I don’t know, Mike. I’m probably not nearly as…tasty…as you are.”

  To her delight, his cheeks reddened and he quickly sat next to Colin. To hide a mouthwatering erection, maybe?

  She rounded the table to lean next to him and put the cake on the table. A glance down his front revealed his arousal. “Nice. That for me?” At Colin’s questioning expression, she added, “The cake, I meant. Did Abby bake it for me?”

  Colin nodded. “Dad told her it was for our dinner, and he said he wanted something extra good ’cause she was such a pain in the ass earlier.” At Mike’s glare, Colin shrugged. “What, Dad? That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  “You have big ears, you know that?”

  Colin just smiled.

  Del cleared her throat to hide another laugh. “So Abby was a pain, huh?”

  As Mike cut the cake and set it on the plates, he nodded. “About her book, yeah. Woman asked so many questions I thought my head would explode. Especially because she kept making me stop so she could write, erase, and write again. She seems to take her research seriously.” He set a piece of cake in front of Colin, then another across the table from him, where she supposed he meant for her to sit.

  She sat across from him—only so she could see him while they talked. Not because he wanted her there. “She bugged me too. In a nice way, but man, she sure wants to know everything about everything.”

  “I do too.” Colin licked the frosting from his fork and practically glowed with happiness.

  “Yeah, you do ask a lot of questions.” She remembered the first time she’d met him, when Abby had been taking him to his soccer practice and her tire had blown. Del had been changing it while Colin bombarded her with questions.

  “How come you don’t have kids, Del?” Colin asked.

  Mike stared at her, his knife poised above the cake.

  Colin stared at her too, a carbon copy of his father.

  “Gee, that’s kind of personal, don’t you think
?” She waited for Mike to agree with her, but he said nothing.

  “Do you like kids?” Colin asked.

  “I like you. Then again, you seem more like a mutant than a kid.”

  Colin nodded. “I’m an alien. Dad is too.”

  “Now that I can believe.”

  “Funny,” Mike snorted. “This from a woman covered in tattoos and piercings.”

  “Really? I was under the impression you liked my body art.”

  The heat in his gaze as he traced a lot more than her tattoos satisfied the sultry woman inside.

  “I like ’em.” Colin glared at his father. “Dad does too. He’s teasing. Tell her, Dad.”

  Mike sighed and took a large bite of cake. After chewing then swallowing, and taking a hell of a long time to answer, he said, “I guess they’re okay. If you like tattoos.”

  “I do. I’m gonna get one when I’m eighteen. Del said I could.”

  Mike lifted a brow.

  “Hold on,” Del corrected. “I said when you were eighteen, you could get a tattoo—if your dad said it was okay.”

  Colin’s smile could be described as nothing short of devious. “Oh, I know it will be okay. He’ll say yes.”

  “Yeah? How are you gonna make me, you little monster?” Mike taunted. For a guy who didn’t like sweets, he’d polished off his cake pretty quick.

  “I won’t have to. My new mom will.”

  Silence descended while Colin finished his cake.

  Mike studied him with narrowed eyes. “Ah, what’s that? Your ‘new mom’?”

  Colin flashed her a subtle look that unnerved her. The kid couldn’t be plotting to throw her and Mike under the matrimonial bus, could he? As if Del would ever marry a guy like Mike McCauley—who hadn’t even asked, thank you very much.

  “I just know you’ll find a nice lady to be my new mom. Not for a while, but maybe when I’m ten or eleven. To settle me down, like Brian’s mom did for his older brother.”

  Mike relaxed, but Del had seen the little con artist in action before. What was he up to?

  “Mmm. That was good. Dad, can Del tuck me in with you tonight?”

  Mike looked at her. “Well?”

  “Sure. Why not? But when he’s not so gooey.”

  Colin wore more brown icing than what was left on his plate.

  “You are one messy eater, boy.” Mike sighed. “Brush your fangs and go potty. Five minutes, tops.”