by Emily Bishop
I’d learned to build boats while we’d been living in Mystic, and it was a hobby that had stuck, regardless of how often we had moved.
The fact that some offshore girl thought she knew better than me just because she happened to work in a hardware store was laughable. I knew she had just been trying to be helpful, but boats were my thing. My favorite, and only, pastime.
I watched as a sea gull made a lazy circle overhead and settled on the mast of a sailing boat nearby.
I remembered naming the gulls as a child, remembered strolling around main street with my mother on Saturday mornings just like all the other families. I remembered wishing that we would stay there.
We didn’t, of course. It had been nothing but an idle childhood fantasy.
Perhaps if the girl in the hardware store knew who I was, she would have known better than to question me. Especially when it came to boats but about everything else as well, really. She definitely would have known better than to kick me out of her damn store if she knew that I was once Mystic royalty.
No one, and I mean no one, told me what to do. Or what not to do, for that matter. I couldn’t believe that that little scrap of a girl thought that she could. The cans of paint she’d been hauling around when I’d first arrived in the store looked like they weighed more than her.
I resented the fact that she questioned my judgment and had the nerve to kick me out, but I was also intrigued by her. I could tell she wasn’t used to a man being so direct with her but she hadn’t backed down right away.
Those gorgeous blue eyes watched me with intense interest as I flirted with her. Her full, ripe lips had trembled at some of my more suggestive comments, begging me to still them with a kiss. Just picturing her luscious curves had my pants tightening.
I glanced down at my watch. The cleaning service should almost be done by now. They’d finished up the downstairs a few hours ago, and they were getting everything squared away upstairs now.
Sure enough, one of the cleaning staff called to me from the back door, telling me I was all set. I went back inside and handed each of the workers a hefty tip before they left. They’d earned it. The house looked brand new.
All alone now, I walked past my father’s office but I wasn’t ready to open that can of worms just yet. It didn’t help that I couldn’t get the girl from the hardware store out of my head.
She had bantered with me and argued with me in a way that no woman ever had. She didn’t fall all over herself to fuck me, even if her eyes and body language betrayed the fact that the thought crossed her mind. She’d held her own in her argument. About boats, no less.
I couldn’t deny that the whole exchange had turned me on. All the way on. I’d been thinking about caging her to a shelf with my arms and kissing her until she was breathless, wanting me enough to concede that she was wrong. So much so that she begged me to stay instead of ordering me to leave when that guy had interrupted us.
Fuck. Just like that, I was hard. That’s how much the banter had turned me on. Well, the banter, and the fact that it came from a girl who was sexy as sin.
The apron she’d been wearing did nothing to hide the swell of her gorgeous breasts. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, showing off the smooth lines of her neck. I thought about gripping that ponytail in my fist, guiding her head down, and watching her wrap her pink lips around my cock.
That did it.
I needed to get her out of my system, and more than that, I needed a release. The last couple of days had been stressful as all hell, and those bright blue eyes checking me out from her pretty face had ramped up the tension in my body, channeling it all to my throbbing cock.
I thought about surfing the web for porn when I reached my bed, but the heat from her gaze when I’d stepped into the store was front and center in my mind. As was the way that her dark chocolate hair brushed the tips of her breasts in the front and hung all the way to her pert little ass in the back.
I shrugged out of my jeans and laid down on my bed, rubbing my erection that was still covered by my briefs. I felt like teenager, given that I had a raging hard dick and was half naked on my bed before the sun had even completely set. But my body was insistent, and I wasn’t getting anything done because of it anyway.
In my mind’s eye, I went back to the store in the cool early evening. She was there. Alone. She would be surprised to see me there, but her eyes would be burning hot, her nipples peaked under her shirt.
I ran my hand down my abdomen and freed my cock from my briefs, groaning with relief when it was no longer straining against the material. I stroked up and down, slowly at first, imagining how I would walk right up to her and kiss her the way that I had wanted to earlier.
Her body would mold with mine. She would be reluctant, but then she’d open for me, moaning as she rocked her hips against me.
I pumped my fist harder, faster, my free hand wrapping around my balls. My neck arched and the air surrounding me no longer felt cool. I could practically hear the little sounds that she would make when I slid my hand under her skirt and cupped her over her soaked panties.
I groaned, rubbing my thumb over the wet tip of my dick, easily visualizing the slick bead of pre-cum to be from her wetness as I fucked myself.
My hips thrusted to meet the strokes of my hand, my mind running wild. I gripped her ass and lifted her against me, walking her over to the counter. It was just the right height for my throbbing cock to line up perfectly with her slick pussy.
I imagined sinking into her with one hard thrust and her crying out as I hit home. How she would writhe beneath me. I would clutch her hips to keep her in place and fuck her quick and hard. Then long and slow.
Her bright blue eyes, almost the exact color of the ocean, would be dark and heavy-lidded. Her breathing would be as ragged as mine. She would be chasing her release as hard as I was chasing mine.
My dick pulsed. I was so close. I tightened my grip and stroked myself with abandon, needing to come so badly it was almost painful. I moaned loudly. The familiar tingling started in my balls and traveled to the base of my spine, my stomach dipping on a harsh breath. My muscles tensed.
A low groan was ripped from my chest when my orgasm finally hit. Pleasure shot through me as warm, thick cum shot in jets from my tip, covering my stomach and forearms.
By the time I caught my breath, the sun had set and the house was dark. I reached for my bedside lamp and flicked it on, bathing the room in soft light. My heart was still hammering in my chest as I came down from my high.
I was in for a long night, but I didn’t mind one little bit. It had been way too long since I’d paid that kind of attention to myself.
Chapter Three
Fiona
I struggled to haul a box of roofing insulation up on the shelf. The box was just heavy enough and bulky enough to make it a real pain in the ass.
Usually Drew took care of the stock that had to go on the higher shelves, but I had sent him out for ice cream. There were perks to him thinking that I was PMSing, and I figured I deserved to exploit them. But I couldn’t very well leave the boxes lying around on the floor while he was gone.
The box slipped from my hands and tumbled to the floor. I cursed quietly and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. Wrestling with this one box had already turned me into a mess. My face was red and sweaty, wisps of hair floated around my head where they’d escaped from my ponytail, and the front of me was covered in a grimy layer of dust.
Still, I wasn’t going to let it beat me. I hunkered down in a bow-legged squat to grab the ends of the unwieldy box. I was just glad there was no one else in the store to see my undignified pose.
The bell over the front door rang, and I glanced over my shoulder awkwardly to see who it was. Of course, it was him. The cocky, know-it-all stranger who I’d thrown out of the store a week ago.
He eyed my huddled position around the box, making me painfully aware of how ridiculous I must look. He didn’t say anything but
the upward curve of his lips spoke volumes.
My face burned bright red with embarrassment, and I turned my head away from him, hoping he hadn’t seen it. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me blush.
I expected him to approach me, but the sound of his footsteps on the creaky floor told me he’d gone down another aisle. I let out a deep, relieved breath. But that relief was quickly followed by irritation.
Can’t he take a hint? It wasn’t even really a hint. I’d asked him point blank to get out of the store, yet here he was again.
The infuriatingly hot stranger was back for a second round, apparently. I was still bristling from our last encounter and frustrated because I still hadn’t remembered to buy batteries.
And, of course, he had to walk in at the worst time. I looked like I hadn’t showered in days, and I was crouched in the most inelegant position possible. Not that I even cared what the cocky stranger thought of me. But if I had to face him again, it would have been nice to do so with a modicum of grace.
It didn’t help that Drew had been ribbing me about the guy all week and blaming my moodiness on a combination of being horny and PMSing. I wasn’t even PMSing. I had been rolling my eyes and telling him off about it but it only encouraged him.
Men. Even the ones of the friend variety were impossible sometimes.
I ignored the guy and focused instead on somehow getting the box onto the shelf with looking even clumsier.
Hopefully, Drew would be back before the guy finished picking up whatever it was that he needed, and I wouldn’t have to do the checkout.
The guy didn’t approach me, so I gave him a chance to do his shopping. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t still on edge. As much as I was trying to concentrate on tipping the box onto the shelf that was just beyond reach, I was supremely aware of the guy’s presence on the other end of the aisle.
I leaned onto my tippy toes, guiding the corner of the box onto the shelf and breathing a premature sigh of relief when I thought that I had gotten it secure enough to slide forward. But the box came crashing to the floor when I shifted forward and lost my balance.
The box landed with a thud and sent a puff of dust into the air inches away from where I landed flat on my ass. A burst of pain shot up my spine at the impact, but I stretched gingerly and concluded that, at worst, I would have a bruise on my ass.
My ego, on the other hand, suffered an irreparable blow.
Forest green eyes appeared in my line of sight. A small line marred the skin between his brows as he reached a hand out to me, concern clear in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked, dropping to his haunches beside me.
“I’m fine. I just miscalculated.” I brushed away the hand he had extended to me and huffed to my feet, wincing at the pain in my butt.
Both the literal and figurative pains in my butt. Hah.
I reached for the offending box, determined to make it, and the stupid high shelves, my bitches.
Having turned my back on him almost immediately, I didn’t notice him move to take the box from me. One second, I was straining toward the shelf, and the next, I was holding nothing but air, and he was effortlessly sliding the box into place.
“I’ve got this,” I said, with less force than I’d hoped.
I was suddenly breathless. The cocky stranger was right behind me. So close I could feel the heat of him radiating against mine. Every nerve ending in my body lit up like Christmas lights, feeling ultrasensitive.
His warm breath tickled my neck, sending a shiver through me. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to ignore the feelings igniting inside me. I turned around to snap at him but when I did, our eyes locked. An electric charge crackled between us, and my heart beat violently in my chest.
I took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m not some damsel in distress.”
And I build boats, too, I wanted to tell him. Probably better than he did. And I’d probably been doing it for longer than he had but I bit my tongue. That fun little tidbit probably wouldn’t earn me any respect from him at that point, and I refused to seek it from him anyway.
“I never said that you were a damsel in distress.” He blinked, confused by my outburst. “I was just trying to help.”
“Don’t,” I told him. “This my job. I do this every week.”
He stepped back, gesturing to the pile of boxes still littering the floor. His message was crystal clear: Have at it, then.
He watched me wrestle with the next box, struggling to get a good grip on the thing. Amusement lit up his eyes. He crossed his arms and leaned against the shelving but he seemed braced to uncoil and catch the box at the slightest hint of trouble.
“You enjoying this?” I grunted, lifting the box to the lowest shelf to help get a better grip on it.
“Enjoying watching you struggle when I could’ve had all the boxes stocked already?” His tone was teasing but his eyes were watching the box cautiously. “Nah, not my thing.”
Then what is your thing? I nearly asked, then caught myself.
No, Fiona, don’t even go there. Unfortunately, my momentary lapse of concentration was enough for the box to slip from fingers. It would’ve gone crashing, too, if the man hadn’t suddenly appeared at my side and caught it.
He held it as if it weighed nothing and didn’t break eye contact with me as he lifted it and slid it into place next to the first one.
I moaned in frustration. “What are you even doing back here?”
He took a step back, and I turned to look at him. The corners of his mouth curled upward into a smug smile. A very sexy but very smug smile.
“Keeping you from being crushed by insulation, apparently,” he said. “The original plan, however, was to pick up some extra boards for my Nymph.”
“Yeah, well. Get to it then.” I gestured him to the place he had been hovering when he’d first come in that morning.
“Thanks, I think I will.” Instead of moving away from me, he bent and picked up the next box, placing it on the shelf before I could object.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I gritted out.
“Freeing up your time to come tell me that the equipment that I’m choosing is wrong,” he said, with an air of finality to his tone. Then he turned his back to deal with the remainder of the boxes.
Fine. I would let him hurt his back then. Although, I had to admit that it was a mighty fine back. I hadn’t let myself openly ogle him, apart from those first few seconds after he’d stepped into the store and caught me staring. But with his back turned, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to do just that. It would be a downright sin not to take it.
His shirt stretched over his broad shoulders, and a tiny strip of skin exposed itself each time that he reached up to the shelf. It was tanned and golden and smooth, just like his arms. He had gotten some color since he’d first come to town, and it suited him.
I had been too irritated with him to let my mind fully appreciate him properly before, even if he had been in my dreams. The overall effect of him, now that I allowed myself to take it in, was mind-boggling.
My traitorous body reacted to his, even though my mind was screaming in dismay. He thought he could do my job better than I could? It was confusing as all hell. My mind and my body were in such conflict about him.
The roped muscles of his arms bunched and rippled when he lifted the boxes without seeming to take any strain whatsoever. He made quick work of the four remaining boxes and looked at me over his shoulder with satisfaction.
I sighed, shaking my head at him. “I’m not going to thank you, you know. I could’ve done it myself.”
“I know, but there are a lot of things you can do for yourself that you don’t have to, if you have a man around.” Mischief glinted in his eyes while I rolled mine.
“You’re incorrigible.”
A deep laugh rumbled from his stomach, and he stared at me incredulously, shaking his head.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been called th
at before,” he said.
“No? Probably because the women you hang around with don’t know the meaning of the word,” I said, my voice deadpan.
He laughed again and clutched a hand mockingly to his chest. “Ouch, shots fired. You wound me.”
“I doubt anything could wound you.”
“Not true. You just did.” He smirked and followed me down the aisle to where he had been gathering his equipment earlier.
I eyed the items he had placed in his cart, not bothering to tell him that he had chosen wrong. Again. It wasn’t like he was going to listen to me.
“What do you think?” he asked, holding out two different kinds of bolts.
I pointed to one and his eyes crinkled as he dropped the other in his cart.
“Why do you even ask for my opinion if you’re just going to intentionally choose the opposite?” I asked, running my hand through my loose hair in agitation.
He was a customer, so I shouldn’t be outright rude to him, even if I had chased him out of the store. But he seemed hellbent on rubbing me the wrong way.
His eyes darkened for a fraction of a second as they fell to my chest. I’d inadvertently exposed my bare shoulder when I’d lifted my arm to run my hand through my hair. I tugged my sleeve back up and dropped my arm to my side. He focused his attention on the shelf beside us.
“I’m not intentionally choosing the opposite,” he said after a beat. “You and I just seem to have opposite ideas of what the right equipment is.”
“No kidding,” I said under my breath when he made yet another wrong choice and placed it carefully in his cart. “What else do you need?”
“I still need the boards, though I doubt you’re going to agree with the kind that I had in mind.” There was a silent challenge in his eyes but he left it there and followed me to where the boards were.
“Undoubtedly,” I agreed.
“Well, at least we agree on that. Shocking, right?”
I cracked a smile despite myself. “Yeah, at least we’ll always agree that I don’t agree with your choices.”