by Grant, Pippa
My brain short-circuits.
Okay, it doesn’t.
It flashes back to walking into Schwartz’s apartment, which was supposed to be empty, and hearing noises in the bedroom that turned out to be a topless Tillie Jean doing something to herself under those sheets that I very much wanted to be doing for her.
That’s about the same as short-circuiting.
Especially with her fingertips trailing down to stroke my jaw.
I lick my lips and stare down at her. “I don’t do pretend.”
“No? You’ve been doing a pretty good job of pretending you don’t like me.”
“Self-preservation and pretend aren’t the same thing.”
“The Fireballs aren’t going to trade you if you do something Cooper’s being a neanderthal about, and even if they do, you’ll kick ass wherever you go.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You don’t know that I don’t know that.”
I can’t track what that means, but I can track that she smells like French fries and apple pie, that I’m warmer just for being next to her—in the good way—and that I want to kiss her.
I want her happiness. I want her spirit. I want her fun. I want her.
“One night,” she whispers. “One night, Max, and then we see where we go from there. Cooper won’t find out. We’ll get this out of our systems. You’ll go back to being Mr. Growly Bear, I’ll go back to flirting with you, and everything will go back to normal. I’ll even pretend to be your sister if that’s what you need.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Sometimes we tell ourselves the easy lies to convince ourselves not to take the chances worth taking.” There’s that smile again. That smile is so damn addictive.
“I’m not good for you, Tillie Jean.”
“Your objections have been noted.”
Her fingers drift into my hair, her nails teasing my scalp, my nerve endings leaping up and partying like we’re at a rave, and I can’t do it anymore.
I can’t resist.
I can’t remember why I should resist.
She’s here.
She’s willing.
She’s eager.
She’s not asking for commitment or promises or a fairy tale.
And I want her.
I want her.
So I crash my mouth against hers, lift her by the backs of her thighs until she’s wrapping her legs around my waist, turn us against the side of the nearest building, and I kiss her.
I’m possessed.
That’s the only explanation.
Or possibly her lush lips and the way she tastes like sea salt and rum, the way she’s wrapped around my body like a shield from all the bad to ever exist, the way she’s teasing my ears and scalp and neck with those magical fingers, heating the world around us with those soft noises coming from the back of her throat as she kisses me back—possibly, she’s every inch the kind of woman I like kissing and stroking and screwing around with.
It’s game time, and I’m on the mound. Ready to do what I do best.
Play ball.
Focus.
Achieve.
Win.
Slip my hands under her jacket, beneath her shirt, feel her silky skin quiver and her hips buck into my rock-hard boner while I stroke higher, looking for—
Lace.
She’s wearing a lace bra.
The texture against my fingers sets my skin on fire. I don’t know what it is about a woman in lace lingerie that does it for me, but fuck, I love the lace.
I scrape my thumbs over it, feel the hard nubs of her nipples beneath it, and I nearly come in my pants.
“Oh my god,” she gasps in my mouth, jerking her hips against me.
“We have to stop,” my mouth says.
It’s not me talking.
I don’t want to stop.
I want to yank her clothes off, lick her from head to toe, suck on her nipples, eat her pussy, drive into her, and make her scream until everyone in the whole entire damn county knows that Tillie Jean Rock has had the orgasm of her life.
And I’ve seen her masturbating.
I know what a Tillie Jean orgasm looks like.
I want to top it.
Her eyes are pinched and her lips are parted, sending puffs of crystallized pleasure into the air between us, and she’s riding my hard-on like it’s a life raft while I squeeze her breasts—god, that lace—and kiss her again.
I need to keep my mouth occupied before the demon possessing me says we need to stop again.
Fuck that demon.
That demon isn’t making Tillie Jean moan and whimper in sheer pleasure right now, is he?
And what’s more important than making a woman feel good?
Staying employed, that fucking demon whispers.
I kick him out of my brain and into outer space, then pinch Tillie Jean’s nipples through her lace bra—is it pink? Ivory? Red? Black? Fuck, I hope it’s black—and her legs tighten around me, her whole body going stiff while she moans into my mouth.
I want to come.
I want to come so fucking bad, and she’s squeezing me so hard, holding so still, I know she’s coming.
Tillie Jean rock is coming against my cock and I can’t feel it and I want to fucking feel it.
I want to feel her come around me. I want to know what it’s like to be inside her. I want to know how hard her pussy’s clenching. I want to know if she feels empty without my cock inside her.
I want to know if she wants to come home with me.
Sleep in my bed.
Shower with me.
Laugh at that absurd shower curtain I still haven’t taken down.
Flip pancakes in nothing but one of my shirts while I fry bacon next to her.
Blow me before I leave for the gym.
Let me eat her for dessert.
“Rawk! Eat her pussy! Rawk! Eat her pussy!”
She breaks away and smacks her head on the brick wall. “Oh, shit,” she whispers.
And then I hear it.
Voices.
Trevor. Sloane.
Cooper.
Tillie Jean and I make eye contact. Even in the dim light, I can tell her cheeks are flushed, and her breath is still coming in fast white puffs. “Stay,” she whispers. “Pace again. Whatever.”
She shimmies down the wall, straightens her coat, leaps up on a bench, and swings over the iron fence as a goat bleats behind me.
Swings over the iron fence.
What is she, Spiderman?
Holy nutballs. That was fucking hot.
And the woman who fell off her roof? The woman who slipped in laundry detergent a few hours ago?
Not a sign of her.
This woman could be an Olympic gymnast, and that ache in my junk gets so thick I might have to throw up. She’s—she’s—fuck, she’s sexy.
“Whazzup, Goatstradamus?” Cooper calls.
Pace.
Right.
Pace.
Fuck.
I can’t count. I can’t remember how. My dick is harder than steel and my balls are bluer than the Mediterranean Sea. I try to pace and my legs don’t work, because they forgot what they’re used for.
I gave Tillie Jean an orgasm and now my body doesn’t remember how to do anything else.
I’m a sex machine.
Nothing else matters.
“Whoa, Max. Dude. Whatcha doin’?”
Cooper pauses next to the open gate into the garden and grins at me.
“Meditating,” I blurt.
He nods. “Good job, my friend. Carry on.” He salutes me with a stein from The Grog and keeps walking.
“Isn’t your house the other way?” I call to him.
“Goin’ to see my seester,” he replies. “She owes me a rematch.”
Fuck. Shit. Tillie Jean’s not home. “You beat her, asshole. Let her lick her wounds in private and go to you for a rematch.”
He walks backwards until he’s back in view,
tripping over the goat on his way. “That makes logistical reason.”
“Maaa!” Goatstradamus agrees.
“Rawk! Pussy-licker. Rawk!”
In my dreams, Long Beak Silver. In my hot, wet, horny dreams.
“To pussy!” Cooper cries.
“You’re seriously drunk, man.” Trevor stops beside him, giggles, and then trips over Goatstradamus too.
“You’re both drunk,” Sloane corrects.
She slides me a look, does a double-take, and then grins.
Grins big.
Like she knows.
Fuck.
“Hamburgers,” I sputter. “They need hamburgers.”
She’s still grinning. “Sure. C’mon, boys. My place. Hamburgers.”
“I want pizza,” Cooper declares.
“I want pho,” Trevor says.
“Pho you,” Cooper retorts, and they both crack up.
Sloane grins at me one more time, grabs each man by a collar, and steers them around, heading away from Tillie Jean’s house two blocks away—and mine too.
I sink to the bench in the park.
That was close.
And it can’t happen again.
No matter how much I want it to.
Guys like me don’t get the girl when she’s my teammate’s sister.
Guys like me don’t get the girl period.
End of story.
20
Tillie Jean
I’m pulling a late afternoon shift at Crusty Nut three days after the Spike incident—yes, the Spike laundry incident, not the bar incident or the kissing incident—when Max walks in alone in jeans, sneakers, and a zipped-up Fireballs windbreaker, which makes for a safe bet that he’s not doing well.
He’s never in a zipped-up coat.
Either he’s sick, or it’s colder out there than I thought it was.
His dark hair, which still glitters a little when he turns his head the right way, looks like he’s been running his fingers through it, and his jaw looks extra chiseled, like he’s clenching it since he knows he has to see me if he walks into my dad’s restaurant, and he doesn’t know what to do about that.
I don’t know if he’s been actively avoiding me or if I’ve been actively avoiding him, but we haven’t crossed paths since I vaulted out of Thorny Rock’s garden behind Anchovies after he gave me the fully-clothed orgasm of my life.
And here I go, getting wet in the panties just from looking at him.
But I keep it as normal as I can despite my pulse picking up and my nipples asking if he’d like to play with them a little more back behind the restaurant. “Sweet tea, banana pudding, and a chaser of pirate swords, right?”
He doesn’t give me the usual brow twitch of irritation, but instead, flashes a small smile before glancing down and settling at the bar across from me. “Yeah. You guessed it. All the crap food. Great for training.”
Despite sitting, he’s towering high on the seat. My brothers are both right at six feet, and I’m somewhere between average and tall for a woman, but it’s remarkable what Max’s few extra inches do to make him even larger.
“Want me to add on a milkshake, cheesy pirate boats, and a double whiskey sour too?”
Finally, he shudders. “Alright. I’ll call uncle. None of the junk. How’s your butt?”
Dad leans out of the kitchen, eyebrows furrowed at me. “Something wrong with your bottom, sweetie?”
Twenty-six years old, and my father still asks about my bottom. Given the way his eyes are twinkling, though, he probably both knows why Max is asking and he’s also trying to get my goat.
So to speak.
He better not know about what happened in the gardens though.
“I had a run-in with a rodent,” I tell Dad. “Startled me. I fell. I’m fine.”
He frowns. “You’re falling an awful lot these days. Might want to see Doc Adamson and have him check your ears. Make sure it’s not a balance issue.”
It’s a balance issue.
It’s an I lose my balance around Max Cole issue, and I thought that was just mentally, but apparently it’s physically too.
Probably a good thing I didn’t trip and fall on my way over the fence the other night. “It’s almost four. School’s out soon.”
“Yep. Back to chopping onions. Don’t mind the old crying guy back here. Better me than my daughter being tortured.” He disappears into the kitchen.
I turn back to Max. “Unsweet tea?”
He nods. No yes, please. No thank you, Tillie Jean. Just a regular old nod while he watches me with those fascinating brown eyes.
That sort of response annoyed the crap out of me a week ago.
Today?
Today, I want to know why he works so hard to stay aloof. And I can’t figure out if I’m irritated with him, or if I’m intrigued at whatever it is that he’s holding onto to make him go so far out of his way to act like he doesn’t like me.
After all of our encounters since he arrived, you can’t tell me he doesn’t like me.
And after the few personal details he’s let slip, I’m starting to get a picture of him that I very much want to fill in.
Does he avoid me only because of Cooper?
Or does he avoid me because he has some kind of inferiority complex?
“Tillie Jean?” Dad calls. “Have you seen my favorite skillet?”
“Drying rack,” I call back.
“Ah, got it. Thank you.”
I dump ice in a tall glass, then reach for the pitcher of tea.
Max leans forward and snags me by the wrist.
My skin reacts like I’m a lightning rod and he’s a thunderstorm. Everything’s electric. Humming. Buzzing. Eager.
Did he jerk off in the shower after I left him in the garden the other night?
Would I have liked to watch?
Or help?
Sweet baby Thorny Rock, it is hot in here.
“Unsweet.” His voice penetrates the haze of lust making my breasts heavy and my lady bits ache, and it takes me a minute to realize what he’s saying.
I force a smile when what I’d really like to do is lean across the bar and kiss him. “Relax, Growly Bear. Unless my brother’s next to you in a magic invisible suit, you’re safe here. We like to keep paying customers happy. It’s unsweet.” I wink. “But I can’t promise I won’t replace the tea in your fridge at home while you’re not looking.”
He looks down, seems to realize he’s still holding me, and snatches his hand back like my wrist is burning him.
But I don’t think I’m his problem.
Not exactly.
“How’s training?” I ask as I hand him the tea.
He takes a hesitant sip, then a bigger gulp before answering me. “Fine.”
“Phew. For a minute there, I was worried it might’ve been good. Or even great. Fine is so much better.”
His eye twitches.
I should ask if he wants his usual, but as soon as I take his order, I’ll have to make sure Dad gets it, and then I’ll need to get the dining room prepped for the after-school crowd, and then it’ll be drink orders and the pre-dinner rush, and it’s Tuesday, which means Pirate Festival committee meeting, which means Pop will be having a pre-meeting in the corner with Aunt Glory and a few other people before I know it, and then Max will be gone.
I don’t want him to leave, so I lean on the bar, pushing my boobs together. Not like I’m showing cleavage—there was a huge dust-up a few years back when Dad announced he was going to have his staff wear wench and pirate costumes, since that’s The Grog’s thing and we’re already pushing limits for family peace by also having a bar—and yes, family peace is different from welcoming outsiders peace—so we updated Crusty Nut’s uniform to branded blouses and jeans instead.
I just want to get a little closer to Max. “You want some lit cannons? Also known as jalapeño poppers. Our appetizer menu is pirate-themed, which you probably would’ve picked up on by now if you ever looked at the menu instead of ord
ering the same thing every time. And really, the gold nuggets—aka fried pickle chips—are where it’s at.”
“Grilled chicken salad.”
I arch a brow, and not because I didn’t know that’s what he’d want.
“Vinaigrette on the side,” he adds.
“Walk on the wild side, Max. Get a few oars to go with it.”
I’d bet you a thousand dollars he won’t take the breadsticks, but that wouldn’t be very kind of me to take your money on a sucker’s bet.
“Just the salad,” he says.
“Okay, okay, just the salad. But maybe next time you put a little please on the side, hm?”
I turn away without waiting for him to answer, because the door bells are jingling. “Hey, Aunt Bea. Pick a seat anywhere. Margarita time? Or you want a Diet Coke today?”
My dad’s sister-in-law smiles at me. “Lay that margarita on me, sweetheart.”
“Rough day?”
“Long Beak Silver got into Cannon Bowl and terrorized a group of kids who came for a field trip.”
I wince.
Pretty sure Dad’s wincing back in the kitchen too.
Probably Grady down the street as well. His bakery’s right next to the bowling alley, so he’s undoubtedly already heard.
“Maybe we should ship him up to Sarcasm for a couple weeks.”
Aunt Bea gasps. “Tillie Jean. Watch your mouth.”
“Would you rather he tell a bunch of school kids to fuck off, or would you rather he says nice throw when one of their balls goes in a gutter?”
“She’s got a point, Bea,” Dad calls. “I’ll talk to Annika’s mom. See if she knows anyone good with parrots over that way.”
“Grilled chicken salad with vinaigrette on the side for Mr. Predictable,” I tell Dad.
“Don’t call customers names, Tillie Jean.”
“It’s on his driver’s license. Middle name. I checked. Make sure you put the red pepper under the sliced chicken. He likes it best that way.”
“Ignore her,” Dad says to Max.
“He usually does,” I answer for him. “And look at that. School’s out and the bus dropped off all the kiddos. Here we go.”
A flood of teenagers pass the front door, and five of them stop and come inside. They take over three tables in the center of the dining room once a week to play Dungeons & Dragons, usually cobbling together dollar bills and coins to afford sodas and nothing else, and we spoil them with swords and cannonballs—also known as french fries and fried mushrooms.