When he bought the Grove, I thought it was some awful form of torture, some penance for the years he spent drowning in his own pain, but it was just another of his contradictions. Being near alcohol didn’t make him relapse. It’s like he needed the constant reminder of what would happen if he did.
It always made sense to me that Dad was on his own, the same way it made sense that I was on my own. Like the sun rising in the east. It was the only way we could be.
But my father glances over his shoulder, a broad grin on his lips. “Don’t look so worried, son. She’ll show.”
I pretend not to know what he’s talking about. We keep the new kegs near the back of the building, in a room where the delivery truck can easily access the door. My father, wisely choosing to drop the subject of who may or may not show up at the Grove tonight, tells me which beer needs to be changed, so I grab one of the big silver kegs and start rolling it across the floor to get to the keg room behind the bar. From there, I swap an empty for a full one and haul the empty keg over my shoulder to take it back to the storage room.
It’s a trip I’ve made hundreds of times, especially as my father has gotten older and struggled with the weight of the full kegs. I know every step of the journey from the keg room to the storage room by heart. I could walk this path in my sleep.
And it’s when I’m halfway across the bar that I see her.
Trina walks in wearing tight jeans, the hottest fucking knee-high boots I’ve ever seen, and a white top that’s somehow not revealing while leaving nothing to the imagination. Holy fuck. My brain stops sending signals to the rest of my body and everything inside me malfunctions. I trip over a chair, my body pitches forward, and the keg clangs against a table. Beer goes flying everywhere.
Screams, flailing arms, empty kegs rolling away, and then I’m on the floor. There’s a chair on top of me and a table descending toward me, until a hand reaches out and catches it—but not before every bottle and glass on the table comes clattering down around and on top of me. One of them smashes nearby.
Great. Wonderful. I blink, afraid to move in case I cut myself on broken glass. Also, I might be in shock.
My father’s face appears in my field of vision, his eyes glimmering with humor. “That was quite the dismount.”
“Be quiet and help me up, yeah?” I extend an arm, which my father grabs to help me to my feet. Thankfully, the glass that smashed was a couple feet away from me, but I still brush out my hair in case of shards.
“Are you okay?” a sweet-as-honey voice says from behind my back, and I brace myself before turning around.
It doesn’t help. Trina is still as drop-dead gorgeous as she was a minute ago, when I wasn’t covered in dust and spilled beer and a sheen of hot embarrassment. Her long-sleeved white top hugs every inch of her tight, curvy body. I run my eyes down to those mile-long legs, internally groaning again at the sight of her heeled black boots. I can’t help but imagine asking her to wear them for me—and only them—somewhere more private.
When my eyes slide back up to meet her eyes, I have to fight the instinct to shift my pants against the growing tightness near the placket of my zipper. She did something with her hair, her makeup. It makes me hard as hell, as if my body knows this is the woman I’ve been waiting for. This is the woman I want.
Then I realize I’ve been staring at her for a really, really long time. My father clears his throat as someone sweeps up glass nearby.
“Hey,” I manage.
Her lush, pink lips—glittering with some kind of shiny gloss that makes me want to lick her mouth clean—curl into a smile. “Hi.” Her gaze slides to my father, standing to my left. “Reporting for duty, Hamish. I brought a few willing students with me.” She points her thumb over her shoulder, and that’s when I see her friends.
Battening down the hatches might have been a good idea.
Simone, the redhead, has her arm around Harold, a grouchy regular that’s as much of a fixture as the stool he sits on. But the weird thing? Harold is laughing. I’ve known the man eleven years, and I’ve never seen him laugh.
The dark-haired woman—Fiona, from memory—is passing her card over the bar to pay for a round of drinks while Trina’s sister, Candice, has drifted over to the electronic jukebox by the wall. Then, “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey starts blaring over the speakers, causing every regular patron—all male, all older than me—to snap their heads up in confusion.
But the women—including the quiet one, Jen, that barely said anything at the pottery class but made the best bowl I’ve seen from a beginner—throw their hands in the air with a collective scream and immediately start singing and dancing. They know every word. Every little trill. And they’re singing at top volume—and not necessarily in key.
“Oh, God…” Trina looks horrified.
It makes me laugh. I pick up the chair I’d crashed into while my father replaces the customer’s spilled beer, and when I grab the empty keg, I clear my throat. “I need to put this away,” I tell Trina. “Don’t… Don’t disappear, okay?”
Her smile spreads wide across her face as she tilts that pretty head of hers. “Where would I go? I have very serious business to attend to.” Her eyes slide to my father, who nods.
“Damn right you do. First thing’s first, grab a pool cue. I’m going to show you how to chalk it up.”
With a grin, Trina follows him to the back of the bar where the pool table resides. I watch her walk away and nearly stumble over that damn chair again when I see the back of her outfit. There’s her ass, which is glorious, cupped by those jeans like they’re painted on…
And then there’s her top. Somehow, by some female fashion voodoo, there’s no back. Her hair cascades down in golden-brown curls to mid-back, and when she takes a hand to lift it off her neck, I groan at the sight of her spine, the creamy expanse of flesh on display.
The woman’s back is making my cock throb, for fuck’s sake. I readjust my belt, but I can’t tear my eyes away from Trina as she grabs a pool cue, chalking it up under my father’s watchful eye. Then he demonstrates how to prop the cue against his left hand, and I’m the luckiest man in the world, because I get to watch Trina lean over the green felt, her heart-shaped ass and exposed back glowing gold under the lights above the pool table.
That pose…
I stifle a groan. I’m not going to make it through the night if this continues.
A face appears at my side. Fiona. She squints at me, then lets a slow smile spread across her face. Then she just starts laughing. “It’s a lobotomy, ladies!”
The rest of them cheer, then go back to singing and dancing.
I glance over my shoulder and nearly fall over again when I see Harold bopping along to the music, his feet shuffling beside his stool as Simone swings his arms from side to side while she sings Mariah’s lyrics off-pitch in his face. And Harold loves every minute of it, judging by the broad, gap-toothed smile on his face.
Shaking my head, I grab the keg and make my way to the keg room for a moment of peace. I put the empty barrel with the rest of them and pause before exiting the small room again. It’s a long, rectangular room with an exterior door at one end and an interior door to the bar at the other. Empty kegs line the wall on one side, with full ones on the other. I stand between the silver barrels, hand on the interior door, and I drop my chin to my chest.
Trina… She looked… I’m not…
I can’t even form coherent thoughts. My cock is so hard I feel like I’m fifteen years old instead of forty-five. I squeeze my eyes shut and press my palm to my shaft against the zipper of my jeans, willing it to go down—but it only swells in response, throbbing against the pressure of my touch.
Fuck.
I can’t go out there like this. I already tripped over my feet and nearly knocked a table over. How am I supposed to watch her bending over the pool table every few minutes while my body feels heated to the core?
And—look, I’m not proud of this. But I either have to wait for this
to pass, knowing my shaft will grow painfully hard as soon as I walk out there again, or…
Ah, fuck it. I hunt through my pockets and, not finding what I need, I kick off a shoe and pull my sock off. Then, like some sex-crazed hormonal mess, I lean my back against the door and unbuckle my belt with quick, jerky movements. My cock is a heavy iron bar when I pull it free from my pants.
Fisting myself with a tight grip, I close my eyes and think of those shiny, pink lips. Of that body leaning over the pool table, hair spilling over her shoulder with her back on display. Of Trina’s bright eyes, and how good they’d look if they were lazy with pleasure. I think of notching my shoulders between those thighs while discovering what kind of noises she’d make with her legs wrapped around my head. How she’d taste, earthy and sweet and fucking perfect. I think of spreading her wet heat with my hardness, feeling her milk my cock with every hard stroke—
My orgasm rips through me, pulling heat to my groin and spurting it out in thick, long ropes. I grunt low and rough, catching my seed with my fucking sock, of all things, wishing it was her skin. Her mouth. Her soft, pink folds.
I lean against the door, panting, letting my head fall back with a soft thud. I should be fucking ashamed of myself for this, but all I feel is relief. A few gulping breaths, and my heartbeat starts to slow. When I close my eyes, I still see her, but I no longer feel like I’m about to burst out of my skin.
Then I tuck myself in, zip myself up, slip my shoe back on, walk out of the keg room, and throw my soiled sock away in the first available trash can. Finally, with a deep breath, I walk back out into the bar.
8
Trina
“It’s all about angles,” Hamish says for the millionth time when my shot hits the felt just beside the pocket, ricocheting halfway across the pool table. “Focus on the angles.”
“I get that,” I answer, trying hard to keep the frustration out of my voice, “but I’m not understanding what angles I’m supposed to be focusing on.”
A hand lands on my shoulder, and Simone appears at my side. “Can I try?”
“Please.” I give her a smile in thanks, needing a sip of my drink—badly. Between seeing Mac fall flat on his face when he saw me, to the heat in his eyes when I approached, to this surprisingly serious lesson on how to play pool, I’m not exactly feeling like myself.
Not to mention this backless bodysuit requires undergarments that are a combination of Spanx, a girdle, and a full jumpsuit with built-in cups—no way in hell am I ever going braless in public, not after breastfeeding two kids—and all these layers are starting to feel a little too warm. A bit too tight…especially down there.
Simone sights a ball as Hamish directs her, but I have a feeling she doesn’t need his help. She hits it with practiced ease. Not only does she pot the ball she was trying to hit, but the white ball rolls to nudge a second ball into a corner pocket.
“Show-off,” I mumble, but there’s no animosity in it.
Simone grins. “Try thinking less. When you do an eyeliner flick, do you calculate the angles in your head, or do you just go for it and trust your instinct?”
“Instinct,” I answer. “Also, I’ve done it a zillion times, so I know what looks good on my face.”
“So do the same thing here. Look at the ball and line up, then hit through it with a smooth stroke.”
Why did the words “smooth stroke” just make me blush? Is it perhaps because Mac just walked out of the hallway where he disappeared a few minutes ago, and he looks good enough to lick?
Simone titters, then winks at me. She thrusts the pool cue into my hands and gives me an encouraging nod. “Go for the orange.” She points to the solid orange ball lined up perfectly with a pocket.
It should be an easy hit. Even for me.
But I can almost sense Mac approaching. The distance between us shrinking. His eyes on my body, my skin, my hair.
Squeezing my eyes for a moment, I think of eyeliner flicks. Easy. Intuitive. The more confidence, the better the wing.
And I hit the cue ball, smiling at the satisfying thunk of the orange hitting the bottom of the pocket and rolling into the internal mechanism of the table.
“Nice shot,” a deep voice says behind me. I turn to see Mac grinning at me. “You’re a quick study.”
“Thank goodness for eyeliner,” I respond, and laugh at the tiny frown that appears on Mac’s forehead. I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“Boys versus girls?” Simone asks, sipping her drink as her eyes gleam at me. “I’ll rack ‘em up.” She gets to work, accepting the keys that Hamish hands her to unlock the table and allow us to play for free. I watch as she gets the triangle and starts expertly swapping balls around with—in my eyes—no rhyme or reason, trying my best to ignore the heat of Mac’s shoulder as it nudges mine.
“How was your week?” I ask, my voice going up uncontrollably at the end. I clear my throat.
Mac takes a sip of beer. “Long.” His eyes flick to mine, then to my lips, then away.
Lordy.
Is it hot in here, or is it just my shapewear?
“Ladies first,” Hamish says to Simone. “You break.”
Simone shrugs and throws me a wink over her shoulder before turning back to the old Scot. “Your funeral, old man.”
Then, with a flourish and more confidence than I’ve had in all my life, Simone lines up and hits the pack of balls hard enough to make me jump. The satisfying crack of the balls snaps across my skin, and the balls explode outward. Two of them drop into pockets, and Simone blows on her nails.
Mac chuckles, moving his hand to brush the small of my back. His broad, warm palm makes heat pool low in my body, and I do my best not to let my heart run away from me. “Are you always this nervous?” he asks, his thumb making a slow sweep across my spine, his eyes dancing as he glances down at me.
I study the strand of tousled hair that falls down over his temple, a bit of silver gleaming in the low light of the bar, and I shrug. “Only when I’m about to make a fool of myself.”
“It’s a week to try new things,” he replies, and I know he’s talking about pottery and pool, but it really, really sounds like he’s talking about something…else.
His hand stays where it is, thumb making slow, steady movements over and back across my skin. His thumb is near my spine, but his other fingers feel dangerously close to my jeans. To places so private, they haven’t been touched in a long, long time. It’s making my head spin.
I watch Simone miss a shot and whisper a curse under her breath, then Hamish lines up and hits three balls in a row. Then, he leaves me with the white on the opposite end of the table as all our balls, with all my targets hidden behind the boys’ balls.
I bite my lip, not moving from my spot even though both Simone and Hamish look at me expectantly.
“Your turn,” Simone says with an encouraging smile.
Just then, Fiona, Candice, and Jen wander over. Simone gives them a quick recap, and Fiona lifts her glass. “Go Trina! Are you stripes or solids?”
“Solids,” I answer, still not moving from the wall.
Mac hasn’t moved his hand either, and his thumb keeps stroking, slow and steady. It’s erotic, that touch, sending every thought fleeing from my head as heat builds low in my stomach. Back and forth, soft but firm, feeling his big, warm hand pressed against my skin. I think, given enough time, I could probably come from it. From him touching the small of my back. My skin feels tight, prickly. All I can do is throw back a gulp of my drink and tear myself away from him. The space where his hand was a moment ago burns. I want more of it. More of him.
I line up for a shot that Hamish helpfully points out for me, and then promptly miss.
Mac grins. He holds out his hand for the cue, his fingers brushing mine while he takes it from my hands. Then I watch his corded, muscular body lean over the table to expose a little strip of skin on his lower back, the arms in his muscles stark against the green felt beneath them.
And he p
ots a ball.
“Well, we know who the dud in this round is,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be teaching me?”
Simone just laughs and takes her position when it’s her turn. I find myself at the bar, ordering a round for everyone, then watch Hamish do his thing.
My turn again already. When I stand next to the table, pool cue grasped in my hands, I bite my lip and look at the battlefield. I don’t have high hopes.
“Here,” Mac says as he sets his fresh beer down and approaches. “I’ll help. You’re keeping too much tension in your right arm. Line up for that shot.” He points to one of the balls and waits for me to position myself.
I feel him move behind me, his fingers leaving trails of fire over my hips as he shifts me over slightly, repositioning the pool cue. His hand on my elbows is like a brand, squeezing gently to get my attention.
“Good,” he says quietly. “Relax.”
“Kinda hard in this position,” I say, glancing over my shoulder in frustration.
Oh. Big mistake.
Mac is standing just inches from me, his hips near my ass, one hand on the waistband of my jeans while the other still grips the pool cue. Words fail me. I don’t want to admit to myself how good it feels to have him behind me like this, or how much it turns me on to be bent over this table with him behind me.
Especially when he’s looking at me like he’s thinking the same thing. Hooded eyes, dark gaze. After a beat, he nods to the table. “Take the shot, Trina.”
I turn back around, still so intensely aware of every inch of him so close to me. But I take the shot and to my surprise, I pot a ball.
Simone whoops, and all the girls cheer. I start laughing, standing and leaning back slightly into the warmth and strength of Mac’s chest.
He puts his hands on my shoulders and leans his lips close to my ear. “Nice shot.” A soft squeeze of my upper arms with those sinful hands, and he steps away from me.
Dirty Little Midlife Disaster: A Motorcycle Hottie Romantic Comedy (Heart’s Cove Hotties Book 4) Page 6