He grabbed her helmet. Tossed it to her. And dealt with his own.
And he didn’t say a word.
The light in his eyes said it all.
“Do I need to go check on your brother?” she asked.
“Nope,” he replied, clicking her chinstrap for her.
“What did you do to him?” She slid her gaze back to the house. It looked totally normal. Fine. Like nothing had happened.
“He wouldn’t let us leave.” Jase tossed his leg over the bike, kicking on the motor.
“Jase…” She crossed her arms. Maybe she should go in and check on Roman.
He turned to her. “I didn’t hurt him. I just tied him to the refrigerator.”
How on earth?
He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to the seat behind him. “You’ll want to get on, because if we’re not out of here before Mom comes out, we’ll end up staying. I can’t tie her to the refrigerator.”
Who was this guy?
You know what? She didn’t need to know. If this was the kind of thing people in big mansions did, she’d just be glad she’d grown up in a tiny apartment. A small, totally normal apartment.
Jase was pretty sure his mother was blowing up his phone. Not that he’d check tonight; he’d turned it off before he tied Roman to the fridge. His own fucking fault for trying to block Jase and Heather in.
On a good night, his family went a little bonkers at these things, but with Roman home and Babushka off her rocker, the last thing he needed was for Heather to see just how crazy his family could be. And he could tell from the way things were going, they were just greasing the gears for the real bizarre to come out.
He pulled up behind Heather’s shop, parking his bike in the alley next to the door leading to her kitchen. He turned off the engine and helped Heather to her feet.
“Is this how dinners with your family usually go?” She pulled off her helmet.
“Yes and no.” He tucked the keys in his pocket.
She leaned into him, whispering in his ear, “A little more, Jase.”
Shit, he didn’t want to dissect this. “Yes, it’s usually crazy. No, I don’t usually get to leave.”
She shifted on her feet, clearly unsure. “Why’d we leave, then?”
“Because I would like, at the end of the night, for you to still be speaking to me.” And possibly doing other things with him. He also didn’t particularly want to be around the table with Babushka and Harry while they acted like teenagers.
“I won’t judge you based on your family.” She stepped forward, placing her arms on his shoulders. “They’re them. You’re you.”
“See? You say that now. But…” He did a little one-sided lip curl, shaking his head.
She dropped her hands, unlocked the heavy exterior door, and pushed inside. “Do you want to place bets on what happened with Babushka and Harry after your parents caught them?”
“I want to not discuss my family anymore.” He paused to trace the edge of her forehead with his thumb.
“You want a cookie?” she asked, letting him by.
He heaved a breath from his lungs. “Is that code for something? Because either way, I definitely want a cookie.”
She gave a deep, throaty laugh before flicking on the lights in her kitchen. The kitchen was immaculate. He’d never seen it without her staff. Usually, it was bustling, with flour and icing flying.
“I can fix you a sandwich?” she asked.
“I’m good with cookies.”
She grabbed a bin of undecorated sugar cookies, pulling off the lid. “I know you don’t want to talk about your family anymore, but for some reason, you kicking someone’s ass is totally a turn-on.”
“How much of a turn-on?” he asked as she opened another bin filled with pastry bags of icing. She must’ve meant real cookies. That was fine, but later he wanted the figurative ones, too.
“Like, I’m in the showcase showdown on The Price is Right and my showcase is the one with a trip to Tuscany, a boat, and”—she went into game-show-announcer mode—
“a brand-new car.”
God, she was funny. He pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t bust out laughing and ruin the mood he was attempting to set.
“What do you, ah, want to do about that?” Jase dropped his voice lower.
She glanced up from icing his name on a cookie, obviously catching his vibe. “I suppose I’d like you to teach me to tie you up. Seems like that’s a skill you’ve been holding out on me about.”
His pulse skipped. Well, folks, he had not expected that. “I could teach you. First, I’d have to show you. I’d need you to volunteer.”
“That sounds fun. I could do that. But don’t lose focus, I want to learn the ropes. As they say.”
He moved closer to her, not in her space, but close enough he caught her scent. “You get me tied up, what are you going to do next?”
“How do you feel about frosting? Because I love frosting.” She piped a bit on her fingertip.
“You are not icing my dick.” He had very few things he wouldn’t do, but he drew the line there.
“I’m really good at icing dicks.”
“I repeat. You are not icing my dick.”
“I’ll lick it off.” She illustrated what she’d do with her tongue and her lips until there was no more icing on her finger. Well, hello, there, Heather.
Fuck it all, he no longer had that limit. Go figure.
“All right, so we get a little frosting involved. I get to have fun, too.”
“Where would you like to put it, Mr. Dvornakov?” she asked, the epitome of innocence.
He turned her so she faced the table, her back to his chest. Hands on her shoulders, he moved them to her collarbone, slowly down to her breasts, stopping at her nipples to rub circles there. “Maybe here?”
“Hmm…” She dropped her head against his pecs.
He continued lower, his hands pulling her against him. He stopped at her navel, rubbing more circles. “Here.”
“You’re getting warmer,” she said in a singsong voice.
“And it’ll feel so good, but your hands will be like this.” He pulled the pastry bag from her grip. Then he raised her arms so they stretched around his neck. “Don’t move them,” he whispered in her ear. “See, they’ll be here. And you’ll want to touch yourself, but you’ll have to wait, because I’m going to be enjoying the frosting.” His hands continued their lazy journey down to the skirt covering her outer thighs. Stopping there.
“Where would you like me to put the frosting, sugar?” He brushed his lips against her ear.
She moaned, her hands still at his neck, her back still pressed against him. “Jase,” she said quietly.
Carefully, he lifted the edge of her dress so it was up around her hips before returning his hands to her thighs.
“Little to the left.” She squirmed against him.
“Then do I get my cookie?” His voice was rough.
“Then you can have all the cookies,” she replied.
He moved his hands to her inner thighs, rubbing there with the pads of his fingertips—just inches away from where he knew she wanted it. Drawing it out, making them both squirm. His erection pressed against the seam of his jeans, right against the outline of her ass.
Whatever this game was they were playing, he wasn’t ready for it to end.
She started to pull her arms away from his neck. Quickly, he moved his hands from her thighs to adjust her hands back to his neck again. He held them there. “Now we have to start over. It’s a good thing I like frosting.”
She made a gurgle sound in the back of her throat.
“Let’s go back to the beginning. And this time”—he began his slow descent down her body once more—“don’t move your hands.”
He brushed the hair from her shoulders, a light touch down the inside of her arms with his knuckles, over the slope of her breasts, pausing at her waist. She parted her thighs, but her arms didn’t move.
&n
bsp; “See, you’re good with games. You learn fast.” He nipped at her earlobe. “Be a good girl, and drop your arms to the table, but don’t move them once they’re there.”
She did as directed.
“Do you want to do this here or upstairs?” He lifted her skirt, tracing the edge of her thong with his index finger.
“Here.” She gripped the table harder, grinding her core against his finger.
“Good choice.” He removed his hand from her skirt so he could free his erection.
He didn’t go right back to the heat of her, first he pulled her thong down to her knees, then he grabbed the pastry bag and squeezed a dollop of frosting onto his fingertip.
“Jase, please.”
She didn’t have to ask more than once. With his not-frosted hand, he tested to be sure she was ready, and thanked the gods of kitchen fucks that she was. Slowly, because that seemed to be the name of the game that night, he entered her.
He’d never been so ready for a woman before.
She moaned, dropping her head. But she knew the game and she didn’t move her hands from where he’d directed. He lifted the frosting on his fingertips to her lips. She opened her mouth, licking at the icing before he slid them into her mouth. She sucked harder and he started moving inside her to the rhythm she set with her mouth.
Time slowed further. The only thing that mattered was the two of them.
He panted along with her, on the precipice of something he knew was big but that he couldn’t understand. She flexed her internal muscles around him, nearly sending him spiraling.
With his free hand, he reached to her sweet spot, massaging the place he knew drove her crazy. Pushing her over the edge.
She fell first, and he followed.
Wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her neck, he held her steady as she clamped around him over and over. Still, she didn’t move her hands. Her knuckles were nearly white from gripping the table.
Both of them out of breath, he withdrew and straightened her panties back where they went. “Sugar, you can move your hands now.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to move again,” she replied, breathing hard.
He lifted her palms from the table, kissing each fingertip. “We can go upstairs, and it’ll be your turn to play with the frosting.”
A wry grin spread across her lips. “You are so on.”
Pastry bag in hand, she sauntered toward the stairs to her apartment. He took his time putting himself back together. She paused at the corner of the room, raising her eyebrows. He snagged the cookie with his name from the tray on the table and bit into it.
Tonight, he was getting all the cookies.
22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Senior “Senior” Prom Countdown: 2 Days
Jase sat by the cash register in his shop and did a quick inventory of the raspberry-ice-carrousel roses he’d managed to track down. After the clusterfuck of a dinner party the night before, he and Heather had ended up not-sleeping at her apartment. He had a whole new fondness for icing uses in bedroom adventures. He liked Heather’s place. It was comfortable and had real furniture. Unlike his makeshift bachelor pad with crates as end tables.
Then Dean had texted him that Claire was requiring he do a full-out promposal for her and he needed ideas. Fuck that. If Jase was going to plan a promposal, it’d be for Heather. Thus, the hunt for every raspberry-ice rose in the Denver metro area.
So far, he was pretty sure he’d come up with enough. Ten dozen ought to do it. And another few hundred rose petals for the bed. He’d already asked Babushka for her key so he could slip in before Heather returned from work.
Babushka had given him the third degree about what he was doing and why. Then he heard her tell Harry that he needed to step up and ask her before Morty did. Then Harry had called and ordered a bouquet of two dozen red roses and a box of chocolates the size of Babushka’s Buick. Apparently, that’s what Babushka required to agree to be his date.
Yeah, prom season brought out the crazies.
The cowbell on his door clunked and he glanced up. His mother, father, and Anna.
Fuck.
“Mom. Dad. Anna.” He tucked the slip of paper with the rough design of how he’d pull this off in his pocket. “Didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
His mother was pretty pissed about the whole refrigerator situation. He knew because she had left him a multitude of voice messages over the past eighteen hours informing him.
“We came to talk to you about Heather.” His mother was wringing her hands, but he knew it was all for show. She didn’t get nervous, but she put on a good show.
“Talking about Heather is off the table.” He strode to the cooler and did a quick adjustment to the display—anything to avoid the discussion about his love life that was sure to follow.
“We’re just worried about some of the things that she’s done with Babushka.” Anna flicked her hair over her shoulder. “The strip club and moving her to the retirement home without talking to us about it.”
“Well, one, the strip club was all Babushka. Two, it was either the retirement community or moving in with the man who owns Pistol Polly’s. And, three, I like her so lay off.”
“Son, we’d like to open a conversation about this with you. We want you to move on, find a nice girl, but we don’t think that’s Heather.” His father crossed and uncrossed his arms.
His mother sighed. “It’s not that we don’t like her. We just worry about her influence. So far, it hasn’t been…”
“Great. It hasn’t been great,” Anna finished.
“You wanted me to date someone,” he reminded them. Hell, it was all they’d talked about for a year. They had meetings about that shit.
“We wanted you to meet someone. But Heather’s…” His mother twisted her face in illustration of how she felt about her.
And that was unacceptable.
“Look, Babushka is in some strange midlife crisis forty years too late. She’s pulled Heather into her crazy. You can’t blame Heather.” He pointed to Anna. “And you don’t get a say about who I’m dating or why or when.” And now his blood pressure was rising. “You all wanted me to start dating.” He stabbed the air between them. “And I didn’t want to, but then I met Heather and she’s fun and we’re enjoying each other.”
“You two already broke up once, can’t you just go back to that?” Anna asked. “Just think of all the reasons it didn’t work the first time. Saves a whole lot of trouble.”
Jase glared at the lot of them. “You are my family, and I care about you. But if you don’t knock this shit off, we’re going to have some serious issues. The kind that a family therapist won’t even be able to fix.”
Anna raised her hands. “I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about it.”
“Yeah. Well. I do.” Apparently, he did.
“Do you remember when you came home?” his mother asked. “From over there.”
Of course he remembered. He’d been overseas on a mission for Uncle Sam. There were multiple explosives. He’d gone to work on one, his crew on the others. One of theirs had gone off. He was only steps outside the kill zone. He’d survived. They hadn’t.
Then he came home, and he found his wife had created a life without him. She’d moved on. He couldn’t.
“We all stepped in to help you. Set you up here at the shop. Made sure you were eating. Made sure you had a place to sleep—because you didn’t care. We made sure you found your way back to us,” his father said, repeating what Jase already knew. Hell, he’d lived it once. He didn’t need a reminder. “Your friends died. Your wife left. Life was hard…but we didn’t let you disappear, even when you checked out.”
Jase gulped at the realization of all his family had done for him. And all the time he’d thought they were meddling. Thought they were being intrusive.
They’d known exactly what they were doing—not letting him disappear into his own head forever.
&nb
sp; “You trusted us then,” his father continued. “Trust us now.”
He had trusted them then. But they were wrong now. They were wrong about Heather.
“I am grateful for everything you all have done for me.” Jase hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and stared at the ground for a moment. Reminding himself where he was, what he was seeing, what he was doing—so he didn’t go back to that place. “But I’m ready to take over my own life. And that’s going to include Heather.”
It was 100 percent going to include Heather. Because he was 100 percent into her.
Shit, when had that happened?
He thought back and…if he were honest with himself, it’d happened long before she’d walked into his shop with a stack of posters.
A length of silence hung in the air.
“If she means this much to you, and to Babushka, we’d like to get to know her,” his mother finally said.
Maybe his mother could be reasonable.
“For real get to know her, or so you can try to control us get to know her?” he asked.
“Jason, believe it or not, our entire lives are not spent trying to control yours,” his mother said.
He begged to differ. Believe it or not, he could count all the times they hadn’t tried to control what he did on less than one finger.
He glanced out the shop window just as Babushka marched up the sidewalk to Heather’s shop. She was leading a parade of the elderly. What the hell? He counted ten of them with her—walkers, canes, even a woman in an electric scooter. All Babushka was missing was a baton and her marching-band uniform.
He shook his head.
He did not need to know what his grandmother had planned.
“You should apologize to her, Mom.” He’d be firm on that one. Heather may not have understood what his mom and dad had said when they’d left the kitchen, but he hadn’t missed it.
“For what?” A mask of confusion fell over her face.
He shoved his hands on his hips. “She can’t speak Russian, but I can. And I heard what you and Dad said last night.”
Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Mile High Matched Books 1-3 Page 43