Love Bank: Jobs From Hell #1

by Ray, Marika

  “No, I’m serious. It was quite the shock to hear Addi say she’s pregnant with your baby. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but it brought some fears I have to the surface.”

  I bit my lip and hesitated. Shortcomings you’ve held inside, hidden with a veil of shame, were hard to rip from your chest and air publicly, no matter the audience.

  “Talk to me, sweetheart.” Bain squeezed my waist, his eyes softening at my obvious distress.

  I smiled. “Always barking orders…”

  This time he tickled me, and when he stopped and I settled down, I dove in, heart pounding. “Listen, growing up, I’ve always felt like a wallflower. By circumstance and then by choice. When I’m with you, I don’t feel that way anymore and I’ve found I love it. I love that you make me the center of your attention. I crave it. I think that’s why I blackmailed you. I wanted you to notice me.” I rushed on. “And while I know that wasn’t the right way to do it, it worked, so I’m not sorry for that. I am sorry for walking out on you, though. All my old insecurities about being brushed aside raised their ugly heads and I couldn’t see past them.”

  Bain nodded. “I get it. I really do. Believe me, that news was a lot to take in. Still is. I can’t really make any decisions until I have time to sort through the validity of her statements. If that baby is mine, I’m going to be there for the kid, no matter what.”

  I nodded, glad he took things seriously and would step up to be a good dad. But I wouldn’t lie, the thought of that, of him raising a child that wasn’t mine, still made my heart clench and twist. The burn in the back of my eyes was manageable today, but just barely.

  “I’m glad to hear that simply because it means you’re a good man. But I have to say, thinking of you raising that child with some other woman makes me crazy.”

  Bain pulled me in and kissed my forehead, his voice the softest I’d ever heard it. “If you’ll still have me, it’ll be you and me raising that baby. I want a life with you, Lucy, no matter what it looks like or how messy. I’ve given up trying to order people around in my personal life. I tried that already and everything’s a mess. I might as well try the other way around.”

  I nodded, too choked up to speak for a few moments. “I’d like that too. I’ve always wanted kids. I even have my eggs frozen here to make sure that can happen. But whether I birth the child or not really makes no difference. That conclusion took some time and some ill-advised tequila to get to, but there it is. I want a life with you too.”

  Bain kissed me then, his hands cupping my face like I was the most precious thing in the world to him. His tongue explored me lazily and I found myself on the same page. We didn’t need to rush because we were committed to a lifetime together, come what may. He pulled back, his eyelids half-mast, the desire clear in the way his eyes dilated.

  “I’ve always seen you, Lucy. I promise to always see you. You’ll never be a wallflower when I’m in the room. You’re front and center in my life and always will be. No women from the past or distractions in the future or children we may have by whatever means can make me change that. I love every part of you, from the wool skirts and prissy attitude to the hussy begging me for more bizarre sexual positions.”

  My heart pounded in my chest. That had to be the sweetest—and also most accurate—thing anyone had ever said to me. If I doubted before, in that moment I knew he loved me wholeheartedly. I knew he saw the real me.

  “I love you,” I whispered from between his big hands.

  “And I love you. You’re like a third arm. A part of me. How could I ever not see you?”

  A watery laugh escaped. “A third arm? Are we talking about your cock again?”

  He laughed with me, his smile reconfiguring everything inside my chest. I couldn’t wait to grow old with him, laughing until our dentures fell out.

  That reminded me.

  No, not the dentures. The Cock.

  “Um, so…I may have one more confession to apologize for.” I winced.

  “Already forgiven,” Bain said at once.

  I pulled his hands from my face and held them, wanting him to take me seriously. “You may change your mind…”

  “Hit me with it.”

  I took a deep breath, then let the confession fly. “Remember that day you came in here and gave your sample?” At his nod I continued. “Well, I may have accidentally walked in on you while you gave your sample.”

  Hunkering down, my head hanging, I couldn’t look him in the eye.

  He started shaking and for half a crazy second I thought he might be ready to erupt with anger over my obvious breech in privacy. I popped my head up, survival instincts ready to flee if this confession went sideways.

  Instead of an explosion, I saw his face contorted, eyes closed, head thrown back, teeth bared. A tear appeared right outside the corner of his eye.

  The fucker was laughing at me.

  “Bain! I’m being serious.”

  I went to pop off his lap, indignation requiring I be standing for this conversation, but he pulled me down and pinned me to his lap. He whooped and hollered for a bit more before settling down. He risked taking one hand off me to wipe his eyes.

  “Oh, man. I needed that.” He glanced at my stunned face and started laughing again, his voice coming out on a wheeze. “You’re a Peeping Lucy!”

  I frowned. “A what?”

  “You know, a Peeping Tom?”

  I shook my head. “You’re impossible. I apologize for a gross misstep in privacy with a client and you just laugh your ass off?”

  “It is pretty funny.” His grip tightened. “Did you like what you saw?” In the blink of an eye, Bain went from laughing to dead serious. If the growing steel rod under me was any indication, he was turned on too.

  My face flushed as I thought back to that day. “Um, well, yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. In hindsight it’s also part of what made me blackmail you. Well, that and the fact you were such an arrogant jerk.”

  Bain nuzzled my neck again. “Be honest. It was my cock.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Fine. It was The Cock.”

  He pulled back and narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say it that way, with inflection on ‘the cock’ part?”

  I shrugged. “From what I saw, it needed to be capitalized to reach its full potential in the mind of the observer.”

  He smirked and I knew I’d just handed him ammunition for a lifetime. “You want some of The Cock now?”

  Despite his teasing and overinflated ego, I did, in fact, want some cock. Very much so.

  I leaned in closer, rolling my hips on his lap, driving him crazy the way he did me. His lips were just a breath away from mine, both of us hanging there in that delicious moment, right before bodies collided, clothes ripped off, and passions unleashed.

  “All done, Ms. Lucille,” the chief bellowed from the doorway.

  Bain and I startled, having forgotten anything existed outside of him and me and this moment. We broke apart like teenagers making out on the couch when parents came home.

  “Great! Thank you, Chief,” I squeaked out. My face flamed brighter and I hoped he’d pay no mind.

  “We’ll call you with any updates. Make sure you get her locked up, Warden.” With a quick rap on the doorframe with his knuckles, he took off.

  Bain and I stared at each other in charged silence until we heard the front door close. A flurry of hands and arms collided, attempting to get our clothes off all at once. My tank ripped as Bain yanked it over my head, but my bra flew off and I didn’t care. I stood up and shimmied my jeans off while Bain sloppily kissed my stomach, his hands venturing north to cup the breasts bouncing above his head.

  When I stood before him naked, he looked his fill, slowly taking his shirt off and shoving his pants down. The look on his face, the clench of his jaw was just as I remembered it. Now to see if I could get him to toss his head back and moan. Mission accepted.

  I dropped to my knees and faceplanted in his lap, tri
pping over the pants and belt buckle still around his ankles. In my mind there was only one way to learn something: dive in and do it with all your might. So I took my new position as a gift and wrapped one hand around his cock, licking the tip like my favorite chocolate peanut butter from Pure Gold Scoops on Main Street. In other words, I left no surface untouched by my tongue, lapping, sucking, and tasting until his hips shifted and he fisted my hair back from my face with a moan. I swallowed down as much of his length as I could, reveling in the choking sensation at the back of my throat, knowing I could never take all of him in my mouth.

  “Jesus, Lucy!” Bain gasped and yanked me off him by the hair.

  I wiped my mouth, finding I’d drooled a bit in my enthusiasm. Bain didn’t seem to mind at all. He hauled me up under my armpits and crushed his lips to mine in a messy kiss. As much as I’d tried to consume his cock, he consumed my mouth, feasting on me until we had to break apart and suck in air in shaky gasps.

  He nudged his cock to my entrance, stroking up and down my slit, spreading moisture and ratcheting up my desire to fever levels. When I couldn’t take any more, I lowered down onto him, slowly filling myself until I was pleasantly stretched. My eyes rolled back in my head at the heady sensation. He sighed my name in my ear when he was fully seated in me.

  The mood changed from frenzy to lazy the second we joined. Just the touch of the other soothed the frantic nature of our want. We were here, we were together, we had all the time in the world.

  Bain’s hands traveled up my thighs, skimmed my sides, and settled on my breasts, plucking at my nipples and expertly skating that fine line of pleasure versus pain. I started fidgeting on his lap, needing movement like I needed oxygen. His hands abandoned my breasts to grip my hips in a firm grasp. Bain’s strong arms lifted me up and guided the fall.

  I fluttered a hand down, feeling right where we were joined. Bain’s eyes darkened as he watched my hand. When I began to strum myself in sync with the delicious slide up and down his cock, he bit out a groan, leaning forward to latch on to my nipple. The suction increased and then his teeth grazed the tight bud. Arrows of pleasure shot straight down to my core. My hand increased the pace. A sheen of sweat coated my skin, and while I raced toward the pleasure I knew Bain would give me, I wanted time to stand still.

  If I’d only known this level of pleasure existed, I would have given up my V-card well before it was socially acceptable. A little voice in the back of my brain told me it never would have been this good with anyone else.

  The sensations amplified and grew, stealing my breath and my sanity. I dropped my forehead to Bain’s shoulder, inhaling his unique scent of soap, deodorant, and sweat.

  “Only you, only you,” I chanted, out of my mind with lust.

  Each rendition of the words brought me closer to the edge, the white-hot pleasure centered between my legs growing to the point of pain. I squeezed my eyes and lowered down on his thick cock one last time before the world exploded. My body shook, and had Bain not had his hands on me, I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have slumped to the floor, unable to control my bodily functions seeing as how I wasn’t of human form any longer.

  A million tiny pieces all floating on a cloud somewhere above this earthly realm or maybe I was in the molecules of air Bain breathed into his lungs in huge, greedy gulps. I was there with him but not there at all.

  He tossed his head back onto the couch, the cords in his neck straining against his skin, jaw locked tight, his moan less sound and more vibration. Memories of another time flitted across my vision, replaced by this moment. When I made this huge man lose control with my body, not his own hand.

  I collapsed onto his chest, kissing my way along his neck, feeling those bands with my lips, congratulating them, thanking them, introducing myself to them. We wouldn’t be strangers, that straining neck and me.

  Sometime later, Bain wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. I blinked my eyes and saw the patient room around me. The gray marble counter, the couch, the diffuser I’d forgotten to turn on. I didn’t know if I’d fallen asleep or actually departed this realm.

  Bain kissed my neck and buried his face in my hair.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  A smile crept onto my face unbidden. I didn’t want to be anywhere but here, with him.

  I sat up and admired the view, his hair askew from my hands, his muscular abs and chest slick with sweat, the most impressive part of him still buried deep inside me.

  “I love you too.”

  “Let’s go home and do this some more, huh?” Bain grinned and it hit home.

  He was mine.

  I climbed off and we got dressed slowly, eyeing each other the whole time like we hadn’t just sated our desires moments before. I flung a hand out, a strange fondness for a piece of furniture coming over me.

  “Great. Now I have to buy a new couch. This puppy is coming home with us as a souvenir.”

  Bain pulled me into him with an arm around my neck and kissed the top of my head.

  “By my tally I now owe you a rug and a couch.” His head swiveled around the room. “I’m sure we can find another surface to defile.”

  My stomach jumped and twirled, our future brighter than the gold at the bottom of a prospector’s pan back when the town of Auburn Hill was formed.

  Sometimes you had to go through Hell to find your happiness.

  I’d certainly found mine.

  28

  Bain

  Now that our secrets were out in the open, we decided to give the town something else to gossip about: Lucy and I moving in together. I boxed up all the crap in my rental house I’d just unpacked and took it over to Lucy’s. Her place was bigger and sooner or later we’d have a brood of kids to fill it and we’d need every extra square foot of space available. Lucy owned the home outright since her mom signed the deed over to her before she left to travel the world. That meant free housing for us, but I was determined to pull my own weight. All my extra monies would go into renovating the place from floorboard to roof shingle, making it truly ours.

  I had every intention of putting a ring on Lucy’s finger, but first, I wanted to sort out the situation with Addi. It had only been a week since she’d come to town demanding inclusion in my life due to a baby I wasn’t even sure existed. The girl was getting tests run, but who knew how long that would take? I owed it to Lucy and our future together, to get that figured out before I tied her to me with marriage.

  My new favorite time of the day was in the stillness of the cool dawn air, when Lucy still slept, wrapped around me like she couldn’t stand to have even a sliver of space between us. Her blonde hair tickled my chest as I ran it through my fingers and let it fall. She was so beautiful I couldn’t help but stare at her in wonder. How did I get here? What did I do to deserve this joy? How did I get so lucky to have her love me? All questions I pondered as she slept, oblivious to my silent worship.

  The doorbell rang, interrupting my quiet time and waking Lucy. She stirred and I kissed her forehead softly.

  “Go back to sleep. I got it,” I whispered and got out of bed as quietly as I could.

  It was Sunday, our one day to sleep in as late as we wanted, and I didn’t want whoever was at her door to take that luxury away from her. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and closed the bedroom door behind me.

  I jogged to the front door, not wanting them to hit the doorbell again and wake the whole neighborhood. My skin felt pulled tight remembering the last time someone showed up unexpectedly. Throwing open the door, I saw Jayden standing on the doorstep tapping his foot. His face lit up when he saw me.

  “Bain. I’m so glad you’re here.” He stepped forward and I gave him a hug, replete with rough back slaps.

  I waved him into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. When he started to talk loudly, I shushed him.

  “Lucy’s still asleep. Keep your voice down.”

  “Okay, sorry,” he said in the loudest whisper known to Neanderthals.

&nbs
p; I rolled my eyes and hit the start button on the coffee maker. Jayden wouldn’t have come all the way up here from LA if he didn’t have a good reason, which meant I needed caffeine. I got two mugs down from the faded lemon yellow cabinets.

  “What’s got you on my doorstep this early on a Sunday, little brother?”

  “First of all, what do you mean ‘your doorstep’? I went to your house and it was vacant.” Jayden folded his arms across his chest, his crisp white polo looking all kinds of out of place here in Hell.

  I got some milk out of the refrigerator. “I live with Lucy now. The second I clear up this shit with Addi, I’m going down and buying a ring and making it official.” I spun around. “You ready to be my best man?”

  Jayden’s jaw dropped, but he snapped it closed quickly and tackled me with a hug. “Dude. I’m so happy for you.”

  His voice was gruff and the shiny look to his eyes told me all I needed to know. The brackets around his mouth deepened in direct competition to the smile on his face. I wondered about the cause. Now that I was looking, he looked a little sleep-deprived too, a little less sharp and put together like the CEO he always strived to be. I knew Jayden didn’t open up about something until he was ready. Asking him questions was pointless as the guy was sealed up like a vault. When he was ready, he’d tell me.

  “Now I just need to tell Mom and Dad.”

  Jayden smiled then, the lines relaxing. “They’re going to be ecstatic. Wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up here in Auburn Hill in a moving van.”

  I winced and poured a cup of the fresh coffee for Jayden and one for myself. “Yeah, no. I love them, but a little distance is good. Besides, I’ll have my hands full with Lucy’s mom.”

  Jayden took a sip of the black java. “Why’s that?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently she’s not fond of the male species. To put it mildly.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m sure you’ll charm her eventually.” He put his coffee down and looked at me, pensive.