Man Candy, page 21
“It’s fine,” I said, giving her a soft smile. I couldn’t help it.
Pushing up to sitting, she rubbed an eye. “What did you think?”
“I love it.” I gave her a sly smile. “I really like the part where she’s bent over the bed, and she’s being called a bad girl.” I remembered those events very well.
She blushed just how I loved. “You were my muse.”
My eyes widened. “Did you fuck me for research, sugar?”
Her eyes widened and–
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You did!”
“My writing friend said you were my muse and well, yes.” She tipped her chin up, owning her words.
“I love it,” I replied. I love you. “It’s not done though. I thought you said you finished it.”
With a nod, she said, “I did. Or I thought I did. It needed to be reworked.”
“What happens? Do they get their happily ever after?”
She licked her lips and glanced at her hands, which she was wringing in her lap, then at me. “That depends.”
“On what?”
Our voices had gone soft, as if we didn’t want anyone to overhear us, which was crazy since there wasn’t anyone else on this entire floor of the building.
“On you.” Her blue eyes slowly lifted to mine. “And me.” She stood and went around the coffee table. “I’ll be right back.”
I nodded and watched as she went to the kitchen and returned carrying the toaster.
“When I was fourteen, I got asked out on a date. To the bowling alley and the boy’s parents were driving us.”
I imagined pretty Lindy at that age. How shy she must have been. Nervous.
“Bridget was four, if that gives you any perspective. My mom and I talked about boys and what I wanted from them.”
My eyebrows rose thinking that had to have been an interesting talk.
“Not sex because I was a late bloomer and didn’t really think much of it then. It wasn’t like she tucked condoms in my little purse along with my strawberry lip gloss. More like since boys were now interested in me, I should decide what I expected from them. She told me I shouldn’t sacrifice on anything I was looking for in a boy, that he should be all the things I wanted from him instead of being all the things I thought a boy wanted from me. Like they needed to be nice.”
“Okay,” I said, not because I understood, but I wanted to keep her going. And why the hell was the toaster was so important. And why I spent two hours reading her book.
“We made a list. Things I thought, at fourteen, that a boy should be.”
She handed me the toaster and I frowned. Completely confused.
“Flip it over.”
There was a piece of paper taped to the bottom. It was old with wrinkled edges. Lavender in color and had a handwritten list.
I glanced at Lindy. “This is the list? Why is it on a toaster?”
“My mom wanted it on the fridge so I could always see it and be reminded. Like any other fourteen-year-old girl, that idea was mortifying, especially since my dad would see it. Or anyone else who ever came to the house. Like boys or my friends. Anyone.”
That made sense.
“In a teenage girl snit, I taped it to the bottom of the toaster, which was right next to the fridge. I could look at it whenever I wanted, but who else would pick up a toaster and snoop?”
I smiled, imagining the whole thing.
“It’s been there ever since. Through the first bowling date to the others that followed. Through my parents’ deaths and as an adult. All this time.”
I look down at the list.
* * *
Kind.
Smart.
Doesn’t smell bad.
Chews with his mouth closed.
Doesn’t go to other girls if he’s talking to me.
Isn’t ashamed of me.
Will stand by me.
Protective.
Likes ketchup and mayonnaise on fries.
* * *
“Ketchup and mayonnaise on fries?” I asked.
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “I was fourteen. Then I added more when I was seventeen. Then in college. And… after.”
The handwriting changed a little, along with the color of the ink.
* * *
Doesn’t kiss other girls.
Asks permission.
* * *
I didn’t want to even wonder why she put that down.
* * *
Supports my ideas.
Handles the bad stuff with me.
Loves me no matter what.
Handsome.
Witty.
* * *
Then the pen color changed once more.
* * *
Has a job.
Doesn’t live with his mother.
Isn’t an asshole.
Likes kids. Wants kids of his own.
Committed.
Needs me.
* * *
“I was always looking for a man to meet this list.”
“Your man list,” I stated.
She nodded.
“That dentist? The date I went on? Remember.”
I frowned and even growled a little. “Oh yeah. You came back all bent out of shape about wheat.”
“He met everything on this list.”
That was definitely not what I wanted to hear. “Oh.”
She wrung her hands. “But I didn’t want him. I didn’t even really like him.”
I felt better hearing that.
“You meet everything on this list, Dex. And a few things I didn’t even put.”
I smiled, pleased with myself, but it didn’t matter. Nothing had changed in the time she’d been in my apartment except I longed for her even more and it would hurt like a skate to the jugular when she walked right back out.
“Except it turns out I wasn’t, for you, all the things listed in return.”
“Oh?” I was still fucking confused.
“In a way, I still live with my mother. And father. And… well, I never really grew up.”
I set the toaster on the coffee table and held out my hand. I wasn’t sure if she was going to take it, but I needed to have her close. If this was the last time I could touch her, so be it.
She was sharing a lot, so much more than she’d ever really given me before. But why?
When she set her fingers in mine, I felt the heat of them and something soothed. I settled back into the couch and pulled her into my lap. She straddled me and I set my hands on her hips. Her eyes met mine. She didn’t complain or pull away.
“You grew up,” I disagreed. “All at once.”
She shook her head. “I stayed. At home. I didn’t realize how afraid I was to change anything after they died. I mean, I have a toaster with a list!”
I gave her a small smile. “I love your list. And the toaster. What are you trying to tell me?”
I was afraid of her answer. So fucking afraid.
“I don’t think I can be a good romance writer until I have one of my own.”
“A new toaster?”
“A romance,” she clarified. “Our story, God, it’s the perfect romance, but it’s not finished.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, barely breathing. It’s not finished. It’s. Not. Finished.
“I want… I want a happily ever after, Dex. With you.”
God, the words I wanted to hear. Fuck, my heart was beating frantically, desperately, for her.
“Nothing’s changed,” I reminded. “I’ve got pre-season training in a few weeks. I’ll be traveling. A lot. Just as you’ve said all along, I can’t be in Hunter Valley. Probably not for any length of time until June.”
“I quit my job,” she said, ignoring my words.
My eyebrows went up. “What?”
She licked her lips, met my gaze. “And… I’m moving away from home.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “Denver. With, hopefully, my husband.”
52
LINDY
* * *
His eyes widened at my words. “You mean it?”
God, the hope I saw there was just like I felt.
I nodded. “If you’ll have me. I don’t want a divorce.”
His hand cupped my nape and he pulled me in for a kiss. A kiss that wasn’t passionate, but fierce, as if he never expected to have his mouth on mine again.
He rested his forehead against mine.
“I’m so sorry, sugar. For everything.” Now he called me sugar again. God, I loved it when he called me that.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him. It was the truth. He’d done every single thing right and I’d been stubborn, even when I didn’t know it.
“I told you you were my woman. That I wanted you. I even married you. But I never told you I loved you. It’s on your list and I didn’t say it even though I knew it from when you opened your front door that day. I love you, Lindy Beckett.”
I sucked in a breath and pulled back, just a little so I could see his eyes. Tears welled in mine, and he became blurry.
“I love you, too.” All I’d told him was fling, fling, fling. I needed him to know how I really felt.
He kissed me again. And again. When we stopped, I was on my back on the couch and he loomed over me.
“Your ring? Mallory helped me pick it out in Denver that day,” he said.
I blinked up at him. “What?”
“I told my brothers I was going to marry you. Ask them. Ask Mallory.”
“I… I believe you.” I did, especially looking back at everything he did. He’d asked me out, been sexy and silly, protected me and stood by me with the tree mess. Helped me, made my problems his. The list went on and on. He hadn’t been on vacation in Montana. He’d been there for me.
“I wanted you before the OutdoorNow deal. Before the photos of us at the rink spread. Or the wedding one I posted. I was so fucking proud that you were mine that I wanted to share you and show you off. That I got to put up the truth for once before anyone else had the chance to fuck it all up. You’re not a publicity stunt or a way to close a deal.”
“You carried the ring around?”
“Just in case.”
Just in case. God, he was more romantic than me.
Tears slid down my temples. “I know. Not about the ring. Mallory didn’t say a word, which is ridiculous because sometimes you can’t get her to shut up.”
He grinned.
“She was on Team Dex all along,” he told me.
“Team Dex?”
He nodded. “Instead of the dentist.”
I had to laugh. “I sat there and listened to him talk about gum bacteria and all I could think of was our first kiss.”
“Even if you move in with me, I still have to travel,” I warned. “I’ll be gone. A lot. That hasn’t changed.”
I nodded. “I know. But I hear you have lots of money. I figure you can buy me a plane ticket to join you sometimes. Besides, you might not be old now, but you’ll get there.”
“And work? You just quit?”
I called Claudia and told her. She laughed and said she expected it, especially after she saw the wedding photo online. And, she said if I didn’t quit, she’d have fired me. “I can’t put my dream on the side any longer. I’ll sell the house and–”
“No,” he said firmly.
“No?”
“No, you’re not selling that house. That’s where we’re going to settle. Off season. Holidays. After I retire. I want our kids to grow up there just like you and Bridget did.”
I couldn’t help but blink. “Really? Kids? Isn’t that moving really fast?”
“We’re already married, sugar. We do this together. Your dream and mine.”
I swallowed hard and couldn’t help but smile.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” His hand slid through my hair. I should have added reverent to the toaster list.
“How does your story end?” he wondered.
“They tell each other how in love they are.”
“Done.”
“Sex. Always sex.”
“I can make that happen. And our story?”
“I guess we’ll have to wait fifty years to find out.”
“You’re definitely a romance writer. I’m just the muse, so–”
He didn’t say more, just stood, yanked me up and tossed me over his shoulder, carried me through the apartment and dropped me on a big bed.
53
DEX
* * *
“Wait.” I was about to get naked and show her what a cowboy can do with an eight inch dick–if I was her muse for her book’s western, rope-tossing hero, then I could think like one–when I remembered the most important thing.
I left Lindy on the bed and went to the side table, picked up her ring. The one I bought with Mallory. The one she’d married me with.
“Here, sugar.”
She sat up, held out her hand.
“We’re sober now so you know what I’m going to say is real,” I said, taking her fingers in mine. “I love you, Lindy Beckett. Will you be my wife? Will you let me be your book muse while I let you be my stick handler?”
“I will. But I’m not sure if stick handler is a euphemism or not.”
I laughed.
“Hockey stick, dick, you can handle any stick of mine you want.”
Her fingers brushed over the platinum band I never took off. “I love you, Dex James. I want to be your wife. I do. I want to fuck you for story ideas–and sometime soon a baby–and be your number one puck bunny.”
I slid the ring on her finger, then pushed her back on the bed.
“I’ve never fucked a wife before,” I said, pushing my pants down, my boxers with them. He paused. “That came out weird. I’ve never fucked you as my wife before.”
Her eyes dropped to my… stick.
“And wife, you’re wearing too many clothes. All you should have on is my ring.”
She crawled off the bed and I helped her strip bare. Except for her wedding ring.
“Fuck, woman. I’ll never get enough.”
I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t even understand the happiness I felt in this moment. It was me and Lindy. Bare except for our rings.
We were starting from scratch. From a list on the back of a toaster.
We completed each other and I was going to spend the rest of my life proving it to her.
Epilogue
THEO
* * *
I pulled the collar on my jacket up higher around my neck against the fierce wind. This cold weather fucking sucked. If Mav didn’t come to the door in the next thirty seconds, I was breaking a window.
Fortunately, he only took ten.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, eyeing me with surprise. I didn’t show up anywhere unexpected, let alone my brother’s place during a rogue snowstorm.
Scout, his trusty mutt sidekick, circled around my legs with too much exuberance for a dog who loved to sleep twenty hours a day.
I pushed past Mav into the warm house, Scout following. “Fucking weather.”
The frigid wind was thankfully cut off as he shut the door.
I rubbed my hands together. “It was barely snowing when the plane landed. There’s got to be four inches now.”
“This is Montana,” he replied as I toed off my shoes.
“It’s October,” I countered. Denver, where I lived, had snow as early as September, but none had fallen yet. Not that I would have known because I barely left the hospital. I had an apartment that I hardly slept in.
“This is Montana,” he repeated.
I wiped a hand over my hair, brushing soggy snow to the wood floor.
“Theo!” Bridget said, surprise in her voice as she came around the corner from the kitchen. “I thought you were the pizza guy.”
I shrugged. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she added.
Mav crossed his arms over his massive chest and raised a dark brow because he was wondering the same thing.
“Last minute decision.”
“Want a beer or a–”
“Beer,” I said.
Bridget turned on her thick, fleece socks and I followed her into the kitchen.
She already had a beer from the fridge and held out before I caught up.
“Thanks.” I twisted off the top and took a deep swig. Fuck, that was good.
“I like the beard.” She reached out and tapped my chin. “New look for you.”
I sighed. Like the snow, the day melted away as I stood here.
Mav came in, leaned a hip against the counter.
“I thought you were at some medical conference in Phoenix,” he said, after taking his usual time studying me. As if he could tell what all my problems were from my black dress pants, button up shirt and cashmere overcoat.
“I was. The weather was a hell of a lot better,” I grumbled. I set the bottle down and shrugged out of my coat.
“Then why didn’t you stay there? If you want a break, the desert must be amazing,” Bridget said, her voice laced with the wistfulness of someone who lived in the fucking Tundra.
Mav cocked his head and eyed her. “You want to go to Arizona, baby?”
I wanted to roll my eyes at him, but held back. I was in his house and I had no interest in being shoved back out in the cold. Over the summer, he’d handed his man card to Bridget when he fell for her in a week. A week! Dex soon followed with Bridget’s sister, Lindy, although they took a little longer.
Thankfully, there weren’t any more Beckett women so my balls were safe.
Except whenever I thought of a slightly crazy, extremely over the top woman, it wasn’t Bridget or Lindy. It was Mallory, Bridget’s best friend. The little spitfire who must drink pixie dust and sarcasm in her morning coffee. Who had the prettiest skin, the perfect curves and the sweetest ass in the time zone.
“Theo?”
I blinked at Bridget, breaking my thoughts away from the sexy, petite woman who made my dick hard just thinking about her.
