Man Candy, page 8
Beside him were three other guys, pulling out rope and whatever they needed to get to work on removing the tree.
Mav was coming up the walk holding a compostable tray with four coffees. Between the script on the cups and the pink t-shirt he wore with Steaming Hotties across his massive chest, I knew where they’d just been.
Scout ran over and settled beside him, knowing who his person was.
If Mav put on a flannel and grabbed the chainsaw from the tree guy, he could pose for a lumberjack calendar. Maybe he’d grow a beard this winter and then the look would be complete. The fact that he had a little mutt as a sidekick was endearing and amusing.
“We were over here early this morning,” he said, glancing about at the mess, then meeting my eyes with his dark ones. “Bridget was up for her run.”
I looked him over in his jeans and ridiculous pink t-shirt, one which he seemed confident in wearing. I didn’t see him as a runner, although I’d been mistaken about the man more than once. But he knew her routine and wasn’t fazed by her early hours. But, being a CEO of a huge corporation, I didn’t expect him to sleep in.
“We decided to get this project moving along,” he continued, grabbing a coffee and handing it to me. “I guess Bridge went to school with this guy?” He angled his head toward the man with the chainsaw and I gave him a second look.
“Wow, yeah. I didn’t recognize him with facial hair.” I hadn’t seen many of her friends since they graduated. Four years ago. “His father isn’t much older than me. Had him–Daniel–right out of high school.” If Daniel was twenty-two, then Case was around forty. “I do their business taxes.”
Mav ran his free hand over the back of his neck, and I could tell he was feeling old. Bridget was friends with a guy whose dad was about the same age as him.
“Bridget suggested the company and I gave them a call. They–along with probably everyone else in town–heard all about it,” Mav said. “Decided to put your project to the top of their list.”
I wasn’t sure how that had been accomplished, if the Pearson Tree Service didn’t have many customers, which seemed unlikely in July, or if they felt ridiculously sorry for us and considered our project an emergency. Like triaging patients in a major pileup. The Becketts were the worst of the worst when it came to tree problems and got taken care of first.
I hadn’t heard of any other tree destroying a house, so that was probably accurate.
“You’re not mad, are you?” Bridget asked, setting one of the filled reusable grocery bags at her feet. She must have finished filling it. “Daniel’s dad–” the man who ran Pearson’s Tree Service “–said all we have to do is give him the insurance guy’s info and he’ll send him the bill directly.”
God, that made it simple and one less conversation with the sleazy adjuster.
“Mad? That you did this?” I asked. “Of course not. One thing off my list. Thank you.”
Dex pulled up and parked across the street. When he climbed out, I couldn’t help but stare.
“I know how you like your lists and all, doing things a certain way.”
Mav’s words startled me from checking out the way Dex’s leg muscles flexed as he walked. Or the way his hair glinted in the morning sun. Or–
Shit. I was looking at him like he was James Bond coming out of the sea in sexy little swim trunks. He was in nylon gym shorts instead, but those things should be illegal. They were the summertime version of winter’s gray sweatpants, where while everything was covered, nothing was hidden because… bulging.
I licked my lips, worried I had drooled. Who knew a hint of a bulging dick would be mesmerizing.
“Earth to Lind.” Dex winked.
“Sorry. What? Lists… right.” My face was flaming with embarrassment. “Perishable food first. We then need to move things out of the rooms with the tree in it so they can chop it all up without anything else breaking. The adjuster said we can either move it to the undamaged part of the house or we have to get a pod.”
“The tree guys will start with the part in Mr. VanMeyer’s backyard. We’ll do the rest of the food from the fridge, and you can start on your bedroom,” Bridget offered, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I think it took the worst of it, besides the kitchen. When Mav and I get back, we can start in there on emptying the cabinets.” She glanced from me to Dex. “Don’t you have that date tonight?”
I closed my eyes and took a breath. Let the soft morning air try to calm me along with a few deep yoga breaths. A date. Fuck. Yes, I wanted to meet Mr. Right, but God. On top of everything else I had to go meet a stranger and hope for the best. Then there was Dex, whose hand had been on my bare ass this morning and now knew the idea of me being bent over his knee was a turn on.
I flicked my gaze toward him. He said nothing, but I couldn’t miss the clenched jaw or the way his broad shoulders tensed.
“Yup. Alan, a dentist who lives by the ski resort.” I tried to sound upbeat because the guy had a job. One that wasn’t ever going to go run out of clients. He was solid. Sturdy.
Then there was Dex, who was only physically solid and sturdy. He was temporary. A roamer.
Neither man said anything. Mav traded Dex the coffees for the empty reusable shopping bags and headed for the kitchen, Scout sticking close. Bridget twisted her lips into something like a fucked-up smile and followed.
“I’ll help you with your room,” Dex offered, then stomped inside.
I followed, not sure if he was mad or not. How could he be? I made it more than clear where I stood with him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “I call dibs on your panty drawer.”
He dashed up the stairs and I sprinted after him, because knowing Dex, he was serious.
15
DEX
* * *
“How’s the whole get-Lindy-to-marry-me-thing going?” Mallory asked, coming in through the wide-open front door. She was one of many who’d been in and out.
I set down the chair I carried in the corner of the living room. I’d flipped the coffee table onto the couch to make room for the relocated furniture which already included the kitchen table and the other three chairs that went with it. This was the last one and then the kitchen would be done.
After a debate, everything in the cabinets stayed in place, but things on the counters were moved out and anything breakable was wrapped in towels and sheets from the linen closet and stored in laundry baskets. I had no idea how two women could have so many linens, but they fucking did.
Mallory plopped down on the arm of the couch and waited for me to respond.
Glancing at the ceiling as if I could see Lindy through it, I put my finger to my lips to shush her. “Jesus, she’s upstairs and could hear you,” I whispered. The last thing I wanted to do was have Lindy learn how obsessed I was from Mallory’s loud mouth. I told her I wanted her. I put it out there more than once. Followed it up with a kiss. I made myself clear, although I didn’t mention marriage.
Mallory rolled her eyes. “Please, you should thank me for moving things along.” Her dark eyes raked over me as if inspecting a Christmas tree in a lot. “From the looks of you, you haven’t gotten very far. Definitely didn’t get lucky.”
I wanted to put my hand over her mouth to shut her up, but instead gently took hold of her wrist and tugged her outside. Since Lindy had worked the night we were in Denver, Mallory and I had gone out to dinner and for drinks. I considered her a friend. Especially since she was the only one who helped pick out the wedding ring that was ready and waiting for Lindy.
She was on Team Dex, but perhaps a little too enthusiastically.
“Hey, don’t worry, she can’t hear you,” she said. “She’s in her room boxing up all her sex toys.”
That stopped me in my tracks, and I tugged her around to face me.
“Say what?”
My dick was instantly hard discovering Lindy had sex toys, and enough to fill a box.
“Sex toys. You know, the things that look like huge, purple magical dicks?” She glanced down at my crotch and I immediately shifted to hide my own. “I’m sure yours is huge, but I doubt it’s purple or vibrates.”
Purple, no. But I’d been sporting some blue balls for over a week and a half.
“She won’t need those toys any longer,” I practically growled. “You just got here. How the hell do you know what she’s up to?”
She shrugged. “Every woman’s got a drawer of toys. Knowing Lindy, she’s not going to leave them anywhere a bunch of tree guys or contractors can find. Besides, she might want them if you’re not going to satisfy her.”
“I’m definitely going to satisfy her,” I confirmed. Just not yet. “She won’t need toys with me.”
She held up a hand. “Okay, caveman. I might be a first-grade teacher, but I know future tense when I hear it. I’m guessing then that you’ve never had a little three-way fun with a woman and her toys before.”
“Do you really want to talk about my sex life?”
“Yes,” she replied immediately. “I definitely want to know about a gorgeous professional hockey player’s sex life.”
Jesus. She was just like every other woman in America–the world–who read those trashy magazines.
“Fine. My sex life? It’s me and my hand until Lindy decides otherwise.”
She frowned and I could have sworn I saw a tear in her eye. “That’s so sad.”
She didn’t have to tell me that.
“Okay, so how can I help?” she asked.
Mallory was pretty in an overly perky, extroverted way. I wouldn’t consider her… subtle. She had long dark hair pulled up in a ponytail, cutoff jean shorts and a Steaming Hotties t-shirt like Mav’s, only hers was pale blue. After the fiasco where Bridget accidentally sent Mav her answers to a sex quiz Mallory made up for a girls’ night, I knew to be cautious with her. She took things far. Maybe too far. And when it came to sex–
“Not interested, but thanks for the offer.”
“I’m not offering to help you get off.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean with Lindy.”
Mav also wanted to help with Lindy, but in a more hands off sort of way. Guys didn’t actually help each other when it came to being a wingman, we more or less sat around and watched it all play out. To be there with a bottle of tequila if shit went south.
“She’s in my bed which is a start.”
Mallory’s eyes widened and she clapped her hands with an odd sort of glee. “I knew you were a stud.”
“There’s only one bed in the house,” I clarified. “She made it clear where we stand. Or lay. There’s a pillow berm down the middle.”
Her glee disappeared as if I told her there was no such thing as the Easter Bunny.
“Oh.”
“She says I’m too young.”
“I can’t help with that.”
“She doesn’t know what I do for a living,” I said, pushing on.
“That’s easy. Tell her.”
I shook my head. “I like her seeing me as just a guy. Nothing more. Besides, if I do tell her, she’ll look me up online and see all the bad press from the bar fight that went viral.”
She knew all about it. “She’s no dummy. She’ll see how you protected that woman.”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“If she sees you the way the tabloids picture you, then she’s not the Lindy I know.”
With her hands tucked on her hips, Mallory looked a little fierce, as if she wanted to storm over to Lindy and set her straight for something she didn’t even know about.
“That’s not all.”
She stared up at me all blinky-eyed and waited.
“She has a date tonight. With another guy. I kissed her on the street and she’s in my bed and yet she’s–”
“You kissed?” she practically screeched.
“Once. It was… fuck. Yeah, but even with that and us living together and sharing a bed, she’s going out with someone else. A dentist.” It was my turn to frown.
Mallory perked back up and waved her hand through the air. “Forget about him.”
“The woman I’m going to marry is going out with another man.”
“He’s a dentist. No offense to dentists, but they’re too stable for her. If there’s a picture of stable and consistent in the dictionary, Lindy’s photo would be next to it. There are never couples photos in the dictionary because that relationship would be boring as hell.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“She doesn’t want a stable guy, no matter how much she thinks so. She needs someone who’s exciting. Who’ll take her out for fun. Go crazy. Hell, get her to move away from home for the first time in her life. Meaning you.”
“That’s all fine and good, but she’s still going out with the guy.”
“Let her.”
My mind was boggled. “Let her?”
She nodded, her ponytail swaying. “Let her go. Let her learn for herself the guy’s a dud. If I tell her, or Bridget, or you, she’ll push back and probably sleep with the loser just to prove a point.”
I practically growled at the idea of Lindy fucking some other man.
“So let her,” she forged on. “Tell her she’s pretty and send her on her way to the date. She’s coming home to you and your pillow berm. Trust me. A Hunter Valley dentist versus you? There’s no competition.”
I scratched the back of my neck and glanced down at the grass. “What if you’re wrong?”
“Then you can kidnap Lindy and her sex toys and show her who’s boss.”
My dick and I both liked that idea. I looked to Mallory and asked with words full of hope, “Can’t I just do that and skip the rest?”
She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “Make that Plan B.”
Plan B. Fuck. I liked Plan B a hell of a lot better than Plan A. But I wanted Lindy to want me, to beg me to fuck her. To tell me about why she never moved out of the house she grew up in, or why she let her boss give her ridiculous amounts of work or why she was so hell bent on finding a man when I was right in front of her.
I didn’t want her orgasms because I kidnapped her and her battery-operated boyfriends. I wanted her heart, freely given, and nothing less.
“Fine,” I grumbled like a grouchy teenager. “A date with a dentist it is.”
Fuck.
16
LINDY
* * *
“–before we even got out the drill. We got the dental dam in to expose only the back molar and–”
Alan Isaacson was handsome. Well dressed. Attentive. But boring as hell. He started on about his top three craziest patients right after we placed our order and hadn’t stopped.
His longwindedness was partially my fault, me learning more than I ever wanted about halitosis and gum grafts, because I hadn’t shared much myself. He was holding up first date small talk on his own because I’d been distracted ever since I left the house.
Dex’s house.
After we finished moving things around at the house–mine and Bridget’s–the four of us sat on the front yard and watched the tree trimmers invade the only home I’d ever known with revving chainsaws. They’d gone after the branches inside, slicing them into manageable chunks and tossing them out the jagged openings the tree had made. Piece by piece, they dismantled the entire thing into nothing but a big pile. Scout had grabbed a stick from it and kept it in his mouth.
Dex and I didn’t linger when they powered up the woodchipper, but Bridget and Mav did. I should have been the one to stay and ensured everything was done right, but they promised they’d see it done. Mav had his arm around Bridget’s waist and the one thing I’d learned about the guy–and appreciated–was that he took care of what was his.
Bridget was his.
Maybe I left because I felt the same recurring bout of envy whenever I saw the two of them together. Mav took care of Bridget. Shouldered her problems. A tree fell on her house? He’d move mountains–or a dead cottonwood–to make her happy.
I wanted that. For someone to take care of things with me. For me.
Ever since our parents were killed, I’d been the one taking care of everything. Putting my life plans on hold, raising Bridget.
Today, for once, I walked away. Why? Because I had this date with Alan the dentist, hoping he might be Mr. Right.
Clearly, he wasn’t. That didn’t bother me that much. I was used to man after man not being the guy for me. What irked me was Dex.
The frustrating man! Gah!
He didn’t say one word–one word!–about the date, only settled on the couch with that book of his and started reading. He’d even let me take over his bathroom for an hour to get ready. Then, when it was time to leave to meet Alan at the restaurant, he told me I looked pretty, waved me off with his quick grin and a light and breezy, “Have fun!”
Have fun?
It made no sense. I was staying in his house. In his bed. I woke up on top of him. His hand had been on my bare butt!
And his response was have fun?
“I was filling the needle with novocaine and he took one look at it and bolted from the chair as if he’d been shocked by a cattle prod.” Alan laughed at the memory and pushed on, straightening his silverware on the white cloth as he did so. “Ran from the building as if it was on fire. Dental dam still in his mouth.”
I offered him a smile and swallowed a big sip of white wine.
I took a deep breath and pushed thoughts of Dex in his athletic shorts and snug t-shirt to the side.
Or up. I imagined pushing that t-shirt up, seeing his steely abs. Feeling the ridges of his hard muscles with my palms. Licking each one.
Shit. I had more wine. “So, Alan, tell me what you like to do when you aren’t working.” Hopefully he’d talk about something else besides oral hygiene because it was far from interesting. Or sexy.
