Man Candy, page 9
“I’m in a pickleball league on Tuesdays,” he replied. “The community center has courts and everything. Next week is the championships for the summer season. Sundays, I meal prep for the week.” He patted his flat stomach beneath the blue button up he wore. He probably had toned abs, but I didn’t have any interest in licking them. “I eat Keto, but I’m also gluten free.”
“Do you have celiac disease?” I wondered. It was a horrible thing to have and made contact with any kind of wheat product life threatening.
He shook his head. “No. It gives my meals boundaries when I don’t include wheat products.”
“Oh.” I finished my wine wondering what food boundaries were.
“I have a cabin on the far side of Hunter Mountain and go there for a week every Memorial Day and Labor Day. Fourth of July is spent at the lake.”
“And Christmas?” I asked.
“Ten o’clock present opening at my parents’ house in Missoula.”
I wasn’t sure if he was serious about the precise timing, but I didn’t push for the answer because the waitress arrived with our entrees. His plate was spartan with a piece of grilled chicken, steamed vegetables and small side salad. He’d had to special request the lettuce mix–no dressing–instead of whipped potatoes. Oh, and no marsala sauce either.
In front of me, I had the chicken picatta, loaded with lemony butter goodness. And a side of pasta. A big, huge, wheat filled pile of it. My food boundaries were the size of the plate.
“What about you?” he asked, picking up his silverware.
I glanced up at him from how I was twirling pasta on my fork. “What about me?”
“You’re an accountant. Very… structured.”
Meaning boring. He probably found my job as dull as I found his. I dealt with calculators and the IRS. He dealt in spit.
“What do you do for fun?” he asked.
I raised my fork and before I shoved the saucy noodles into my mouth, I said, “I eat gluten.”
Petty? Maybe.
But looking at Alan, with his crisp clothes, perfectly combed hair and exacting dinner, I felt like I was staring at myself. A male version of Lindy Beckett. As I chewed on the tangy bite, I realized Alan was me. He had a boring job that never changed. Mouth after mouth of teeth, day in and day out until retirement. If the only excitement from his work was scaring a patient out the door, then it had to be monotonous. Specifically–and consistently–planned vacations to the same place year after year, traditions down to an exact time…
Me.
While I didn’t cook all my meals on Sunday, Saturday was my shopping day. Sunday I did laundry and ensured my clothes were ready for the week. I cut the grass on Monday nights because it was cooler, and I liked being outdoors after a day at the office. Yoga was Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I kept lists. Even pulled Dex into making one.
Who was I to judge Alan when I was the female version of him? Except he met every single requirement on my man list that I’d taped on the bottom side of the toaster. Employed, well mannered, well kept, solid family. It was eye opening, and depressing. Was this how everyone saw me? Bland and boring as a keto, gluten free meal? Was this how Dex saw me? Was he humoring me by keeping track of all my to-dos? Was my man list bad?
Suddenly, the pasta in my mouth tasted like saw dust. No wonder Dex had been happy to wave me off on my date. He wasn’t interested. Sure, he’d kissed me, but… well, that made no sense. And the waking up on top of him thing? He hadn’t initiated it. I’d gotten past the berm and ended up on top of him on his side of the bed. I’d practically molested him.
“Those capers will get stuck in your teeth.” Alan pointed to the little green bits of tangy yumminess on my plate. “Be sure to floss later. And use a different spot on the thread with each tooth so you don’t spread bacteria.”
I swallowed, wiped my lips, then stood.
“Alan, I have to go.”
I had to get away from him. From this. From me. From being so consistent in my life that it was comforting. I wondered how Alan had sex. With his socks on? Scheduled? Did he count in and out strokes and ensure he was consistent each time? Three minutes of foreplay, thirty-seven missionary-style thrusts and a mediocre orgasm? No sweaty rolling around. No wet spot. God, did he use a dental dam for oral? I wasn’t being all that nice to Alan because… because he was a perfectly nice guy.
I didn’t want nice. I didn’t want to be a dull, boring accountant any longer. I wanted to be a romance writer and I was just… floundering. I wanted fun and excitement and to be kissed because a guy couldn’t resist.
I wanted more than what I was living now.
He stared up at me, a piece of steamed zucchini jabbed onto his fork.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work. Good luck with your pickleball. I’m sure your team will destroy the others next week.”
17
DEX
* * *
“What the fuck is going on up there?” Theo asked. “Something about a tree in a house?”
I lay sideways on the couch, a decorative throw pillow propped behind my head. While I was holding the paperback, I hadn’t read more than three pages since Lindy and I got back from her house. That had been two hours ago. In fact, I hadn’t read any of it since running into Lindy the day before.
When Theo called, I was thrilled for the interruption into my insanity. I was remaining on the couch solely because of Mallory’s advice. To let Lindy go on the date and discover I was what she wanted. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work, but Mallory was a woman and knew Lindy. Two things I wasn’t: female and knowledgeable about my girl.
“Yeah, Lindy’s house got taken out with a tree by a crazy neighbor and a chainsaw. She’s staying with me until it’s fixed.” I stuck my arm out and dropped the neglected paperback on the coffee table.
“Jesus. Mav left a text and said everyone was okay, but something like that usually involves me patching up a few patients.”
He was a trauma surgeon, so he wasn’t joking. Not that he did much of that. Joke. Ever. Out of the four of us, he was the most serious. That said a lot since Mav wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Until he met Bridget, he was a workaholic. Silas worked beside him and wasn’t far behind, but at least he had some work/life boundaries. But in less than two weeks, Mav’s whole perspective changed. He had a different focus now. Bridget and her problems.
He’d told me his focus–probably besides satisfying her with as many orgasms as possible–was to nail the MIT professor who had screwed her over. Now, it was also to get their house back together. Both redirected his time away from James Corp. I had to wonder if Mav would ever go back to his corner office in Denver. He’d probably stay in Hunter Valley and run the James Inn that was under construction if I had my guess. Or retire and have lots of lumberjack-sized babies with nerdy glasses.
“No one was home,” I told him. The thought of Lindy being inside when that tree came down made me feel slightly panicky. That she chose to go to the grocery store then… “The house is in rough shape, but fixable.”
“Good. What’s this I hear about you and Bridget’s sister?”
“You don’t want to know about how they dismantled an entire tree from their house and shoved it all in a woodchipper? I think Mav took photos for the insurance company.”
“You won’t believe how dangerous those fuckers are,” he murmured. I could imagine him rubbing his brow and envisioning all the missing limbs.
“Do you analyze everything you see and hear based on some kind of life threat scale?” I wondered, getting up and heading into the kitchen for a drink. “I mean, how do you even get in a car or get near the shallow end of a pool? What about a hair dryer in a bathroom? Do you freak every time you see me in a pair of skates because those things are fucking sharp.”
“Fuck off, Dex.”
For some reason, his voice was more growl than grump. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the faucet. “Whoa, dude. You need to get laid. Maude too busy looking at other men’s bunions to be hot for yours?”
His girlfriend was a podiatrist who worked at the same hospital. I’d met her once at a charity event he’d brought her to, but she hadn’t wowed me. That was being generous. She was beautiful in a frosty, stick up the ass kind of way. I had no idea what Theo saw in her besides a banging body and perhaps the ability for quickies in the doctor’s break room.
“Something like that.”
“Huh?” I asked, then took a big gulp.
“I found her foot fucking one of the colorectal residents.”
I almost spit the water out across the counter. “Foot fucking? I… I don’t even know what that means.”
“She had her feet on his dick. Like a hand job but with her feet.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “That’s a thing?” I wondered. I knew everyone had their kink and fantasies, and I had plenty of them, especially with Lindy in mind. Not that though. Hell, no. I didn’t want Lindy’s feet on my dick. Her hands, sure. Her mouth, definitely. Her pussy, abso-fucking-lutely. If she was as naughty as I thought, maybe even her ass.
“For her it is,” he finally replied.
“I figured the guy’d be more into anal.”
That had Theo finally lightening up. I may have even heard a chuckle. “You’re right. Fuck.”
While he sounded more pissed off than sad about this situation, I was fucking thrilled. Bye bye Maude and her foot obsession. I had a feeling Silas and Mav wouldn’t be sad to see her go either.
“Look, take some time off,” I advised. “Get away from the footsie action at work. Come back to Hunter Valley.” I glanced out the window over the sink that overlooked the backyard. Since this was the older section of town, the houses were close together, but the landscaping was old and well established. A large shrub blocked out the back fence with its thick greenery and a shocking display of bright pink flowers.
“I–”
I cut him off before he gave me any of his usual excuses about saving lives. “Don’t tell me you can’t.” I poured the rest of the water into the sink and opened the dishwasher to put the glass in the top rack. I might be a bachelor, but I wasn’t a slob. “You’re the attending or lead fellow trauma surgeon or whatever the hell your title is. I don’t know how vacation time is accrued, if you earn it by the number of lives saved or what, but you must have like three months or something. A punch card like at the smoothie shop. Ten lives saved, get a day off.”
“You’re an idiot,” he said, although without any heat behind it. “I’ll think about it.”
Usually he said no and that was it. Any other answer, especially I’ll think about it, meant he’d already been considering the possibility himself.
“Now let’s circle back to you and Bridget’s sister.”
“Her name’s Lindy.” A lipstick of hers was on the counter and I picked it up and twisted it up so I could see the color. Imagined it smeared on her face and around my dick. “I’m going to marry her.”
There was a pause and I wondered if he got disconnected. “Say that again.”
“I’m going to marry her.”
I put the top back on and set it down.
“She know that?”
“Working on it.”
I wasn’t going to tell him that I went and bought a ring for her in Denver. Mallory and I had gone after I split from him and Silas after Mav’s fake wedding. Saying I was marrying a woman I just met was one thing. Getting a ring? He might send a psych resident or something up to evaluate me.
“Although not very well since she’s out on a date with some dentist right now,” I grumbled.
“Let me get this straight. Lindy, the woman you want to marry, is staying in your house since hers got destroyed by a fallen tree and is out on a date with another man.”
“Yes.”
“You let her go out with a dentist? Did they take your fucking man card away?”
It felt like it. I ran a hand over my face. “Mallory said I should.”
“Mallory. Bridget’s friend.” They’d met when we–me, Silas and Theo–flew up to Hunter Valley to check on Mav because he was being weird about a woman. Go figure.
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
So I did. I told him about Lindy and her need for consistency, for solving her own problems. That if I pushed her not to go on the date, she’d dig in those sexy-as-fuck heels, and I’d never get her.
“I guess that makes sense. The little teacher is pretty smart.”
“It sucks,” I admitted. “I want to go to that restaurant, toss her over my shoulder and drag her the hell out of there, growling mine as I go.”
“Ah, there’s your man card. Be sure to whip out your dick to ensure yours is bigger than the dentist’s, then pee on her. And do it without drawing anyone’s attention and going viral on social media.”
The fucker.
“Just wait. You find a woman who’s not into cheating and foot fetishes and you’ll turn into fucking cavemen like me and Mav.”
He mumbled about something in the water in Hunter Valley, then said, “You’re right. This I have to see. I’ll be there soon.”
He hung up and not thirty seconds later, Lindy stormed in the front door.
18
LINDY
* * *
“You okay?” Dex asked as I set my purse down on the small dining table. My keys landed beside it with a clatter.
I sighed, feeling confused, frustrated and annoyed and well, horny.
“Great,” I muttered. Another date, another dud.
“That doesn’t sound like you’re great,” he replied. He took a step back as if he was scared of me or scared he may have said the wrong thing and I might attack like a viral plague.
“Do you eat wheat?” I asked.
He frowned. “You mean like from the stalk?”
The stalk? “No, like pasta. Bread. Gluten.”
“Yes.” He answered that slowly, indicating he was still wary.
“What about flossing. Do you floss?”
“Sugar, what’s this all about?”
“Do you?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Yesterday, on the street. Why did you kiss me?” I asked, moving on to what I wanted to know.
His broad shoulders rolled back, and it seemed as if he grew an inch or two before my eyes. It was as if the first two questions baffled him, but this one he was confident in answering. “Because I wanted to ever since I met you last week.”
“Why?” I pushed. I had the entire drive back from the restaurant for my thoughts to stew.
“Why?” he repeated.
I nodded. Reaching down, I undid the clasp on the strap of my heeled sandal, kicked it off, then removed the other. Dex didn’t say anything as I did so, just watched.
“Because I wanted to know how soft your lips are. How you taste. Because I couldn’t help myself.”
Butterflies swirled in my stomach at his answer because it was a good one. But it made me doubt.
“Look at you.” I waved my hand in his direction and he glanced down at himself. Big, hard body, gorgeous face, hair, sturdy thighs. I didn’t know what he did for exercise, but it was working.
“Okay.”
“You can’t be that hard up that you settle for me.” I set my hand on my chest.
His eyes narrowed and a stillness fell over him. Then he moved with a swiftness that caught me by surprise.
I was spun about and bent over the table before I could blink. One big hand pressed into my upper back holding me down while the other flipped the hem of my sundress over my waist. His hand came down on my ass with a loud crack. It took a second and the sting followed.
“Dex!” My fingers scrabbled for purchase on the wood, but he wasn’t letting me up.
“I’m starting to learn all kinds of things about you. Like how you don’t wear panties to bed, but I didn’t realize until now that you love to get your ass spanked.”
“I don’t!”
“You do,” he said, his voice low and calm. His palm against my back was warm. Unyielding but oddly reassuring. “Because you wouldn’t be talking shit about yourself like that otherwise.”
He was spanking me because I put myself down?
His palm came down again, this time to the other side. Since I was wearing a thong, there wasn’t even lace or satin to soften the sting.
He yanked me back up with a pull of my elbow and I looked up into Dex’s dark gaze. My dress fell back over my thighs, but my butt was stinging and hot. I was breathing hard and I was so very confused, not sure if I was aroused or mad at him for manhandling me. I’d never, ever, been touched like that.
Okay. I was aroused. Really aroused. I was wet and there was no doubt he probably saw a little wet spot on my panties. But he wasn’t doing anything about it. Or the hard-on I couldn’t miss that was practically tenting his shorts.
“You’re being an overbearing Neanderthal,” I countered.
He shrugged, the stupid, calm asshole.
“I’m taking care of what’s mine.” He studied me, his dark eyes raking over my flushed cheeks and wild hair, my green dress, my bare feet.
“Yours?”
Lifting his hand, he ran a knuckle down my cheek. “I now see why you were so… angry in Denver.”
I set my hands on my hips. “Oh? Tell me.”
“Things were out of control. There’s a new normal with Bridget. One that doesn’t include you.”
I hated that his words hit right on target, perhaps picking up on it even better than me.
“New? Bridget was away at school for almost four years,” I countered.
“That’s different.” His knuckle slid over my shoulder and down my bare arm as if trying to calm me. “You always knew she was going to college. Had it in your head and were prepared for it. But Mav? Her falling for a guy, let alone one like Mav, is a big change. Came out of nowhere.”
“He’s thirty-seven!” I stepped back and began to pace. “Pretty much my age. She’s twenty-two. It’s not fair she found a guy and I–”
