Chapter Twenty-One
For the first time in her adult life, Bethany woke to the sound of a child’s voice. It was distant at first, kind of muffled—and then it was very loud and right in her ear.
“Elsa!” shrieked the child. “Uncle Wes, did you have a sleepover?”
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Bethany’s eyes flew open, determining from the shafts of sunlight painting the wall that it was well past her usual wake-up time of six A.M. Morning yoga: missed. She’d fallen asleep last night in Wes’s bed. No, wait. What was that? An arm draped over her hip. Her naked hip? Those fingertips were dangerously close to the Promised Land and there was a child in the room. His niece. How were they going to explain this to her? How was she going to explain this to herself?
Wes set loose a smoky laugh in her ear, and abruptly, the building funnel cloud inside of her disintegrated. She let herself feel the flannel sheets—such a male choice—against her skin. She let herself enjoy the protective way his chest pressed to her back and the waft of pleasure that traveled up her spine when his fingertips brushed her tummy. One by one, her muscles relaxed and her pulse slowed.
“Before you turn over,” he whispered into her ear, “I don’t care about your smeared mascara and morning breath.”
A smile had only begun to curve her mouth when Laura demanded her presence be acknowledged—by jumping on the edge of the bed.
“Uncle Wes, can we get a cat? Megan and Danielle have two cats and we don’t have any. What are we doing today? What did you do at the sleepover?”
Wes’s body vibrated against Bethany’s, his low, scratchy morning laughter instantly becoming one of her favorite things about him. A thing she never would have known about unless she’d taken a leap. “Kid, can you do me a favor? There’s a lollipop in the kitchen junk drawer. If you can find it, you can have it.”
She was already sprinting down the hallway.
Bethany rolled over onto her back and got her first glimpse of sleep-mussed Wes. Wowza. Definitely worth missing yoga. Talk about a feast for her feminine senses. His strong, rangy body was outlined by sunlight, leaving his face shadowed but highlighting the pop of his shoulder muscles and triceps, the out-of-place hair. In a word, he was glorious. Perhaps the best part of all was Wes cataloguing the sight of her, the same way she was doing with him. “Lollipops for breakfast?” she managed.
He kissed her shoulder with a delicious scrape of morning beard. “I don’t want to rush you, darlin’, but we have about forty-five seconds to get dressed before she comes back.”
They both sprung out of bed in a flurry of single-footed hopping and limbs thrown through openings in their clothes. They laughed when their eyes met across the bed and they were still laughing when Laura walked back into the room with a Dum Dums stick poking out of her mouth. “What?”
Wes sighed. “Bethany tooted.”
She sputtered. “I did not!”
“What’s the rule, Laura?”
“If you denied it, you supplied it,” she said, giggling around her sucker. “Elsa tooted.” The little girl sobered, whispering, “Did ice come out?”
Wes collapsed backward onto the bed in stitches and his niece took that as her cue to climb onto his shaking form. He immediately turned the tables, tossing the child sideways and tickling her ribs until she screamed.
Was Bethany seriously smiling over being accused of an ice fart? Growing up, being accused of a fart was grounds for assault among her siblings. Being accused as an adult was unheard of. But she was giggling uncontrollably now and she couldn’t stop. Her vanity was on the couch requesting smelling salts, but she couldn’t really find it in herself to care.
“Should we let her have pancakes, anyway?” Wes asked Laura.
“Pancakes,” Laura hollered, flying back down the hallway toward the kitchen. As soon as they were alone again, Wes rose from the bed and padded toward her in nothing but jeans and sunlight—and all sorts of visions from the night before rolled in like sexy hot rods. Best sex of her life? Um, putting it mildly, maybe. If her notions about sex were baseballs, Wes would have smacked them out of the park last night, into the lot where they’d shattered several windshields.
She’d definitely never had an orgasm from cunnilingus. Until last night, she didn’t even like it. Not for me, she used to say with a mental shrug. So what?
The way he’d gone about it with such confidence and relish, like he’d been dying for the opportunity to pay her the sexual favor . . . that alone aroused her to a fever pitch. But then. God. What he’d done with his tongue. Inside of her.
“Bethany.”
And then his penis.
“Bethany,” Wes prompted again, stooping down until they were eye level. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve got a five-year-old on the loose. Put that blush away before I start crying.”
“Got it,” she rasped, accepting a sweet kiss on the mouth, the forehead, the side of her chin. “Do you have chocolate chips for those pancakes?”
“Damn right I do.” He snagged her hand and pulled her from the bedroom, like they’d done it a million times. “But be prepared for the fallout.”
There was indeed fallout, not only from the sugar-high-inducing breakfast, but also from their night spent together. And that fallout was . . . happiness. It was kind of like trying on a brand-new pair of shoes at the store. She was walking around in them and they looked fabulous, but there was a little buzz of worry in the back of her mind that as soon as she wore them to work, they’d give her a blister in a place she wasn’t expecting. Then where would she be? Hobbling around in a pair of deceptive shoes with blood oozing from a nasty cut.
Still, being with Wes in his kitchen felt so good. They laughed out of sheer silliness and came up with new ideas for the next tea party. When Laura eventually passed out on the couch from her sugar-induced hysteria, Bethany sat on Wes’s lap in the backyard, wrapped in a blanket, and talked about the final-stage ideas for Project Doomsday.
Now that the layout and structure of the house had taken shape, she wanted a built-in banquet just off the kitchen and a skylight in the dark hallway. She was confident and talking to Wes about her ideas was so easy. He didn’t discount anything she said, but he didn’t yes her to death, either. He was genuine and insightful and they were dating.
That’s what this was.
Her former enemy was now kind of on the way to being her boyfriend.
Actually, it seemed like more than that, somehow. “Boyfriend” sounded trivial compared to the way Bethany felt snuggled to his chest in the backyard or accepting a forkful of pancakes from him while leaning against the kitchen counter. The way he’d kissed her when they said good-bye on Sunday afternoon had been a stamp of definite ownership from which she was still reeling.
Now, on Monday morning, Bethany stood in the backyard, watching Slade film promos through the giant space that would eventually contain a sliding glass door leading directly outside. Around her, the landscapers were hard at work, sectioning off flowerbeds and laying down sod. They’d arrived over the weekend to cart off a forest’s worth of dead foliage and the results were amazing. Who knew they’d find an actual yard under all that excess nature?
To keep the job cost effective, Bethany had chosen stamped concrete for the back patio and it had just been poured. Two men were on the far side of the freshly dumped concrete smoothing it out with metal tools. Ollie was walking around the yard, shadowing one of the landscapers, with his wife on speakerphone giving what sounded like a whole lot of unsolicited advice about planting azaleas. Carl, as usual, was picking through the craft service table.
The job was coming along at a breakneck pace. Saturday they would announce the winner of Flip Off. She had no idea if it would be her and Wes. None whatsoever. But little by little, she was no longer feeling like a fraud.
“Hey, darlin’,” Wes murmured, approaching from the side of the house where he’d been sawing lumber for her banquet. He gave her a long, hard once-over that made her nipples pucker inside her tank top. “God Almighty, I almost forgot for a second how beautiful you are. What’s your policy on kissing in front of the cameras?”
“I already told you,” she breathed, backing up.
He kept coming until the tips of his work boots bumped hers. “I forgot.”
“My parents are going to watch this. Everyone is. They’re not going to take me seriously if you’re mauling me when we should be working. I can hear them all now if we lost. ‘Well, maybe if they weren’t so distracted, they’d have won.’”
“We’d win regardless,” he said quietly, seemingly memorizing her features. “What are you doing standing out here, anyway?”
She pointed a toe at the house. “They kicked me out so Slade could film his update. Hopefully he’ll be done soon; I really need to get back to sanding the master bedroom walls.”
Wes grumbled a little with mock irritation until she poked him in the ribs to make him stop.
Turning his back to the house, he leaned down to speak directly above her ear. “I need to be alone with you, Bethany,” he said gruffly. “Need you back underneath me so bad. I can’t believe I’ve only been inside you once.”
The string attached to all of her erogenous zones pulled taut in a way she’d never experienced. She’d been turned on plenty of times in her life. God knew she’d found the very bottom of internet porn during her self-imposed man hiatus. This was different. Her body was so awake and greedy, she didn’t think it would be possible to deny this man ever again.
Her skin longed to soak in his heat, to be a victim to his teeth and weight and angst. With him standing so close to her, whispering her nerve endings into a flurry, she wanted this man she trusted to love her body without constraints or rules spoken aloud or time limits.
No time limits. That would have terrified her before.
Even now, a finger of apprehension traced up her spine, telling Bethany her worst flaws would show through over the passage of time, but she ignored it.
Wes studied her face and looked as if he wanted to say something else, but Slade’s voice carried closer and he snapped his mouth shut. A playful twinkle entered his eye, though it didn’t fully eradicate the lust. “Want to mess with him?”
Lightness blew through her chest. “How?”
He winked and crouched down, picking up a small stick from the lawn. He checked to make sure the patio guy’s back was turned.
And then he drew a giant penis in the wet concrete, complete with smiley face.
“Wes,” Bethany hissed. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Wes rose and tossed away the stick, then quickly wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her up against his body. He walked around to the side of the house and positioned them behind a pine tree. “Oh, come on. Yes, you can.”
Trying not to laugh, she hid her face in his shoulder. Slade and the camera crew were slowly making their way to the backyard. They had a matter of seconds before Wes’s handiwork was discovered. Tops. “Oh God. Oh God. They’re going to see it. Smooth it back out. Do something—”
“If you’ll recall, when we first arrived at Project Doomsday, the backyard was more like a jungle,” came Slade’s voice, his boots scraping to a stop at the very edge of the bedroom entrance. Bethany clutched the front of Wes’s T-shirt and waited, a burst of laughter stuck in her throat. “Thanks to some extreme landscaping and Bethany’s executive decision to save some cash with stamped concrete, the backyard living space is really starting to come together now. I can see the new homeowners enjoying many a margarita—” Slade cut himself off. “Oh. Uhhh. That’s . . . not part of the design.”
Bethany snort-giggled and Wes shushed her through his own shoulder-shaking laughter.
“All right,” shouted the director. “Who drew the dick?”
She lost it, stumbling into Wes and knocking him backward into the side of the house. He caught her, both of them unable to hold back their amusement. At some point, they stopped laughing and just stared at each other, smiles fading. Need washed over her like foamy ocean water warmed by the sun—and it wasn’t the kind of desire that could be delayed or tempered. No. It was big and overwhelming and glorious.
“I need you,” she breathed. “Right now.”
His lids hid his eyes momentarily. “Thank God.” He chewed his lip, seeming to consider their options. “You trust me?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
A corner of his lips went up, his warm hand caressing the side of her face. “Good.” His touch dropped to Bethany’s wrist and he tugged her into the backyard, right into the throng of interns and cameramen—and Slade—who were gaping at the cement dick. “Wow,” Wes said, stepping over the wet cement onto the set of stairs that led into the bedroom, helping Bethany up behind him. “You people will do anything for ratings.”
The director glared. “Everyone take lunch,” he muttered. “Can we get this dick cleaned up, please?”
They jogged side by side down the hallway of the house, both of them bursting at the seams with pent-up laughter. When they reached the bathroom, Wes hustled her inside and locked the door behind them. The new fixtures hadn’t been installed yet, so the only light in the small room came from a sliver beneath the door. And that was a shame, because Bethany wanted to see him. She didn’t want to close her eyes and just get through it, she wanted to revel in them being together like this. Breathless and horny and lacking any shame.
Wes wasted zero time pinning her to the far wall, their hands knocking together in their haste to get his pants unzipped. Judging that he had that vital part under control, Bethany scrubbed her palms all over his abs, going lower and fondling his beefy erection through his jeans. “Oh my God.”
“What?” he rasped, stooping down long enough to yank off her yoga pants and panties, casting them aside into the darkness. A foil packet ripped, followed by the sound of latex unrolling. This was happening. They were really doing this. Having sex in a house full of people.
The illicitness of it only drove her urgency higher.
Who was she anymore?
“You just . . .” She responded to his pressing mouth, voice thready with unabashed honesty. “You get so hard so fast.”
On a muffled groan, Wes boosted Bethany up against the wall. No sooner had she slung her legs around his hips did he clap a hand over her mouth and drive his thick shaft inside of her. Without an ounce of gentleness. Her eyes filled with tears from the sheer pleasure of the rough invasion. Oh, it felt so good. Incredible. She’d been more than ready for him and she loved that he hadn’t made her wait. No games between them. Just giving and taking.
“Say that again,” Wes demanded at her ear, slowly removing his hand from its position over her mouth.
“You get so hard so fast,” she said in a rush, biting down on her bottom lip to trap a moan, because he was moving, moving, his hips rolling like a well-oiled machine.
“That’s right.” He wedged his hands between Bethany and the wall, taking tight hold of her bare butt, grinding into her and holding himself deep. “You’re not complaining about my age anymore, are you, darlin’?”
“No,” she gasped.
“No,” he echoed on a groan, pumping his sex into hers slowly, snagging her top lip with his teeth. “The better to serve you with, Bethany.”
A spasm caught her off guard, her intimate muscles squeezing around him. With enough force to make her suck in a shaking breath. “Don’t stop.” She wrapped her legs tighter around his moving hips. “Please. Please. I’ve never been this wet in my life.”
Wes growled into the crook of her neck and his drives turned frenzied. “Fuck. You did not just say that to me. I’m going to blow so fast, baby. You have to come. You have to come.”
Knowing Wes was teetering on the edge just like her was intoxicating. She almost couldn’t withstand the pressure building between her legs, his size increasing every time he entered her. Preparing for release. They were two straining, naked bodies in the dark, desperate as beggars.
She clawed at his neck, pulled his hair, dug her heels into his thrusting ass. There was no staying still when the huge stalk of his sex was rubbing her clit relentlessly and his finger was brushing the untouched ring of her back entrance, teasing it, jiggling it. God. God.
Voices passed in the hallway, the floor creaking. Even the bathroom door handle squeaked like someone was trying to turn it and Wes didn’t stop. He fit their mouths together and kissed her like they’d never get another chance. His tongue moved in time with his lower body and it was too much. Sensory overload.
Wes’s tempo turned bruising and Bethany’s thighs trembled uncontrollably from their perch on his hips. “I’m going to,” she whispered, clinging to his shoulders like a starfish to a rock. “I’m . . . ohhhhhh. Now now now.”
“Ah Jesus, thank fuck,” he confided hoarsely, slamming into her, relentlessly. “The pussy is too good, baby. I can’t hold it back.”
“Hard,” she breathed, tunneling her fingers through his hair and yanking his mouth down to hers, gratified by the animalistic way he attacked her lips. Her climax signaled its imminent arrival with hot pulses that grew more and more intense. “Put it in me hard.”
“Christ. Shut your perfect little mouth, Bethany. I’m trying not to rip the fucking condom,” he gritted, but he pummeled her faster and harder regardless, his lips moving over hers, tasting, their tongues lapping and tangling. His hold on her butt turned brutal, using his grip to yank her down into his drives—and his ferocity flipped a switch inside of her, pleasure pouring into her midsection and flooding lower, pressure building to the point of pain before imploding. “Goddamn,” Wes ground out, pressing her tight to the wall with his hips, his strong frame shaking violently. “God, baby,” he pushed through gritted teeth, breath catching. “Beautiful woman. So beautiful, you know that? You make me come so hard.”
They kind of just melted off the wall, Wes’s arms coming up around her, his recovery breaths blowing around the hair at her temple. His sex slipped free of her and she immediately missed the connection, but was appeased when his thumb found the base of her neck and massaged circles there, his lips beginning to press kisses to her hairline. Reverently. Anticipating her need for reassurance before it even arose. And that consideration, that caring made the love inside her spout like a geyser.
It shook her with its strength.
Say it. Say you love him.
It had to be too soon to say those words. Eons too soon. They’d barely warmed to the idea of dating each other exclusively. What if she felt more deeply for Wes than Wes felt for her?
No, it was best to move slower.
Keep her finger on the pulse of reality and make sure Wes felt the same way about her before she revealed her feelings. Still . . .
Her heart ached to do something. To express the wild feeling inside of her.
She couldn’t seem to suppress it.
“Bethany?”
“What if you and Laura move in with me?” Thank God for the darkness. As soon as those words came out of her mouth, she felt the magnitude of them and panic crammed like a fist into her throat. His face was probably a mask of utter horror. She couldn’t even hear him breathing. Was he dead? Yes, probably from shock and fear of his bunny being boiled. “I meant like . . . l-like purely as a kind of business arrangement. You need a place to live and, well, you said the court will need to confirm the stability of her living environment and I just thought, you know, my house fits that bill. And I have two extra bedrooms no one is using. It just seems like, I don’t know . . . I don’t know.”
“A business arrangement,” Wes said slowly.
Grateful he’d spoken at all, Bethany continued in a rush. “Well, of course. I mean, we’re not like, moving in together. That would be lunacy. This soon . . .”
Wes was silent for long moments. “I need to see your face while we’re having this conversation, Bethany.”
Was that a no?
The possibility of rejection clamped around her windpipe.
Oh God, she was getting dizzy.
She slid down the wall and felt around for her underwear and yoga pants, listening to the clang and zip of Wes fastening his jeans, disposing of the condom. The silence was stifling until the roar in her ears filled it. As soon as the door opened, she was going to make an excuse and go spend the afternoon hiding in her closet with a bottle of tequila. What in God’s name had she been thinking?
Wes beat her to opening the door and his expression turned shocked at whatever he saw on her face. “Oh Jesus,” he chuckled, catching her around the waist before she could flee. “Nope. You’re staying put.”
“I have to go—”
“You could, but I’d just chase you down.”
Her mouth snapped into a straight line and she stared at his shoulder, willing her heart to stop doing cartwheels. “What?”
“What?” He tipped her chin up so she could witness his incredulity. “You asked me to move in with you and then you called it a business arrangement. About thirty seconds after we burned the fucking world down. Sue me if I can’t figure out where the hell we stand.”
“I just know I want to help,” she whispered.
Wes scrutinized her face. “Is that the only reason you want me there?”
Of course it wasn’t. Not only did she love the man, she adored the child. But exposed and vulnerable, Bethany could only give the slightest shake of her head.
It must have been enough, because affection kindled in Wes’s eyes. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, saying, “I can work with that.”