Did I do exactly what she said like a pussy-whipped sucker even though I would rather put my dick in a hill of fire ants than this woman’s pussy?
Look, I wasn’t proud of it.
I whipped my t-shirt off over my head and let the rain soak straight into my skin. It was ice cold, which I hadn’t expected. Thin though it was, my t-shirt had been better than nothing.
Her eyes didn’t linger as she traded me the umbrella for my shirt, and somehow that left me feeling even more exposed. I didn’t spend hours lifting weights and working out—actuallyworkingkept me in good shape—but I took pride in knowing women liked me out of my clothes.
Chloe was not one of them, apparently.
She turned her back to me. “Keep me dry.”
And I did that, too, even though it meant my entire backside was left out in the rain. Not that it mattered. I couldn’t get more wet than I already was at this point. She pulled her t-shirt off and handed it to me over her shoulder.
It happened so fast. Her shirt in my hand. Her back bare except for the lace band of her beige bra. The umbrella dappling red shapes across her skin like a stained-glass window. The small dark mole on the sharp apex of her shoulder blade.
And then my gray t-shirt tumbled down her spine like a closing curtain and she darted around me into the rain, calling “Don’t let my shirt get wet!” while I stood rooted where she left me, light-headed from holding my breath.
“Such a smart pig,” Chloe cooed behind me from the pipe. “I wouldn’t let him touch me, either.”
I huffed an aggrieved sigh, but that made me take a breath and the second oxygen hit my lungs my brain turned back on. I turned around and found her halfway into the pipe, her shapely ass pointed to the sky.
“Darlin’, I have as much interest in touching you as I do sticking my hand in a wasp nest,” I lied on a thick cowboy drawl. There was a thin line between loathing and lust, and Chloe Adams was unfortunately straddling it with those sweet thighs of hers.
She didn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t hear me, or maybe she knew I was full of shit. She knew what her ass looked like, after all.
“Got him!” Her triumphant shout was followed by that ass jiggling in those tiny shorts as she wiggled backward out of the pipe. “Open the door.”
I jogged to my truck, Chloe speed-walking behind me with the pig tucked protectively against her torso like a football, and opened the passenger door of my truck. She placed the pig on the floor with a lot more care than the asshole who had tossed him out in the first place and then turned to face me under the umbrella.
Because, yeah, I was holding it over her head, even though she was now every bit as wet and dirty as I was, so what was even the point?
She glanced up at the umbrella, then cocked her head like she was wondering the same thing. Her gaze landed on her t-shirt in my other hand.
“Is it still dry?” she asked.
“Yes,” I grunted, more than a little bit offended that she even asked me that.
“Great.”
She grabbed her shirt and turned around. This time I knew what was coming and stared up at the umbrella as though my soul depended on it because that was how it felt, like I might actually die from it. The next thing I knew she was taking the umbrella handle from me as she shoved my filthy shirt at my chest.
“Good luck with Steve Junior!” she hollered cheerfully over her shoulder as she jogged toward her car.
It took me a second to realize she had not-so-subtly called me a pig again.
God, that fucking woman. I hated her.
But I lifted my shirt to my face and breathed in her sweet strawberry scent like maybe I didn’t.
2
STEVEN
Six Weeks Ago
This wasn’twhere I thought I’d be at thirty years old. For one, I didn’t figure I’d be starting my career from scratch for the third time. For another, it never once occurred to me that I’d be a walking encyclopedia about fuckingpigs, of all things. For example, I now knew that mini pigs were a thing and that mini, as it pertained to pigs, did not mean small. It meant smaller.
Like my girl, Stevie. She was an American Mini Pig, which meant she’d never be taller than a medium-sized dog. But pigs, even mini pigs, were a hell of a lot denser than dogs, so at maturity, she’d weigh between 80 and 130 pounds.
