“How do you handle flying with Russet?” I slip my thumb beneath the bracelet to stroke her dainty wrist.
“We’re both professionals.”
I stand and draw her into my arms. I don’t know what else to do, and everything I wanted to say when I walked over here is sitting on my heart like a boulder. “Be safe, shortcake,” I say with a sigh.
“Always.” She lifts her face to mine for a kiss.
The softness of her lips on mine sends heat dancing down my spine.
“I’ll be rooting for Greta tomorrow,” she says, stepping back. “When are you climbing Liberty Spires?”
I shove my hands into my pockets. “Wednesday we’ll do the approach and bivvy. Climb Thursday.”
She tucks our mugs into her dishwasher, then leans back against her counter. “You guys be safe, too.”
“Always,” I say, but the smile tugging at my lips feels tight.
The resulting silence gets even more awkward, so I take a step back. “See you, Meg.”
“Yeah.” Tension strains the edges of her eyes. “You too.”
I let myself out of her sliding glass door and cross to the steps without looking back.
By the time my bare feet hit the sand, I’m practically sprinting to get my board and push off from shore.
All just so that I don’t have to hear her car door slam and her engine’s hum fading as she leaves?
The control I’ve tried to maintain is slipping through my fingers with every kiss, every touch, every flash of her pretty blue eyes. I should do something about it, like fuckingtell her. But I just failed, epically. Because what could I possibly offer her beyond a good time? I’m a washed-up single dad and ten years older than her. My work demands that I that leave my family stranded for long periods of time, meaning I regularly miss important holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, birthdays, anniversaries. And when I’m not working, I get twitchy if I’m caged in too long and need solitude to put my head right. As if those weren’t enough of a deterrent, I may be looking at forty, but I have the emotional maturity of a gnat.
She’s kind and thoughtful and genuine. And don’t get me started on those knockout curves…or the adorable way she begs. Or how beautifully she lights up at my praise.
In short, she’s perfect for me.
But she could do so much better. And she should.
After dropping Greta at gymnastics practice, I stop at the hardware store for the new joist planks and the lumber, then return home. Everett’s truck is parked in my driveway and he’s already down on the dock, working the last of the old planks free, so I slip on my Finn River Fire baseball cap and start ferrying the new boards to the water’s edge.
“Perfect timing,” Ev says, tossing the final board into the pile—just steps away from where I devoured Meg yesterday, her screams muffled by the towel stuffed in her mouth. The memory of her plush, tight pussy fluttering around my fingers while her thighs tensed, trapping me right where she needed me has been playing on a loop inside my mind.
I also haven’t forgotten what she told me. What the lake and the A-frame mean to her. It hints that she’s been starved for affection, for touch. Maybe her mom’s gone, but the lake is still here. So are the memories she shared with her family. Coming here after her divorce must have felt like a reprieve. A place to heal.
Until I started a war.
Jeez. No wonder she hated me.
Everett works his way over the lattice of support beams and jumps down to the sand, snapping me back to the project. “You want to be in the water or on deck?”
“Deck,” I reply, forcing my brain to refocus.
We fall into an easy rhythm removing the boards I’ve already marked, the lake lapping the shore and the warm sun on my head and shoulders.
“Zach said Coach James’ retirement gig was first class.” He pushes up a rotten board out of the joists.
I lift it free and carry it to the pile. “Meg did a really great job.”
“I’m sorry I had to miss it.” He reverses a series of screws into his palm then drops them into a pouch on his tool belt. “She getting around okay now?”
“Good enough to let me spin her around the dance floor.” He pushes the board up, and I carry it to the growing pile of discards.
