Mixed Up Love Page 8

  “Ugh, really?” she says, standing back up, and then she pats my chest. From left to right, shoulder to shoulder, all the way down. “You okay?” she asks when I look at her, and I just nod with a smile as I walk back into the dining room to help clear the table.

  By the time we leave her parents’ with hugs and promises to do it again soon, she has felt up my whole upper half of my body and both ankles. We get in the car, and I pull away from the curb. “This is killing me,” she says, frustrated, slapping her hands down. “Do you have a gun?”

  “Yes,” I tell her honestly, “and I also have a license to carry it.”

  “Oh my god,” she says with her eyes open and her mouth also. “Is it in your crotch?” she asks with a gasp. “Like near your junk?” she says with her hand as if she is sticking things in the air.

  We both laugh as I make my way back to her house. “Do you want to come up for coffee?” she asks me. “I mean, if you aren’t busy and don’t have any other plans.”

  “I’d love to,” I say, parking the car and getting out. I hold her hand as we walk upstairs, and she unlocks the door. We walk in, and she tosses her purse on the counter. Then she steps into the kitchen.

  “Did you really want coffee?” she asks me, and I look at her.

  “Was ‘do you want coffee’ code for ‘come upstairs so I can make out with you and see where you keep your gun’?” I joke with her, walking to her.

  She puts her hands on her hips. “Um, no,” she says, and I raise one eyebrow, looking at her. “Okay, fine, it was, but I wasn’t going to make out with you. I was going to spill the coffee on your pants and see when you took them off.”

  I gasp out, putting both of my hands on my junk. “You were going to burn my dick? What kind of sick monster are you?” I ask her, and she throws her head back and laughs. Her neck calls out to me, and I don’t waste an extra second before I pounce on her. She doesn’t stand a chance, and when I finally leave her apartment, she makes sure to verify no guns were in my crotch area. I smile the whole time I drive, and I’m even smiling the next day when I walk into work.

  Going into my office, I dump my keys and sunglasses and turn on my computer. After I grab the folders, I walk to the kitchen and start making coffee. I open the fridge to take the creamer out and add it to my coffee. Picking my cup up, I take it and head downstairs. The sounds of Rachel’s nails on the keyboard lets me know she’s already hit the ground running this morning.

  “Good morning,” I say, smiling, and she looks up at me, smiling and leaning back in her chair.

  “Good morning to you, too, Romeo.” She snorts when I look at her with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, don’t get all coy with me now.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, bringing the hot cup to my lips and burning my tongue with the first sip.

  “Oh, okay, this is how you want to play it? Fine,” she says. She clicks on a couple of keys, and then I see the big screen change. I’m about to look over when Dante and Brian come into the room.

  “Morning,” Dante says, and Rachel quickly shushes him.

  “As I was saying,” she says, looking back at the full screen.

  “Gentlemen, I show you evidence number one. Your alarm was on all weekend long, only disarming when you came home to sleep.”

  “So?” I ask her.

  “So, if you can check this out,” she says, pressing another couple of buttons. “This is the activity on your house for the past month. You will see the same pattern for Monday through Friday, but Saturday and Sunday are very different. You see for the past month, the only time you set the alarm was when you were going to Whole Foods or to the gym.”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t shop at Whole Foods,” I inform her, and then Dante lets out a laugh when he looks at me with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “You got lucky,” he says, now clapping his hands.

  “What is everyone clapping for?” I hear Anthony say, coming into the room.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” Brian asks when Anthony smiles, and you see his missing front tooth.

  “Sex swing,” he says, going to a chair in the corner, then looks at Rachel. “I have a dentist appointment at two today. Can you make sure you remind me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dante says, “a sex swing took out your front tooth?”

  “No,” he says and then looks at us. “Well, kind of. It was one of those portable ones you hang from a doorframe. You know what I’m talking about, right?” He looks at each of us as we all shake our heads.

  “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Dominic says, answering for all of us.

  “Anyway, I got on it, and she would climb aboard the pole train, and well, when she was getting closer, it snapped, and since my hands were in the harness, I couldn’t block my face, and I fell face first. I’m so lucky it was just my tooth, and I didn’t break my nose.”

  “Your nose looks broken to begin with,” Dante says at the same time that Rachel gasps.

  “Oh my god,” Rachel says, “you think you have heard everything when it comes to you, and then boom, you come in and totally leave me speechless again.”

  He nods again. “You’re welcome.” He looks over my shoulder at the screen. “What are we studying?”

  “Hunter’s alarm pattern,” Dante says. “Apparently, it’s weird.”

  “That isn’t what I said,” Rachel admonishes. “I said it was abnormal behavior.”

  Dante rolls his eyes. “As I said … weird.”

  “It’s not weird,” I snap. “Now, can we please forget it and move along?”

  “Wait,” Anthony says, “are we talking about you banging my blind date?”

  “I didn’t bang anyone,” I say to them when everyone gasps in shock. “And watch your mouth.” I point at him.

  “Oh, Hunter has a girlfriend,” Rachel says. “Is she cute?”

  “I’m not answering this,” I say at the same time that Anthony says, “She’s fucking hot.”

  “Hold on a second,” Brian says. “She was Anthony’s blind date, and you banged her?” He shakes his head. “Jesus, it’s bros before hos.”

  “She isn’t a ho,” I say with clenched teeth.

  “He’s in love,” Dante says. “I never thought I would see the day, but …”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, can we stop with the high school gossip and work around here?” I say. Grabbing my coffee and walking up the stairs, I leave the four of them laughing and hollering. As I enter my office, my phone buzzes in my jacket, so I take it out and the smile forms.

  Thank you for the rose. Have a great day.

  It’s from Laney. This morning on the way to work, I stopped by the flower shop and bought her a single rose. I left it on her windshield with a note to have a good day.

  I’m about to answer her when I hear Anthony’s voice boom out on the intercom speaker. “That, my friend, is the look of love.”

  I look up at the camera in the corner of my office and give it the finger. “Go fuck yourself,” I say and then turn back to answer Laney.

  My day can only get better if I get to see you again.

  I don’t have to wait long before she answers me.

  Okay!

  Chapter Nine

  Laney

  “So, what are your plans this weekend?” my dental hygienist, Teressa, asks me when the last patient steps out of the office on Friday afternoon.

  “I don’t think we have any concrete plans.” I smile at her when she turns to put our tools in the disinfector.

  She laughs. “Do you think the man who stops at a flower shop every single morning to drop off a rose for you doesn’t make plans?” she says, pointing at the small bouquet of roses that I set up in one of the offices.

  “Okay, fine.” I roll my eyes. “We are going to have a picnic on the beach,” I tell her. “We are just waiting to see the weather forecast.”

  “Oh, that sounds romantic,” she says, smiling, and I just nod. “
And I heard he’s hot AF,” she says, closing the door to the sterilizer.

  My eyebrows pinch together. “Who told you that?”

  “Sandy, when she came in on Monday with her man,” she says, and I nod, remembering when he came in.

  I shake my head, thinking about how this whole week has been like no other.

  Every day I come out and there is a rose on my car with a little note, whether it’s him telling me to have a nice day or how much he enjoyed the night before. I always smile, bringing the rose to my nose and smelling the freshness of it. He has been working a couple of days this week, but when he wasn’t, we were together. His kisses leave me breathless; his hugs make me feel safe.

  “Well, I’ve never seen you like this,” she says and walks out of the room. As I walk into my office, I’m thinking I’ve never seen myself like this before. I’ve also never felt like this before, and I can’t help but think it’s a little strange to be feeling so much so soon.

  Closing the office and walking to my car, I turn on the radio and make my way home. My phone rings in my hand right before I put it down. “Hello.”

  “Hey, beautiful.” I smile when I hear his voice, and all the thoughts, doubts, and questions just go away. I live in the moment. I want to live in the moment. I don’t want to overanalyze whatever this thing is.

  “Hey, yourself,” I say, the call switching to my Bluetooth as I make my way home.

  “Soooo …” He draws out the word. “I was thinking maybe we could have dinner at my place,” he says.

  “Really?” I say, smiling. “I was wondering if you even had a house or it was a bat cave?”

  “Total bat cave,” he says, “but Alfred cleaned it up and transformed it.”

  “Well then, if he went to all that trouble”—I laugh—“how could I say no?”

  “I could swing by and pick you up,” he says and then his voice goes lower. “Maybe you can spend the night?”

  I laugh. “Is this your way of telling me you want to have sex with me?” My stomach’s doing somersaults and cartwheels, my vagina suddenly waking up.

  “No,” he says out loud. “I mean, I’d like to, don’t get me wrong, but I just meant that we can have dinner, drink a bit.”

  It’s my turn to get one up on him. “Do you know the dangers of drinking?” I tell him, and he belly laughs.

  “Very funny. You can fill me in about all the dangers if you like, but how about I stop by in thirty minutes, and you can tell me?”

  “Fine,” I agree, “but can it be an hour? I’m not home yet, and I’d like to shower.”

  “Yup, an hour is good,” he says. “See you then. Drive safely.”

  I rush home and call Sandy while I toss my overnight bag on the bed. I look at it and realize it’s the same bag I used to take to Trevor’s house, and all of a sudden, I hate it. I take the bag and toss it back in the closet. “Hello there, sunshine,” she says, picking up the phone after two rings. “What’s shaking?”

  I put the phone on speaker while I rummage through the closet for another bag. “How soon is too soon to sleep with someone?” I ask her, and she laughs.

  “You’re asking the woman who should buy stock in Tinder,” she says.

  “I haven’t had sex since Trevor, and even that was only okay at best,” I tell her. “And well, with Hunter, you know that it has to be good.”

  “Oh,” she says, agreeing, “you know that man is packing in the dick area just by the way he walks.”

  “How does he walk?” I ask her, opening my lingerie drawer, tossing and moving things around, not exactly sure what I’m looking for.

  “He walks with the ‘my dick is big’ walk,” she says. “Like with swagger.”

  I stop, shuffling my underwear around while I try to think if I can remember his walk. “I mean, you’ve sucked his dick, right?”

  “Um, no,” I tell her, and she gasps in shock. “Don’t even start.”

  “It’s been a week,” she says. “If you’re not sucking his dick, someone else is.”

  “Not everyone is as sexual as you are,” I point out, thinking I didn’t see him every day, so maybe he does have someone else sucking his dick.

  “I beg to differ,” she says. “Once you get the D, and it rocks your world, you crave it. It’s sort of like a drug.”

  I pick up a pair of black lace panties “Well, what if his D is good,” I start, and she hums, “like it’s so good that I really want it all the time?”

  “Yes,” she says, “go on.”

  “And then we break up?” I say.

  “Buzzkill,” she says, her laughter making me laugh.

  “I haven’t really had the D so good that I would think of craving it. Trevor was enjoyable. At least he got things done, but I wouldn’t stop watching television to bounce on him.”

  “Okay, first off, that should have been a sign,” she says. “Life is too short for sex to be just enjoyable.” She laughs. “I mean, bottom line and worst-case scenario, we sign you up on Tinder.”

  I shake my head. “Okay, we are getting off topic here.” I pick up the pink lace and toss it back into the drawer. “Should I go prepared to have sex, or should I not shave and automatically cross that off the list?”

  “Laney, I love you,” she starts and huffs out, “but listen to me, and listen to me carefully. You always, always, always shave.” She groans, and I smile while she continues talking, and I continue my search to find something sexy. “What if something happens to you in the car? Car crash, trapped inside; we are talking anything where the firemen have to use the jaws of life to pull you out of the car. And with all the turmoil to make sure not to move your neck, they accidentally rip off your skirt or have to cut off your pants because it’s stuck on debris. And while doing this, they look down because they are guys, and you know they are looking down when you are so hot looking, and then they do it, and it’s like 70’s porn down there?” She gasps. “They will be going back to firehouse fifty-one, and chances are none of them will be wondering if you’re okay or not because they will be too busy judging your hairy vagina.”

  I roll my eyes. “You know that Chicago Fire isn’t real, right? That there is no Kelly Severide, and besides, my vagina isn’t hairy. I’m properly groomed,” I tell her. “I’m not an old maid virgin, Sandy. I have had sex before.”

  “I beg to differ,” she says. “Anyway, I have to go. Anthony is coming over again, and well, we are going to try to set a record for how long we have sex this time.” She squeals. “I can’t wait.”

  “What?” I shriek.

  “We’re up to six hours. I think we could top it at seven,” she says seriously. “It all depends on the positions and the speed. I’m thinking slow and steady.” Is she serious right now?

  “Who the fuck has sex for six hours?” I ask. “Seriously, who?”

  “People who get the good D, Laney!” she says, and I hang up on her.

  I shuffle things around in my drawer, and my hands land on the black lace one-piece lingerie I bought after I broke up with Trevor. I take it out and hold it up; this would be my ‘have reckless sex with someone to get over your cheating closet gay ex-boyfriend’ lingerie. “Yes, this is going to be perfect,” I say. “You are going to knock his socks off.”

  I walk to the shower and make sure that everything is cleanly shaven, then I apply my champagne and strawberry body cream and slide into the one-piece black lace and mesh lingerie. I look at myself in the mirror, and I love the way it fits even better than before. The bra cups are demi, and the wiring under it is pushing them up a touch. Lace covers my stomach all the way down. Turning to check the back, it shows that the back is all mesh and a thong. “It’s going down.”

  I grab a one-piece sleeveless black dress and slip it on. The waist is elastic, so it sucks in, and the top is flowy. I take out my black stilettos and slide them on, tying them around my ankle. I leave my hair down and loose. When I hear him knock on the door, I smile to myself, smooth down my skirt to make sure
it’s okay, and walk to the door. I’m swinging my hips even if no one is watching. It makes me feel sexy. Or it could be that I know I’m wearing something sexy under my dress. It’s surprising how lingerie can make you think you’re suddenly a Victoria’s Secret model on the runway with the wings.

  I swing the door open, and instead of him having his mouth open, I’m the one gaping. He stands there in his black suit that has to be tailor made because it fits him to a T. His white button-down shirt is open at the collar, but it’s not just his outfit; it’s his stance and just the way he’s standing there. Then I go and think about what Sandy said, and my eyes have a mind of their own as they roam down his body, finally arriving at his crotch area. He has to be packing a big D in there. His hair is combed over on top. His jaw is square, and his smile is more of a smirk, but it’s his eyes that get me. They are almost crystal clear today.

  “Holy shit,” he says, stepping forward and wrapping his arm around my waist to bring me closer to him as I smell him. “You look …” He doesn’t finish; he just crashes his lips on mine, and with just one kiss, I melt into his arms. My arms wrap around his neck as I turn my head to the side and deepen the kiss.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asks when he finally lets my lips go.

  “Yeah, I just have to grab my bag,” I tell him and walk to the counter, taking my small clutch bag.

  “Is that it?” he asks me, looking down at my hand. The purse only big enough for lipstick and a credit card.

  “Yeah, I figure if I’m sleeping over, we are going to be doing it naked.” I smirk at him as I walk past him to the door. “So, I don’t have to bring anything.” His jaw goes tight, the vein in his forehead bulging, and now I see how fast his eyes have changed from crystal to shaded.

  He turns and walks to me, grabbing my hand and taking the key from the other hand while he locks the door. He doesn’t say anything to me when he leads me to the car, closing the door after I slide in. So, I just look out the window and smile.