Story of My Life (Story Lake #1)

32. Good is a four-letter word

32

GOOD IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

CAMPBELL

You don’t need to give Hazel a ride home,” I told the boy wonder mayor as the unofficial council meeting broke up.

Ahead of us, Emilie muttered under her breath about time-outs and the First Amendment.

“Have you ever considered a Reiki cleanse or a good personal sageing?” Erleen asked her as they headed into the parking lot.

“I don’t?” Darius asked over the nighttime cacophony of tree frogs and crickets.

“He doesn’t?” Hazel said, still looking shell-shocked from the “shitty” news. Ha.

“Got those tile samples for you to take a look at.” I hooked my thumb in the direction of my truck.

She frowned, obviously not recognizing a ploy to get her alone.

“Yeah, for everywhere but the bedroom,” I said pointedly.

Her eyebrows winged up as the realization dawned. “Oh, those tiles. Yes, I would very much like to look at your tiles.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Then I’m just going to skedaddle home and get to that chemistry homework. Looking forward to your solutions at the next council meeting,” Darius said, pointing finger guns in our direction.

“Bye, Darius,” Hazel called after him before turning to look at me. “Tile samples?” she teased.

I didn’t want to think about problems or solutions or excuses. I wanted to forget about all the figurative and literal shit and just feel good for a change.

“Would you rather go home with Boy Wonder?” I asked.

“No, I would not.”

I reached for her wrist.

“But I feel kind of bad skipping off to have sex—if that’s what tile samples is a euphemism for—when the town is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

“First of all, I’m not skipping anywhere. Second, life’s uncertain. Have sex first.”

“An interesting life philosophy. I bet you can’t skip.”

“I bet I can do other more interesting things.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she decided smugly.

I led the way to my truck where I’d left it in the back corner of the lot, out of view from the lodge.

“Did you plan this or were you just trying to make sure no one dented your doors?” she asked as I pulled her around the far side of the truck and opened the rear passenger door.

The upside to living in a near ghost town was that the likelihood of someone stumbling across you having sex was practically nonexistent. Out here, on this dark summer night, there was nothing but shadows and forest.

“Weren’t we supposed to talk about the whole same-page, no-strings-attached-sex thing?” she asked breathlessly.

That had been an uncharacteristic demand of mine. But I’d wanted her to be sure, to understand this wasn’t going to go anywhere. “Fine. You still good with having sex with me?” I asked gruffly, leaning around her to slap off the interior light.

She turned slowly to face me, the sliver of moonlight making her look goddamn breathtaking. “Yep. You?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Great,” she said, reaching for my zipper.

“Ladies first.” I lifted her up and planted her sideways on the back seat.

“From a research standpoint, I had no idea how hot manhandling could be,” she whispered as I reached for the waistband of her pants.

I tugged her pants down those long, smooth legs and threw them into the front seat.

“What the hell kind of shirt is this?” I demanded.

“It’s a bodysuit,” she said, pointing to the snaps between her legs.

On a growl, I hooked my finger beneath the material and yanked. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and it took a Herculean effort not to just rip off my pants and drive us both mad.

“Here?” she gasped.

“Here,” I insisted, lazily sinking two fingers into her.

“Gah!” She collapsed back on the seat, clamping a hand over her mouth as those slick, smooth walls closed around me.

I thrust my fingers in deeper, crooking them at just the right angle.

“I spent the entire dinner thinking about doing this,” I confessed.

Hazel’s muffled moan was music to my fucking ears.

Withdrawing my fingers, I yanked her hips to the edge of the seat and leaned down. When my mouth found her, she jackknifed halfway up. But when I separated her damp folds and gave that first stroke of my tongue, she melted back down on a quiet cry.

Draping her legs over my shoulders, I applied myself to memorizing her flavor.

Her fingers found my hair and gripped as her hips bucked against my greedy mouth. I was hard, throbbing, desperate to be inside her, but I wanted her desperation first. I wanted to drive her as wild as she drove me. My fingers joined my mouth in sending her higher, wilder. Her grip tightened on my hair, my fingers, and I knew she was close. I needed to taste her release.

She had both hands fisted in my hair now. “Campbell!” Her cry echoed in the night, making my cock throb. I hummed my approval and covered her mouth with my free hand just as she came apart.

The taste of her orgasm on my tongue was fucking intoxicating. Her pleasure, a drug that careened through my system. I drew it out as long as I could, ignoring my own razor-edged desire. When it was over, when the last tremor passed, I expected her to go boneless so I could take my time working her up again. Savoring her.

But Hazel was wriggling out from under my mouth, then gripping me by the shirt and dragging me into the back seat. Frantic hands yanked down my zipper and—with a little help—shoved my pants down to my thighs. My erection jumped free like it was spring-loaded.

And the last thing I heard was Hazel’s triumphant sigh before her mouth found the crown of my cock.

The unexpected pleasure had me slamming my head into the headrest and mindlessly thrusting my hips up to meet her.

“Christ,” I hissed, as she opened those lips and took me deep with that hot, wet mouth.

Every muscle in my body went rigid as I fought the urge to come right then and there.

Hazel was on her hands and knees, bottomless, in the back seat of my truck, giving me the blow job of a lifetime. I was dangerously close to losing my mind, my heart, and my grip on reality.

She gripped the base of my shaft in one hand while her mouth did unspeakably amazing things to the rest.

I’d wanted to regain control, to squash those strange, complicated feelings she’d been making me feel. Yet here I was, practically levitating off the seat, wanting desperately to come now and not yet because there was more I wanted to give her. The woman was a romance novel–writing witch, and I was under her spell.

She took me to the back of her throat, and the guttural growl I produced clawed its way out of my throat. I was seeing stars behind my eyelids. Stars with a fucking Fourth of July’s worth of fireworks.

My balls tightened, and I knew I was about to lose it.

With every ounce of self-control I could muster, I grabbed Hazel by the shoulders and forced that sinful mouth off my dick. She released it with a pop and a pout. “What?—”

But now wasn’t the time to talk.

“Come here, baby.” I hoisted her onto my lap and proceeded to frantically feel around for my wallet with virgin teenager desperation.

Condom secured, I tossed my wallet on the floor and ripped the foil packet.

“Gimme.” She snatched the condom out of my hand and rolled it down my shaft.

“Fuuuck,” I groaned as her hand took me right up to the edge of orgasm.

I closed my hand over hers and gritted my teeth until the worst—or best—of the sensation faded enough that I didn’t think I was about to embarrass myself.

“Hold on to me,” I demanded.

“Okey dokey,” she said, gamely tightening her grip on my cock.

“Not. There,” I hissed and moved her hands to my shoulders.

I hooked my fingers in the neckline of her bodysuit and dragged it and the cups of her bra down. She was bared to me and straddling my lap. I was an inch away from taking all the pleasure I needed from her. Blood pounded through my veins. My heartbeat thrummed like I was in the middle of a sprint. I didn’t have the control to deny myself any longer.

I lined my head up with her opening and wasted half a second wishing we didn’t have to be responsible adults so I could experience what she felt like with nothing between us. But that kind of thing was for people in committed, long-term relationships.

Using the soft curves of her hips for leverage, I yanked her down as I thrust up.

I greedily silenced her cry with my own mouth. It wasn’t a kiss so much as a shared open-mouthed gasp as pleasure speared through us both. The pulse of my dick echoed incessantly in my head. More. More. More. But I held still, fully sheathed in her, absorbing the sensations.

Hazel drew in a shaky breath that had her breasts heaving against my chest.

I drew back from her mouth to find one of her pink pebbled nipples.

On a low moan, she dropped her head back, the tail of her hair tickling my hand.

“Cam,” she whispered in a broken, husky plea.

I was powerless against it.

I withdrew slowly, painfully, inch by inch until she was trembling against me. I gave no warning before driving back into her and indulging in a long, hard tug on that delicate peak.

“Ohmygod.” She groaned the words out as if they were one, and I smiled against her breast.

She adjusted her knees and angled herself just so, taking me to the end of her core. And then she rode me.

My hands moved over her, squeezing, stroking, controlling our speed. My mouth worked her nipple until it was a tight, hard bud before moving on to the next one. Her nails dug into my shoulders through my shirt. Her quiet pleas, the heat of her sex enveloping me, the soft curves of her breasts were a temptation I didn’t want to fight.

She rode me harder. There was a distinct thump, and she stilled mid-bounce. “Ow!”

“Hit your head?” I asked. She nodded.

I placed my palm on the top of her head to protect her from the roof of the cab. With a grin, she regained her cadence.

I couldn’t hold on, couldn’t fight the release as it churned in my balls.

“Fuck it,” I murmured against her breast, the sensitive tip swelling. I gripped her hips and thrust home hard. Once. Twice. Three times. It blazed up my shaft like a lightning strike just as I fucked into her as deep as I could go. And by some divine biological intervention, Hazel’s inner walls clamped down on me, and I ejaculated.

“Goddammit,” I bellowed as the woman destroyed me body, mind, and soul.

“Cam. Cam. Cam,” she brokenly chanted my name as she came apart on top of me.

I fucked her through our orgasms, each clasp of her sex milking more semen from me until we collapsed in on each other, just two masses of sensation trying to remember how to breathe.

I’d had back seat sex before. But nothing ever compared to this compulsive need I felt with Hazel. This was supposed to be just sex. Simple, uncomplicated sex. But I’d just had the orgasm of a lifetime, and I was still half hard inside her, already thinking about the next time.

Hazel peeled her face off my shoulder. “Ohmygod. That was…”

I waited for her to define the words that escaped me. To tell me what this tangle of feelings in my chest was.

“Good,” she said on a satisfied sigh.

Good? Good? A slice of Angelo’s pepperoni pizza fresh from the wood-fired oven was good. Waking up thinking it was Monday but it was actually Sunday was good.

What we’d just done to each other was so far beyond good I’d need a thesaurus to find my way there.

“Good?” I repeated.

She wiggled in my lap, reenergizing my erection, which apparently hadn’t been offended by her lackluster adjective. “You know what I need right now?” she asked.

A bigger, more specific vocabulary? A class in giving sexual compliments to deserving partners?

“What do you need?” I asked gruffly. My throat was raw, my balls were tingly, and my cock was still inside the woman.

“Snacks,” she announced perkily.

“You want snacks?” I repeated slowly.

She nodded. “I was too nervous to eat after the big announcement. What are we going to do?”

My brain was slowly coming back online. “Do about what? Snacks?”

“No. Well, yes. But what are we going to do about the sewage plant upgrades?”

“We just fucked each other in the back seat of a pickup truck in a parking lot, and you want to talk about the sewage plant?”

She nodded. “And snacks.”

I told her I had an early morning and that the snacks and sewage could wait until some other time. I dropped her off at the curb in front of her house, without a good-night, thanks-for-rocking-my-world kiss, and drove away. I made it two blocks before pulling into the old Williams place. They’d moved out over a year ago when Mrs. Williams lost her nursing job at the hospital. The house was still on the market.

I got out and marched back to Hazel’s house. Sticking to the shadows of the driveway, I skirted the side of the house and knocked lightly on the kitchen door.

I heard scuffling and the approach of bare feet inside. The doorknob jiggled then shook.

“It’s locked,” I called out.

“Cam?”

“Just twist the thing.”

“I know how to unlock a door,” she grumbled a moment before the door swung open.

“Holy hell. Give a girl a heart attack, why don’t you?” Hazel said, slapping her free hand to her chest. She was holding the piano bench leg in the other.

“You need to get a security system and a better weapon.” I brushed past her into the construction zone that had once been her kitchen.

“What are you doing here? What happened to your early morning?”

The truth was I didn’t know what the hell I was doing here except that we’d had the best sex of my life and I’d left unsatisfied. My body was happy, but it was the other parts that seemed discontent.

“You got in my head with snacks,” I lied.

“You came to the right place. Follow me,” she said, gesturing with the wooden leg.

The kitchen had been stripped down to studs and subfloor. The plumbing and electrical were looking good. But that was one of the subtle stages of improvement that was harder to appreciate with an untrained eye.

“I know it doesn’t look like much right now, but it’ll be worth it,” I promised her.

“Yeah, listen. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” She crossed her arms in the middle of the room.

Uh-oh. Nothing good ever followed that sentence after it came out of a woman’s mouth. I suddenly regretted showing up unannounced.

“Are we gonna need drinks for this?” I asked.

She grinned, shook her head. Her ponytail was lopsided, with long strands falling out. Sex hair.

“Blue,” she announced.

Blue the fuck what? Balls? Sadness? That cartoon dog that everyone seemed to love? “Care to elaborate?”

“I think I want blue cabinets. Navy. I know we already planned for the white,” she said quickly. “But really, it’s your fault. You’re the one who sent me the hardware options, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the brushed gold. Which would look amazing with blue. And I think the countertops and backsplash will still work.”

“Blue, huh?”

She bit her lip. “You think it’ll look stupid.”

“I know you do it for a living, but maybe you could stop putting words into my mouth,” I suggested.

“Sorry. Please tell me your honest opinion on navy-blue cabinets.”

“In here?”

“No. In the driveway. Yes, in here,” she said, exasperated.

I shrugged and scanned the room. “I think they’d work.”

“Yeah?” she asked.

I nodded. “More personality. Hide dirt better too. You could always do the island in white or a wood tone to offset it. Maybe a driftwood gray to pull out the veining in the quartz.” I could see it, and it would look…good.

“Is it a huge pain to change the paint color?” she asked.

“Cabinets are finished on-site. The crew just needs to bring the right color with them.”

Hazel danced on her toes. “Okay! Let’s do it. Oh my God. It’s going to be beautiful! I might actually have to learn to cook in here. Come on. You’ve earned that snack.”

“You can’t go barefoot in here, Trouble,” I said as she led the way into the hall.

“I wasn’t planning to go marching through an active construction zone to let my secret sex partner inside.”

“Just wear shoes, okay? I don’t want you ending up with a nail through the foot.”

“Yes, sir,” she said smartly as she made the turn into the dining room. It had become a temporary kitchen of sorts with the fridge in the corner and the microwave and hot plate on a folding table pushed up against the wall.

“Chips and dip again, white cheddar popcorn, or I just happened to get a meat and cheese tray in case we had sex again and needed a girthier snack.”

The woman had no idea how delectable she looked. I looked beyond her to the long blank wall that backed the kitchen. “Meat and cheese. While I’m writing change orders, I had a thought.”

“I’m all ears,” she said, opening the refrigerator door.

“This wall.” I nodded at the wall that adjoined the kitchen.

“You were thinking about my wall,” she said, sounding amused. She deposited a plastic-wrapped tray of meats and cheeses on the table by the hot plate.

“You’re keeping this as your formal dining room, right?”

“That’s the plan.”

“There’s no storage in here. But you’ve got this big-ass wall doing nothing,” I continued.

“I assume it’s holding up the house or something.”

“Built-ins. A wall of lower cabinets and a counter the whole way across. Then bookshelves on top to the ceiling.”

Her eyes went wide and dazzled. “Whoa.”

“You could bump out the center and use it as a bar. Maybe do some art or a big mirror in the middle.”

We both studied the big blank wall for a beat.

“So you’re not just good at sex, you’re also good at your job,” she said finally.

There was that word again.

“I’m great at everything,” I corrected.

She was nodding, but it was at the wall, not me. “I can see it. Storage for serveware and table linens on the sides. Bar glasses and bottles in the middle. And bookshelves.”

“You’ve got your library, but I figured you don’t want to cram all your books in there.”

“I am an author. Which means I do have a reputation to uphold,” she joked, still staring at the wall. “Painted or stained?”

“In here? Stained. Match it up to the crown molding. It’s a formal dining room, might as well stick with the theme.”

“Dammit, Cam. Now I want it.”

“I’ll write up an estimate. Might hurt a little,” I warned.

“Well, that’s what you said about sex and look how well that turned out.”

Good. Well. This woman seemed hell-bent on ranking me one step above fine, which we all knew was one step above hot garbage.

“Now I can’t see this room without it,” she complained. “Any other expensive ideas?”

I smirked. “One or two.”

We took the snacks and a pair of beers with us. I showed her the spot under the back stairs that would make a good cleaning supply closet, a change that made sense and wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg beyond some drywall, shelving, and a door.

“Dammit, Cam. Any other bright ideas?”

“Your desk.”

She shook her head, making her ponytail shake. “I don’t even want to hear this one.”

“Suit yourself.” I took a sip of beer and waited a beat.

“Okay. Tell me.”

I led the way into her office and flipped on the lights. She still had boxes of books piled up, eating up the floor space in the room. I pointed to the shitty table she was using as a desk. “That thing is a travesty.”

“It serves a purpose. And it’s pretty sturdy, as you’ll remember.” She patted the top.

I shook my head. “You need something custom, curved to match the window behind you. Not some big-ass executive desk. Maybe something more simple, like a wood top and metal legs. It’ll give you more space underneath since you look like you’re wrestling an alligator when you write.”

“I do not,” she said indignantly.

“It’s like your whole body is acting out whatever you’re writing. Besides, then you could do a matching library table,” I said, pointing toward the other wall. “And still have room for a small couch or a couple of chairs in front of the fireplace.”

She sighed. “You need to stop having ideas until I start selling more books.”

“If you’re not going to throw these on a shelf, you could drop them off at the bookstore,” I said, nudging a box with my foot.

She shook her head. “No, they’re supposed to go here. Every time I sit down to write, I feel guilty for not unpacking, and every time I start to unpack, I feel guilty for not writing.”

I handed her my beer and picked up the first box.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Making you forget I just added a ton of money to your final bill.”

Her husky laugh sent a sizzle up my spine.

“You don’t have to unpack my books. That seems more like a boyfriend job than a no-strings-sex partner job.”

“I already hung your damn curtains,” I pointed out.

“Well, when you put it that way.”

She put on some music, an eclectic playlist of classic rock. And we loaded books—hers and other authors’—onto the shelves.

“I need more books,” she observed as I sliced a blade through the next-to-last box, cutting it down for recycling.

Her collection was respectable but nowhere near big enough to fill the shelves.

Mine would have done it. Not that I was thinking about mingling my library with hers.

I tossed the flattened cardboard onto the mountain by the door.

“You need to mix in some knickknack things,” I said, eyeing the shelves.

Her eyes lit up. “I can have knickknacks!”

“Uh. Yay?”

“You try living your entire life in New York, where you’re lucky if you have a closet the size of a loaf of bread. Walk-in closets and storage are a universal fantasy.”

“Guess that means you’re living a fantasy then.” I picked up the final box and dropped it on her desk.

She cocked her head. “I guess maybe I am.”

“Where do you want these?” I pulled out two of the paperbacks on top. They were the first two books in Hazel’s own series.

It was there and gone, carefully covered by a blank expression, but I knew what I saw. Pain flickered across her face for just a second.

“Those are…extras. They can stay in the box,” she said, snatching them out of my hands and putting the books back.

I was debating whether I should ask the question when a creepy screech scared the hell out of us both.

“What the fuck?” I demanded, instinctively putting myself between Hazel and the doorway.

The goddamn raccoon sat on her haunches in the doorway, looking pissed off.

“Bertha wants her dinner,” Hazel said.

“Seriously? We already blocked off the chimney in the guest room,” I said, taking a step toward the nocturnal mammal.

“Well, she found another way in. She’s smart.”

“She’s not smart. She’s food-driven, and you’re feeding her.”

Hazel shrugged. “I always wanted a pet.”

“You can do better than a raccoon with a shitty attitude.”