Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SOPHIE
We get the cheesiest-looking bouquet we can find. We have just over four dollars left. It’s hopefully enough to buy the ribbon, but there aren’t any available here, so we have to cross the street to a different grocery store to continue our quest.
There are only a few rolls, and the cheapest—gray—costs $4.99.
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
Rob tsks. “I know you want to have some bad-girl fun, Soph, but I’m not shoplifting with you.”
I glance around nervously, my heart pounding, to see if anyone heard, and notice an older woman looking up at us from a display of faith-based birthday cards.
“He was kidding,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat.
“Nope, definitely not kidding. She’s a very bad girl.”
The woman stuffs the card into the pocket of her coat and hurries away.
“You think she just shoplifted because of us?” Rob asks conversationally.
I surprise myself by laughing, giving his chest a playful push. The feeling of it beneath my fingers is familiar now, and an ache forms between my legs.
“You’re terrible,” I say.
“And yet you keep coming back for more. Do you happen to have any ribbon at home?”
“It would ruin the game.”
“What if we buy another scratcher to see if we can add to our fund?” he asks with a sly grin. “If we win, we’ll still be using our luck fund.”
He’s willing to play along, and a delicious warmth fills me. There’s no question he’s doing it for me.
“Okay, but we have to buy the ticket with the leftover money. It’s essential.”
“If you insist.”
We buy a single lottery ticket. The moment the cashier hands it to Rob, I swipe it out of his hands and dash to the nearest flat surface, a wall just a few feet away, and pull out Rob’s lucky guitar pick.
He watches me, grinning when he notices the pick.
“I’ll give it back,” I say, unconsciously wrapping my fingers around it. “That’s why I was carrying it around.”
“I don’t want it back,” he says. “I want you to carry my luck for me, Soph. I trust it more with you.”
My heart tries to grow. “Do you still have that penny? If so, you’re holding onto my bad luck. That hardly seems fair.”
He grins at me. “That’s a lot of significance to put on a penny, but you’re right. It’s in my wallet, and nothing could convince me to part with it.”
Maybe he wouldn’t say so if he knew everything. But I keep that thought to myself. Because if he were to blame me the way my parents did…
I don’t think I’d have the strength to share my secret with anyone else, ever again. At the same time, I want him to know. I want Hannah and Briar to know too. In some ways, they won’t feel like they’re fully mine until they do.
“We don’t have all day, barkeep,” he says, and I realize I’ve been standing there like a statue, the lotto ticket pressed to the wall.
I read the instructions, which feel overly complicated, and then get to scratching.
Turning toward Rob, I toggle up and down a little on my feet, feeling carried away by the current of him. “We won five dollars, and it only cost two-fifty. We can buy the ugly ribbon.”
He barks out a laugh, pulls me to him one-handed, and kisses the top of my head. The gesture is so natural, so sweet, it undoes me.
Jonah never touched me like this. His displays of affection were always about showboating or initiating sex. Isn’t it ironic that this thing with Rob is a show, basically, with a sprinkling of friends with benefits, but it feels more real?
“Lead on, Soph.”
I collect the money from the cashier, who doesn’t seem impressed with us, and then buy our crappy ribbon. I can’t seem to stop grinning, even when we get back to the car and find that the flowers have wilted in the heat, and we now have only forty-five minutes before I need to leave for work.
By the time we collect my car and get back to my house, we only have twenty minutes to work on the corsage and boutonniere.
“We’ll have to do this quickly,” I say, leading him inside to the kitchen.
“Aye aye.”
I pause, because there’s a note from Otis on the small kitchen table:
I’m making another attempt at catching the pigeon, Soph. She’s been spotted in Biltmore Village. I’ve got her favorite snack to lure her in. Also, there’s something I want to discuss with you. Can we talk later?
Rob gives me a wicked grin and waves the note at me. “You think this is about the condoms?”
“Yes,” I say, setting our purchases down, and bury my face in my hands. “He’ll probably never let me hear the end of it. I can’t believe I did that.”
He pulls my hand away so I can see his smile. “I can. Just like I believe you can make one hell of a corsage in eighteen and a half minutes.”
“Why, Mr. Price. Did you just issue a challenge?” I say.
“Oh, absolutely .”
“Well then. I accept .” I give him my sauciest grin and hurry into the kitchen to grab the scissors, floral tape, and a safety pin from the junk drawer. Am I stretching my own rules by using a couple of things I already have? Assuredly. But I’m having too much fun to care.
“But there’s a complication,” he tells me, his tone thick with mischief and intent. “You have to do it from my lap.”
The scissors clatter as I drop them onto the table, and the safety pin settles without a sound. The green floral tape rolls for a second before tipping onto its side.
“ Oh . Should I get the yellow condom?”
He swears, a smile turning up his lips. “Yellow’s next?”
“Yellow’s next. We’ll have to be quick, though.”
“I’m not going to stop you.”
I run upstairs to grab it, then hurry back down to find Rob sitting in a chair in front of the flowers, waiting for me.
“We have less than fifteen minutes,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me to him. “Seems like you’d better get going with those flowers.”
I climb into his lap, my whole body vibrating with awareness of him. The rough texture of his jeans. The heat of his hardness pressing into me. I rock back against it, and he groans, then slides the chair in toward the table.
“You really want me to work on these?”
“Fourteen minutes,” he says, his voice strained as he wraps a hand around my hip, pinning me in place.
So I get started, taking the flowers out of their wrapping and choosing matching sets for the corsage and boutonniere. I’ve just gotten the flower selection sorted when he flicks up the skirt of my dress and parts my thighs with his other hand.
I can feel him getting harder underneath me.
I peer back at him. “Yellow condom time?”
But he shakes his head. “Keep going, Soph. You’ve got this.”
“So you’re going to torment me?” I ask.
His laughter radiates through me. “I’m tormenting myself too, so at least it’s fair.”
But even as he speaks of torment, his touch dips closer to where I need it, to where I’m so eager for him I can barely remember what a flower is, let alone how to arrange it.
I turn my head and brush a kiss against his cheek. “I don’t think I care about the flowers.”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” he says, slipping his fingers past the strap of my underwear and brushing them over me. Then I feel him tugging down the fabric, and I lift up for a moment so he can get the underwear past my butt. They drop and get caught on the heels, and I shake them off my feet. “Because I’m only going to put the yellow condom on if you finish.”
He’s playing games with me. He must be able to feel how much I like it, because he makes a sound of pleasure, tightening his grip on my hip, and dips his fingers inside of me under the dress. He moves them so skillfully and with such purpose that sweat beads on my forehead as I try to trim the flowers to the correct length. I start working with the ribbon.
Almost done.
I’ve done this before, but my fingers feel clumsy and sluggish, as if I can only pay attention to one sensation at a time, and this is not the one I want to waste any brain cells on.
He leans in close as he thrusts his fingers in deep, the palm of his hand pressing against a place that has me writhing against him. His hair brushes my neck before his lips press against the skin beneath my ear. He sucks on the flesh softly, his hand still working me while his other hand pins me down to his lap, showing me exactly the effect this is having on him—and what reward I’ll get if I finish the flowers.
I make almost inhuman noises as I tie a clumsy knot around the flowers. It could, with imagination, be considered a corsage. It’s probably the ugliest thing I’ve ever made, but I don’t care. I’ll wear it. I’ll wear it every day until it wilts if he’ll just give me what I want.
I start on the boutonniere as he moves his fingers, curling them up to stroke a spot I didn’t know existed, his lips still on my neck. Pleasure ripples through me.
I’m clumsy as I fumble with the tape and the pin, but I get it done, and I don’t look at the clock. I don’t even look back at him. I grab the yellow condom and turn toward him, silently pleading.
And the way he’s looking at me…
No man has ever looked at me like this before.
My whole body feels like it’s on the verge of erupting. His fingers move inside of me.
“Take off your pants, please,” I plead.
“So polite.”
He smiles at me as I get up, and I watch, hungry, as he pushes down his pants and underwear. My mouth goes dry as he pumps a hand up his dick once and then rolls on the condom. “Sit down,” he says, his voice velvet. “Just like before, Sophie. Your back to me.”
As I start to lower down, I feel him position himself, and then I sink down onto him, slowly, the feeling exquisite. His hands reach up to cup my breasts as I move on top of him, my hands gripping the edge of the table for support.
“So beautiful,” he breathes into my neck. “So good at taking my dick.”
No one’s ever spoken to me like that before. Part of me clutches her pearls even as I move more quickly on top of him, taking more of him. Wanting him deeper.
“And you make such gorgeous flower arrangements,” he whispers into my ear before capturing the lobe in his teeth.
I’m shocked that I can laugh right now, with him inside of me like this, at the kitchen table, but it’s such a ridiculous thing to say. The flowers are all at awkward, rushed angles. Because I wanted him too much to be anything close to rational.
“I was on a tight schedule,” I say as I push into him, taking him so deep it feels like my eyes will roll back into my head.
“So am I, Sophie. I only have five minutes to make you come. Do you think I can do it?”
His hand moves between my legs, and the feeling of him stroking me there while I take him in deep, out here in the kitchen, is enough to drive me crazy.
“I believe in you,” I say as I grind into him, his hips bucking up to meet me.
It grabs me all at once this time, and it takes far less than five minutes. Pleasure bursts through me, so fierce it almost hurts, radiating all the way down to my fingers and toes. To the nerve endings on my scalp.
He groans, and I feel him pulse inside me, which only drives my pleasure higher, even more so when he leans in and kisses my neck with an open mouth.
“With time to spare,” he whispers into my ear.
I get up, and he groans before climbing to his feet and taking off the condom.
“Crap,” I say, checking the clock. I have to leave for work in three minutes. I hurry to the bathroom, and he follows me at a more leisurely pace, knotting the condom and throwing it in the trash. It looks so dirty in there, like an accusation. So I crumple some tissues and throw them on top. Then I hurry to run a brush through my hair.
“Let me do that,” he says, watching me in the mirror.
My heart skips a beat. “You want to brush my hair?”
“Yeah,” he says, scratching his head. He looks a little sheepish, almost embarrassed. I hadn’t thought Rob Price could be embarrassed. He’s always seemed so untouched by other people’s opinions. My chest feels gooey now, but also raw.
I rub my fingers over the cage holding my heart. “Okay.”
He takes the brush from me while I grab my makeup bag to put on lipstick. Then he watches me in the mirror as he glides the brush carefully through my thick hair, working in segments. Something strange is happening to me. I almost feel like crying. And at the same time, I want to jump into the air and throw my hands to the sky. I want to kiss him too. Softly. Lovingly.
The lipstick’s the only thing that stops me.
When he finishes, he leans in to kiss my neck before setting the brush down. “There’s nothing vanilla about you, Sophie Ginnis,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “I’ve got plans for the red condom. And for the boutonniere. I’m wearing it to my show today.”
“You’re not,” I say with a smile. “It’s awful.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m going to pin it to my T-shirt. You know, you promised to wear yours too.”
“I will,” I say with a small laugh. “But I’m going to feel stupid.”
“Don’t. Every time someone asks you about it, you can think about what happened at the kitchen table.”
He grins at me in the mirror, so painfully handsome with those golden eyes and his dark hair a beautiful mess around his face. And then he leaves, giving me thirty seconds of privacy so I can try to make myself look like I didn’t just have mind-blowing sex in a chair at the kitchen table.
A few of his last words echo through my head as I change into comfortable shoes.
There’s nothing vanilla about you.
That’s a good thing, obviously, a compliment, but what he said…it connects this morning, and last night, back to Jonah.
It’s foolish to feel bad about that, because Rob wouldn’t have been here with me if not for Jonah, but I don’t want Jonah to have anything to do with this. With this rebound or whatever it is we’re doing.
And yet…Jonah is Rob’s brother. Rob hates him and would probably do anything to get back at him.
Am I the anything in this equation?