27. Something Needs Drilling
27
Something Needs Drilling
A Pepper in the Sun
Rim a copper mug with chili salt and fill with crushed ice. Add 2 ounces jalapeno syrup and 1 ounce fresh lime juice. Top with nonalcoholic ginger beer and stir. Garnish with jalapeno slices.
DANNY
I wiped a bead of sweat from my temple before I knocked on Lucie’s door. The hallway was stifling, like the rest of the building. Even the central air conditioning in the bar downstairs didn’t cut it in this heat wave. We’d thrown open the doors and windows to welcome in the nonexistent breeze, and Leo and I had bought the last fans the hardware store had to cool off Norm in the kitchen. It was a lot for freaking September.
The upper floors were unairconditioned though I knew Lucie had two AC window units. The one in her bedroom dripped condensation onto my window unit with an incessant pinging sound.
Were they enough in this heat?
The hardware store didn’t have any left, but I’d haul my unit up for her if she needed it. Tina said she always ran hot when she was pregnant.
When Lucie opened the door, the first thing I noticed was her hair. The curls weren’t round and bouncy like usual. They were wiry and frizzy, standing out from her head like a lion’s mane. Her forehead glistened.
“What do you want?” she snarled.
“I’m just checking on you. Are you doing okay? It’s pretty hot out.”
“I’m fine. I’m busy.” She stood in the door, blocking me, which was weird because we’d slept together most nights since her birthday party last month. I’d spent almost as much time at her place as at mine. Though she’d been heads-down in her book project after work all week, and the only time I’d seen her was Wednesday when I’d carried up a case of seltzer. She’d had her friends with her that night, so I hadn’t stayed.
“Can I come in?” I asked. “I want to check if your apartment is cool enough.”
“It’s fine. Or it would be if I could sit still for a minute.”
“Then you should sit down. What can I do to help?”
“Help?” Her nose crinkled. “Nothing.”
“Let me get you some ice water, then you can rest for a minute. I could give you a shoulder massage.”
She rolled her shoulder, then grumbled, “It’s too hot for a massage. I don’t want to be touched.”
I held up my hands. “Okay. No touching. How about some water, and I’ll look at your AC unit?”
She walked into her living room and flopped onto her couch. I went to her kitchen and poured her favorite seltzer in a highball glass over ice. I handed it to her and walked to the window unit. It was blowing cold air like a champ. The perspiration dried on my temples, and I tugged my T-shirt away from my sweaty chest.
When I turned to face her, I found her gaze on me. Specifically, on my loose basketball shorts. I cleared my throat, and her attention rocketed up to my face. Her cheeks pinked. “Are you cool enough?” I asked.
“As long as I sit down, I’m fine. But I was…” She waved her hand at her desk. “Doing stuff.”
I glanced at her monitor, but it was turned off. Then I noticed the hammer on the desk.
“What were you doing?”
“Trying to fix the crib.”
I walked over to check it out. “What’s wrong with it?”
“When Savannah was here this week, she reminded me I can’t use that crib because of the drop side. It’s dangerous.”
“Oh, right. Tina said something about that when I picked it up. But with, you know…” I waved my hand in the air like she could see all my mixed-up emotions from being in love with a woman who didn’t love me back. “With everything, I forgot.”
“I found instructions on YouTube for fixing it, but it was a lot.” She wiped a trickle of sweat from her temple. “When you go, could you take it with you? I’ll order a new one.”
It felt like she’d reached into my chest and grasped my heart. “Why didn’t you ask? I can fix it.”
“You can?”
I gave her a rueful smile. “When you grow up with more siblings than money, you learn how to fix things. I’ll get my tools and take care of it.”
“I—” She swallowed. “Okay.” She set her water on the coffee table next to a pink book with an illustration of a pregnant woman on the cover. “I’ll move some of that stuff.”
“No. Sit there and rest. Want me to make you a snack?”
“A burger from Barb’s?” Her eyes lit up.
“It’s only eleven. The heat’s making Norm especially cranky, and he’d kill us both if I asked him to make you a burger before noon. How about some dried fruit and almonds, then when I’m done, we can go down for lunch?”
She crossed her arms. “Fine.” Her breasts pushed out over them, and the scoop neck of her dress pulled down, exposing the valley in between. I swallowed hard. I loved her breasts before, but they were amazing now. I’d spent a lot of time with them over the past month, and I could practically taste her?—
She cleared her throat and tugged up her dress to cover that enticing hollow.
“Wh-what?” My brain was full of static.
“You were going to get me a snack. And then tools. But I can get my own snack if you need a minute to reboot.” She smirked.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I’ve got it.” Get it together, Carbone. I trudged into her kitchen. I had a job to do. Besides, whether or not we were sleeping together, ogling her was disrespectful. I grabbed the giant container of trail mix I’d picked up at the warehouse store and shook some into a bowl. Careful not to look at her again, I set the bowl on her coffee table. “Be right back,” I muttered.
I returned with my tools and a clearer head. She’d put away all the stuff that had been piled in the crib, probably in the secondhand dresser my siblings had gifted her at the shower. “Did you need me to run any of those new baby clothes through the wash?” I asked as I assessed the crib. “Tina says we need to use that special baby detergent.”
When she didn’t answer, I glanced over my shoulder. “Lucie?”
She was ogling me.
“I’ll do the laundry after,” I said.
“We’ll do it after,” she murmured, eyes glued to my ass.
I couldn’t help smiling—or flexing—as I bent to pick up my cordless drill. “I’m gonna sink a couple of screws in here,” I said.
She swallowed. “Uh-huh.”
I drilled a recess for the head of the screw so it would sit below the surface of the wood, then I switched bits and drilled a longer pilot hole for the shaft. After repeating the steps on the right side, I sank the screws in, securing the side to the ends of the crib. I rattled the side experimentally, but it didn’t budge.
“See?” I said, dropping my drill into its bag. “Now the side butts up against the corners. It’s not going anywhere.”
I turned to see her response, but she was right in front of me. She put her hands on the side of the crib, caging me in. “It’s not?”
“No.” I lowered my eyebrows. Was she talking about the crib or me? Regardless, the answer was the same. “It’s not.”
“Guess I’m stuck with it then.” She pressed closer, and her glorious breasts brushed my chest.
I sucked in a breath as all the blood rushed from my brain to my other head. “Stuck with me,” I echoed nonsensically.
“Look,” she said, “you can’t come in here acting out some thin porno plotline and not fuck me.”
“I…I can’t?” My brain had gone offline.
She reached up to the back of my neck and tugged out the ponytail holder securing my hair. The pull at my scalp made the hairs rise on my arms. When she tunneled her fingers into my hair, I couldn’t help it. My hands naturally fit themselves to the curve of her lower back. One wandered down to explore the succulent curve of her ass. She pressed her hips to me, pinning my erection against her belly.
“No, your line is, ‘I think something else needs drilling,’” she murmured. Her lips looked plush. The sweet scent of the almonds she’d eaten wafted up to me. I lowered my head, seeking her kiss.
When our lips met, it was electric. Like I’d stuck a screwdriver in a wall socket, heat licked up my spine. I bent to touch, to taste her. She was soft and delicious and hungry, opening to me, licking inside my mouth, lighting up every nerve as she fused her body to mine. My scalp tingled as she scratched her short nails through my hair.
Her other hand clamped onto my ass. I groaned, rubbing myself against her firm belly. My thin shorts let me feel every curve of her, curves I wanted to explore and map.
She broke the kiss, panting. “Want to take this someplace more comfortable?”
“Yeah.” I took her hand and followed her to her bedroom like I was actually a porno handyman.
It was cooler in here, and I took a moment to savor the sensation of sweat drying on my skin. The anticipation of touching Lucie’s skin, of folding her into my arms, of hearing her heart beat.
Then I heard rustling.
I opened my eyes to find her picking up clothing off the comforter and tossing it into a suitcase on the bed.
“You’re packing?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a trip tomorrow.” She bent to pick up the suitcase.
“Let me.” I lifted it from the bed and set it on the floor. “But you can’t go on a trip tomorrow. You’re practically eight months pregnant. Will they even let you on a plane?”
“Of course they will. I can fly up to a month before my due date.”
“Which is in six weeks,” I said.
“Exactly.” She lifted a pile of clothes and tossed them into the suitcase.
“But should you? What if you have a complication like…” I searched my brain for the title of one of the pamphlets in her doctor’s office. “Gestational diabetes? Or preeclampsia?”
“Then I’ll deal with it. There are hospitals in DC too.”
“DC?” My jaw clenched. “You’re going to the East Coast? That’s, like, an eight-hour flight! You can’t sit on a plane that long. You’ll get blood clots.”
She stepped closer to me and put a hand on my chest. “It’s only five hours. And I’ll get up at least once an hour and walk around. Now, where were we?” She trailed her hand lower.
I took a giant step back and bumped into her dresser. “You can’t go. Your boss can’t make you.”
Frowning, she put her hands on her hips. “Yes, I can. And it’s not for my boss. I have an opportunity to do an interview with a subject for my book.”
I didn’t want to stand in the way of her research. Writing that book was her dream. “Then I’ll go with you.”
“You’ll go…with me?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Sure. I’ll take a few days off. I’ll carry your bag. Make sure you’re hydrated.” So what if I’d never been on a plane before. Or been farther from home than Vegas. How hard could it be? “You’ll need help.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes blazed. “I do not need help. I especially don’t need it from someone who won’t get paid to do a job he can’t work when he’s in a different state.”
My head snapped back. “You won’t accept my help because I’m paid hourly?”
“No, goddammit.” Her voice rose. “I won’t accept your help because I don’t fucking need help!”
“Christ, Lucie, everyone needs help!” My voice strained from the effort it took not to yell at her. Everything in the room had a red haze to it except for her. She blazed bright like a floodlight.
I don’t know which of us moved first, but the next thing I knew, I had my hands on her and I was kissing her. Maybe kiss was too nice a word for it. Our mouths pressed together, our teeth clacked, and our tongues wrestled like a pair of beefy guys in spandex trunks and kneepads.
My brain couldn’t have been more fried if Lucie had hit me over the head with a folding chair. Nothing rational was left, only the gaping wound she’d left when she’d said I wasn’t worthy of helping her and the blinding need to prove I could take care of her in every way she needed.
She yanked down my shorts and underwear, and I hissed when her cool hand squeezed my hot, angry dick. I was too close to the edge, but there was no way I was going off in her hand. I broke the kiss. “No. Hands up here.” I put her hands on my shoulders.
“Like this?” She twirled her fingers in my hair and gave a vicious yank that made my scalp erupt in pain. My dick jumped.
“Yeah,” I grunted. I rucked up her skirt. Not bothering to pull off her panties, I tugged the crotch aside and buried my fingers in her wet heat, tracing her swollen lips.
She gasped and bit my shoulder.
“Ow!” But some ancient part of me flickered to life like a flame igniting from embers. I shoved two fingers inside her and flicked her clit with my thumb.
She stiffened, then let out a high-pitched moan as I pulled my fingers out and thrust them back in. I tapped her clit again. She pressed her body into my hand. “More,” she demanded.
I gave it to her. Because I wanted to. She rippled around me as I moved my hand faster, deeper, as I kept my thumb on her clit as an anchor. Her fingers tightened on my shoulders, digging into the muscle, until her whole body clenched. Her muscles locked around my fingers, holding them in place. Finally, she shivered and relaxed.
“Thank you,” she said, “I?—”
“You think you’re done?” I gritted out. I pulled my fingers out of her and wiped them on my T-shirt before I pulled it off. “Panties off. Hands and knees on the bed.”
I would have found the control to stop if she’d protested. But she didn’t. Her pupils were blown, and her lips parted when she scanned my face. Then she reached down and shimmied her underwear to the floor. Keeping her gaze on my face, she kneeled on the bed, then turned away and flicked her dress up over her ass.
One step brought me behind her. I bent and licked her glistening pussy. She flinched in surprise, then moaned when I gripped her ass cheeks and buried my face in her.
She’d hardly come down from her last orgasm, and soon she was shuddering and shouting my name. I sucked her one more time and then brushed my dripping chin against her haunch. “Who just made you come twice?”
“You did, Danny,” she said hoarsely.
“And who’s about to make you come again with my dick?”
“You are, Danny. You.”
“You need me,” I said, lining myself up at her entrance.
She didn’t respond to that except with a grunt as I slid inside. “You need me,” I repeated as I reversed and thrust back in, gripping her hips.
She let out a wordless cry, pushing back against me. And the fact that she refused to admit she needed me only made me angrier. I pulled out and ground back in as far as I could go.
“Danny!” she screamed. “Yes!”
I kept up a brutal rhythm until my vision hazed and everything drew up tight. I was so focused on the sensation of her tight squeeze around me that I couldn’t tell if she’d come again or not, so I reached around and tweaked her clit. Her back bowed, and that was it. I emptied myself inside her, groaning her name. When my knees wobbled, I pulled out and collapsed onto the bed beside her.
She flopped to her side. “So much for not wanting to be touched.”
A chill raced across my skin. “Shit, Lucie. Did I go too far?”
“No.” She sat up and put a hand on my arm. “I wanted that. Needed it.”
“Needed it?” Something pinged in my chest. I should’ve known better than to hope Lucie Knox would ever say she needed me.
“Yes. Now, give me a minute and then we can take a nap.” She pushed herself off the bed and went inside the bathroom.
But I didn’t wait. I tugged on my clothes. My face flamed when I realized I hadn’t bothered to take off my shoes. Then I picked up my tool bag and left.