Chapter 16
When Willa’s alarm went off the next morning, two thoughts immediately entered her head.
First, she’d come on Shawn’s fingers last night because his calloused hands fucked her better than any cock ever had before.
And second, she’d repaid the favor in kind by giving him road head and then having the gall to swallow.
And she didn’t hate it.
“Shit,” she muttered, covering her face in her hands as the events of the night came back to her in a haze.
Dancing with the stranger.
The way Shawn came in right as he kissed her.
How pissed he got.
How they danced and he whispered things into her ear that still made her toes curl, even a day later.
Every single moment in the car.
The way she rode his fingers like her life depended on it.
How good he tasted in her mouth.
What it felt like to fall asleep on his shoulder.
And then her blurriest memories reminding her how she somehow ended up in her bed—that he carried her inside so gently that she barely stirred.
She bit her lip and groaned, but tried to put him out of her mind as she woke up and did her regular morning routine. She lit some incense and meditated for longer than usual in an attempt to soothe her racing heart. She pulled on her favorite yoga outfit, washed her face, ate a clementine and drank a cup of coffee, then headed to her car.
Willa knew she needed to talk to Shawn. And before that, she needed to put some serious thought to what she was going to say.
But first, she had to teach her Saturday morning yoga class.
She turned on one of her favorite podcasts during her commute to take her mind off of Shawn, and before she knew it, she was pulling into the hotel. Standing outside with iced coffees in hand were Layla and Amanda, and Willa would bet her freezer full of fish they were waiting to hear all the juicy details from last night.
Her suspicions were confirmed a few moments later when Amanda saw her and grinned like a cat. She extended an iced coffee in her direction.
“Thought you might need this,” Amanda said. “A little sustenance while you tell us what happened last night.”
“We’re dying to know,” Layla chimed in, her cheeks reddening. “Your neighbor looked like he was about to rip the head off the guy you were dancing with, then a few minutes later, you were hot and bothered and leaving with him.”
“Please tell me he didn’t just take you home,” Amanda added. “Please tell me things took an R-rated turn.”
Willa took a large gulp of her coffee and heaved a sigh.
“I’m really trying to compartmentalize so I can get through this yoga class,” she said.
“We have thirty minutes til the class starts,” Amanda insisted. “Give us the reader’s digest version of what happened. Please. I’m begging you. I brought you coffee and everything.”
Willa chuckled.
“Okay, fine,” she said, taking another sip of her coffee. “He acted like he was just going to drive me home, but then…”
Her cheeks heated.
“Don’t leave us hanging!” Amanda nearly shrieked.
“I basically begged him to give me an orgasm. Which he did. Thoroughly. With his fingers, right in the parking lot.”
Layla’s jaw dropped, and Amanda smirked.
“And then…”
“There’s more?” Amanda asked excitedly.
“Well, after that, we started heading back, but I noticed he was still hard as a rock. You know? So, I…” Willa covered her face with her spare hand, peeking through her fingers with one eye. “I gave him road head.”
“Holy fuck,” Amanda said, applauding. “I wouldn’t’ve guessed you had it in you, but damn. I’m impressed.”
“Me too,” Layla said quietly.
Willa bit her lip. “And then?—”
“There’s more?” Amanda asked again.
“This part’s G-rated,” Willa amended. “But I fell asleep on the car ride home. And he carried me inside. Took off my shoes, put me in bed, the whole nine.”
“That boy’s a goner,” Amanda said.
“That’s the problem!” Willa responded. “I can’t do serious right now. I just… I can’t. I’m not over what happened with my ex. And I feel like… maybe I pushed too far. And now we have to have the ‘what is this’ talk, and I don’t want to deal with it.”
Layla grimaced in sympathy.
“Look,” Amanda interjected, “don’t overthink this. He already knows what you want. You’ve made it clear. If he caught feelings, that’s on him. Just tell him you had fun last night and want to keep doing it casually, but if he hasn’t changed his mind, you can just stay friends and pretend like it never happened.”
“I don’t know if I can pretend it never happened,” Willa said. “I mean, we’re neighbors. I see him every day.”
“Yeah, that would be hard,” Layla said.
“So then are you willing to lose the friendship over this?” Amanda asked.
“No,” Willa said too quickly. “Definitely not.”
“Well, then I think your options are limited, babe.”
Willa sighed and headed into the lobby, her friends trailing after her. She knew Amanda was right, and she had to talk to Shawn one way or another. She just dreaded rehashing the same conversation they already had, and she harbored a ferocious guilt for everything they did last night when she knew he was only looking for something serious.
At least she had a yoga session and her whole drive home to try and find some zen and figure out what to say to him.
Shawn wokeup early that morning and checked on the bait shop. Saturdays were his busiest days, and he always liked to make sure everything was fully stocked and organized for the weekend. Plus, he liked to be there before his employees arrived for the day to make sure they had everything they needed.
He had a chartered fishing trip he was taking a tourist group on later, so he brought a few insulated buckets of shrimp home with him after squaring everything away at the shop. When he got back, Grams was busying herself in the kitchen making breakfast.
“Got any extra for me?” Shawn asked.
“Course, Scooby,” Grams responded. “Sausage, bacon, eggs, the works. Help yourself.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Scooping generous helpings onto his plate, he sat at the kitchen table as she joined him.
“What happened with Willa last night?” Grams asked, attempting nonchalance.
He’d expected it. After all, he’d bolted out of here last night after getting a phone call from her, and Grams was here to witness the whole thing.
“Just gave her a ride home,” Shawn said.
“Hmm,” Grams responded.
“Don’t go getting any ideas, Grams. You’ll just be disappointed.”
“If you say so.”
Shawn took a bite of his food before Grams jumped in with another zinger: “How come I haven’t seen Tucker or Hanna in months?”
He stiffened, then sighed. “It”s a busy season for Tuck, you know that.”
“That’s never stopped them from seeing me before,” Grams said, her brow furrowing. “Besides, Hanna’s a teacher. She has summers off.”
Shawn’s heart clenched. His idiocy—his unwillingness to have a hard conversation—was hurting Grams’ relationship with his best friends.
He knew if he told her the real reason, she’d tell him to get over himself and tell them. It was the right advice, but he felt his stomach drop at the thought of it.
“I’ll call them and invite them over soon, okay?” he finally said.
Clearly displeased with his response, she said, “If you say so, Scoob.”
They finished eating before Grams headed out on her morning walk. Shawn knew Willa wouldn’t be back for another hour or so, and his skin was itching with a desire to be near her, to talk about what happened, to run his thumb along her lips again. He needed to keep himself busy until she got back.
Before he knew what he was doing, he’d grabbed fishing gloves and pulled on swim trunks, then headed to her house. He waded into the water from the beach below her wharf, and quickly came upon what he was looking for: the rusted chair she’d tried to pull out of the water on her own the other day.
He gave it a tug and it didn’t move at all. He shook his head absentmindedly, disbelieving that Willa was going to try to remove this by herself. Widening his stance, he grabbed the edges of the chair and wiggled it a bit until it started to loosen from the sand. He continued to work at it, slowly easing it from the sand, until after a few minutes, he tugged it completely free.
Shawn heaved the chair up out of the water and carried it to the shore and up the stairs, setting it on the wharf. Once he got there, he took a quick look at it and noticed some clams had stuck to it. He began pulling them off and tossing them in the water, trying to preserve the few he could. It was tedious work, pulling off clams of all sizes from where they’d found a home on this chair. But he’d grown up listening to his grandfather talk about how much more life there was on the Bay—until pollution and overfishing had depleted the wildlife significantly.
When he was a kid, Shawn could remember swimming and finding clams underneath his feet all day long. Now, he was lucky to find even one clam during the summertime. They weren’t as plentiful as they used to be, making the small, fingernail-sized clams on the chair even more precious. As much as he would’ve liked to have just left the chair in the water so they could continue to thrive, it was a hazard. Anyone could accidentally trip over it just like Willa had, or a net or fishing line could easily get stuck in it.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Willa walking down toward him, her red hair pulled in a bun on top of her head, a few stray strands framing her face. She was wearing a baby blue pair of leggings and a matching sports bra, and she was sipping from a water bottle in her hand, her face slightly flushed. Memories of the way her tongue swirled around his length last night came back to him, and it took everything in him not to toss her over his shoulder and carry her inside.
“Hi,” Willa said shyly.
She was acting timid for the first time since he met her, and he thought it was possibly the cutest thing he’d ever seen.
“Hi,” he responded with a grin. “How was yoga?”
“Good.” Her eyes flickered to the chair. “Thanks for doing that. I could’ve done it, but I appreciate it.”
“No problem. It was pretty heavy, though, so I was happy to do it.”
“Are you trying to imply that I couldn’t have gotten it out without a man to help me?” she asked, crossing her arms, all shyness gone.
“Me?” Shawn asked jokingly. “I’d never say such a thing.”
Willa rolled her eyes. “I know I look scrawny, but I’ve been doing yoga for years. I could’ve done it.”
“Isn’t yoga, like, relaxing? Like getting a massage?”
“Ha!” Willa said. “It definitely can be. But you should come to one of my yoga classes one time. I’d love to see if you’d still compare it to a massage.”
He smirked. “Next Saturday, then. I’ll be there.”
“Can’t wait to watch you beg for mercy.”
He chuckled, then cleared his throat. “So. Last night.”
She bit her lip.
Opened her mouth.
Closed it again.
Sighed.
“I’m sorry if I took advantage,” Shawn said, feeling his shoulders slump. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Shawn, stop.” Willa took a deep breath. “I was buzzed. Not drunk. I remember every moment of last night, and I enthusiastically consented to everything we did.”
“I did remember that part of it, Greene,” Shawn said with a grin, delighted when Willa blushed.
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” Willa said. “You made it very clear that you aren’t looking for anything casual, and I haven’t changed my mind on that front.”
“I have,” Shawn blurted out before he could stop himself.
He’d figured it would come to this. Had prepared for her inevitably saying they needed to go back to being just friends—or worse, just neighbors.
“I mean,” he started, running his fingers through his hair nervously, “I’m open. To keeping it… relatively casual.”
Willa studied him for a moment.
“Relatively?” she asked.
He nodded.
“So what are your terms?” she asked, crossing her arms, seeming to take a battle stance.
“So you want to do it again?” he asked, trying to hide the hopefulness in his voice.
She rewarded him with rosy cheeks and a hesitant grin.
“I had fun last night,” she responded. “A lot of fun.”
“How much fun?” he asked.
He was just fishing now, and they both knew it.
“Look, you know what you’re doing, okay?” Willa said. “And honestly, I don’t know what it was, but that orgasm was… powerful. Must’ve been the reason I jumped at the opportunity to?—”
She cut herself off, and Shawn smirked.
“Yes, that was a pleasant surprise,” he said.
“Let’s just say I’ve never been so enthusiastic to suck a cock before.”
God, if she kept talking like this, he was going to spill in his pants.
Their chemistry was off the charts, and he couldn’t wait to get her alone again. Preferably somewhere larger than the front seat of his car, where he could properly strip her down and palm those glorious tits and?—
“Um, eyes up here,” Willa snapped her fingers, drawing Shawn’s eyes from the aforementioned glorious tits up to her face, where she was giving him a bemused look.
“Sorry,” he said. “You said cock and my mind wandered.”
“Clearly,” she said drily. “So. Relatively casual.”
“Right,” Shawn shook his head, trying to focus.
He was flying by the seat of his pants and needed to keep a clear head if he was going to have a chance of getting inside her again. Or possibly, maybe making her fall in love with him. But that was a long shot, and he knew it. He’d take whatever she would give him.
“So, you’re down to just be friends with benefits?” she reiterated.
“Yes, but I have two requests,” he said. “First, we keep this exclusive. Let’s not sleep with anyone else.”
“That doesn’t feel like a casual request.”
“Fair, but it’s an important one. I promise I won’t, like, fall in love with you.” He dropped eye contact and tried to sound lighthearted. “I’d just rather not share you. Clearly I’m the jealous type, even if we’re just fucking.”
Shawn looked back up at Willa and her eyes were squinted as she studied him.
“Fine, but you can date other people,” Willa said. “In fact, you should. So I don’t feel bad about keeping you from finding an actual girlfriend, since I know that’s what you want. That’s one of my rules.”
He tried to ignore how it stung to hear her say that, but he found himself nodding.
“Alright,” he responded.
“And the second thing?”
“We still hang out,” Shawn said. “I don’t only want to see you for booty calls. I like fishing with you. I don’t want to lose out on the friends part of this friends with benefits arrangement.”
Willa nodded.
“I agree,” she said, and he jolted with pleasant surprise. “I like hanging out with you, and you’re one of my only friends my age here. As long as we keep it to friend stuff only, that’s fine with me.”
“Friend stuff only?”
“Like, don’t show up with an accordion player and a bottle of champagne.”
Shawn chuckled. “Fair enough.”
“I have rules, too.”
“More than just making me go on dates with other people?” Shawn was anxious to hear what else she had in mind.
“Ida can’t know.”
Shawn sputtered. “You think I tell my grandmother about my sex life?”
“I think that woman is far more observant and intuitive than either of us give her credit for, and I don’t want her getting her hopes up if she finds out something is going on between us,” Willa responded. “She keeps trying to push us together. She’ll become unbearable if she finds out about our… arrangement.”
“Good point,” Shawn said. “So that means we should probably only hook up at your place.”
“And don’t tell her every time you’re hanging out with me.”
“You live next door. How am I supposed to keep it a secret every time I come over to fish off the wharf, Greene?”
“I don’t know!” Willa said vehemently. “Drive your truck down the road and park it at the Bayou, then walk to my place.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Whatever. We can work out the details later. But she’s going to get suspicious if we’re not careful. That woman has the nose of a bloodhound and the brains of a CIA agent.”
Shawn laughed.
“I’m serious,” Willa said.
“I know,” he responded with a grin. “Imagine growing up with her.”
“Also, no sleeping over,” she continued, and he tried to keep his face neutral. “No cuddling after sex. No dates or date-like hangouts. And no hard feelings if one of us isn’t in the mood or available to hook up.”
“Should I be writing this down?” Shawn asked jovially, trying to lighten the mood.
Willa chuckled, then bit her lip.
“One last thing,” she said. “I’m on birth control, but I’d still like to use a condom.”
Shawn nodded. Of course she would want that. He’d basically told her he’d slept with every tourist who came through the area in his twenties.
“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he said. “I’m clean, but if you’d prefer using a condom, we can do that.”
“I’m clean, too,” she said. “I just would prefer to use a condom.”
“Alright,” he responded. “We can do that.”
A beat of silence passed.
“So… now what?” she asked. “Do you want to come inside and…?”
Shawn felt his brow furrow and he tilted his head in an unspoken question. Willa covered her face in her hands and groaned, then peeked through her fingers.
“I’ve never actually done this before,” she said. “The casual sex. Or even initiated things like this. I don’t… At the risk of sounding extremely full of myself, guys usually come to me. Wine and dine me.”
Amusement trickled through Shawn as Willa dropped her hands.
“I’ve had boyfriends since I was, like, 13 years old. I don’t think I’ve been single for longer than a few weeks since then, and I don’t really know how to ask you to please, for the love of God, fuck me before I explode without sounding like all I’ve been thinking about is how you made me come last night.”
She paused.
“Which, for the record, I have.”
Shawn walked toward her, then grabbed her cheek with one of his hands, running his thumb along her jawline.
“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” he said with a smirk.
She bit her lip.
“But for the record,” he continued, “all you have to do is ask. And hearing you say filthy things like that only makes me want to bend you over the closest table and make you come so hard that last night seems like child’s play.”
Her mouth formed that adorable O, then she grabbed his hand and trudged up the hill toward the back door of the house as he trailed closely behind.