Chapter 8
The power truck came at eleven, giving Stace the ultimate reason to grab her baby and go home.
She left her box on his couch, but she wasn’t really gone.
Brock knew that and was happy to know her absence was temporary, and yet the awkwardness of having her here was almost more than he could handle.
He’d gotten very little sleep last night, which was ridiculous.
It was like his body knew she was in the house, and every part of him had cried all night for him to go and check on her.
It was a constant urge, but he’d squashed it, and his punishment for that good behavior was a long, empty night of yearning that refused to let him relax.
He should just check on her. What if she needed something to drink?
Something more to eat? Did he really want her to have to go the night, stuck in her bed, too hesitant to come to him and, what?
He could all but see her standing in his doorway, wringing each finger one at a time while she plaintively asked, “Daddy, can I have some water?”
Or, “Daddy, my tummy is hungry.”
Or, “Daddy, my Big girl place is needy.”
His Big boy place was pretty damn needy right now too, and it only got worse the longer the night went on.
He caught snippets of sleep here and there, but the next time he woke up, there he was again, with her in the forefront in his mind and that low fiery throb filling up his belly and his cock hard as a damn tree trunk, standing so high he tented the blankets that covered him.
Daddy, my Big girl place is needy. Like she even talked like that. Like she’d call him Daddy or know where his room was, or like she would walk right past the kitchen to come ask him for anything at all. Not with that giant ‘I can do it myself’ determination of hers.
And there went his mind, completely ignoring the logic while his imagination locked onto Stace the Little, wringing her fingers and asking for him to slake her Big girl need.
He couldn’t stop himself from playing along with that fantasy, torturing himself until he drowsed off to sleep.
Touching himself was a rotten substitute for just lifting his blanket and inviting her fantasy-self to crawl in beside him.
Right up until dawn, when he woke up for the last time, fed up with himself and the horniest he’d ever been in his life, and finally crawled out of bed.
He was just annoyed enough to want to take a cold shower, but not quite masochist enough to actually do it.
Still, he stood for a long time under the hot spray, with his big hands braced on the tile wall, soaking his head, his eyes closed, focusing on the hundreds of tiny runnels of water running down the hard muscled lines of him until it became almost hypnotizing.
He lost himself in the soft touch of water, and by the time he finally shut the faucet off, not only was the sun actually peeking up above the trees, but he felt a little normal.
Knowing that wouldn’t last if he stayed in this house, rattling around in the silence, wondering if she slept on her back or her stomach, if she snored or was tossing and turning all night long as well.
Maybe thinking of him in the same fully adult way that he’d been thinking about her.
No, he’d never survive that torture a second time, and he sure as hell couldn’t just stand in the shower all day long.
So, he got dressed and went outside to busy himself, cutting the wood she’d need before tonight, and spending as much energy as he had in the hard physical labor of it.
For the first time, his cock wasn’t leading the way.
Or at least it hadn’t been, right up until his skin started to tingle and prickle, and he glanced up to see Stace, standing in the window of his spare upstairs bedroom, the one he’d fixed up for the caregiver he was intent on hiring.
She looked good, framed behind the glass of his house, with her shoulder-length reddish-brown hair all tussled from sleep and her t-shirt only long enough to touch her navel.
He wondered if she’d yet realized how low his windowsill was, how well he could see her from what distance stretched from his cabin to hers, how his gaze kept drifting to the band of pink elastic of her underwear riding high up on her hips.
That was all he could see of her panties, just the pinkness of the elastic, but damn if he couldn’t feel the heat he knew he’d find if only he’d been up in that room with her, wrapping his arm around her waist to hold her, with her back against his chest, and the strength of her trembling knees buckling weakly in and out as he let his other hand slip under the elastic and his fingertips searched out the slick wetness of her pussy lips. She’d be so damned warm. So damn wet.
She watched him for so long, he was just starting to wonder if she’d welcome it if he went inside right now, walked up the stairs to her room, and knocked on her door.
Thank God she ducked back out of sight when she did. It was the only reason he’d stayed out in the snow and cold, cutting wood with all the dogged determination of a man unwilling to let his penis make his next decision for him.
This was ridiculous. She was only looking at him because all this was unusual.
She was his neighbor. He’d given her a bed for the night, a warm, safe place to sleep because her own home wasn’t yet ready for occupation.
That would change. And when it did, the situation would revert back to what it was obviously destined to be—her in one house, him in the other.
Who knew, perhaps living next door would give him enough time to build a proper relationship with her.
Who knew, maybe in a week or two, he’d walk over to her door and ask her out on a date. A real date. Complete with a goodnight kiss he could already taste.
The water department showed up just before the power company was ready to leave, then the local truck repair crew.
Four guys in two other pickups loaded down with tires turned her front yard into a muddy mess as they changed the moving truck’s flat tires.
Once it was ready to move, they left, taking the moving truck with them.
The only people he didn’t see pay her a much-needed visit was the gas company.
Living in a very small town was both a curse and a benefit.
Fortunately for this town, the gas company actually had one of their county offices on Main Street.
The curse was, being a county-wide company, one sometimes had to wait for service.
One of the best benefits was being able to call in and get information on just about anyone.
For instance, after both the water and electric repair crews had gone, he cut wood until her bin was full and he had a decent-sized stash pile stacked up hip high against the cabin that ran the length of the entire side porch.
Checking the time—just after one—he then called the gas company himself.
“Can you tell me when you’ll be able to get the gas connected at Maggie’s cabin rental over on Potpourri Drive?” he asked the clerk who answered the phone.
“Uh, yeah.” She was quiet apart from the clicking of keyboard keys. “Looks like... yup, Monday.”
“Is there any way to hurry that up? Stace is a single mom with a baby around a year old, and without gas they have no heat, hot water or stove to cook on.”
“What are you doing?” Stace asked. She must have heard his conversation through the living room window. She came out onto the porch, fingers already tapping and with a concerned look on her face. Her shirt was straightened and her breast once more covered.
More’s the pity.
“I can try,” the clerk hedged. “But I doubt it. Some guy tried to dig his own root cellar and took out the main pipe feeding his entire street. His whole neighborhood will be going the weekend without hot water and hot dinners too, so the boss made it a priority. I could ask him...”
“Nope,” Brock said, giving his head a shake which the clerk couldn’t see, but which had Stace twisting her fingers again as she tried to listen in. “I’ll keep ‘em at my house until you get that mess fixed first.”
“Sorry,” she said cheerfully.
“No problem at all.”
He hung up, then stood there looking at the dark screen. Finally, when he was sure he knew the answer already, he asked, “Did you know your gas wasn’t going to get connected until Monday?”
Slowly, she backed up one porch step. “Yes,” she reluctantly admitted.
“And yet, you let me believe everything would be fully functional by the end of today.”
“I told you I could do it mysel—” She broke off with a squeak when he, ignoring the porch steps behind him, hopped over the rail and headed for the separated front porch steps instead. She ran for the house, barely reaching it ahead of him and the swift long-legged strides taking him right to her.
“Stop right where you are,” he ordered, but it was too much to hope that she’d mind him.
After all, he wasn’t her Daddy and she wasn’t his Little, and he had no business taking his coat off as he caught the door before she could slam and lock it.
He had even less business, forcing his way into her house, while she babbled, “Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me.
Why are you rolling up your sleeve? Please don’t spank me. ”
He rolled his sleeves up past both elbows, baring his brawny forearms to her wide-eyed horror.
Stace thrust out both hands to stop him, but he caught her by the wrist anyway. Twirling her around, she stuck her other hand behind her, covering her bottom palm up and fingers desperately splayed to protect as much as she could.
“Move your hand,” he said mildly.
“Please don’t spank me!”