5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
GRIFF
I groan and palm my cock through my jeans as I roll to a stop at a quiet intersection.
“Come on, I can’t walk onto the jobsite with a hard-on,” I grunt, pressing on the stiff length resting hot and insistent against one thigh. I tried to get the image of Ledger’s smirk, full of filthy promises, out of my head while I finished my coffee, but it only burrowed itself deeper into my brain.
My gut tightens with a molten feeling of need that I haven’t felt in years. That I haven’t let myself feel in years. Not that I’ve been actively avoiding moving on, but I haven’t exactly been motivated to actually do anything about it either.
And then there’s Ledger, bold as all hell, offering me sex in exchange for handiwork and stealing the lube right out of my shower to playfully tease me with. My cock throbs against my palm and I huff out a grunting kind of laugh. He’s something else, that’s for sure. I can’t tell if I like it or if I’m just enjoying the novelty for now. That’s probably all he’s doing—entertaining himself by seducing his grumpy older neighbor because there isn’t much else to do around here.
I pry my hand off of my dick and put my foot on the gas when the light changes. The heat in my gut cools a little as I manage to focus on those practical thoughts. I haven’t been touched in too damn long and, for whatever reason, Ledger wants to touch me. I’m not going to argue with that, but I’m not going to read any more into it than I need to either. We’ll scratch an itch while I work on getting his place back in order and that’ll be it. Simple.
As I near the worksite, the wildflowers growing along the side of the road remind me of the vase of flowers that came yesterday, still sitting on my kitchen counter because I haven’t had time to check with either of my neighbors to see if they might have been meant for them. Maybe it’s not worth the effort. By the time I get around to it, chances are the flowers will have died. And I’m sure when the sender realizes their delivery didn’t reach the person they were meant for, they’ll get a refund or another bouquet from the flower shop. No harm, no foul.
Like most mornings, by the time I pull in, the lot is already full of all the other trucks. Do these guys just spring out of bed and sprint to work? They’re all happily coupled up, shouldn’t they be rolling in late with bed head and satisfied smiles from leisurely morning sex? Then again, at least half of them have kids, so I guess that throws a bit of a wrench into things.
I climb out of my truck and luckily my dick is finally under control. As long as I can avoid thinking about Ledger or his vague, teasing promises about tonight, I should be able to make it through the day without popping wood in front of everyone.
Just like every other morning, I’m met with the sound of pounding, the whir of drills, and loud laughter and voices. Have I already considered the idea of noise canceling headphones so I can just focus on work in peace?
“Hey, Griff,” West shouts over the rest of the noise, and everyone else looks up from what they’re doing to greet me too. Why do I feel like I’m working in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood or some shit?
I grunt in reply, which does nothing to deter the beaming smiles on any of their faces. Everett sets down his drill and waves me over.
“Here, I got you a cherry fritter.” He lifts up a flap of plywood covering the floor beams and pulls out a crumpled paper bag to hand me.
“Hey, you said there were only donut holes,” Apollo complains.
“There were only donut holes for you.” Ev chuckles. “Griff only likes fritters.”
I frown. With my hand outstretched to reach for the bag, I pull up short. How did he know I only like fritters? And why the hell did he go out of his way to get me one?
“Here,” Ev says again, thrusting the bag at me with an easy smile. “Eat it before these vultures can swoop in.”
I take the bag and grunt a thanks.
“So, what, if we only speak in grunts and scowls, we’ll get special snacks?” Miller says lightly, winking at me to make sure I don’t take his ball busting the wrong way. Not sure how I could. It’s a pretty accurate description of me.
I shrug and bite into my fritter with a happy rumble in my throat.
“I tried that for the first year I was here, and I never got fritters,” Apollo grumbles.
“That’s because you’re adorable when you scowl,” Ridge, Apollo’s husband, flirts, giving him a hearty smack on his ass.
Apollo grunts, missing the nail and bringing his hammer down on the wood instead. Flirting like that has to violate workplace safety standards, doesn’t it? I shake my head and wolf down the rest of my breakfast, then ball up the bag and carry it into the next ‘room’ where we have a small trash can set up to keep the place free of all our garbage. There’s a makeshift table made out of plywood right next to it, with a carafe of coffee and the nearly empty box of donut holes that started this argument to begin with. And next to the breakfast spread is a vase of flowers. The flowers themselves are different from the daisies that came to my doorstep, but the vase is the same.
I stop in my tracks and my heart sinks. Those flowers couldn’t have been some kind of prank, could they? I figured they weren’t meant for me, but what if it’s worse than that? What if I’m the butt of some humiliating joke?
“Everything okay?” Stone comes up behind me, patting me on the back as he passes on his way to pour himself some coffee.
“Yeah,” I rasp, still staring at the flowers.
“Kind of cheesy, right?” he says, noticing my gaze and nodding at the flowers. “Demetri sent them to Miller for their anniversary.”
“It’s not cheesy,” Miller shouts from the next room over.
“Did anybody notice how hot the delivery guy was?” Stone calls back instead of responding to Miller’s protest. He grins at me and fans himself dramatically. “Those thighs were made for those skimpy brown shorts. Whoever designed those uniforms deserves a Nobel Prize.”
I grunt, only half listening to him, still staring at the flowers. I guess it makes sense that whoever sent the other flowers used the same florist, right? I mean, how many florists can there be in Fall Crosse?
“You okay?” Stone asks again. “Are you allergic to flowers or are they giving you some kind of PTSD flashback to being stood up on prom night?” He inches to stand in front of the vase, like breaking my sightline will keep me from losing it Carrie style.
I snort and shake my head. My instinct is to brush off the question or ignore it altogether, toss my garbage, and get down to work. Maybe it’s the sugar from the fritter loosening my tongue that makes me blurt out the answer.
“It’s nothing. I just got a flower delivery yesterday and there was no sender listed, so I’ve been running myself in circles trying to figure out where they could have come from.”
Stone gasps. “You have a secret admirer?”
I huff and shake my head again. “No.”
“Who has a secret admirer?” Cole shouts. How did he even hear that over the construction racket?
“Griff,” Stone yells back.
All of the noise suddenly stops, and I bite back a groan as everyone turns to focus on me, coming into the framed-off room or peering around the wood to grin at me. Ugh. Can I put the words back in my mouth? Pretend I was joking maybe? Would they buy that?
“Okay, if we’re going to figure this thing out, the first thing we’re going to need to do is put together a list of suspects,” West says.
Ollie pulls a small notebook out of his back pocket, along with a nub of a pencil that’s stuck between the spiral. “Top of the list has to be anyone you’ve hooked up with lately.”
I rasp out a laugh. “Then there won’t be a list.”
“Hmm, okay, what about anyone you’ve suspected has a crush on you? Barista at your favorite coffee place? Cougar down the block who always stops to chat when she sees you getting your mail?” Ridge rattles off some possibilities, and I almost laugh again.
“No and no.”
“It has to be someone who has his address,” Ev points out.
“Shit, maybe it’s the hot delivery guy,” Stone says.
“The guy who delivers in my neighborhood is probably eighteen years old and definitely doesn’t have a crush on me.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Cole assures me, and I make another amused sound in my throat.
“They probably weren’t even meant for me. I’m sure they were misdelivered.” I shrug and do my best to ignore the pitying looks I get in return. This is why I don’t open up. I didn’t even say anything pathetic and they’re all looking at me like I’m a wounded puppy.
When they realize this isn’t going to be the exciting detective work they were expecting, they all turn back to what they were doing, and I let out a breath. Forget the flowers. I don’t know where they came from, but I don’t have a secret admirer. What I do have is a promising night of no-strings fun to look forward to.
LEDGER
I stand in my living room with my arms crossed, surveying the damage for the umpteenth time since last night. I feel like I should tidy up or something before Griff gets here, but I’m not really sure how I would do that. Besides, he’s not coming over to relax, he’s coming over to lay some pipe.
I snort a laugh at my own innuendo.
“It feels wrong not even cooking him dinner or doing anything to seduce him a little,” I mutter out loud.
TP chirps and pokes her head out from under the tarp I draped over the couch. She was way too excited about her new little burrow. I really don’t want to know what kind of damage she’s doing under there. At least the couch is already wrecked, so I guess it doesn’t matter how elaborate of a tunnel system she creates inside of it.
“That’s a good point, I could order something.” I nod in agreement and TP disappears under the tarp again.
I wonder what Griff likes to eat. There aren’t a ton of options around here, but all the restaurants available are kick-ass. The question is whether he’s more of a fish fry guy or a cheeseburger dude. And speaking of seducing him… I pull my phone out of my pocket and open the website I bookmarked this morning before I saw those cranes.
I still can’t stop getting butterflies over that genuine smile on Griff’s face when he got the flowers and I suggested he had a secret admirer. The need to make him look like that again is too desperate to ignore. Legitimately, my dick has been half-hard all day thinking about getting my hands on him tonight, but if I had the choice between making him smile like that again or humping him like a horny wildebeest, it’s no contest.
“Do you think he would rather get chocolate covered strawberries or an assortment of fruits?” I ask out loud.
TP doesn’t bother responding this time. I do hear the distinct sound of tearing fabric though. I sigh and click on the assorted fruit option. Just in case he doesn’t like strawberries, this way it’s almost a guarantee there will be something he’ll want to put in his mouth. I grin and add it to my cart. I don’t have to pause to think this time about what to put in the message either. I’ve been thinking about it since this morning, and I have the perfect message for him.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Please eat me slowly
And I’ll lick you too.
I am such a genius.
I glance up at the soggy hole in my ceiling and sigh. Sometimes I’m a genius. On the other hand, this mess did give me the excuse to have Griff over here for the next couple of weeks so I can get to know him better. Also, it gave me the chance to proposition him for sex, so maybe buying this deathtrap of a house wasn’t actually the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
Falling ass backward into success is a very particular skill set, thank you very much. The ability to make dildos when life gives you cucumbers really comes in handy. It’s all about finding the good in any situation, and there is some serious good in this disaster.
I finish placing the order, then wander over to the window so I can peek out and see if Griff is home from work yet. I don’t see any movement, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe he’s taking a shower before he comes over.
I bite my bottom lip and groan at the thought of him standing in the shower with his dick hard, reaching for his lube and remembering that I took it. I reach down to grind the heel of my hand over my hardening cock and sigh happily. Soon .
A knock at my front door makes me jump away from the window in surprise, yanking my hand off of my dick and grinning.
Let Bear Season begin.