6. Vince
6
VINCE
I t’s still dark, and I must look like a monster, lurking in the shadows behind the little bakery, but I don’t care. Fred gave me an opening, and I’m going to wedge myself inside it. I roll my eyes at myself. My cock’s so eager to see her, it making every thought a lewd one.
I hold the awkward, hand-picked bunch of flowers behind my back and knock on the bakery’s rear, staff-entrance door.
A few moments later, Fred opens it, wafting tantalizing smells of assorted baked goods at me. She dusts flour from her hands, and a huge smile lights her face. “You came.”
Her long hair is braided into a bun at the back of her head, her eyes are bright and clear, and her cheeks glow pink. She has a retro half-apron tied around her waist, and she’s wearing a sundress so pale and thin, I can see her dark nipples through it.
I wet my lips and avert my gaze, but my attention moves to the light dusting of flour that has been caught in the labor-induced damp at one side of her forehead. I want to smear it with my finger, mixing it into a salty batter I’d eat raw. I want to fucking devour her.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I come?” I rumble. “Look at you.”
The color in her cheeks deepens. An alarm sounds behind her, and she walks backward. “Come in. I’ll be right with you.”
The heat hits me instantly, and I unbutton my too-heavy shirt one-handed before shrugging out of one sleeve and switching her flowers to my other hand, to shake the flannel off completely. “Hope you don’t mind my getting comfortable,” I say, hanging my shirt on the hook next to her coat. “It’s unseasonably cool outside for early summer, but it must be a hundred degrees in here.”
She looks over her shoulder as she’s pulling a sheet of cookies from the oven. Her hands waver when she sees me, and almost losing her baking, she quickly rights the hot tray and sets it on the counter next to two others before turning to face me. “I don’t mind you stripping for me, but you can’t come too close to the work zone without a shirt. I’ve got hygiene and customer satisfaction to think about, and baking anywhere near your rug of chest hair would be bad for business.”
“Understood.” I spy a stool in the corner near the sink and away from the food-prep area, and head for it. “I brought you some painting supplies.” I hold up the marigolds, calendulas, and nasturtiums with one hand, while I rinse an empty container I find in the sink with the other. I fill it with water, and then set the flowers into it. “All edibles, in case the kids put them in their mouths or something.”
“That was very thoughtful.” She sounds closer than I thought she’d be.
I spin to find her right behind me with her fingers covered in dough. “Need to wash my hands,” she says, wiggling them at me.
“Of course.” I step to the side, so she can access the sink.
“I started a little early.” She keeps her gaze on her hands as she talks. “I hoped it would give me time for a longer break, so I could spend it with you. If you came.”
“When is break time?”
“As soon as I get the next batch of breads into the oven. Will you put the kettle on? People laugh at me for boiling water the old-fashioned way to make tea, but I detest microwaves.”
“I feel the same way,” I say with a grin. “A lot of other places in the world use electric kettles, but there’s nothing quite like a good whistler calling out.” I reach for her kettle and flap the spout lid a few times. “I make my tea the same way at home.”
“You can have coffee, if you prefer that in the morning, but if you’re a tea drinker, I’d love to make you an herbal concoction.”
“Or I could make you one.” I start to fill the kettle while she dries her hands.
A strange smile tugs at her lips. “What kind of tea would you make me?”
I turn and stare at the rows of dried herbs in jars on the shelves next to me. I study the carefully hand-written labels. “Have you eaten?”
“I’ll have a snack with it,” she says, sounding amused. “Will that make a difference to what you’re going to make?”
“Of course.” I gesture at her wall of choices. “You’ve got a great selection here, but some herbs are more beneficial after a meal, right? I’d like to make you a… marshmallow, fenugreek, and vanilla concoction, with a hint of nutmeg. What do you think?”
Her eyes are very pretty. Wide as fuck and very pretty. She bats her dark lashes at me in a slow, disbelieving blink, and her incredible blue gaze strips me bare. “I think you’re fascinating. How do you know what to make? Did you search for clues, mystery-lover? Are there fingerprints on my most-used jars? Dust has settled on the least-used ones?”
I rub the back of my head and lift one shoulder. “Actually, my friend’s mom was a naturopath. Ben makes a ton of his own remedies, including stuff to keep up his wife’s breastmilk supply.” I don’t elaborate on the how or why he likes to do that, but I can’t keep that kink from my thoughts when Fred’s nipples are gorgeous, thick, and noticeably erect. God , they look beautifully indecent.
“I see.” She returns to her work. “Is that the friend you’re staying with, in town?”
I shake my head. “No, that’s Daryl. It’s another friend of ours.”
“ Daryl? ” she asks. “The ass-fucker?”
I cough-snort while I chuckle. “I see his reputation precedes him. ”
“Small towns.” She pauses mid-movement, to look me over. “Do you fuck asses?”
“Guilty by association because I’m crashing in his basement for the week?” I ask with a laugh, before I catch her dead-serious expression. “Oh. Uh… no,” I say quickly. “I mean, potentially. If I get the signal that’s a pleasure point, during a lovemaking session.”
Her eyebrows rise, and then quickly plummet, and I cut the air with my hands in a more clear-and-final gesture. “But only ever with a finger or a made-for-purpose toy,” I assure her. “I keep my dick well out of it. I’m… Nobody I’ve ever met would want someone my size in their ass, and I doubt I’d enjoy doing it enough to seek out the minority who might.”
Fred utters a soft, agreeable sound in response, and then nods. “I haven’t dabbled, so I don’t know if I like ass-fucking or not,” she says with a shrug.
She flours her hands and kneads her dough so thoroughly I’m convinced she must give a great massage. Then she rolls it out, smears it with fistfuls of a greasy herb-and-garlic mixture, and sprinkles strips of curd cheese all over it, before cutting off big sections and twisting them until the cheese is more inside than out. She fills a dozen loaf tins waiting on trays and puts them in the oven. And she does it all with a natural ease and a smile.
It’s hard to get the herbs in the cups for our tea without spilling, because I can hardly tear my eyes off her. “You’re good at that.”
“I get a lot of practice.” She wipes her hands on her apron, checks the temperature, and sets the timer before taking a couple of cookies from the cooling rack and heading straight for me. “What are you good at? Apart from reading and research, lifting heavy things, and delighting children and their mothers?”
I swallow hard and reach for the counter behind me, for support. “Not a lot.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She nibbles the edge of a cookie.
I shrug. “You’ve pretty much nailed my strengths. My job is basically all reading and research. I held a few strongman titles when I was younger, I love my mom, and I have five happily married-with-children sisters and one widowed, single-dad brother, so I’m Cool Uncle Vince to about half a million kids.”
She looks me up and down, her appreciative gaze welcome on my skin. “I like what I’m hearing, Vincent Monaghan. Enough to hope you don’t walk out during this conversation.”
She holds a cookie out, for me to take, not with my hand but with my mouth. She waves it an inch from my lips, and I nearly take her fingers in eagerness when I snap up the fucking bait. You don’t feed a man that directly unless you mean business. I fucking love her assertive flirting.
“There’s a table and chairs in the break room.” She motions toward a door with her head and bumps me away from the sink with her hip. “Why don’t you take our tea in there?”
I brush crumbs from my beard, collect our cups, and do as she’s suggested.
When she joins me, she’s ditched the apron and has two more cookies. She sets them on the table next to my cup of herbal tea. “Why’d you go with peppermint?”
“Brushed my teeth recently.” My face warms. “I didn’t know there would be cookies.”
She blows across her cup, tastes her tea, and curls her lips into a smile. “It’s good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I sip mine and watch her adjust her swollen breasts. She looks like she needs Raven to feed.
“I should probably stop taking lactation herbs one of these days,” she says, gently pressing her fingers to the tops of her breasts. “Raven basically weaned herself until she regressed a few days ago, when she demanded milk for every meal, but now she’s fallen back in love with solids, so she’s brought in a ton of milk, without there being much need for it. She only really wants a feeding before bed. And I… should stop talking about?—”
“Your tits?” I ask. “No, you shouldn’t. I’d love to talk about them. They’re beautiful. I like hearing about your kids, too. Anything you want to say, I want to hear it.”
She gives me a strange sideways look. “You probably came here to hear about a few specific things, though. Right?”
I nod. “Definitely.”
“So ask.” She drinks her tea and watches me with her big blue eyes.
“Do you want more kids, Fred?”
“Yes.” Flat. Simple. Honest. No beating around the bush, then.
“With me?” I’m glad for the coverage of the table, when my over-sized and unbelievably hard-to-disguise dick lifts its head with interest.
“Are you offering to help me make them?” she asks.
My heart is beating a mile a minute. “I don’t know. I have questions.”
“Then I think you’d better ask them.”
“Morrissey’s dad…?” I leave my sentence hanging there.
“What about him?” she asks, not taking her eyes off me.
“Were you in a relationship?”
Her eyebrows dip in the center. “Paul was a kind man, who had worked hard all his life, but the orchards and the big house were getting too much for him, and there wasn’t enough help in town. We saw his ad in the classifieds and responded, and we were a perfect match. Mom took care of the outdoor labor, and I did the inside chores after school. Paul’s mobility declined fast, and once I was done with school, I mainly saw to his well-being.”
“And that included sex?”
Fred scowls, and I raise my hands in surrender. “You had his kid, Fred. I’m not judging; I’m just curious how it happened. It sounds like the man was in his seventies — and practically bedridden.”
“You’re making it sound like someone took advantage, and that’s not how it was. And if you think I was his whore, I wasn’t. I took care of him, and we talked a lot. He had no family, and his friends stopped visiting. We were all he had. We were his family.” She wipes a tear from her eye. “We used to talk about everything. He had wonderful stories, but he loved to hear mine, too. Said he enjoyed living vicariously through my adventures, because they made him feel young again.
“We’d talk about what he’d have done differently if he had his time over, and we’d talk about the plans I had for my life, how I dreamed of having a big family with loads of children…” She trails off. “He always regretted not having kids of his own,” she says softly. “He’d get tears in his eyes whenever it came up, and I could feel his pain.
“I was eighteen and wanted to start my family, but didn’t have any men I really trusted besides Paul, and he wanted someone to treasure his family history and carry on working the land he loved. Our desires were aligned, and the universe blessed our inspired actions with Morrissey. My family began, and Paul died a happy, fulfilled man, who was able to see and hold the daughter he’d always wanted.”
She wipes her eyes, smiling sadly, and I stare at her. In awe? I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling. I’m definitely relating to Paul Morrissey, and hoping like hell that I don’t have to wait until I’m in my seventies before I’m blessed with my first child. I’d rather be young enough to play games with them. “You made his dream come true.”
Fred shrugs. “We gave each other a gift.”
Her spirit feels so generous and pure, I believe her description of events wholeheartedly. “And the gay couple?” I ask. “Clyde and Dale? You exchanged gifts with them too?”
Fred takes a deep breath and nods. “Beckett, I carried like a surrogate. The guys are lovely. I made sure I did my research there before I agreed to do it, because I want every child to be safe. And I also knew that we’d become family through the bond. I mean, Beck was always their baby — even before we started — but we agreed that an open adoption would ultimately be best for all of the children involved. They live apart, but we make sure they spend time together, and they love each other like siblings should. It works, but it was definitely hard to carry him inside me, and then hand him to someone else afterward,” she says with an invisible weight on her shoulders. “I wouldn’t do it again.”
I nod and sip my tea, letting some quiet fill the space between us because it feels like she needs it.
Meanwhile, my mind wanders to how they all did it, because I know she likes things natural.
She reaches up, to tuck a stray lock of my hair behind my ear. There’s a sense of ownership in the natural way she’s touching me, and it’s as if we’re familiar, despite us practically being strangers. She’s not even remotely afraid of me, and that feels so good I want to purr.
“You’re thinking pretty hard in there,” she says, as her small fingers stake their claim on my scalp with a firm touch she then strokes down my neck and outward, to squeeze my shoulder. “Do you want to ask me something?”
I open my eyes and meet her gaze. “You didn’t want to start a family with a man you loved.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Is that a question?” She looks at me sideways. “I did love Paul. And I do love Clyde and Dale. ”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then you should say what you mean.” She folds her arms over her breasts, winces, and moves them under her breasts instead. It boosts said breasts upward and makes them look even more fantastic.
“Did you find them attractive?” I ask. “Did you want their children, specifically? Did they go out of their way, to make you happy and keep you safe?”
Her expression turns puzzled. “Safe? I mean, I wasn’t forced to do anything — nor did I force anyone else. The sex was unprotected for reproductive purposes, but I knew the health status of those involved each time. And I think Dale is probably the hottest of the three, but I wouldn’t say I’m attracted to him. I’m still not sure you’re asking what you actually want to know, Vincent. Why not come out with what’s bugging you?”
I press my lips together, as I consider the challenge in her eyes. “Did you make your babies the all-natural, old-fashioned way?”
“Did I have sex with these men, for the purpose of creating life?” she asks. “Yes.”
“But did you want the sex? Or was it only a means to an end?” I’m torturing myself, because I don’t want to know; I need to know.
“Why does that matter?” she asks.
Heat creeps up my neck, and I stare down at the dregs of my tea. “I’m… asking for a friend. He thinks you’re incredible, and he wants to have lots of sex and babies with you, but he’s not interested in only being a sperm donor. He’s done that before, to help his friends, but what he really wants is to be involved. He wants a fa mily with a woman who loves him and kids who love having him around. He needs to be wanted. He doesn’t want to be a means to an end.”
“This friend of yours have a name?” she teases. “He sounds cute.”
I give her a hard look. “Did you want the sex, or was it just a process you endured for the purpose of creation?”
She rolls her eyes. “Both,” she says. “It was necessary, but I wanted it. Paul was my first ever. I was an adult, a virgin, and curious. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t ideal. I was always on top, and it was nice, but it didn’t feel special, and it didn’t get any better with practice. I was glad to be pregnant within a couple of months, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
I nod. It’s about what I expected. That case is closed. “And Clyde? Dale?”
“It was okay. I mean, I’m not their type, so it was never going to be a romantic sort of threesome. Basically, I was a hole, and they made each other come to fill it. I didn’t hate it, and there were parts I rather enjoyed. The love they had for each other gave me a sense of what it meant to want to pleasure someone with the act, and that was new to me.
“It made it better, that they were so into each other. It kind of spilled over enough for me to feel some of their love — the best time was when Dale fucked Clyde while his dick was inside me. It was probably the most fun I had during any of my conception attempts. I was pregnant within the first month of trying for each child. I’m pretty fertile, I think.” She runs her tongue over her teeth. “Do you think your friend will be satisfied with this knowledge?”
I nod. “He appreciates your generous and candid responses, but he has a follow-up question.”
She sighs. “Which is?”
“Did any of them make you come?”
She avoids my gaze and shifts in her chair. “No.”
I drop my voice at least three levels, until it’s basically only husk and gravel. “Can I?”
She returns her focus to me in an instant. “Yes, please.”