Chapter 21 Summer
SUMMER
La Dolce Vita’s stand was almost completely sold out of gelato, thanks to the marathon spectators. Mercer was kind enough not to gloat that we only got here in time thanks to him.There was just enough for all of us to get cones, mine piled three flavors high because I couldn’t choose.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can use the voucher on that one,” Antonio’s nephew Nick apologized as he handed it over.
“We’ll pay the difference,” Lucien offered smoothly.
What a guy. I was so glad I let him bang me fifteen times last night and this morning.
We left our shoes near the wall and wandered away from the race. The coastline turned rocky and was dotted with tide pools. We left our aimless footprints on the wet sand where the sea had receded from the shore.
Lucien pointed out buried crabs half hidden in little air pockets. Jae went on a mission to find me the prettiest shell while Mercer preferred giving me the most aerodynamic ones to fling into the ocean.
I thought my summer was going to be entirely focused on my bakery.
There was a pinch of guilt that I was here instead, even though it was my day off.
Mercer was probably going to go back to the patisserie after this.
Maybe I should, too? Even though I already planned to go in tomorrow to get a head start on prep work, it was hard to shake the feeling of needing to do more.
“Angel, don’t let your gelato melt.” One blink and Jae was licking up the side of my cone.
“Can’t resist stealing my food, can you?” I said in mock outrage.
“I used to steal your baked goods. I’m currently helping you avoid dripping gelato. Very different,” Jae clarified without remorse. He licked his lips. “What flavor is that top one?”
“Pistachio.”
“Oh man, that’s really good.”
Between the opalescent shell in my pocket and his cheeky dimpled smile, it was very easy for that teenage crush to come alive again in all its flustered, heart-pounding glory.
Thirteen-year-old Summer would be floored to know I had opened our dream bakery and Jae had found his way back to Starlight Grove.
I gave myself permission to enjoy myself.
For that version of Summer. Suns Out was still turning a profit and maintaining its customer base despite operating out of the patisserie—a fact I would never share with Stanley, lest his head expand larger than it already was—and I had a finite amount of time with Jae before he returned to his real, far more interesting life writing stadium anthems.
I offered him my cone for another taste of the pistachio.
“Really?” His eyes lit up.
“Yes.” I laughed.
Mercer returned to the patisserie after the beach, and Lucien waved us on home, saying he needed to get a few things from Mariposa’s first.
Jae and I returned to the house together. I didn’t know why I was nervous being alone with him all of a sudden. He took off his shoes and lined them up neatly. So respectful. Yum . Wait, wasn’t that just the bare minimum? My barometer for hotness was really out of whack.
He caught me watching him. “Hi.”
The tip of his tongue played with his lip piercing, and the temperature in the house rose twenty degrees.
“Hi,” I managed to reply.
Jae closed the distance between us in one stride and caught me up in an enthusiastic kiss. “I had fun today.”
“Me too.”
“Never thought I’d be saving turtles with a pretty girl.”
My mush-brain made garbled washing-machine sounds. His kisses behind my ear were beginning to spark all sorts of sensations low in my navel.
His soft brown eyes were unsure as he pulled back. “I’ve been wanting to ask a favor of you but I wasn’t sure if I should.”
“Of course you can ask.” I brushed back a lock of his hair that had fallen low. “What is it?”
“There’s a gig next week in Providence for an up-and-coming artist the label’s got their eye on. They invited me along since I’m in the area. I usually avoid these things like the plague, but I feel like I’ve done it one too many times and now I have to say yes.”
“You don’t like playing corporate mind games, huh?” I said sympathetically.
“No. Not at all.”
“You want me to tag along?” I presumed.
Jae gnawed the corner of his lip. “You should know what you’re getting into before you say yes.”
“What is it?” My hackles rose at the slump of his shoulders.
“It’s dumb,” he said quietly.
“Jae.”
“Every time I see one of the execs, she flirts with me. Tries to get me alone.” The discomfort in his chuckle sent a shard through my heart. “She doesn’t really take no for an answer.”
It was difficult to keep my voice even. “Do her higher-ups know about this?”
“She’s got a knack for signing hitmakers. They know she’s going to make them a lot of money so they don’t really care. Not like the rest of them are saints, either.”
There was a raging ball of fire in my throat that I had to quell for Jae’s sake. “I’m coming with you.” I didn’t even care if I had to work the next day, there was no fucking way he was going alone.
Hope lifted his entire demeanor. “Would you? I just want a friendly face.”
His earnest vulnerability tunneled my vision. An uncharacteristic growl unfurled. “She’s not getting anywhere near you,” I hissed.
I needed my scent on him. Now . Jae jolted with surprise as I wrenched him down toward me and ran my nose along the corded muscle of his neck.
There was a tinge of stress beneath the saltwater waves of his alpha scent.
Unacceptable . I licked and kissed my way up goose-bumped skin, drinking in his shaky groan.
His hands found their way to my waist, coasted down to my hips, and then reached where I really wanted them. He gripped my ass, coaxing me to rock against him. It still wasn’t enough to satisfy the volatile possessiveness racing through my blood.
“Your room?” I panted.
“But you’re not in a skirt.”
As cute as his cluelessness was, my plan was supposed to help me get more sex, not less.
I cupped him through his jeans. “Give it ten more seconds and I’ll be in nothing if that helps.”
“Fuck.”
Jae carried me like it was nothing. Legs around his waist. Kissing, frantic, desperate as we crashed through his door. My back hit the wall as he caged and smothered me with his hunger.
“I can’t believe I’m finally going to know what your pierced dick feels like,” I said happily.
“You want it?” Jae said through gritted teeth. He placed my palm on the thick bulge straining beneath his zipper. “Then take it out.”
I unzipped him eagerly. His cock was thick and flushed, the skin silky smooth along his rigid shaft.
A titanium ball bearing sat right in the slit, and when I explored the underside, I found its twin nestled right beneath the crown.
I stroked him lightly, watching the way his spine loosened as he breathed hard through his nose.
“So what made you decide to do this to your penis?”
“I—I lost a bet,” he said raggedly.
“What a very normal thing to wager.”
“Alcohol…was involved.”
“You don’t say.” I teased his piercing again with my thumb, and a milky droplet pooled at his tip. I swiped it and brought it to my lips, tasting musk and salt. Jae swore and thrust involuntarily against me.
“You wanna know the truth, though? I probably would’ve gotten it even without the bet.
I’d been curious about it for a while and that was just an excuse.
” His dark pupils glinted as he wrapped his hand around mine, guiding me to stroke him harder.
“I must’ve known that one day, I would be with a bratty little omega desperate to find out exactly how good it feels inside her. ”
Slick pooling, thighs squeezing, heat in my veins. With the undeniable bloom of my scent, Jae’s alpha dominance reared its monstrous head.
“Take off your clothes, Summer. And get on the fucking bed.”