Chapter 10
Chad
“ T wo hours,” she repeats, but I’m barely listening. Her naked breasts are pink, softly round, and tipped with deep red nipples. There’s a slight jiggle every time she talks, and I'm mesmerized. They hover right above my head, so tantalizingly close, my lips part on their own, hungry to suck and taste them. “You don’t think you can last a measly two hours?” She’s teasing me, and when I meet her eye, there’s a wicked glimmer behind them.
“Iggy.” Her name drags out of me somewhere in the range of a groan. I know what she’s asking for, what she wants us to do. She’s pinned my wrist with the bracelet. If I push against her, I can break free, but her grip is firm enough I can tell she wants me to feel restrained, and it sends blood rushing to my cock. Even so, I know one thing for sure. “We can’t do this. It’s not right.” Counting this as volunteer hours? That’s just wrong.
But even as I say it, my free hand finds her thigh and squeezes, kneading into her flesh. She’s smooth and warm to the touch, topless in just her tiny yellow shorts. I want to tear them off of her and feel every inch of her against me. I want her so badly, I can hardly breathe.
But I’ve scanned her in, like she’s on the job—the job at the park, the one she refuses to do.
All week long, I’ve been wrenching my eyes away from her, holding my breath when we’re in the truck so that the smell of her doesn’t drive me to something crazy, balling my hands so that I don’t grab her. I work my ass off all day long just to behave like a normal human being, and what does she do?
Not a single thing I ask.
She’s the most stubborn, infuriating, and unbearably beautiful woman I’ve ever met.
“We shouldn’t,” I croak the words, but my protest is already far less certain than it was only a second ago. She licks the air, and we both know what she tastes. I’m so turned on I can’t see straight. There’s no way her tongue isn’t picking it up.
She smirks at me.
“Are you saying this is wrong?” She grinds her hips against mine and, fuck me , she wasn’t lying about the state of her panties. I can hear a faint squelching, and tunnel vision sets in. Everything else, no matter how close, is far away and fuzzy. Only she’s in sharp focus, every tiny detail, every little sound. Every one of her movements catches my eye, the way her short, dark hair falls around her face, the way the crotch of her yellow shorts darkens with moisture.
Is this wrong?
The question sends me down a different thought trail. I’ve taken her in. I’m her employer or landlord, or some mixed up version of the two according to our new deal. There’s some kind of implied line, isn’t there? One I shouldn’t cross.
I shove the thought away. I’m in no mood to philosophize over implied lines because—
“I want this,” I say as I stare at the place where her shorts sit atop my jeans and wish desperately there was nothing between us. “Just let me scan you out first.” I don’t want to stop, but we can’t count it as community service, we just can’t.
“Why? Do you feel guilty?” she asks. With her free hand she starts working my belt buckle loose.
“Yeah,” I nod. A part of me does feel guilty that I’ve already let this many minutes tick by on the clock, but I’m ashamed to admit it’s nowhere near as pronounced as it should be. I should be firmly refusing to let this go a minute longer. Instead, I let her slender fingers nimbly unbutton my fly. I press my hips into her touch the same eager way my cock is pressing into the seam of my pants, begging for more contact.
“Good. You should.” She lifts herself off me, keeping hold of my wrist as she strips off her shorts and then the hidden panties underneath, a double layer she easily soaked through. She’s naked, and I groan at the glorious sight.
Next, she tugs at my jeans with both hands, yanking a couple times for every inch or so of my briefs she exposes.
“I should what?” I ask. My head has gone fuzzy, and I’ve lost the thread of our conversation. I lift my hips to aid in her tugging efforts. She gets them down far enough that I can kick my pants off.
“You should feel guilty for withholding my hours. That was wrong of you.” I almost laugh, that’s not what I feel guilty about. It’s what we’re doing right now with the clock running. We can do this, I want to do this, “Just let me—” I reach my wrist toward her and she bats it away.
“No.” Her eyes flash as she throws one long, pink thigh over my hips, straddling me. My eyes eat her up. Her hand traces along the band of my briefs, and soon she’s tugging those down too.
My cock pops free, standing at full attention while she discards my last item of clothing. We’re both fully naked. She’s not going to let me log her out, and I’m not about to stop this. She needs these hours because of me, and I need her. Doing this is wrong, but denying her feels wrong too.
“I won’t do it again,” I promise, head falling back at the feel of her fingers running lightly over my naked skin. Her touch torches the last of my resistance.
“Good. Then consider this my way of accepting your apology.” She grips my cock and it jumps in her hand, straining upright between us. My head snaps up, and I’m singularly focused on the wrap of her fingers. I didn’t apologize, I almost point out, but then her hand starts to move, running up my length. It’s like a live wire passing over me, jolts of pleasure. She bends forward to lick the tip, and a growl rips out of me.
I want her so fucking badly, that I’m almost angry about it. No one has ever made me feel this unhinged, driven me this wildly crazy in every possible way. She strokes me up and down a few more times, and I’m fisting the blanket beneath me. Hunger mixes with pleasure, but there’s an aftertaste of insanity.
She lifts her hips and positions my cock right at her entrance. “Yes or no?” she asks. She reaches for my wrist and squeezes it, drawing my attention back to the bracelet. She’s giving me one more chance to make the right call. But I’ve already realized there are only wrong calls to make. And I know which one I’m choosing.
Her eyes are lidded, and her breath has a soft pant to it. She’s a mirror of my desire. It’s written all over her face as she stares down at me from under her dark lashes.
She tilts her hips to touch herself with my tip, and my enthusiastic consent comes rolling out of me, “Fuck yeah—yes!” It’s more sound than words, like a wave that started in my belly only to crash against my teeth on the way out of my mouth.
She slides down my cock, wet, silky, snug, and too fucking perfect for words. I’m vaguely aware we’ve done this before, but not like this. As intense as our first encounter was, this is far beyond that. It’s entirely, un-fucking-believably new.
She sets the pace, moving painfully slow and making tiny satisfied whimpers as she eases her way down every inch of me. She stops when she’s fully seated. Her thighs are spread wide and snug around my hips, and the delicious weight of her keeps me satisfyingly and deeply buried to the hilt. It’s pure bliss. My arms fall wide as I soak it in, the most glorious moment of my life.
When she starts to move again, hunger ignites in my belly. I need more. My heels plant and my palms grip her ass. “Are you ready to ride?” I ask. She nods an impish, eager grin. “Then hold on tight.”
She goes for my hair, taking fistfuls, and her heels hook under my thighs. This is no amateur rider, I note with delight. Iggy knows what she's doing. I roll my hips up off the bed, pressing deeply into her. When I let them drop, she slides up my cock with a silky wet glide, but before I come free, she digs her heels and pulls herself to my seat again with a squelching slap. Her timing is perfect. We both grunt our approval.
“Faster,” she urges and pulls at my hair. I grin up at her, only too happy to oblige. I go full gallop, pounding into her over and over. Her tits rise and flop so beautifully. But as much as I want to stare, I can’t stop my eyes from rolling with how good she feels sliding up and down the pole of my cock.
Hot urgency starts to build in the pit of my stomach. My balls tighten, and I groan.
Then, out of nowhere, an old fear twists my stomach. I grip her ass too firmly. I'll leave bruises if I don’t let go, but I can’t. I’ve locked on. It's not just lust and pleasure driving me now. Beneath it, my ever-present hunger to hold on to someone is sounding like an alarm. Don't let her go , it warns even though she's right here with me, not trying to leave. But just as I start to panic, Iggy speaks.
“I need a little more,” she pleads. She's close, chasing her own pleasure with sharp little breaths. If I touch her just right, I can send her over the edge. I don’t have to think about it. One hand lets go to slide between her legs, and I use the back of two fingers to massage a V down either side of her clit. I need to make her feel good and that imperative silences the alarms.
“There!” she gasps, and I'm swept back up in the moment, enthralled by the half-lidded look of ecstasy on her face. Her wetness coats my fingers, and her pussy starts to flutter.
She lets out a throaty moan as she comes, her walls squeezing and rippling up and down my cock. The feel of her is too much; I couldn't stop myself if I tried.
I erupt like a volcano, coming recklessly alive, spurting deep inside her before riding the aftershock of satisfied tremors.
My head falls back, and all I see are trailing bright spots across my vision. Amazing.
“That was perfect,” she sighs as she flops down on top of me. My hands slide up her back, pulling her tighter to me.
She's perfect.
We fuck the night away and make an absolute wreck of my bed. But not once does the panic return. I’m too distracted by all the many beautiful sights and sounds.
When I go down on her for the first time, a new obsession sets in. Watching her from this vantage point, framed by her own thighs, and seeing the way she trembles and shivers, there’s no contest. Every lake view in the world be damned, Iggy shaking with orgasm is far and away the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Immediately after, I pull her into a spoon with her backside against me. She’s slick with sweat but still eager. She tilts her hips back, and I push inside her. I slide a hand around to cup her between her legs and press down with the flat of my palm. I’m learning this is the way she likes it when she’s oversensitive from just having come. I set a slow, luxuriating pace, sliding in and out of her with sloppy wet noises as she rides my hand. When we both come again, me with a grunt, her with a soft moan, I pass out still inside her.
As soon as I wake up, I check the time. It’s been a lot longer than two hours. The faint blush of first light is peaking through the curtains.
“I’m scanning you out now,” I tell her. She gives a sleepy nod. And as I tap my bracelet to her horn cuff, I place a kiss on her bare shoulder. “We’re never doing that again,” I tell her, and I’m dead serious. My head is a lot clearer than it was last night. She was supposed to earn those hours helping the park, not driving me wild in my own bed. It was inappropriate at the very least, possibly a crime. “That was a one-time thing.”
“I don’t know who taught you how to count, but we did it a lot more than one time.” She yawns and rolls over to face me. Her hair is a wild nest, and she has a loopy grin on her face. The sight of it smacks me in the heart so hard it puts a loopy grin on my face too. “Was it a particular position that offended you?” she asks as she slides a hand between my thighs to cup my balls. She squeezes them lightly and then grips my shaft, and I go from semi to fully hard in just a couple of strokes.
I topple her onto her back and climb on top, placing my knees between hers. I push her thighs apart, sliding down to settle between them, then I dip my head in for a long lick, but before I make contact, she grabs me by the hair.
“Wait. You didn’t answer me. What didn’t you like?”
“I wasn’t talking about a position. We’re doing all of them again, a bunch more times. But it’ll be off the clock from now on. That was a one-time thing.”
I miss her response if there is one because as soon as I lick her, her thighs clamp down around my ears.
I ’m walking funny come Monday. My body is so loose and wrung out, it’s like my bones have turned to rubber. And I can’t stop smiling. That is until I step into the shower and I’m blasted by icy cold water. I jump back out, swearing under my breath. I know I gave it plenty of time to warm up. The water heater must be busted. Damn it . I don’t have time to fix it now. So I wrap a towel around my waist and scoop up an armload of my stuff.
The cold morning air rushes over my wet skin and sucks the warmth right out of me as I hurry up the walkway to the main house. My teeth are chattering by the time I get inside.
“Is someone running late?” I hear an amused voice just as I’m stepping into the bathroom. I pop my head back out the door. It’s Iggy. She snuck out before dawn this morning, and my heart stops the moment I see her face. But then a jolt of irritation gets it going again.
“What the hell are you wearing?” The question grumbles its way out of my mouth.
“My uniform,” she says and does a sassy little pirouette.
“You cut it up?” I ask, purely out of disbelief because she’s clearly taken scissors to the jacket. The once full-length sleeves are now a few inches short of her elbow, and the waist only extends to a midriff.
“I improved it. The little patch thing is still here,” she taps at the ranger badge above her breast pocket. “I figured that was the important part.” Beneath the jacket she’s wearing a dark checkered blouse with a high neck and puffed sleeves. She’s layered on gold necklaces, and I have to admit, the look works for her. But that’s not the point.
“It’s all the important part! It’s called a uniform because it is supposed to be uniform .”
“That makes sense,” she admits. “But the damage is done now.” She shrugs. “I’m off to enjoy a leisurely breakfast since I’m ready early . Wait,” she stops in her tracks. “Who’s going to make our breakfast if you’re in the shower?”
I shoot her a glare before I close the bathroom door only to hear the faint sound of her laughter coming from down the hall. The hot water soothes my grumbles, and I’d like to stay here a while under the steamy spray, but time is a luxury I’m short on this morning. Still, no matter how much I try to stay focused on the task at hand, my thoughts continue to drift to a conversation Iggy and I had over the weekend.
I’m the idiot who insisted we establish some ground rules, and now, for better or worse, we have them. My only real goal was to draw several hard lines to ensure there’d be no repeat of our on-the-clock romp, but once the conversation was going, it sort of spiraled from there.
“Work is strictly work. No fuzzy lines. I’ve got it,” she said, sounding exasperated. “And you’re right. I’m only here until my probation is up. So you shouldn’t have to abandon your dating life,” she said, coming to a conclusion I hadn’t anticipated.
“That’s not what I was saying.” I was trying to soften my hard stance by pointing out this was a temporary concern. Worrying about what was on the clock or off the clock would end as soon as her community service was up, but I was also trying to get a read on her interest in staying versus going and jumbled the two. I guess I got my answer to both questions.
“You didn’t have to. You told me the day we met that you were looking for someone local. That’s very important to you, and I know you want to find her as soon as possible. Plus, I’ve agreed to help you with your branding and write you some new pickup lines, and I don’t back out on deals. I guess all we need to decide is whether or not we go back to being strictly friends with no benefits.”
“I would hate that,” I answered honestly.
“Oh good. Me too.” She smiled, and my heart stuttered to see the relief on her face. “Then this is how we’ll do it—you’ll keep up your Friday routine so that you’re staying in the game, getting some practice in, and not missing out on the chance to meet your someone special. If you find her, or even a potential her who you want to try out for a few nights, you and I will go full platonic. But until then, I say we do whatever we feel like the other six nights of the week. Deal?”
I know I need to quit making deals with this woman, but there wasn’t any part of me that wanted to turn down the possibility of her spending six nights a week in my bed from now through the new year.
“Deal.”
O n Tuesday, we swing by my dad’s house again. It’s a cold day, and a stiff breeze rattles mostly bare branches. Despite that, I’m still surprised by the sight of my dad in a shirt with a coat on, no bathrobe, and he’s also clean shaven.
“Is everything alright?” I ask warily as I come up the porch steps.
“Where’s your colleague?” he asks, leaning around me to see if Iggy’s in the truck. She is. “Come on in. Bring her with you,” he says, rising from his rocker.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I say scratching at the back of my head, but he ignores me and heads inside, leaving the door open behind him. To my surprise, he’s made an effort to tidy up. The dining table and chairs are all clear, and the three of us take a seat there. I can’t remember the last time my dad and I sat around a table together.
“Are you from around here?” my dad asks. It’s the first thing out of his mouth once we’re all seated. Not hello, not how are you, nothing.
“In a manner of speaking,” Iggy says, leaning back in her chair, an amused smile on her face. But when his face pinches into a scowl, she tells him no, that she lives in Boston, and that she’ll be returning home as soon as she can.
“You do know my son’s not fool enough to mess around with an out-of-towner?” he says.
“Dad,” I grumble.
“And if you respect him, you’ll leave him be.”
“Alright,” I say, rising from my chair. “Iggy, it’s time for us to go. Would you head back to the truck and wait for me there?”
She doesn’t argue, but she does shoot me a questioning look before she gets up to go.
“What’s gotten into you?” I turn on my dad as soon as the door closes behind her.
“She’s got her hooks in you! You think I can’t see it? All that sass and charm she’s spraying at you like a firehose. You’re in danger! And you might turn your nose up at every other piece of advice I’ve ever given you, son, but not this one. You need to steer clear of that woman, you hear me? Promise me you will.”
“I can’t steer clear of her. We work together, and she’s staying with me until after the holidays.” Plus, I don’t want to steer clear. I want to steer right into her for now and deal with the shipwreck later.
He shakes his head and mutters ominously. “I knew the moment I saw your mother that I’d never love anyone else and that one day she’d leave me. I knew both of those things at first sight. And that one’s got the same look about her.”
“Speaking of holidays,” I say, dismissing his allusions to his failed marriage with a weary sigh. “I’m still expecting you for Christmas.”
“Will she be there?” he asks, nodding his chin toward the door Iggy just left through.
I hadn’t really thought about it, but my heart gives an excited squeeze as I realize she probably doesn’t have anywhere else to be, which means, “Yeah, she’s gonna be with us on Christmas Day.” I have to fight back a delighted smile as a swarm of butterflies tickle my insides.
“We’ll see,” he says, crossing his arms, still glaring at the door.
T hings change at the station. Iggy goes toe to toe with Luís over control of the lobby and the guest center and wins more battles than she loses. The ugly posters come down, and when Luís insists we can’t afford blinds, she has me drive her to a craft store. We install some rice paper window film that filters out the glare but lets in a bright, diffused light. It’s lovely.
She steals all of the ink cartridges out of the printer and holds them hostage until Luís gives up his rant about overhead costs and finally orders a new cyan cartridge.
The first thing she redesigns are our flyers and shoves a large stack into every employee mailbox, mine, Luís’s, and the two part-time weekend rangers. Her post-it note on each stack contains a list of distribution sites for dropping our flyers. Her knowledge of Winter Bliss is a bit dated, so she gets the names of a few places wrong, but other than that, it’s a good list.
“I liked her better when she was quiet and mopey,” Luís grumbles to me one afternoon while we watch her toss all the expired granola bars that have been sitting in a bowl by the coffee machine for the last three years. “What’d you do to her?”
I shrug. “I didn’t do anything,” I say. “I think this is just her.”
“Then who’d I meet last week?” Luís asks.
I shrug again.
“ D o you want to get lunch with me today?” I ask on our way into work the following week. She’s been strictly adhering to our ‘work is work, no fuzzy lines’ ground rule, which I should appreciate but, in reality, don’t care for. Almost as much as I don’t care for how little I see her during the day.
She was dead serious about wanting to redesign all of our marketing material. She’s taken over the only computer in the office and is on it most of the day while I’m out and about doing my usual rounds. It probably shouldn’t feel like too much time apart, but it does. And even though I see her every night, I’m starting to miss her anytime she’s not around.
“I can’t,” she says, mouth twisting. “My salary, though generous, is funneled through a barter system which limits my liquid assets,” she says. When I shoot her a puzzled look, she clarifies. “I don’t have lunch money.”
“My treat,” I say, smiling at the way she describes our new arrangement, which, as far as I can tell, is the same arrangement we had before. She accepts, and it’s official. We have a date lined up.
Luís agrees to let us take a long lunch as long as we promise to bring him something back. On the drive, Iggy talks shop, wanting to know which are the best views around the park and if we can get photos for the projects she’s working on.
“Yeah of course, I’d love to show you around the park.”
“Could I include you in some of the photos?” she asks.
“What for?”
“Perspective, if nothing else,” she says. I am smaller than a mountain. So yeah, why not?
Once we hit Winter Bliss, we start looking for a place to eat.
“Who let the Grossman brothers open a custard shop?” she asks, her nose wrinkling as we pass Grossman Bros Frozen Treats.
“That’s one of three locations,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “That's too many.”
“I don’t know. They all seem to be doing good business,” I say.
“I went to Infernus Academy with those assholes. Each and every one of them wholly and truly sucked.”
“Oof, then you're not gonna like hearing this, but the custard is really good.”
“No, don’t say that.” Her face pinches.
“And they have great burgers,” I say as I make a U-turn and pull into the drive-thru.
“Traitor,” she grumbles under her breath.
“Just trust me.”
We take our food to a park, but it’s too cold to sit outside. It’s been snowing all week. So I leave the heater running and we have a fast food picnic in the truck looking out over a frozen pond.
“Fuck,” she says after trying a spoonful of custard. “This is good. I hate it.”
“Then I hate it too,” I say as I take my own bite. “You gotta admit though, there’s something nice about a chain owned by a local family instead of some national corporation.”
“Depends on the family,” she shrugs. “I guess that’d make you a big fan of Perkatory, huh? A national brand owned by a local Winter Bliss family. You must be ecstatic.”
I shrug. “I don’t know if I’d consider the Perchazes local,” I say.
“Why not? Their family has roots here.”
“Yeah, but they all moved away. If you leave, you’re not local,” I say. It’s as simple as that.
“Didn’t Rom move back?” she asks. “Surely he can be reinstated into your cabal of locals, if not the entire family.” She’s teasing me.
“I suppose,” I grin. “He is engaged to the librarian. Maybe after they get hitched, I’ll consider him a full-fledged local again.”
“The redheaded gentleman with all the bow ties?” she asks, her face brightening.
“His niece, actually,” I say, smiling at the memories that stirs. I loved going to the library as a kid. Being greeted by a big smile and a fancy bow-tie certainly left an impression. It’s funny, but I haven’t thought about the old librarian in a long time.
“Age-wise, I guess that makes more sense.” She nods. “But I’m sorry to hear Mr. Bow Ties isn’t running the library anymore.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nods. “He gave me my first fashion boner. The man was dapper as sin.”
“Fashion boner.” I chuckle. “That’s not a real thing. Is it?”
“It's like you and your nature boners.”
“Excuse me? Not once.”
“Oh please, you’re popping them all the time. You can't honestly tell me you've never felt something swell inside you when you’re looking out at one of your beloved scenic views.”
“Sunsets,” I admit. “And sunrises. Clouds. A beautiful lake. Rainy days.” I glance over at her, and add one more. “The smell of morning air.”
“Oof, you've got it bad.” She shakes her head.
“You have no idea.”
F riday is officially the worst day of the week. I’ve never hated a day as much as I’ve come to hate Fridays. It’s our platonic night, the one night of the week Iggy sleeps in her own bed.
We have dinner with Darcy and Haisley most evenings, unless they’ve gone out somewhere. On those nights, Iggy and I head straight to my apartment after work and make a marathon of it. I’ve started keeping my fridge stocked with cold drinks and have a cabinet full of snacks, just in case it turns out to be one of those nights.
But a couple times a week, Iggy insists on working on pickup lines with me, and that includes Fridays. She’s determined to not back out on a deal I no longer care anything about and would happily release her from.
“What else have you got?” she asks, biting her lip as she taps her pen against the notebook in her lap.
“You’re looking so sweet and creamy, I could spread you like butter all up and down my toast,” I say. Her head pops up and she stares at me wide-eyed for a beat before her eyes go narrow with suspicion. She’s on to me. “There's something there, right?” I say, keeping a perfectly straight face.
“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.” She studies me harder, looking for a crack.
“You don’t like it?” I ask, frowning in feigned concern. “Is it the toast? Toast isn’t sexy enough, is it?” I’m barely keeping a straight face, but I press on. “How about this? You’re so sweet and creamy, I’d like to dunk my baguette into your Land o'Lakes, and just soak.” I can’t make it all the way through the word baguette without cracking a smile, and that sets her off laughing.
“You dumb ass!” she cackles and throws her pen at me.
“A baguette is sexier than toast, right? It's French,” I say. “That one’s a keeper. Write it down.” I tap on her notebook.
“That’s the worst one! And you’ve been bombing all night.” There are tears streaming down her face now, she’s laughing so hard.
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Butter is my new muse. I’m definitely catching a wife with that one.”
She doubles over, and as she’s snorting into a throw pillow, her fingers suddenly spray off a round of sparks. She bolts up right.
“Sorry!” she yelps. It’s not the first time this has happened, and like before, I tell her not to worry about it. What I don’t tell her is that I’ve started to pick up a pattern. I’m not always sure what’ll do it, but I have noticed that if I can get her relaxed enough or wild enough, she loses control and starts sparking. I’ve made it my new secret mission to find out all the ways there are to make her spark.
She stares at her fingers, brows knitted as she bends them and turns them over. I’m curious what’s going through her head, but I don’t pry.
“Should we open a bottle of wine?” I ask, hoping she’ll say yes and we can just keep doing this all night, but she checks the clock.
“It’s almost eight,” she notes, tucking her hands under her thighs. And I know what that means. It’s time for me to head to Under the Volcano. I don’t want to go, but I get up anyway and head out the door.
Fucking Fridays.
I already know this is going to be another night of batting zero despite all our pickup line prepwork. It’s hard enough to pick up women when I’m not all that interested in doing it, but I make it downright impossible by skipping the bar, driving out of town, and climbing into the bed of my truck. I lay out on my back to look at the stars, and I spend the next few hours just wondering what Iggy is doing.