Chapter 36 Anytime Fling
ANYTIME FLING
MABEL
I step out of the shower, half expecting Corbin to walk in on me again, and definitely wanting him to.
But I resist checking my phone for a text. We didn’t make official plans for a midnight visit after all.
I simply offered a suggestion, then I left before they did.
I have no idea if he’ll come or not. I dry off, spend some time on my skin-care routine—since I toted all my essential lotions and potions and serums here—then head into the mostly bare sleeping quarters that I’ve turned into my temporary home away from home.
Moonlight streams through a window, casting a soft silvery light across the floor.
The walls are sad though, bereft of artwork, photos, or posters that would make it feel more like home.
I grab a sleep shirt from the suitcase next to the bed that I stuffed my clothes into. As I tug it on, I wonder if I should get rid of my place in San Francisco and properly decorate this place.
But then I’d be living in Cozy Valley, on top of this bakery, where I work.
That feels like too much, too soon. I should wait and see how things go with Afternoon Delight.
I sigh as I stare at the bed waiting for me, covered with the white and sage green blanket that Corbin brought over the night we opened.
I’m not tired though. My brain is racing from the hockey game, my brother’s excitement over his job, the pickleball post Ronnie reshared. And the effect of it—I’ve already gotten some orders for Christmas cookies thanks to the socials exposure.
No way can I sleep now.
But I’m also…waiting for him. Wondering if Corbin is going to take me up on my offer to slip over in the middle of the night.
My fingers itch to check my phone. I give in, grabbing it from the bed.
My shoulders sink. There are zero new text messages. I fling it back on the mattress.
I pull on sleep shorts, grab the phone, and head down to the kitchen. Time to do some prep for tomorrow. I pull out ingredients from the pantry and the fridge.
It’s okay if he doesn’t show up.
We’re not a thing.
We’re also not a fake thing anymore either.
It’s not like we need to fake date for the town, like Theo said. Even if people make assumptions from Tiffany and Brittany’s post, there’s nothing riding on us pretending to be together. Corbin and I aren’t fake dating, and I feel a little empty about that.
Which is an annoying way to feel. I remind myself we’re just business partners with benefits and that’s fine. It was my damn idea. It’s fine, too, if we don’t have the benefits tonight.
I’ll survive, even though my chest aches with the wish that he’d come over.
Fine, it’s not only my chest aching.
I toggle over to my playlists and queue up some Christmas music as I prep the dough for the Christmas cookies I’ll make tomorrow—red trucks, wreaths, trees, and snowmen and snowwomen.
When that’s done, I wash my hands, my gaze straying to the cupboard with the letters. There’s a tug in my chest, like an invisible rope is pulling me toward it.
I check my phone again.
Nothing. I could text him. But I don’t want to be needy. I was already the neediest when I twisted his arm to open this bakery. I have no idea what the rules of the road are for navigating a one-time-only fling that morphs into an anytime fling. I don’t want to text with a Hey, are you coming?
That feels like relationship territory. I need to put my mind on something else. Maybe I’ll peek at the next letter myself.
I pull out the stepladder, climb it, grab the strawberry jar, and then freeze.
I’m the kid with her hand in the cookie jar.
Isn’t this how I wound up leaving this town in the first place? I wasn’t patient. I didn’t put the sugar cookies away, and the llamas ate them, and the story of Old McMabel and the Four Animals of the Firehouse Apocalypse began.
Here. Right here in this firehouse. And I hightailed it out of town.
This time around, I need to slow down, be patient, be precise.
I made a deal with Corbin, so I put the jar back, climb down, and turn off the lights.
I go upstairs, and tumble into bed, slipping under the covers as a yawn comes over me at last. The full-body kind. I stretch and before I know it, the day floats before my eyelids and the night pulls me into its embrace.
A hand slides up my thigh. A voice, gravelly and familiar, drifts past my ears.
I reach for the strong hand, guiding it toward the ache between my legs. I wriggle closer. My hips arch. My legs fall open. I chase the sensation, needing more, but it’s still not quite enough.
I part my lips to ask for more pressure, more contact, something, but—
I wake with a start, blinking, pushing up onto my elbows, eyes orienting to the dark.
“Hey.” Corbin’s standing by the bed wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His shoes are off. He’s not sitting on the bed. He’s not touching me either. Was I…dreaming?
“I just got here,” he adds.
“You weren’t—” I cut myself off from asking Fucking me with your fingers?
Shaking his head, he sinks down on the edge of the bed, clearly knowing what I was about to ask. “No. I wouldn’t touch you like that while you were asleep.”
Oh, right. “Of course.”
He roams his hand over my thigh, covered by the blanket. “Were you dreaming?”
“I guess,” I say, feeling a little embarrassed.
I fiddle with the covers. Was I moaning out loud?
Punching up my hips? I can only imagine how horny I must have looked if he saw that.
“I was baking earlier. Well, prepping for tomorrow. I made the dough for sugar cookies. For Christmas.” And now I’m rambling.
“I had a feeling,” he says, nodding to the stairs that lead down to the kitchen.
He must have seen some of the mixing bowls I left out as he walked through Afternoon Delight.
Tilting his head, he studies me with a furrowed brow, eyes soft in the moonlight.
His dark hair is a little messy, his stubble thicker than it’s been lately. “You okay?”
It’s asked with such concern.
I tug the blanket up, protecting myself as I say something vulnerable. No point hiding it. My weird mood is obvious. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
He slides his hand down my arm. “I thought when you said slip over in the middle of the night that’s what you wanted. The middle of the night.”
I wince. He took me literally. He waited to show up when I asked him to. And I worked myself up for no reason. “I did say that. I’m being silly,” I say, waving a hand like I can dismiss my own desire for him to have arrived earlier.
His lips curve in amusement. “You were wanting me over sooner?”
I say nothing.
“You were wanting me,” he says, too pleased.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
His smile grows into a full-blown smirk. “I did what you wanted, but you were horny and wanting me, and also annoyed I didn’t show up right away to eat your sweet, sweet pussy?”
Now he’s just gloating. “I admitted I was being silly.”
He brandishes his phone, miming typing. “You could have texted. Corbin, get your mouth over here.”
I huff. “I was honest and admitted I was sad when I thought you weren’t coming, and now you’re making fun of me.”
He arches a brow, giving me the most satisfied look ever. “You were sad that you weren’t coming on my tongue.” Setting the phone on a nightstand, he tugs down the blanket. “Spread those thighs, Mabel. I’m a man of my word.”
“Jerk,” I mutter, but I’m pushing the covers the rest of the way.
“Say that when you’re fucking my tongue.
” His grin turns wicked. “Better yet. Why don’t you just sit on my face?
That’ll remind you that you have the power to summon me.
” He leans closer, that campfire-and-lake scent seducing me.
“You have all the power to text me and tell me to come over and fuck you with my tongue. And I will come running.”
A hot spark shoots down my chest. “I felt foolish for wondering if you were coming,” I admit.
Brushing his lips to mine in a soft kiss, he whispers, “You’re not foolish for wanting me. I fucking love that you wanted me so much you spiraled.”
I swat his arm.
He grins some more. “Yes, Firecracker. Put all that energy into sitting on my face. Now.”
He tugs off my shorts, yanks off my panties, and shifts me over on the bed, making room. After he flops down, he positions me so I’m straddling his shoulders. “I want to taste how horny you are. I want to see how worked up you are. Give me that sweet pussy now.”
I give in, sinking down onto his eager mouth. The sounds we both make should be illegal. His groan is craven. Mine is desperate.
I press my hands against the wall, and I don’t waste time. I rock against his mouth, his tongue, his scruff. I seek just the right angle, the right friction.
He laps me up, his tongue licking a hungry line up and down, his lips clamping on my swollen clit, his mouth devouring me.
It’s filthy, the noises he makes. It’s wanton, the way his hands grip my hips.
Rocking back and forth, I ride his gorgeous face with an after-dark abandon, like I wanted to do in my dream. Like I’ve wanted to do since I mentioned him coming over in the middle of the night.
My thighs shake. My belly tightens. My hands scrabble at the wall.
He stops, pushes me a couple inches off his face. I whimper. “Jerk.”
“Use your words, Mabel. Tell me how much you wanted me to come over. Fuck my face and tell me how desperately you needed my tongue.” His eyes are fierce, his need evident in the set of his jaw, his face wet with me. He doesn’t lower me yet.
“I wanted you so badly,” I confess.
“How badly?” He keeps me hovering above him.
“So badly I’m aching.”
His eyes swing to my center, then back to my face. “And so fucking wet.”
“Do something about it.”
“Oh, I will. I definitely will.” He drags me back down to his mouth.
Apparently, I’ve earned the right to fuck his face again. But I don’t want to lose it, so I narrate as I rock. “I wanted you to wake me up with your tongue.”
A groan, chased by a hungry lick is my reward.
“I wanted you to devour me.”
A suck on my clit. Then a growl.
“I wanted to come on your face,” I pant out.
He smacks my ass with his hand.
I yelp, but it transforms into a moan as pleasure coils in me.
He smacks me again, this time on the other cheek. Sparks burst behind my eyes.
I’m this close.
One more smack, and I shudder, falling apart on his face, coming ridiculously hard. My cries bounce off the walls. The pleasure spreads to my every cell.
It takes me ages to come down from this orgasm. I’m so blissed out I barely register the sounds he’s making. The unzip of his jeans. The rustle of fabric.
I ease off him, and he’s jerking his cock. He’s that turned on he’s shuttling his fist up and down.
“Who’s the horny one now?” I taunt.
“I’m so fucking turned on by you. I always am,” he bites out, his fist flying.
He’s not playing around. But neither am I.
“Finish in me. On me. Anywhere,” I offer, desperate. “I have an IUD. And I’m negative.”
“Negative too.”
I take the wheel, climbing on him, sinking down on his cock. I’m so wet he fills me in less than a second, and I revel in the feel of him.
His arms snake around my back, pulling me close. “Mabel,” he grunts.
“Yes?”
But he says nothing, just thrusts up again and again, holding me tight. After a few minutes, his breathing turns more ragged. “Fuck, baby. You’re so wet. I fucking love how turned on you get.”
“You do this to me.”
“Want to keep doing it to you,” he rasps out, like a raw admission.
Pleasure slides down my spine and so do his hands. As they reach my ass, he squeezes my cheeks, bringing me down hard on his thick cock.
“I can’t stand how good you feel,” he says, like he’s angry with himself for wanting me. “I want to feel you all the fucking time.”
“Have me,” I murmur as I ride him, finding just the right angle, hitting just the right pace till I break apart into thousands of pieces of pleasure.
And he falls with me, sounding like a man who’s losing control, and he couldn’t care less.