Ambrosia

Six years ago, I arrived in New York with a criminal record, a bachelor’s degree from a second-rate college, and a chance from a small, local, organic grocery chain.

Today, I land back in my city with my record erased, a promise that I’ll be given a fair chance at promotion in the same grocery store, and a billionaire boyfriend whom I gave my virginity to on the floor of the Bratwurst Wagon one memorable night shortly after I graduated high school.

Oh, and I’ve officially joined the mile high club.

Twice.

My brothers are overjoyed. Not about the mile high club—there are some things they don’t need to know—but that Chase is back in their lives. My parents were bought with new golf clubs (Dad) and a shiny new website with full tech support and direct sales options (Mom). My all-girl boy band cover band bandmates are saving their judgment until we see if we can get through an entire two weeks without getting arrested for public indecency.

As my hoo-ha says, there are worse things to get arrested for than good orgasms.

We swing by my apartment to grab my goldfish and aloe plant—okay, yes, and to have a quickie—and don’t even make it in the door before the dust starts flaking down from the ceiling.

Squeaky-squeaky-squeaky-squeeeeeeeeak…

Chase and I look at each other, and we both crack up. Joe Gus Johnson is currently in hiding back in Wishberry Lake, riding high on the notoriety that kept me away for ten years, thanks to my mother’s righteous indignation fueling her dip into the gossip waters.

Also helping redirect the gossip? Chase announced that he was buying the baloney factory and converting it to Crunchy’s Midwestern regional headquarters, with on-the-job cross-training opportunities for employees who wanted to stay through the transition. No lay-offs, full paychecks without pause. Pending my criminal record being obliterated by local law enforcement, of course.

I think I might seriously feel something way stronger than not-hate for this man.

Have no fear—the Baloney Festival will still go on, though he’s threatening to set up a tofaloney booth. Either way, the Bratwurst Wagon has been permanently disinvited.

Hogzilla’s battle cry echoes through the ceiling of my apartment, accompanied by a wolf howl.

Chase peers curiously at the ceiling. “I honestly want to know what’s actually going on up there.”

“I don’t usually hate your sick sense of adventure,” I tell him.

“You were much more complimentary about my sense of adventure two hours ago when we were in the air,” he says with a smirk.

I don’t hate that smirk either. And I kind of love that there’s still a fleck of glitter next to his lip.

“Oh, please,” I say with a smile I couldn’t suppress even if I wanted to. “I was trying not to yawn the whole time. You know what altitude does to your wrinkled pickle.”

He catches me around the waist and hefts me over his shoulder. “I’ll show you a wrinkled pickle, woman.” He lugs me around the screen to my bed and stops short. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

I suddenly know what he’s seeing, and I feel my face go bright red. “I don’t hate when you fuck me on my couch,” I stutter.

“Oh, no,” he says. “If you’re still using a boy band blanket, I’m going to fuck you on your boy band blanket.”

Yes, yes, my bed is a shrine to the boy band Bro Code. I know I should quit them—they broke up like a decade ago—but of all the boy bands of my youth, they were the hottest. “It’s a comforter, not a blanket. And it’s my inspiration for my budding musical career.”

He tosses me onto the boy band and quickly covers my body with his, his fingers finding my nipples. “I don’t hate your boy band cover band,” he says while he takes aim at my neck with his teeth.

I grip his hair, spread my legs, and tilt my head to give him better access. “I don’t hate your huge, swollen, wrinkled pickle.”

He thrusts said pickle at me through our clothes, and I attack him like a rabid bunny in need of a good fuck. Clothes go flying, his hands are all over my skin, his mouth headed to the promised land. “You make me crazy, Bro,” he tells my pussy.

He licks me with one long, languid stroke, and I buck my hips up into his mouth. “We’re fucking insane,” I gasp.

Except I know we’re not. Turns out, when we’re not fighting or fucking, we have a lot in common. We both want to make the world a better place through food. We both love music. And we both love doing filthy things to each other that would make even my brothers blush.

Wait. That’s still the fucking.

But it’s so good.

His magic fingers slide into me while his tongue flicks my clit, and just like that, I’m clenching and spasming and doing my own mating call. This man just knows me.

He kisses his way back up my body, teasing me with his thick, delicious cock. He’s holding me captive with his eyes, determined and dark and intense, and my heart squeezes.

This man has all of me.

“I don’t hate the way I love you,” he whispers.

I roll us so I’m on top, sliding down his length, taking all of him into me as deep as he’ll go. I stroke the stubble on his cheeks, play my fingers down his neck and across his collarbone. “I don’t hate the way I love you either.”

“Show me,” he says.

And I do.

For the rest of my life, I do.