Chapter Three
Cherry groaned and pulled the sheets up over her head. Then the sheets pulled off her poor feet, leaving them in the freezing air. Agh. Stupid sheets. Stupid bed. She curled up into a ball in the middle of the bed. Much better.
Why the heck did her throat feel so parched, and her body feel like it had been rolled over by Monday’s delivery guy’s hand truck? Oh. Her bottom hurt when she kicked her heels up against it. What the heck?
She bolted out of the bed, and yanked down her jammie pants, and bent over in front of the mirror. A dull, red outline of something on her right bottom cheek, and her left side still bore the residual remnants of a very faded pink partial handprint. Oh my God. Why was her ass looking just shy of the almost well-spanked side?
She gingerly felt the curves of her bottom and tried to remember last night. Had she gotten drunk? No. She’d only had one glass of wine. She wasn’t a lush by any means, but she could sure as heck handle more than one drink without going topsy turvy. She mentally ran through her evening. Jumped out of the way from an idiot driver, dropped her purse, came face to face with the hottest guy she’d ever seen—in real life, anyway. He turned out to be Chance’s buddy from the Army. She took him up to her place and showed him around, all the while babbling like an idiot because she kept thinking about making love to him. I mean, seriously, the guy was uber- sexy. That little cleft in his chin, the scar over his eyebrow, that sexy way he waggled said eyebrows and oh my Lord, that smile. That sexy as sin, I am the big bad wolf and like to eat bad, little girls kind of smile that had her panties wet within a minute of him coming into her apartment.
He had kinda bugged her at first. He had so many of Chance’s knight in shining armor qualities going on. Maybe that was a military thing? She had been pissed at first, when she went on that lovely little tumble with him onto Main Street. Yeah, a part of her was ticked because it was just another moment feeding the Cherry can’t take care of herself stuff Chance still spouted as if gospel. But mostly, she was ticked at herself. Maybe she should have been paying closer attention while walking through the crosswalk, instead of daydreaming about a hot soldier coming to live with her for a week to ten days. And her reaction to him had totally been over the top.
She’d become a blathering, no inner monologue, sex-crazed female who couldn’t stop the perpetual pink color on her cheeks. She thanked her maternal grandmother’s Irish heritage for that one. Okay, so after the tour, she offered him a drink, and Jacob kept pissing her off with little things. So maybe she chugged down her glass of merlot a little faster than she normally would have. Those damn little things that she hated. Like when he had to personally check out her apartment, or when he reached up and pulled down the wine glass from the top shelf. He had popped her on the bottom and stopped her from climbing up onto the counter to get them. She hated that. Well, maybe not hated. She may have kind of liked it, too. But she hated how conflicted it had made her. And then Jacob had pulled out her chair for her. Once again, the whole love/hate thing. Maybe she could have accepted it as gentlemanly, if she hadn’t grown up her whole life having her older brother dote on her as if she were an invalid.
Yes, Chance had always been there for her growing up. Yes, he had knocked Billy Phelps’ front tooth out when he called her fat on the school bus. And he’d even broken up with his girlfriend the night of the junior prom because the bi-otch had called Cherry too chubby to ever get her hopes up to go to prom unless she went as the mascot. And while this was all annoyingly every day big-brother stuff, she didn’t need it from another man. Definitely not a man that made her heart beat a million times a minute and her tummy whirl like on a roller coaster. Oh God, she hoped she hadn’t puked in front of him last night.
As much as she was annoyed and conflicted by his reactions to her, she was completely attracted to him. Like more attracted to him than any man she had ever met. She couldn’t remember their exact conversation, but she did remember laughing a lot. And he had laughed too. She wished she hadn’t gotten so drunk. Now she couldn’t remember what he was really like, or what made him smile, or what his voice sounded like when he laughed.
A dull ache in her posterior reminded her there was something else she was forgetting from last night. That asshole!
As if on cue, the handsome man in jeans and a black t-shirt and day-old scruff walked into her bedroom carrying a plate and a mug. Jacob.
“What did you do to my rear end?” she screeched and turned to wiggle her bare bottom toward his wide eyes. “And when did you get here? And did we--” She gulped and stood back up to pull her pants quickly up around her waist, as her face heated. “Oh my God! Did we…?”
His eyes darkened and he advanced on her quickly, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss her or tie her up and toss her into his duffel bag. Is that what Army guys did when they were pissed off? Yeah, and maybe lock the top of the bag and throw it into the bottom of the river. How far was the nearest river?
He thrust the plate and coffee mug into her hands. “Sit down and eat this. You need to get the effects out of your system.”
“Effects of what?” She sniffed at the scrambled eggs and toast as if it were poisonous.
“You were given some sort of drug. I’m not sure what yet. But if I guessed, I’d say Rohypnol. I sent the rest of your bottle to a friend this morning. Your sorry excuse for a deputy wasn’t any help, so I took care of it myself.” He scowled.
“You think I was roofied?” Her voice sounded shrill even to her ears. “Don’t you have to like go out to a bar, to get, you know?” Her legs suddenly felt tired, so she sat down on the bed.
“Just eat the damn eggs. They’ll give you some protein. And the toast is carbs.”
“And the coffee?” She looked into the cup, pleasantly surprised that he had loaded it with the perfect amount of peppermint mocha creamer. She drank her morning creamer with a bit of coffee, she liked to joke.
“Coffee goes with everything. Did I get the creamer measurements right? It was an educated guess based on the three other bottles in the fridge.” He smiled. He had a beautiful smile, with straight, white teeth, gleaming blue eyes that reminded her of the waves just offshore at Myrtle Beach, a small dimple on his right cheek. And as she sat down on the edge of her bed, he towered even further above her, his massive body occupying all the space in her tiny bedroom.
She nodded. “I… I’m wearing Batman jammies.” Yeah, it was lame—even by just woke up, morning after being possibly drugged standards. And since she had already shown her butt, figuratively. Ugh. Good morning, Sunshine. Reality sucks.
“Yeah, I put them on you after you stripped off your clothes and asked me to spank your bottom, like, I quote, the naughty girl you were, unquote.”
Oh God. “Wait, so you did spank me?”
“Hell no. I don’t take advantage of women when they’re in the wrong state. But after you started spanking yourself, naked assed over your kitchen counter, I called the quits to everything, put you into your pajamas and tucked you into bed.”
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. How mortifying. “You’re lying.”
He furrowed his brow. “Unfortunately, I’m not. Eat your breakfast and I’ll show you the footage.” He handed her her cell phone.
While she nibbled on her dry toast, he showed her the worst night of her life. Okay, there she was, weaving like a drunk, taking selfies of herself in her apartment. Great, the one thing she did know how to do when drunk or drugged—take pictures and videos. She couldn’t share them, but she knew how to push the red circle on the middle of the bottom of her screen. Then came the pictures.
At the very end of her lovely set of red, white and blue pie, eclairs, and a fiftieth anniversary chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, there was her ass.
Oh God, why did she set up the phone against her toaster to take pictures of her bending over the corner and acting like a crazy person?
And then Jacob asked if she was all right and suggested she go to bed. She gave him a drunk-sounding giggle and said, “Come on, relax. You’re in the house of Cherry, don’t be wary, I made you a cake and I like to share-y. Cake’s a metaphor for my body, by the way.”
Good Lord, could it get worse?
Yep. Next video. “I bet you know how to work your rifle. Are you a quick-trigger man, or do you have a long, easy pull?” A bit more high-pitched laughter, before finally zooming in on Jacob’s face. His gaze was definitely not happy and his blue eyes flashed in concerned annoyance. The same kind of gaze her brother had always given her when he tried to protect her from the big, bad world.
Cherry reached down to turn off the cell, but Jacob stilled her hand. “No, little girl, you need to see this.”
But she most definitely did not want to see what was coming. If any of what he had said was true, she would die in a puddle of shame right there in front of him. She mewled and refocused her eyes on the screen.
Jacob, rolling his eyes and asking whether she drove home in her current state. Her laughing and telling him she didn’t drink alcohol. Then the moment she had dreaded.
How’d she get her pants down so quickly?
Her naked booty looked a lot larger in the screen of her camera, and she turned it sideways to get off the widescreen, as she heard her own high-pitched giggle from the video. “Come on, Sergeant Spankalotamus. Spank me like the naughty school girl I am.”
Oh God.
Tears of shame and anger pricked at her eyes. “Did you share this with anyone?”
“I promise I didn’t share it. But to make you feel better, I scrolled through all your social media. Nothing has been shared. Look at the next clip.”
He had taken the phone from her and was carrying her grumbling, intoxicated—possibly drugged—ass into her bedroom. He set the phone against her clock, positioned so it could record him as he stripped off the rest of her clothes and dressed her in her favorite Batman jammies that were under her pillow. Then it showed his phone being set up to record next to hers. “Yours was going to stop recording soon, so I plugged it in, and set mine to record all night. I wanted you to be sure you had been safe last night. You drool and talk a lot in your sleep.” He grinned and handed her his phone.
“So, you videoed me sleeping?”
“Yeah, I just wanted you to know I didn’t lay a finger on you last night. Well, except for getting you ready for bed. And I did give your ass a quick swat when you wouldn’t let me carry you to your room.”
Oh. That’s what that clapping sound had been.
“Keep eating. You need your strength.”
“Did Chance see this?” She turned off the screen on her phone, still trying not to cry in front of him.
“Am I still alive?” He shook his head. “No. definitely not. Unless you want him to. This was for your eyes only. “
“I’d like to delete it now.”
“Go ahead.”
That’s when she started crying. Mortification over last night, her pink booty, and sharing her desire while half baked, with a complete stranger, those were all bad enough. But the technology was the final straw.
“The tech trolls hate me!” She sobbed and lay down onto her bed.
“Tech trolls?” The bed wobbled a bit when he sat down next to her.
“They don’t want me to understand how any of it works. And every time I try to do something, it freezes or locks me out, and now I have a stupid song for my brother, and I don’t have a nine-year-old next door. And if I did, I couldn’t ask a nine-year-old to delete pictures of my ass. I do have limits you know.”
To his credit, he didn’t laugh at her. He just waited for her to calm down and get her frustration out. She watched his hands expertly maneuver over the keys and delete the video. Her big butt disappeared from the frame.
“Okay, I’m all right now.” She sat up a few minutes later feeling like her eyes were even itchier and redder than when she had woken up. “Thanks.”
“I’m going to give you some space, so you can get showered and dressed. Do you want to call the police yourself?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sheriff Whitaker is on vacation fishing with his grandson, and his deputies aren’t always the most helpful, unless you’re a gorgeous blonde supermodel. Bud and Lou won’t be any help, and I’m not hurt, so let’s get our butts in gear and get some work done.”
He grinned. “Abbott and Costello, huh? Okay. What time do you need to open your shop?”
“It’s Monday, right? Deliveries come between ten and noon. Then I’ll open at two.”
“I’ll get out of your space. I’ve got to call Chance anyway, and let him know we’re settled in. Don’t worry. I won’t mention the intimate stuff.”
“Like my singing and my butt?”
“I’ll mention your off-key singing, but I won’t mention the rest. He’ll be on the first flight, and I don’t need him going AWOL and leaving my squad unattended.” He winked.
Her loud annoying ringtone started in, and he raised an eyebrow in question. “Just answer it for me. I don’t feel like dealing with Chance right now.”
“Roger.” He picked up the phone and headed toward the door.
“It’s Cherry.”
He stopped and turned back, a gleam in his eye. “Say again?”
She didn’t know what came over her, but she wanted to flirt. Maybe just a little bit. Besides, he’d have no idea what she was joking about anyway. A sexy, military guy like him probably didn’t watch old comedies like Airplane or Naked Gun.
“Surely, you must know my name by now.” She wiggled her nose and pretended to be aloof. “It’s Cherry, not Roger. Be serious.”
“I am serious, Cherry. And don’t call me Shirley.” He winked and strode out the door, closing it behind him.
She couldn’t stop the huge grin that took over her whole face as she threw on her robe and practically danced to the shower across the hall. She’d have to be careful with this one. He was not only handsome, he was goofy, and knew a quote from one of her favorite old movies. She was going to enjoy trying to stump him with one-liners this week. And with him helping in the bakery, she could focus on a few new recipes she had been dying to try out.
This could work.
~.~
Jacob got off the phone, and cleaned the breakfast dishes quickly, placing them onto the towel on the counter to dry. Damn, only nine hours into this mission, and he was already lost. He would have been a goner anyway, because of her gorgeous smile and perfect curves, but holy shit! When she had started spanking herself with that wooden spoon over the table—the table he now sat at with a hard on worse than ever before… Man, he had had to put a stop to it right away and had gotten her dressed and into bed. But his poor cock had been in agony. The sight of her pale globes bouncing up and down when she whacked herself had surprised him. He never froze. He was the take charge, adapt, and overcome guy. Always had been. But after seeing her beautiful ass—and when she had parted her legs just a tiny bit to show him her glistening pussy—he had been mesmerized. Hadn’t moved for a whole minute. Shit, that wasn’t him. If Chance ever found out he had just sat there ogling his poor, yet fucking hot, little sister for a whole sixty seconds… He groaned at the thought. It’d serve him right to get his ass kicked. But he didn’t want to embarrass Cherry. So, he’d keep his mouth shut until she said otherwise.
The woman who entered the living room twenty-three minutes and forty-five seconds later was a vision that would be ingrained in his memory forever. Hurry up and wait had never been more perfectly necessary. This morning’s bed head and bleary eyes and Batman pajamas hugging her curves had been adorable. He had wanted to pull her into his arms, and dare he say the words? Snuggle. Yeah. Jacob didn’t snuggle. It was crazy, but her wide, teary eyes and soft lips and vulnerable pose had pulled on his heartstrings, and he had loved those few moments of holding her. Except for the crying part. That had torn him up. Her soft hiccups and pitiful whimpers had called to him more.
And last night, holy fuck! His cock had been hard all night, remembering her beautiful ass positioned for a spanking. But that made him an asshole—even bigger than her douchebag ex. Jacob shouldn’t have been thinking of her as the delectable treat he wanted to lick and touch and fuck. No, he should have turned his mind off and taken a cold shower. She had been too vulnerable. God. She had no idea how hard it had been to strip her out of her clothes and quickly re-dress her into pajamas without gazing too long at her beautiful curves or touching her still blotchy ass. He hadn’t, but damn, he had wanted to.
He slept all night, curled up on that too small sofa. He hadn’t wanted to go to his own room thinking about her soft eyes, and the way her ass cheeks jiggled when she spanked herself and leave her alone. And her floral scent? He would remember that for the rest of his days.
Now, the woman in front of him surpassed all his memories. She stood tall and proud, curvy as hell in a pair of jeans and a form fitted t-shirt that wasn’t too tight, but fit her perfectly and gave him an amazing view of her full breasts. Holy shit. His cock sprang to life again, and he discreetly shifted himself as he stood up to greet her. Her eyes were like a meadow, a dewy meadow right after a hard thunderstorm, and all the danger had passed as she stood radiant in the sunshine. Her strawberry hair was pulled up into an elastic band, the ends curling around her shoulders. She was ready to rock and roll. Hands on her hips, the curve of a smile on her lips, her eyes shining. Yeah, she was gorgeous.
“Sorry about the wait.” She grabbed a refill of coffee and pointed at the carafe in question.
He shook his head. He’d had enough caffeine over the past six hours and didn’t need to be a jittery mess by the time they got down to her kitchen. “Hurry up and wait is my middle name now.”
“Funny, I thought it would be Francis or something equally silly. So, about this wine testing stuff. About how long do you think it will be before we get results?”
“I can’t tell.”
“You can tell me. I’m a baker.” She grinned, and her eyes flashed mischievously.
He couldn’t stop himself, deciding to play along with her play-off of his favorite Leslie Nielsen movie, Airplane. “I’m not sure.”
“Can’t you take a guess?” She did that adorable thing where she bit her lip and her nose wriggled.
“Well, not for a few days.”
“You can’t take a guess for a few days?”
“Um, nice beaver?”
Her cheeks reddened, and her head tilted back with the force of her loud laughter. Her whole body shook in the most amazingly satisfying way as she giggled. “Wrong movie, hot shot. But for the record, I just had it stuffed. Now come on. Grab your coconuts and let’s get started on our next quest.”
“The oatmeal-cookie-shaped beacon?” He grinned as she locked the door behind them.
“Only if it’s not too perilous.” She winked and sashayed, as she led him down the back stairs.
He laughed. Who would have known all it would take to get him out of his slump was a bunch of old movie one-liners and a sexy as hell red-head. He finally had something to look forward to: finding another good movie quote, so he could make her react again. The way her eyes lit up and danced, the soft jiggling when her whole body giggled, the beautiful sound of her voice as she opened her mouth and just laughed. With him. God, he had missed this.
As she showed him around her bakery and showed him how and where he could be most helpful, he thought through all the ways he could make her smile. He spent the rest of the day with a very not normal addition to his face. A smile. The day flew by and, after a light dinner and some easy chatting and fun banter, they each retired to their own rooms. He was ready for another good day tomorrow. He wasn’t forgetting his mission to keep an eye on her, and he’d already made notes of all the coincidental issues, even the little ones. But he could do two things at once. Keep watch over her and enjoy their camaraderie. It had been far too long since he had enjoyed himself and let his guard down. And this felt right.
When his head hit the pillow, visions of Cherry immediately filled his head. The way the mattress curved to his body, just like Cherry would if she was spooned against his back. The way the pillow smelled like her. Soft, light, fragrant, but not overpowering. It lulled him into his first dream. A wonderfully erotic dream with Cherry on her knees, while he spanked her blotchy ass and pumped into her from behind.
If that dream could have lasted all night, he would have died a happy man. But his subconscious had other ideas. Cherry disappeared from the scene, only to be replaced by darkness and the first sounds of a machine gun. His fists clenched the sheets in anticipation of the nightmare that had plagued him for the past three weeks.