Chapter Four

 

SAM

 

“Oh man, this is perfect. I’ve been fanging for some salty, cheesy goodness.” Mandy pulls a piece of steaming hot pizza from one of the boxes between us and lifts it until the tip of the triangle dangles above her mouth. Greasy, elastic mozzarella hangs in a string from the tip and she opens her mouth and darts her pink tongue out to catch it before taking a proper bite.

I clear my throat, push my damp palms down the legs of my jeans under the diner style table and pretend I didn’t imagine the dirtier version of what she just did. Summer’s friend is one strange girl. Hot and forward and incorrigible. Completely not my type. The first time we met she told me that she was going to name her vibrator after me, and that my dick could be in her if I wanted it to be.

I haven’t been able to forget it, though I’ve given it my best shot. I’ve tried with multiple women, practically got engaged to the last one. All except the ring that Claudia’s expecting when I go back after opening this new restaurant for her father.

I should probably have a conversation with her one day soon about why I won’t be extending our relationship. I recently realized Claudia was more into my housemate than me, and I didn’t particularly mind. Our relationship was never going to be based on a crazy passionate type of love, but we had a decent enough base. Especially since it solidified my relationship with Josef and swayed his decisions when it came to my suggestions for his business. Marrying his daughter would have been worthwhile.

Even if it isn’t Claudia, I still should settle down with someone nearer my own age, with the same values and life experience.

Mandy’s only a girl, almost the same age as my sister, one who sees the world through a lens the same pink as her lips. Sometimes I still feel a little ick about Summer dating two older guys—because apparently one isn’t enough. Being attracted to someone so much younger than me makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat. And now I’m going to have to try harder to ignore her since we’re going to actually see each other, and she’s already working her bizarrely arousing flirtations on me.

“You got in early,” Dylan says, slinging an arm around my sister’s shoulder and giving me a grin that’s almost as cheesy as the pizza in his hand.

“Found out we were starting the fit out ahead of schedule.” I take a slug of my Coke and lean back on the leather bench seat. “I need to be here to make sure they do it to Josef’s specifications. My boss is pedantic when it comes to his restaurants.”

“What are we talking about?” Mandy asks around a mouthful of pizza.

“Oops. Did I not tell you?” Summer gives Mandy a guilty look while Dylan and Gabe, Summer’s two fiancés, grimace at each other over her head. “Sam’s boss is opening a restaurant in Reverence.”

“You’re going to be living here?” Eyes bugging out of her head, she taps the table with one pink fingertip. “In the same town as me?”

“You had one job, Sum.” I shake my head at my little sister who only shrugs. She knew what Mandy’s reaction to me being in town would be, and I’d hoped a conversation between the two of them might have made it clear to the tenacious girl that there was no point in flirting with me. Perhaps saved me from having to let her down gently myself. A lifetime on the fringes of my sister and her friends’ lives has made it clear that sometimes it’s best not to get involved at all.

Gabe leans around her to snag a slice of the pie. “If it helps we’ve been keeping Summer preoccupied.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“No, not like that.” Summer reaches across the table to smack my bicep. “They’ve been coming up with new flavors. I get to taste test.”

“I knew you couldn’t stay away from me.” Mandy purrs, slipping closer, her hand finding my leg, making me jump. “I just had to meditate on your sexy ass in my bed enough times to make it happen.”

Perhaps letting her down gently isn’t the way to go. She reminds me a little of a blonde Jessica Rabbit, in the state that a rubber mallet would probably be a more useful way to get through to her. I grab her hand and drop it on her lap. “Josef’s opening a second restaurant here on my recommendation. I’m hoping to split my time between L.A and Reverence so that I can spend more time near my sister. I’m not looking to settle down here.”

Or at all. But especially not with a girl in her twenties who I can’t possibly have anything in common with, beside my sister. There’s no way that would end well.

“No need to be grumpy,” Summer tells me.

Mandy studies me, her brows drawn up under pale bangs. Green eyes, framed with dense lashes, are serious with thought and hazy from alcohol. “Then again, you’re even sexier when you’re grumpy.”

“Christ.” I shake my head. “You’re one weird chick. Are there no men your own age in this damn town?”

“Yes, but they don’t interest me.” Mandy shrugs. “Hard to look at another guy when you’ve already gotten up close to your dream man.”

“Dream man?” I twist in my seat to face her. “Look, Mandy, you don’t even know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

For a second she stares at me like she’s uncertain how to respond, then she touches my hand and smiles wide. “But I want to.”

She is the most frustrating woman I’ve come across. Well, there’s my mother, Sasha, but that’s in a completely different way. No, Mandy makes me want to yell with how frustrated she makes me, and in the same breath I’ve wanted to take her up on her offer from the first time we met. Which would be the worst idea and only make her more difficult to deal with.

I climb out of my seat. “Let’s just stick to you being my kid sister’s friend.”

“Sam?” Summer calls after me as I walk out of the pizza joint.

I give her a two finger wave over my shoulder, and try not to let the physical evidence of my frustration be noticeable. I thought seeing Mandy again would be strange. It had the potential to be awkward. What I didn’t expect was to end up with a serious erection.

***

“So this is your place?” Mandy struts across the dining room floor to where I’m propped at the far end in one of the large arch windows set back in the concrete wall. The sun’s streaming through the glass behind me, hot and almost burning through my shirt.

“What are you doing here?” I read over the lines for the advertisement I’m working on and place my iPad on the windowsill before jumping to my feet. I don’t understand this girl at all. Last night I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t going to entertain her fantasy about us. Hell, I was downright blunt about it, and yet she walks right into my restaurant like we’re friends. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I was curious.” She bites her lip as she moves slowly, turning in a circle to take in everything. The unstained wood floors, the plastic sheeting hanging from the rafters between the dining room and the kitchen that is yet to be fitted, the thick dust that covers almost every surface.

I brush a hand over the seat of my suit pants. Doesn’t matter how gray they are, the dust will still show up. She doesn’t say anything as she continues her examination. After about five minutes her quietness begins to grate on my nerves. I check my watch, and then I check it again. Why doesn’t she say what she’s thinking? I’ve met her twice and she’s always been upfront. She must hate the place. “What do you think?”

“It’s really pretty,” she says. Her voice is quiet, barely more than a whisper, but it echoes as loud as her heels do in the open space.

“I wouldn’t call it pretty, myself.” I shove my hands in my pockets and stride across the room to where she stands, staring at those plastic curtains. “But it’s going to come together nicely.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this so you can spend more time with your sister.” She smiles at me as we stand side by side. “Summer is so lucky.”

“I don’t know about that.” I shrug. I’m not entirely sure she makes the best life choices. Dating two men? Dating men who are both a decade older than her? It’s a little bit ridiculous. People can see that, which is why they’re still subject to gossip, now, a year later.

“I do.” Mandy turns to me. “From what Summer’s told me about you, I know how much you care about her and look out for her. If you weren’t going to end up in my bed, I would wish you were my brother.”

“Look,” I say, rolling up my sleeves and snapping the buttons together so hard that one breaks off and bounces along the floor. “I told you last night that I don’t see you as more than my sister’s friend. Is that so hard to understand?”

“Of course not, silly.” She shakes her head, her hair flowing around her face like a silvery halo. “But I also know it’s not true.”

“What do I need to say to make you see that it is?” I fold my arms across my chest, and her gaze falls on my forearms.

She licks her lips, and that pink tongue makes me into a liar before I can say anything else. My dick twitches. The same way it always does when she comes onto me. The same way it did any time I’ve thought about her these past twelve months. You have no idea how uncomfortable it is to be standing in the middle of a kitchen screaming orders at everyone when you have wood. Even half-wood, stretching out the front of your slacks. But it’s nothing more than a physical reaction to a pretty girl flirting with me, and sooner or later she’ll get tired of it.

“Why don’t you just admit that you know I’m right?” She glances up at me through her thick lashes. “You know it, I know it.”

“You’re twenty-fucking-two.” I hiss out a breath. “Twenty-two years old, Mandy.”

“Twenty-three, actually,” she corrects. “We haven’t seen each other in a year.”

“Twenty-three, then,” I huff.

“So?” She doesn’t even flinch.

“I’m thirty-six. I’m way too old for you.” I hold my hand up to stop her when she opens her mouth. Put my palm right on her lips and feel her hot wet breath on my skin. “And before you try to tell me that my sister is in the same position with Gabe and Dylan, don’t. I accept the fact she’s dating up because I love my sister, not because I think it’s right. It’s not. You’re naïve, barely out of your teens. You should be having fun with boys your own age.”

“That’s the problem with them,” she says. “They’re boys. I don’t want a boy, I want a man.”

“You don’t know what you want,” I try to reason with her. Sooner or later she’ll get bored with this older man fantasy. She’ll want someone who’s discovering the world at the same pace she is. And there’s so much of it to discover. So many adventures that girls her age should be having. “You can’t know.”

“But I do know. I want you. I’ve waited for you.”

“Well you shouldn’t.” I turn my back and walk away from her. I have to. She’s waited for me? What the hell does that even mean? Does she mean she’s waited these past twelve months for me? Has she not been with anyone in that time? Or is it longer? Or always? And why am I letting her unsettle me? I bite down on my back teeth and grimace. I’m better than this. I’m an adult with a strong hold on himself. I’m not easily swayed, not the type to let a girl like Mandy derail me. I don’t look at her and want to kiss her. My dick doesn’t ache when she tells me she wants me. I’m past that part of my life where a girl like her could ruffle me.

“I’m not going to change my mind. Nothing you can say or do is going to make me that guy you’ve decided I am. That’s you being naïve and immature.” I shove a layer of plastic out of the way and leave her on the other side. Where I can’t see her, and where she can’t see what she does to me. “Show yourself out please, I have to get back to work.”

The minute I hear the door close, I shove my hand in my pants and squeeze my dick. It aches to the touch, hard and leaking. I grit my teeth and give it a few quick strokes. I don’t know how she slips under my defenses so easily. Another yank, and I’m almost cross-eyed. The pounding of my pulse increases in my temples and I roll my neck. Any other girl her age and I wouldn’t have let her down that easily, but Mandy is also Summer’s friend.

I shouldn’t pay attention to the way she looks at me, or the way she flirts with me. I pride myself on not being that guy. The one who wants a piece of tail that’s still so close to being a kid. I’m not into women who barely know who they are, who should be dating guys their own age for the fun of it. Like my sister should have if she hadn’t fallen for two men who are far too old for her. Summer is different, though, from most women her age.

And Mandy is different too.

Mandy is under my skin.