Chapter 4
Makenna
What the hell had just happened?
This man had brought a box into my home, wiggled his way into piecing together my entire home, and was now playing with my daughter out back. Offering to put together her swing set I promised her if she was good on the trip out to our new home. I watched them kick a ball together as Ana’s hair fluttered in the wind as the sun began to hang low in the sky. I watched this man… this man who was our new neighbor… running around with my daughter and smiling as he kicked the ball to her. Teaching her how to get it before it passed her by and showing her different styles of kicks.
Where had this man come from?
I had never seen someone get along with Ana so easily.
I walked out onto the porch and began to rearrange the furniture. I placed the table and the chairs off to the side and stuck the massive umbrella into the hole in the table. I walked back inside and grabbed all of us some drinks. A juice box for Ana, and sodas for myself and Brewer.
Hopefully he liked soda, because I didn’t have much else.
I had wanted to avoid this man. Avoid looking at him. Because I knew the more I looked at him the more I wanted him. The more I wanted to know more about him. I sat in one of my porch chairs and cracked open my soda, then watched as this strange man ran around with my daughter.
Like he’d known us for years.
He looked up at me with those amber-colored eyes that accented the tanned skin his body was wrapped in. The longer he spent running around with my daughter in the sweltering heat, the more his shirt clung to his body. Painted the outline of his abs and the swell of his chest. I could see the pads of muscle disappearing beyond his jeans, the lines beckoning to my fingertips to trace them down to his groin.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath as my daughter’s giggles filled the air.
“One of these for me?”
I jerked, startled at the sound of his panting voice as he pointed to the unopened soda.
“Take it. Yeah. Of course,” I said.
He cracked it open and tossed his head back, and I watched as his throat bobbed with his chugs. Sweat was dripping down his skin. Down his throbbing arms and tracing the veins bulging from his skin. His ass was accented in the jeans he was wearing and his shoulders were broad. Strong and cloaked in muscles as he guzzled down his soda.
I closed my eyes and took a sip of my drink, forcing my gaze to disconnect from his body.
I couldn’t stop staring at the man, and I couldn’t afford to dream about something that would never happen. I had a life to live and a heart to mend and a daughter to plant into a new life. I couldn’t think about such selfish things.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No. Thank you,” I said. “Ana seems to have taken a liking to you.”
“Watch out!” Ana exclaimed.
A ball came whizzing by our heads as a smile crossed Brewer’s cheeks.
His face lit up when he smiled.
“I’m gonna get you!” he said.
Ana screamed and giggled as she took off, and I watched Brewer run after her in the grass.
I was stunned with how well this rough-looking man was doing with my five-year old daughter. He had a trimmed beard that encompassed his face and hair that was drenched in sweat. He had faint scars all along his arms and I’m sure there were some on his legs to match. Between his looks and that bike he had sitting in his garage, I knew he was a rough character. His voice was steeped in it and his body language boasted of a rough past.
And yet, he was laughing and smiling with my daughter in our backyard.
I curled my legs up to my chest as I watched him run around with Ana. He was picking her up and swinging her around and she was giggling so hard she couldn’t breathe. It made my heart ache for her. Ache for the loss of her father. For the pathetic excuse of a man I had chosen after her father had died. I vowed to choose wisely next time. To not let my guard down because I was lonely. Getting selfish was what had resulted in my poor choice of men the second time around, and Ana was the one paying the price for it. She was the one having to be uprooted from her entire life and tossed into another realm to adjust at only five years of age.
I had to do better.
Ana deserved it.
The two of them ran around until sweat was dripping off them both. I finished off my soda and Ana came running for her juice box, her lungs panting for air. Brewer walked up and peeled his shirt off his body. He brought it to his forehead to wipe the sweat off his brow, but I couldn’t stop staring at his stomach.
At the washboard abs dripping with sweat.
The beads rolled down his tanned skin and disappeared beneath the hem of his jeans. I licked my lips, staring right at the bulge of his cock. It had been so long since I’d felt a real man against my body. A man that wanted more than to get his and roll over. Every orgasm for the past two years had been faked. A wonderful mockery of the life I had led with that pathetic man. He would shove his dick into me in the mornings before I could even wake up and I would lay there, waiting for it to be over and faking my own pleasure just to get him off me quicker. It had been years since I’d been cherished. Since I’d come by something more than my own fingers in the shower at night. My eyes danced along the lines that trimmed his body. That boasted of the chiseled muscles he kept sculpted for anyone’s viewing pleasure.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, feeling his stare on my face.
“You good?” Brewer asked.
I snapped my eyes open and was met with that cheeky little grin.
“Yep. I’m good,” I said.
But I could feel my cheeks blushing with my lie.
The sun was beginning to set and I ushered Ana inside. She needed a bath before it was time for her to go to bed, which meant I needed to usher my guest out of the house. I shooed her upstairs after she had clung to Brewer, not wanting her new friend to go.
But I worked her arms from around his leg and sent her upstairs.
“She’s a good kid.”
“I’m lucky to have her,” I said. “And she seems to like you.”
“Then I’m halfway there,” he said.
I turned my head towards him and found him grinning at me. He was intoxicating. There was a magnetism to him I couldn’t deny. My body turned fully towards him and I watched as his eyes fell to my lips. Oh, how I wanted to. With Ana in the bathroom preparing for her bath and two of us alone downstairs, I was surrounded by the evidence of how much he had helped me today. I felt the air between us growing thicker. Like wading through mud on an obstacle course. The heat radiating off his body was pounding against my skin, causing my breathing to speed up.
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end as my lips fell to his.
I felt him approaching. Growing closer as our bodies gravitated towards one another. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for something like this. To feel the sexual energy of a man touching me coursing through my veins. My eyes closed and I braced for the connection. For a magnetism I wasn’t sure I would be able to deny the moment that door opened.
“Mom! I’m ready!”
I jumped at my daughter’s voice, my eyes flying open and taking stock at how close Brewer was to me. I could feel his breath against my lips and I saw his eyes gazing into mine. I cleared my throat and took a step back, watching as Brewer nodded his head.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Then he opened my front door and relieved himself of the situation.
“Mom?”
“Coming, sweetheart!”
I watched as Brewer made his way down the small hill that connected his yard with mine. His ass flexed with every step and his shoulders were draped in the colors of the setting sun. He landed onto his driveway and looked back at me, a small grin spreading across his cheeks. I felt something spark in my toes and drive up my legs, forcing a heat to spill between my thighs.
Then he turned and made his way inside, disappearing from my view.
Damn it.
Just… damn it.