Joey

I’ve been back in Huntsville four days, and I’m getting cranky.

Not because things aren’t going well. Meemaw’s been moved to a rehabilitation center and has excellent round-the-clock care, so Peach and I are both in the office for the first time in over a week.

I missed her ridiculously perfect face.

Yesterday’s flight was just as fucking amazing as it was supposed to be. Couldn’t have asked for better weather, no one puked, and one of the passengers was a YouTuber whose video of the flight already has over a hundred thousand views. Our receptionist hasn’t taken a full breath since she sat down this morning for all the reservation inquiries we’re getting.

She has managed to inhale all four cups of coffee I’ve brought her between calls though.

Gracie drove the thirty minutes for a visit last night. If she’s harboring any lingering irritation with me over my interference with her little whatever-it-was with Prince Manning, she’s not letting on. Nope, she gave me shit for wearing an orange shirt with purple pants—both gifts from her—and raided my cabinets for my secret stash of jelly beans.

But it’s not even the irritation that we don’t hang out enough rankling me.

No, that’s all Zeus Berger’s doing.

He had flowers delivered here yesterday.

Fucking flowers.

And not just any flowers. Big-ass pink frilly things with blooms the size of my head. Gargantuan monster flowers. They’re the Zeus Berger of flowers.

Do I look like the flower type to you?

I didn’t think so.

But now everyone from Peach to my entire crew to Meemaw and Gracie knows that he sent me flowers.

That fucker’s probably laughing his ass off at how annoyed I am right now.

Especially since he followed it up this morning with a crate of giant Hershey’s Kisses. You know the ones—they’re like a half-pound each.

Yeah. The fucking Zeus Bergers of Hershey’s Kisses.

Swear to dog, if he sends me lingerie, I’m flying my ass up to Nashville and I’ll—I’ll—

Dammit.

I can tell myself I’ll track down his house, plant spider eggs in his curtains, and leave a lava lamp with a note that it was better, except I wouldn’t.

I’d jump the dummy.

And that’s what’s making me utterly furious.

I let him in. I let him in places I don’t let anyone, and I’m not talking about my vagina.

He’s in my head.

I grab one of the chocolates and fling it at the basketball hoop hanging inside my office door, and I miss.

It bounces off the rim and plops into the potted plant Gracie insisted I needed and Peach insists on watering, but instead of simply plopping into the dirt, it smashes the edge of the pot, and the plant goes rolling.

I huff out of my chair and around my ancient metal desk to right the damn thing.

And now I need to get a vacuum.

Because I can’t work with dirt on my floor.

Correction.

I can’t work with wet dirt on the floor we just had professionally cleaned.

I grab the whole plant—now properly squished by the giant Kiss—stumble through flinging my door open with my hands full, and march it into Peach’s office.

She’s on the phone, so I slam it into her corner.

“That’s right, Mr. Jett. You want to get crew-certified, you’re going to have to pay our full asking price. And since we all know damn good and well why you want you and your girlfriend crew-certified, I’m adding fifty million to the price.”

I scowl at the gray carpet while I march back to my office.

Yeah, I can work with dirt on my floor. I can work with mud, with grass, with sand, and probably even with moldy cheese if I had to.

What I can’t work with is being the professional equivalent of a horror film chick.

You know. The recently deflowered virgin who dies at the hands of the psycho because she slept with someone?

That’s my brain.

My brain died because I had mind-blowing monster sex with Zeus Berger.

And I don’t mean monster in a bad way. I mean monster like stupendous, except for the part where stupendous and stupid share too many letters.

Whatever.

I can get over this.

A run would help. Some weight lifting. Happy private time with my drawer of toys.

I don’t need sex.

My pussy gasps, bitch-slaps the three brain cells that led to that thought, and pulls a Carol Kane in The Princess Bride: Liar! LIAARRRR!!

A horrible thought strikes me.

What if it wasn’t Zeus? What if he didn’t send the flowers and the chocolate?

What if someone—like Manning, that cheerful dickhead—is fucking with me?

I bolt out of my chair as someone knocks on my doorframe.

Nyla gives me the constipated goat look. “Uh, you have a—”

She doesn’t finish, because she doesn’t have to.

Zeus is in the hallway.

He’s fresh-shaven. Got a haircut. His jeans fit him like a new paint job, there’s a pink sparkly troll dancing on a rainbow on his white T-shirt, and if that’s not cologne polluting my office, then he farts cupcakes.

He saunters in. “Hey.”

Nyla hesitates a moment. “Go easy on him, boss,” she whispers before she pulls the door shut.

That big ol’ grin makes my heart do a pitter-patter, which is embarrassing as fuck, and I don’t care. “You sent me fucking flowers.”

The grin gets bigger, and his eyes light up like rocket flares. “Piss you off?”

“What do you think?”

I reach for another one of the humongous Kisses and contemplate chucking it at his head.

“Wanna screw around?” he asks.

My eyes drift to the bulge in his pants, my pussy pumps a fist, and my nipples pop twin lady boners. “I’m at work.”

He shrugs and pulls a novel out of his back pocket. I squint. It’s pink and girly, with a hockey player and cupcakes on the cover. “No problem. Brought a book.”

This is getting weird.

“Is that a romance novel?”

“This? Yeah. My buddy Knox says it’s good.”

I eyeball the pink troll on his shirt while he props himself against the wall and flips to the first page of the book.

“Are you fucking with me?”

“Not yet, but I can if you want me to.”

“Why are you here?”

“Missed you.”

More fluttering, but this time waaaay north of where I’d prefer to be getting excited.

I’m definitely making a face, and he’s definitely noticing.

“What?” he says. “You’re hot. I’m hot. Training camp doesn’t start for—is that a spider plant? You have a fucking spider plant?”

I look over my shoulder at another of the green things Gracie put in my office. “I don’t know.”

He blows out a slow breath and rolls his shoulders back. “Nashville’s just up the road. No biggie to—”

“Nashville’s two hours away.” By car. And he plays for Nashville’s team. So he probably has a house or an apartment or something in Nashville.

It’s twenty minutes in the air.

I own a plane.

“Tell you a secret,” he says.

The last time he told me a secret, he got me naked.

I wouldn’t mind going there again. “What?”

“I hear sex is even better when you’re pissed.”

Hearing him say the word sex practically sparks a mini-gasm. “Who’s pissed?”

“I sent you flowers and chocolates.”

He wiggles his brows, any brains I ever had in my pants hitch a flight to Tahiti, and I crook a finger at him. “Get naked and fuck my brains out.”

“Say please.”

He’s acting like it doesn’t bother him that I’m an obnoxious, pushy pain in the ass. Like it amuses him that all I want him for is sex.

But he’s not just some big oaf who’s good with his dick.

He’s funny. He’s smarter than he lets on. He’s hell on wheels.

And I like that about him more than I like that he knows what to do with that larger-than-life tool under his belt.

“Please,” I snap.

He holds my gaze, a silent thank you that suggests he’s grateful for more than just my manners.

Like he knows about the swelling and palpitating and panicking going on in my chest, and that it’s okay.

I suck in the shakiest breath I’ve ever taken in my life and reach for the hem of my shirt.

He drops his book, strips out of his shirt, and eats the floor between us with one giant step.

And holy fucking dog.

I didn’t see him the other night. I felt the stiff hairs on his chest, traced the ridges of his muscles, licked his hard nipples, but I didn’t see him.

He’s a beast.

In the best sense of the word.

Sheer strength ripples out of his every cell. Each one of his pecs is the size of a dinner plate. Veins bulge in his biceps and hands. His shoulders could’ve been sculpted by a master. His abs are an ode to beauty.

Even his belly button looks like it could chomp a car in half.

Not because it’s big, but because it can’t possibly exist on this man without being able to stand on its own against every other body part in a battle of strength.

Shut up. Belly buttons can too be strong.

He wraps one big paw behind my head, lowers his lips to crush my mouth, and not a minute too soon.

Because his tongue is an excellent distraction for all the nonsense floating through my head.

And he knows exactly how to use it.

He tastes like hamburger and mint, he smells like a freaking cotton field, and his fingers are making short work of the clasp on my bra.

Who the fuck needs bras anyway?

I unzip his pants and shove my hands into the opening, grip his hard, solid length, and he mutters a curse in my mouth.

“Man up,” I tell him.

He chuckles and tweaks my nipples, and holy sweet dog, can he do that to my clit?

My pants go flying. He pulls a condom out of his back pocket, rolls it on, and picks me up under my butt. In two steps, I’m flat against the wall, my legs wrapped around his waist while he fills me with his thick length. Dog, his swollen head—the veins bulging in his cock too—the sight of him thrusting into me, drawing back, slick and coated with my moisture, and pushing in again, disappearing inside me—has me so spun up, coiled so tight and ready, that all I know is him.

Zeus.

His body.

His strength.

His personality.

His heart.

He pumps into me, holding me under the knees. I’m spread as wide as I can go, my toes curling backwards, every thrust, every invasion sending me higher and tighter and wetter and—oh yes there more higher harder FASTER NOW!

I bite his shoulder to muffle my cry as I shatter from the inside out. He thrusts twice more, groans in the back of his throat, and goes still, neck straining, while we come together. I’m spasming uncontrollably around his thick cock, squeezing and coaxing that rock-hard shaft pulsing inside me.

Dog, I needed this.

Him.

“Fuck, Joey,” he whispers while tension leaks out my pores, leaving me a jellyfish tacked to the wall by his massive cock. “You’re fucking amazing.”

My eyes drift shut and I let my head loll back. “Jupiter and I can be friends.”

“Jupiter doesn’t let anyone else near his pussy,” he growls.

I wave a hand. At least, I think I do. Hard to tell if my bones are working. “Don’t tell him I said this,” I slur like I’m drunk. Possibly I’m drunk on sex. Is that a thing? If it’s not a thing, it is now. My liver needs to process my sexcohol.

“Said what?” he prompts when I go silent.

Fuck, who am I?

“Finding another Jupiter would be too much work,” I say.

His chest starts shaking, and my eyes fly open.

If I broke Zeus—

But he’s laughing.

Shaking with silent laughter while he pulls out and sets me on unsteady feet.

“Only you, Joey Fireball,” he says as he hands me my pants. “Only you.”

I don’t know what that means, but I hope it means he’s coming back for more sex.

Because I know better than to hope for anything else.

Or even think about anything else.

Like my daddy always said, doesn’t matter how much you love someone. You can’t make them stay.

Not that I love Zeus.

He’s…a friend.

I can allow that.

But love?

Never.

I’m too smart for that.