Chapter 20

Sawyer

Do you play board games?

Standing in my workshop where the three coffee tables are almost done, I stare at my phone. That so wasn’t the text I was hoping for. I’m still waiting for her to answer my question. The one about whether she was planning to help me out with my not-so-little problem, the erection I’ve been sporting on and off since she first texted me from the mall earlier today.

Or, let’s face it, since I kissed her the other day.

I haven’t spent this much time hard since I was thirteen, and I definitely haven’t felt this frustrated. My right hand is not supplying the relief I desperately want, and if anything, my fantasies about the ways I want to kiss and touch and lick and fuck Elle Dunning are getting more vivid.

Not as a rule, I text back.

Madden and I just took out Settlers of Catan and we were wondering if you and Jonah wanted to play.

I don’t know how.

We’ll teach you.

If I’m being honest with myself, I will admit that my number one motivation for agreeing to the invitation is that it will get me in the same room with Elle. Not that I think seeing her will in any way take the edge off my lust. But it’s better than not seeing her.

Okay. Can we bring something? I have a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in the freezer.

I never turn down chocolate chip cookie dough.

I immediately wonder how I can turn that knowledge to my advantage…

Then I start thinking about what it would be like to lick ice cream off her nipples…

It takes a while to cool down enough so I can head inside and convey the invitation to Jonah. He’s thrilled, of course. While I run upstairs to change out of my work clothes, he grabs the ice cream from the freezer, then practically drags me out of our house, along the sidewalk, and up the steps to Elle and Madden’s door.

Elle answers. She’s wearing her sunny blond hair in a messy bun. She’s cute and smiley, and she’s one of those people who wears her happiness so close to the surface of the skin. She sort of vibrates with happiness, and I can’t help smiling at her.

“I can’t believe you’ve never played Catan!” she exclaims, throwing the door wide to let us in. “You’re in for a treat.”

After the texts we exchanged, part of my brain is stuck on the image of her in a fancy dress, so I have to adjust to the sight of a fitted white tank top and cropped yoga pants.

Not that it’s an unhappy adjustment. Neither leaves anything to the imagination, and—yup. My dick hardens appreciably behind my fly, and I’m glad I’m wearing briefs and sturdy jeans.

I step inside, Jonah behind me, and we follow her into her dining room. I try not to glue my gaze to the curve of her ass under those skintight pants…

I force myself, instead, to notice my surroundings, which means her furniture. I tend to always look at other people’s furniture with a critical eye, noticing where another craftsman cut corners or missed an opportunity to shine. Whoever made this table slathered way too much polyurethane on the surface, obscuring some beautiful quarter-sawn oak. I’d love to sand it down and redo it with an oiled finish, maybe replace the legs with something that would balance better with the weight of the top—these look too chunky.

Unlike Elle’s legs. The yoga pants cling to her thighs, which are that perfect combination of strong and soft, and come to an enticing vee where I want to bury my face.

I jerk my attention back to the contents of the room, a much safer subject. Her dining room window faces my house. I step to the window and look out. The fence looks pretty good from here; I’m pleased with my work, though I make a mental note that she’s more or less looking straight down on it. I’ll check, tomorrow, to make sure it looks as good as I want from the top.

“That’s the window I stalk you through,” she blurts.

I turn back to discover her with her hand clapped over her mouth. She’s bright red.

“Stuff just falls out when I open my mouth,” she whispers, dropping her hand.

Which of course makes me look at her mouth. She is wearing pale pink sparkly gloss, and I imagine she would taste like raspberry if I licked her.

She would taste like Elle, if I licked her.

Jonah and Madden are hunched over a rectangular box on the table, removing tons and tons of little fiddly pieces and fully engaged in the process, so I take a step toward her and say, “I like it.”

She bites her lip. “My mouth?”

“Mmm-hmm. And the things that fall out of it, too.” I lean close and brush her ear with my breath. “There are also some things I would like to put in it. My tongue, for starters.”

“Oh,” she says. Really, more like “ohhh,” but it’s quiet enough not to attract the attention of the boys, who are busily constructing a complicated board out of a series of hexagonal pieces.

“You sit here,” Madden says, pointing me to my seat, “and you sit here, Mom, and Jonah, you’re here.”

I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but I actually really like the game. It’s complex enough to be interesting and simple enough not to make my brain hurt. There’s a lot of interaction and a bit of screw-your-buddy, and before long Elle and I are locked in a tight contest for first place. She takes the “longest road” card, and then I steal it back, but she quickly retaliates by grabbing the “largest army” card. We both have nine victory points and need only one to win. And—wouldn’t you know it—we’re competing over a single intersection. Whoever gets the resources he or she needs to build a settlement there is going to win.

It’s my turn. And all I need is to convince someone to trade me a forest hex resource—lumber—and I’ll have what I need to win. I try Madden first, but he doesn’t have one, and then I try Jonah, but he doesn’t have one, and then I turn to Elle and say, “I don’t suppose you have any wood you’d give me,” and she gives me this thousand-watt seductive smile and mouths, “Isn’t that my line?”

Then, while I’m still trying to find a single functioning brain cell, she asks the boys, “How dumb does he think I am? If I give him my wood, he’ll win.”

Not dumb at all. Smart as a whip, fun to be around, and really fucking pretty, with wisps of her blond hair tumbling out of the messy bun and her mouth all glossy and that sheen of happy coming off her skin.

And I realize:

I’m not at all unhappy to let her win this game, except that it means the night’s over and Jonah and I have to go back to our side of the fence.