Chapter Five

Fiona

Bright sunlight shined in my eyes as I stood behind the store and watched the delivery guy wheel in new boxes of paint cans. I shaded my face with my hand and glanced down at the delivery invoice. This was a big order, and every can of paint needed to be put out on the shelves.

It was renovation season in Mystic, since the weather was good, and our stock turnover was evidence of it. I signed the invoice and went back inside, grateful to be back in the air conditioning.

The next few days of restocking supplies would be backbreaking work, but I was ecstatic for the owner, Adrian, who I knew had been worrying about the store’s survival. The urbanization of towns nearby brought in larger chain stores like Home Depot that could afford cheaper prices closer to our town. But I lamented the days where I could sit around watching Netflix on an old tablet with Drew, while the hours ticked by without a customer in sight.

You’re lucky to even have this job, I reminded myself.

Drew had gotten me in with the owner when I’d been in high school. My dad hated the idea of me working, but he’d been appeased by the fact that I would be working with Drew. He also didn’t have much of a choice since money had always been tight in our household. Even a modest job like this made a huge difference in my life.

It was why I loved the store so much. Well, that, and my internal sense of duty and loyalty. The owner of the store had given me a chance when I’d been inexperienced and without hope. For that, he would have my eternal gratitude.

The bell above the door jingled, and even though I couldn’t see the front door, I was almost certain the cocky stranger had just walked in. Maybe it was the steady sound of his heavy footsteps, or maybe the subconscious part of my brain caught a whiff of his pheromones wafting through the air. Whatever it was, I knew it was him.

I headed to the front of the store and confirmed my instincts.

“What can I help you with today?” I asked, pulling my stepladder to the shelf. I’d learned my lesson about heavy containers and high shelves, thanks to said maddening guy.

He suppressed a laugh as he took in my stepladder but his voice was deceptively calm. “I needed more nuts.”

“Pity we only sell the metal variety here. Try the adult shop down the road.” If I’d given any thought to the words before they were out of my mouth, I would have choked on them.

What the hell does this guy do to me?

His eyes widened in shock, and his mouth curved into a slow smile. “I’m looking for the ones of the metal variety, actually. The other kind would only get in the way of the hammer.”

“In that case, try aisle two,” I stammered, unbearably embarrassed at my outburst. I didn’t want him to see the flush on my cheeks, so I carefully inspected the label on a can of paint and let my hair form a curtain on the side of my face.

“You’re not going to come silently judge me?” He had moved closer to my back. I could feel the heat from his chest but I refused to turn around.

“Nope, busy,” I squeaked.

He was silent for a long moment. “Where’s your friend?”

His question caught me by surprise. I whipped around. “Drew?”

Something sparked in his eyes when he noticed the rosy hue on my cheeks. “Is he the dark-haired one who smokes?”

I wrinkled my nose but answered in a lecturing tone without thinking. Knowing Drew was as easy as breathing to me. “He only smokes when he’s stressed, bored, or horny.” I clapped my hand over my mouth and burst out laughing uncontrollably. “Don’t tell him that I told you about that last part.”

“For people who claim to be as close as the two of you, there sure is a lot of ‘don’t tell,’” he remarked dryly.

I was wiping tears of laughter from my eyes, only stilling when the meaning of his words filtered into my brain. “What do you mean? How do you know Drew?”

“We talked the other day outside the diner when he was having a smoke. He told me that you and I should get together.” He said it as if it were a matter of fact.

God, no. He had to know that Drew had been joking. He had to have been, but it looked like he enjoyed pushing my buttons and checking my reaction. That was Drew’s doing as well. I made a mental note to steal his ice cream when he got back.

I flushed a deep shade of red under the cocky stranger’s gaze, confirmed by the mirror on the fridge in the far corner of the room. I looked equal measures like I was about to kill someone or I wanted to crawl under the counter in embarrassment.

Because of him, the green-eyed god of annoyance and body betrayal was staring back at me unashamedly.

“Drew told you we should get together?” I choked, hesitating before I asked.

“Yeah. He also mentioned that we would have the cutest babies,” he said, his tone mocking but dark.

My eyes nearly popped out of my head, and he watched as a multitude of emotions passed over my features, none of which were joyous or pleasant. “Fucker.”

“Is that a command or a request?”

My eyes bugged even more. He had to be messing with me.

“Neither,” I told him, reaching for a can of paint and turning my back, effectively ending the conversation.

As if on instinct, he bent down to help me. That damn gentleman thing that I hated kicked in again. Only, he reached down just as I was rising and his bicep brushed against my breast, causing both of us to stop breathing for a second.

We froze. The air between us crackled. Electricity buzzed over my skin where it had grazed his. It wasn’t fucking normal.

Mystic was finally living up to its name, as far as I was concerned. I jumped away from him, and he stepped back as if he had felt that dangerous current, too.

“You sure we shouldn’t get together?” he asked. Probably as a way to ease the sudden tension.

“No. I can’t believe that he told you that. I need to be a better wing woman to him. He needs to butt out of my life, and maybe finding him a girl will help with that.” I glared at him. Drew would be getting a solid earful as soon as tall, medium, and irritating left.

He moved up behind me, reaching for the can of paint I was hoisting. His arms went around my waist, lingering before they lifted it to the shelf.

Neither us moved to break contact that time. My breath caught in my lungs from the feel of his broad chest behind me. His clean, masculine scent enveloped me.

He was close enough for me to make out hints of ocean and pine and something else in his smell. Along with something absurdly him. The absurdity stemmed from the fact that I didn’t even know his name. But somehow, I seemed to think that I knew his smell.

The heat between us was unmistakable, though. It was a hypnotic feeling that drew me closer to him, my womanhood aching. I hadn’t ever been turned on that fast, without so much as a word and barely a touch.

The next moment, his breath was on my ear. “What do you say? Want to give us a chance?”

“Fiona, where’s that good-for-nothing friend of yours?” Adrian, the owner, interrupted us.

I jumped away from the cocky stranger like his skin had caught fire. My own cheeks burned with embarrassment at Adrian walking in on me like this. He might not care about me getting cozy with a customer, but I cared. It was inappropriate.

At the same time, Adrian’s interruption bothered me for another reason. Whatever had been happening between me and the cocky stranger, I hadn’t been ready for it to stop. As much as I had always liked Adrian, I wanted to rip out his voice box in that moment.

The good-natured grin on his face was exactly why I liked him, though. He was a genuinely good guy who loved Drew almost as much as I did and indulged the cigarette breaks that he took and the ice cream runs that I sent him on without question.

He knew that we both worked hard, so he didn’t micromanage us. Until he saw me nestled up to a customer, he had never so much as furrowed a brow at me. Adrian eyed me curiously but didn’t say anything about it.

“I, uh...” I wasn’t quite sure if I was answering Adrian or tall, medium, and irritating, so I shut my trap and tried to gather my thoughts.

“Ah, well, I’m sure he’ll be back with ice cream in a jiffy,” Adrian said. “Could you come help me with inventory while he’s out?”

“Sure. Be there in a second,” I said once I’d caught my breath.

Adrian turned and walked back to the storeroom, leaving me with a really awkward flush and an ache between my legs that absolutely should not have been there.

I wanted to say yes to my irritating new admirer, but it hardly seemed appropriate now. The moment had slipped by.

“Go ahead,” the guy urged. “It’s your job, as you keep reminding me.”

He turned on his heel and marched out of the store without having purchased anything, and I reluctantly headed to the storeroom after Adrian.

I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but he’d looked mildly disappointed when he had taken off. I, for one, hadn’t forgotten the intense feeling of desire that we’d shared, and I wasn’t likely to any time soon.

Much later that night, I laid back in my bed, exhaustion overcoming me. But the lingering feeling of his touch on my skin refused to let me cool down or go to sleep.

He was still on my mind when I finally managed to drift off, his intense eyes lighting up the dark, and his smell so vivid, it was as if he were lying next to me.

My dreams took over, much less inhibited than I was. In them, he had those luscious lips parted as he surveyed my naked body. He stood at the base of my bed, naked and gloriously erect, stroking himself, watching me, imploring me to touch myself.

I had never been good with my fingers, hence my frustration with the dead batteries of my vibrator but under his gaze, I found myself wanting to please him with nothing but my own body.

I was suddenly naked, too. The pajamas I’d put on minutes before were lying in a heap next to my bed.

Reaching down my body, I teased my nipples under his watchful and guiding presence, and slid my hand to my aching pussy.

“Not yet,” his deep voice growled in my mind.

I obliged him immediately, trusting him inexplicably with my pleasure. I surpassed my most aching bits and slid my fingers into my slick wetness, slowly easing in not one but two fingers. I felt so stretched. So full.

Obeying his commands, I pumped them slowly into myself, my hips rocking up of their own accord. I circled my fingers around, then he told me to press my thumb to my clit. I nearly came off the bed with the force of the pleasure thundering through my veins.

Doing what he ordered felt better than anything I had ever experienced. I kept following his imagined demands. Increasing the pressure when he allowed it and slowing down when he told me to. After minutes or hours or seconds or days, I was so wet and desperate that I started pleading with him.

“Please,” I moaned, my eyes burning into his. “Let me come. I need to come so badly.”

“Let go for me, baby,” he whispered, still stroking himself as I toppled into the abyss. He followed me, with a groaned shout of my name.

I woke with a start. My fists clutched the sheets, and sweat drenched my body. My nipples were peaked, and slickness pooled between my legs. It dawned on me that I’d just had a sex dream about a guy whose name I didn’t even know. The mere thought of him had just caused me the most powerful orgasm that I could remember having.

I groaned. As much as I hated thinking about Drew when I was still breathing hard from a spectacular orgasm that I’d had no control over, Drew had been right. I desperately needed to get laid.