: Chapter 18

My promise to stay away from Cruz Costello lasted for a little over twenty-eight minutes.

Twenty-seven and fifteen seconds, if I were counting, which clearly, I wasn’t.

Not my fault, seeing as I walked through the door—to house, mind you—and there he was, perched on the couch next to Bear, both of them holding joysticks, staring at the TV, wide-eyed, shouting at each other both directions and profanity in decibels more suited for Madison Square Garden.

“Take him.

. You have enough dexterity. I got your back, dude. Just aim for the heart,” Bear practically growled, elbowing Cruz. “Do you know where the heart is?”

“Yeah, jackass, I’m a doctor.”

“Well, good thing Mom takes me to Dr. Finch outta town, because your degree says heart, but your aim says leg.”

“I’m trying to get to the center, but the bastard keeps on throwing spike-bombs at me.”

“Dude!” Bear screamed, punching his joystick’s buttons with his thumb. “

a bastard.”

My throat clenched in horror, shame, and…yup, there it was, guilt, too, like I had a choice in the matter. I’d tried to shield Bear from this term for so long, had done my best to ensure he never felt less-than…

Cruz rolled his eyes, still staring at the TV as he moved his joystick from side to side. “If you’re looking for sympathy, better try next door. Here. I finished him off for you, n00b. Now let me trail back and find some life potions before I fucking expire.”

That finally made me snap out of the weird haze that had taken over me.

“Language!” I roared, slamming my purse against the credenza by the door. “This house is an F-bomb-free zone.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Cruz murmured, eyes still glued to the TV. He then threw Bear a side-eyed smirk. “Your mom’s cute.”

“Shut up, dude,” Bear snarled, hitting Cruz’s arm with his joystick.

Cruz chuckled. “Payback’s a b—witch.”

“What are you doing here?” I strode in and stood in front of the TV, blocking their view of medieval-looking characters in capes running through a dark maze while fire bombs landed all around them while they shouted at me being in the way.

“Well, I live here.” Bear threw up his arms in surrender, as if he wasn’t at fault for letting Cruz in.

“And I gave him a ride because I saw him walking with a broken skateboard under his arm while I was on my way back to work.”

“Yup.” Bear looked up at me innocently. “That happened, too.”

“How’d y’all get from Dr. Costello giving you a ride to Dr. Costello sitting on your couch, helping you stab a gory monster to death?”

Also, I so didn’t have any extra money for a new skateboard. Was I going to have to take out a loan?

I spun around to turn off the TV, aware Cruz’s eyes were probably focused on my ass. I was still mad at him for hanging out with Rob and calling Gabriella, and frankly, for simply hogging oxygen on a planet where our resources were slowly but surely dwindling.

“Bear said he was hungry, so I offered to make him dinner.” Cruz smiled winningly, undeterred by my less-than-eager reception.

“Good news is Bear is not three anymore and can make his own food.”

“But it’s better when other people make it for you,” Bear pointed out.

“Which reminds me.” Cruz stood up, throwing the joystick on the couch. “I need to check on the pasta sauce and chicken nuggets. Be right back.”

“I’ll come with you,” I volunteered.

We needed to exchange a word or seven.

In the kitchen, I closed the flimsy door behind us, trying to ignore the mouthwatering scent coming from the pot on the stovetop and focusing my gaze on him.

“What the , Cruz?”

“You’re not returning my calls,” he explained casually, dipping a finger into a pot full of tomato sauce and popping it into his mouth. He then proceeded to stir the sauce, before moving toward one of the cabinets with a familiarity I should have hated.

“That’s because we said we were done after the cruise.”

“About that. I changed my mind. I don’t want to be done after the cruise.” He moved around my kitchen like he owned the dang place, adding the pasta to the sauce and stirring everything.

“Sadly for you, it takes two to tango.”

“I’ll never tango with you, sweetheart. You’re one of the clumsiest people I’ve ever come across.”

“It’s a figure of speech. I don’t want to be with you.”

“Now, that’s just a flat-out lie, and as a policy, I don’t accept lies. Give me one reason why we shouldn’t continue sleeping together. Make it good.” He ambled to the oven to check on the chicken nuggets.

“I’ll give you a handful, just because I’m generous like that. One—you’re best friends with my ex, with whom I might get into a legal dispute with over our son.”

Cruz pulled the tray with the steaming chicken nuggets from the oven, waving me off. “Calling Rob more than an acquaintance at this point is a stretch. I met him for dinner because my mother invited him. We’re not going to shoot the shit anytime soon, and anyway, it will never go as far as a legal dispute, because Rob knows everyone in town would kill him if he pulled anything shitty.”

I snorted. “Yeah, because Fairhope’s favorite darling.”

“No, but you’re the one who stayed and sucked it up. People’s loyalty lies with you, even if you’re not their choice for citizen of the year. Next reason, please.”

I let out a quick breath. Could it be that simple? “Gabriella. You’re still in contact with her.”

“She calls every now and then. What am I supposed to do, hang up the phone in her ear? So what?”

“She thinks you’re getting back together.”

“I think nudist beaches should be opened for hot people only. So what if she thinks something? It hardly makes it true.

.”

“Your mother is starting to suspect we’re sleeping together,” I hurried to point out, watching as he set three plates at the round, chipped dining table in my kitchen, inviting himself to stay. “She insinuated as much when we were on the cruise.”

“While you wouldn’t be my mother’s first choice of daughter-in-law, it is not her business who I sleep with or who I choose to live the rest of my life with. Don’t worry your pretty head with things that have nothing to do with you. Now that that’s settled…”

“Wait, I have more!”

He grabbed me by the waist, picked me up, and removed me from blocking the fridge with ease, placing me by the counter and opening the fridge to pull out a bottle of Diet Coke. He set three glasses on the table, too.

“I’m listening.”

“Trinity specifically asked me not to start anything with you. She doesn’t want any wedding complications.”

That made him freeze mid-stride. He turned around slowly, his jaw ticking again as he watched me through narrowed, hawk-like eyes.

“You mean our lives are now being managed by a ditzy twenty-five-year-old who cannot even recognize a class-A douchebag when one asks her to marry him?”

He had a point, but it wasn’t that simple. Trinity was my sister. I couldn’t go against my entire family for a fling.

I swallowed hard.

Cruz set the Coke on the table, making his way toward me with purpose and confidence. I knew Bear could come in any second now, and the thrill of getting caught made my pulse quicken. But it was more than that—I’d missed Cruz.

Every nerve in my body tingled when I thought about Cruz’s hands on me. Again. His big, strong body against mine. He parked his arms on either side of me on the countertop, his lips an inch from mine.

“I’m sick and tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. How I should and shouldn’t act. I want you, and you want me, and that should be enough. Am I understood?”

I never thought I’d be one of those women who’d take a liking to the possessive, Me-Tarzan-You-Jane alpha male. But in that moment, when I could feel his erection pressing against my middle, when his eyes were liquid velvet, so blue you could drown in them, I knew there was a fairly good chance I was going to hump his leg.

Tilting my chin up, my lips moved over his.

“As long as you keep your mouth shut and don’t tell anyone, I might keep you as temporary entertainment,” I murmured.

Ah, why not? Let’s admit it. I was never going to remember to charge that vibrator.

“Define temporary.” His lips were on mine when he spoke, and it felt divine.

“A few weeks.”

“No. Details to be discussed.”

“You’re missing the point of temporary entertainment.”

But really, I just couldn’t see myself going out with anyone, not to mention a man who could break me in a hundred different ways without even touching me.

“Your temporary entertainment is staying over after dinner. And wants you in black lace as soon as the kid goes to sleep.”

“I don’t have black lace.”

“Wearing nothing’s even better.” He snatched a quick kiss and pulled away from me just in time. Bear walked in, dragging his sneakers across the floor before plopping in his usual chair at the dining table, oblivious.

“Pasta and chicken nuggets. Sweet.”

“Did you wash your hands, young man?” I asked primly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dinner was surprisingly stress-free. Cruz and Bear exchanged notes regarding their video game, coming up with new strategies on how to kill the boss monster.

Afterwards, Bear told us about his upcoming trip into town with his mamaw, which was supposed to happen this weekend.

Cruz snuck a peek at me. “How long are you going to be away?”

“Dunno. Like, six or seven hours, I guess.” Bear shrugged.

“Interesting.”

I kicked Cruz under the table. Hard. He chuckled in response, obviously still unfazed by my panic.

“Are you going to ask my mom out or something?” Bear looked between us, more intrigued than repulsed judging by his expression.

I choked on my Coke, spitting some of it out, with a good portion shooting out of my nostrils.

Cruz seemed perfectly at ease as he studied Bear casually.

“Undecided. What’s your take?”

Bear used a fork and a spoon to roll as much pasta as he could fit into his mouth and took a huge bite. The food, I had to admit, was edible, which was astounding, seeing as Cruz was a single male and largely considered to be God’s greatest gift. He had no business being talented in the kitchen in the sack.

“I’ll have to think about it. If you guys date and then break up, we won’t be able to play video games anymore.”

“But if we date and end up getting married, you’ll have your own game room.”

I almost coughed out a lung, as flustered as I was. This was straight up cruel. A man like Cruz would never marry a woman like me. Bear had to pound my back because he thought something got stuck in my air pipes.

“No one’s getting married!” I shrieked.

“Auntie Trinity is,” Bear said, turning back to Cruz, “Anyway, yeah, you can ask her on a date if I can have your game room.”

“That’s not how it works. At any rate, if we ever decide to go out, your mom would want you to keep it a secret. She’s ashamed of me.”

“Why?” Bear cocked his head sideways, glaring at me accusingly.

I bought time by shoving a chicken nugget into my mouth and getting a third-degree burn on my tongue.

“This has nothing to do with shame. We’re just not compatible, that’s why. People might have somethin’ to say.”

“People always have stuff to say about anything,” Bear spat out. “So what?”

Cruz gave him a fist bump, and now I was officially the opposition in this dinner dynamic. I couldn’t believe all Cruz had to do to form a coalition with my son was play a video game with him and throw a few microwave-friendly nuggets into the mix and that was me, sold off for marriage?

After Bear went to bed, Cruz poured both of us a glass of cheap wine. We stuck around in the living room, giving Bear a chance to fall asleep.

We watched the news without really watching the news, sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting anxiously for my son to fall into slumber.

Unlike other thirteen-year-old boys who were perfectly content to stay up all night and then struggled to wake up for school the next day, Bear went down like a log.

The kid could sleep his way through a third World War. I suspected it was due to his busy schedule during the day, which normally included lots of skateboarding from place to place, school, homework, and helping his papaw with some handiwork every afternoon.

“Think he crashed?” Cruz asked when the clock hit eleven.

“There’s a good chance, but let me double-check.”

I got up and padded to Bear’s room, feeling Cruz moving behind me. When I got to the narrow hallway, I pushed Bear’s door open, revealing a cozy room full of posters of Zelda and Halo and Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen.

Bear was snoring, sleeping sideways, his entire upper body out of the bed. I resisted the urge to shift him into a normal position.

“Out cold,” I whispered.

We tiptoed our way to my room and closed the door. As soon as we were alone, surrounded by the silence of the night, my queen-size bed and nothing else, I felt self-conscious again.

I moved to my old, door-less closet, removing my cheap earrings as I spoke.

“Don’t say things like that again. About getting married to me, I mean. It’s unkind to Bear. He is going to start thinking you mean it. He’s a kid. He’s literal.”

“You’re a grown-up and you’re literal.” Cruz began unbuttoning his black dress shirt. “And besides, I wasn’t kidding. I refuse to let other people’s opinions fuck me if they’re not giving me an orgasm, too. I reserve the right to do whatever I want to do to you, and you.”

“When did you decide that?” I asked, outraged.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Sometime this week, when I found myself being given a phone number of a woman I didn’t want to call, then heard a rumor that you were selling weed at Fairhope High to pay for your Botox, but found myself completely unfazed by what it said about me if I went out with you.”

It was bull, and we both knew it.

He had too much to lose.

Even if he didn’t, dating him wasn’t worth the wrath of my family and the townsfolk. I opened my mouth, but he shut me up with a scorching-hot kiss, soaked with sweet memories and hunger and the garlic from the pasta sauce he’d made.

Biting down on his lower lip, I tugged his slacks open, fumbling unsuccessfully with the buttons and zippers.

“What is this thing, a darn chastity belt?”

He laughed into our kiss gruffly, pushing down my uniform from my shoulders, clawing it off me.

“I still have the clothes I bought you at my house.” He unbuttoned the front of my mini dress. His fingers sank deep into my skin, leaving dents.

“Burn them.” I bit down on his stubbled neck, pushing a hand into his pants and cupping his massive erection brazenly.

It jerked happily into my palm in greeting.

“Only if you come and help me,” Cruz challenged.

“I plan to come, all right.”

But weirdly, when I thought about those clothes, I wasn’t full of stubborn, defiant dread. I happened to quite like those ridiculously expensive garments and some of the memories created in them.

Especially the floaty bohemian style ones that made me look like one of the Olsen twins taking her trash out. I missed them (the dresses, not the Olsens. I mean, they were great in , but I never got into their newer stuff).

A minute later, I was on my back in my bed, watching him slap a condom on. He rolled his hips, sliding into me in one, achingly slow movement, grinning down at me.

He rotated his hips, gathering my hair in his fist and tugging it to extend my neck and make me look at him. The planes of his face, his heartbreakingly stunning cheekbones, were too much for me.

I moaned loudly, with no regard to the fact there was someone else under this roof.

“I missed this.” My breathing was choppy, my voice strained.

“I missed .”

In that moment, I hated to admit it, but Trinity did not chart in my universe. Neither did Wyatt, Gabriella, Catherine Costello, my parents, nor the entire state of North Carolina.

Only Cruz, and the way he made me feel.

“I think you just found my G-spot.” I caught his face in my hands.

“You mean, here?” He pulled up and thrusted deep inside me again, a husky rumble coming from his chest.

“Y—y-y-es.”

“Just to make it clear, that spot over there?” He withdrew and sank into me once more.

“Ohhhhh.”

“This one, right?”

I was so close to the edge, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Luckily, I didn’t have to know. Cruz did all the work for me.

He entered me fast and hard, his cock gliding into me again and again, creating delicious friction. My climax spiraled up like climbing ivy, encircling and chaining every organ in my body.

It was so intense. So delicious, I couldn’t stop panting. My body begged for release.

“Cruz. Cruz.”

He kissed me roughly, stuffing his tongue down my throat to shut me up.

“Shhh. You’ll wake the kid up and then I’m never going to visit Tennessee again.”

Laughter bloomed inside my chest, a weird mix of happiness and horniness taking over me. A minute later, I was riding the most intense wave of chain-orgasms I’d ever had in my entire life.

Period. Full stop. Exclamation point.

As soon as Cruz felt my release, he flipped me on my stomach, like I was light as a feather, and entered me from behind.

Spreading my thighs for him and coming up to my knees, I felt him pushing me back down, a little more roughly than your trusted MD should.

“Legs closed and ass down, sweetheart. More friction.”

“You have a dirty side. I like it.”

“Good, because there are a lot of filthy things I want to do with you.”

He was right. This was much hotter than the classic doggy style I’d watched in porn (okay, let’s just get it out of the way—I’d watched a of porn prior to having sex with Cruz).

It was exquisite, and rough, and full of passion. I felt like he was setting me on fire. Another orgasm rippled through me in no time.

Cruz came, too.

This time inside me.

When he rolled off of me, he kissed my temple and said, “And no, you’re not pregnant.”

I shuddered. “You know me nauseatingly well.”

He placed his lips on my hairline, mulling it over. “I do, don’t I?”

“Since kindergarten.”

“Nursery,” he corrected me.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “We’re old.”

“Better than staying young forever. The implications are not so great.”

“What really happened today?” I asked into his hard chest, my fingers once again tangled in his chest hair. “Has Bear really broken his skateboard?”

Because was going to have to break a few piggy banks to buy him a new one. It was his favorite form of transportation.

“Yes.”

There was a brief silence.

“With my encouragement, I suppose.” He propped himself on one elbow, studying me with his confident, quiet gaze that made me feel like a seed blossoming into a flower in the sun.

“You tricked me.”

His chest rumbled with a chuckle that quaked against my ear.

“We needed a good excuse.”

“You could’ve found a excuse,” I protested.

“It’s just a small chip. He said his grandpa can superglue it back together. If not, I’ll give him my old skateboard that I have lying around in my basement. I’m in no risk of ever using it again. Kids are into vintage stuff like that these days.”

“Leave some room for Rob to try to win his son’s affections.” I giggled, marveling at how good Cruz and Bear were together.

That made Cruz tense.

My nose twitched, and I tried hard not to look embarrassed. What kind of weird thing to say to the man you’d sworn off (to your sister) who was currently inside your bed.

I truly was a piece of work.

“I’ll tread carefully,” Cruz said, finally.

I knew he meant with Rob, but I so very wished he’d take mercy on me, too.