“What happened with Goldberg? They say he’s the best family attorney around,” Dale asks me while we jog our nth lap around the neighborhood. For a man ten years my senior, he sure is fit. It gives me hope for the future.
“He said a judge has to sign off on moving Theo out of state, but if they just move to another city in Alaska, it’s a lot harder to stop them.” I pant around the words.
“Let’s hope they don’t get wise to that idea.” Dale pats my sweaty shoulder and the touch is strangely reassuring.
“I don’t like you paying for his time,” I blurt out the words. I’ve been wanting to say that for days, but I just didn’t know how.
“I insist. You and Theo are family to us now. You’ll just have to deal with our support.”
Support isn’t totally foreign to me. I had it for years with my marine squadron, and now with my fire crewmates. But it still sits a little funny in my chest. “Only if you insist, but I won’t relax on the issue until I hear the gavel hit the bench.”
“Rightly so. I’d stop at nothing to make Amelia happy.” He gives me a funny smile that shakes me to the core. Somehow, his words feel loaded.
“She needs to get that sprinkler system fixed at The Daff,” I urge him yet again.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asks me.
“I had a guy go over and look at it already. He quoted me a few thousand to get it up to snuff. I’d pay, but Amelia is stubborn and wants to do all this herself. So that’s my holdup. It’s taking everything in me not to just hire the guy already.”
“I don’t know if I’d be able to do what you’re doing,” I admit.
“Yes, you would. I know you, West, you’d do anything for your people.” Before I can feel uncomfortable about the praise, Dale sprints ahead. “Come on, let’s really push this lap!”
Dale and Kate have a long flight and won’t make it home until morning, so like a total piece of shit, I text Amelia and ask if she wants to show me a thing or two in the kitchen.
She hasn’t been over since the, uh, incident, but I’m weak, and lonely, and pathetic. I should go to hell for inviting Amelia over after everything Dale has done for me, and still, I smile when she writes back, Be right there!
Once we settle in the kitchen, she uses a stern voice as she explains, “All right, master chef junior, this is an onion.” She holds it up to my face.
“I at least know that much,” I mutter. “You’re already making me regret this.”
“You can take it. I’m sure boot camp was harder.”
“War was hard. Boot camp was a vacation.”
Amelia pauses and assesses me with a serious look on her face. “Fair enough. Now, the onion is your flavornator.”
“Is that a technical term?” I bark a laugh.
“No, I’m trying to dumb it down for you.” She sticks that perfect red tongue out at me, and I have half a mind to suck on it, but before I can think twice, she pulls it back behind her teeth. Yup, this is a huge mistake.
“Now some veggies don’t bring a lot to the table, like potatoes. That’s why we need helpers like onions and garlic and red wine.” She pauses to hand me the bottle. “Speaking of which, uncork that please.”
Drinking is probably about the worst thing I could do right now, but I do as she says, and when she hands me two glasses, I pour. “A rule of cooking with wine is that you have to drink some too.”
“That in the textbook?” I ask.
She gives an assured nod. “Absolutely. That’s in the Westover textbook, at least. The key to stew is time, because you need all the ingredients to seep together. You need your veggies to bang your herbs, your herbs to deepthroat your meat…”
She just laughs. “Okay, I won’t use a sex metaphor. It’s clear you can’t handle it. Not when your instructor is a hot babe.” She hip checks me, and I about burst from the touch. I take a step away to get some much-needed distance and sip my wine, but she pulls me right back in.
“You strip rosemary like this.” She demonstrates on one twig and hands me one. “That’s right, backwards down the stalk.”
The scent wafts into my nose and my mouth is already watering, maybe for more than one reason.
She shows me how to sauté the onions and garlic and then we add the veggies, herbs, broth, and meat to the pot. She empties a jar of tomato paste into the mixture and gives it a final stir. “Now we wait, while the mingling goes down.”
“Maybe an hour. Want to swim in the meantime?”
Swim? With her in a bikini? Hell yes, and also hell no. “Uh…” I mutter.
Amelia laughs. “That’s a yes, suit up, cowboy.”
“My suit’s in the washer,” I lie.
She shakes her head. “No biggie, we can go in our undies.”
Gulp. “I don’t think that’s very respectful of me to do in your parents’ pool.”
“Which part, swimming in your undies or swimming with me in my undies?”
“Both.” I swallow again at the lump in my throat.
Since it’s summer, it’s still bright out even though it’s getting late. The sun is showing no signs of setting. And Amelia is showing no signs of letting me off the hook. She pulls off her top to reveal a little white sports bra. When she steps out of her sweats in the doorway, I see she has a pale blue thong on. I’m so going to hell for this.
“Come on,” she calls after me as she cannonballs into the pool. When she comes up for air, I peel off my shirt and walk slowly to the water, still not sure what I’m going to do. She frowns at me and then splays her hands on the edge of the pool and leaps out gracefully. She’s standing in front of me, dripping wet, pink nipples peering through the fabric. My brain instantly reminds me how good they felt in my mouth last time…or maybe it’s my cock reminding me. That sounds about right.
Amelia plants her hands on her hips, studying me for a second, before she wraps her arms around my torso and tugs me back with a big heave. It’s so unexpected I don’t have time to plant my feet, and she manages to fling me into the water.
She leaps in after me with a splash, but I’m already swimming to the edge and hopping out again. “That was a low blow.”
“You haven’t even seen a low blow yet. When I give you a low blow, you’ll know it.”
“You’re barely making sense,” I manage to point out, even though her words tangle up in my gut.
“Doesn’t matter,” she says confidently. “It’s having the same effect all the same.” She nods down at my jeans, and dammit, she’s right, there’s an obvious tent being pitched under the soaking denim.
I scowl in response, but I don’t know what to say. I’m at a complete loss for words. This girl has my brain in full panic mode.
“Shuck those jeans and come swim with me.” She kicks lazily around in the water, cool as a damn cucumber.
“What if I say no?” I challenge her.
She swims to the edge and once again leaps from the water. She walks up to me looking like the it girl from a teen movie and stops inches from my body. Every molecule in me is aware of her.
Her fingers find my zipper, and she pulls it down. The sound seems to echo off the glass walls of the pool house. Then she flicks the button and tugs on the waistband until the wet fabric plunks to the ground. I’m burning like a furnace, and I need to get control of this situation and fast.
“I’ll dip my feet in,” I offer in a hoarse voice, and Amelia looks satisfied, like she’s just uncovered the secrets of the universe. She leaps back into the pool with a splash, and I toe my way to the edge and lower myself so just my legs are dangling in the water. That’s all I can handle. If I get any closer to her, I will easily lose control.
She swims around and periodically splashes me with water, but I hold my spot, enjoying the view of her long creamy legs as they sparkle in the sunlight. When she dives underwater, her long brunette hair flows like a mermaid, and I burn the image of her plump ass into my brain. Amelia is pure trouble, and I’ve just become an official delinquent.
“You’re not swimming,” she states the obvious after a while and kicks over to me. Every muscle in my body tightens in reaction.
“Probably need to check our stew soon.” I try to say something light and airy that has nothing to do with her wet body, but it’s no help. She plants her hands on my thighs and holds herself up. Her face is dangerously close to my cock, and all my hard work deflating it in the past ten minutes has been for nothing. I’m rising faster than a hot air balloon, to the point that it’s very obvious. Amelia watches with amusement.
“Just for me?” she giggles.
I let out a hot breath and shake my head. “That is not for you. You need to swim away, lady.”
She shakes her head and runs an enterprising finger over my erection. Nothing but wet cotton separating us, and that doesn’t do much if anything to stifle her touch. The outline of my cock is apparent through the soaked fabric, and Amelia uses that to her advantage as she traces my cockhead.
I suck in a sharp breath. “Amelia,” I grit out as my heart skates around my chest. Is this what a heart attack feels like?
“Yes, West?” she purrs, sliding that damned finger into the flap of my boxers.
At the touch of her skin, my head goes all fuzzy, and I lose the last of my good sense. The only brain cell that was functioning before has just taken the damned night off. Now I’m rising my hips up and peeling my boxers to my thighs.
“Dayum, you have a nice dick,” she says, licking her lips. It doesn’t even sound funny how she says it, just fucking sexy, and I feel a stupid little flutter of pride in my chest.
She wraps her fingers around me and gives it a few circular strokes. “It’s all in the wrist,” she chuckles, throwing my words back at me from the other night. I’m so fucked.
When she swipes her tongue across my tip, I buck up off the rough pavement. “Amelia,” I groan, unable to form coherent sentences.
She chuckles low in the back of her throat and takes me in her pretty little mouth. She swirls her tongue around, flicking past the slit and under the sensitive notch at the top, then she slides down my length until I hit the back of her throat. A guttural moan falls from my lips, and my hands instantly snake into her hair. She moans in reply and the vibration just about sends me over the edge.
Over the edge. That thought stops me, like the needle pulled off a record. I should not let myself get off in her mouth. I cannot shoot into her parents’ fucking pool either. Goddamn it. I have to will myself to stop this.
“Amelia, stop. Stop,” I pant the words, and finally, she pulls off with a satisfying pop sound that should be illegal.
She looks at me with hooded eyes and swollen lips, and I hate myself more than ever before. “We can’t… we shouldn’t…” I start a few times and falter on the words.
She pats my thigh. “It’s just a blowjob, hottie. You don’t have to make a federal case out of it. Nothing bad is going to happen.”
The caveman part of my brain wants to believe her, and unfortunately, he has the control right now, so when she dives back down on me for a few hearty sucks, I’m quickly gasping, “I’m gonna come.” And my sassy little minx doesn’t pull off. Instead, she takes me as deep as she can and holds me there while I shoot straight down her throat, causing my toes to curl.
When the fuzziness clears from my brain, I look down at Amelia, and dammit, she’s got a sultry smile stretching her cheeks. I’m completely torn in two. One part of me wants to scoop her up, kiss her mouth, hold her all night in my bed.
The other part? That part wants to tell her this was a huge mistake. That we can never do this again. That I’m sorry for losing control.
“Listen, Amelia…” I start.
She pushes off me and swims back easily, smile still in place. “Chill out, Jacobs. It was just a little fun. Don’t make a whole thing of it.”
“I wasn’t_” I start, but she cuts me off. “Yes you were. I can see it in your eyes.”
Why is she so fucking perfect? It’s like she knows what I need. She knows the right things to say and do to dismantle my walls. And for some reason that makes me even more fucking terrified of her.
“That was a serious lapse of judgement on my part, and I’m sorry,” I say the words quickly before she can interrupt me. “It can’t happen, ever again.”
She dives under the water for a beat and then emerges again. “No biggie. I get it.” Swimming to the edge, she hops out of the pool and grabs a towel from the rack. “I’m going to grab a shower. Enjoy the stew.” She pulls open the door and disappears inside.
Somehow, I feel even worse that she is so nonchalant about this. How fucked up that I actually want her to care, to be upset, to fight me on my resolve. I’m such a piece of shit.