Daye, Rainey - An Unconventional Love (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (38 page)

She ordered another drink as Rita and Marilyn rejoined her at the bar, the song they had been dancing to having ended. Yeah, Maggie just might be able to work with some of Troy’s suggestions.

* * * *

Around 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, Maggie’s cell phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, she saw it was Alex and quickly flipped it open.

“Hey, Mags.” Alex’s deep baritone greeted her. “Where are you?”

“Down at the square with a couple of friends.”

“What’cha doing there?”

“Just hanging out, why?”

“Just wondering. Where’s the square?”

“The center of town. You know, ‘the town square.’ Most small towns have them.”

Laughing, Alex said, “Well, as long as you’re having fun with your friends.”

“Not really. I’m bored out of my mind. When are you coming? And if you’re calling to tell me that you need to postpone or can’t make it after all, I will reach through this phone and hurt you.”

“Don’t worry, Mags. You’ll see me sooner than you think. Love you,” he said and hung up on her.

Looking at her phone in surprise, wondering what that was all about, she put her phone in her back jean’s pocket and rejoined her friends.

About ten minutes later, Marilyn nudged Becca with her hip and said, “Is that who I think it is?” while looking over Maggie’s shoulder. Rita turned her head to look and then started smacking Maggie’s arm.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Rita practically squealed as she continued to hit Maggie, causing Maggie to dance around to avoid her suddenly demented friend and to forget about whoever had grabbed Marilyn and Becca’s attention. “Look, look, look. I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it!”

“Rita!” Maggie gasped, exasperated. “Stop hitting me. Why are you acting like a demented Chihuahua all of a sudden?”

“Because, unless I’m hallucinating, Alex is walking toward us! Look!”

Maggie gasped and spun around. Sure enough, there was Alex walking casually down the street toward them with his sexy swagger and a large smile on his face, his gaze locked on her as he moved toward her with purpose. Maggie dropped her purse and went rushing up to him, throwing herself into his arms as she had Jess’s less than two weeks earlier and causing Alex to stagger back a step at the impact.

He swung her around once and then set her on her feet. Like Jess, he was careful to avoid kissing her in public, but by the smoldering look in his eyes, she could tell that he was just barely curbing that impulse.

“Alex!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting my roommate, remember. Unless you are rescinding my invitation.”

“Never. But you just called me…” she said. “Where were you calling me from?”

“Your house. I just got here, and when you didn’t answer the doorbell, I called to see where you were.”

“Wow, you really were serious about surprising me, weren’t you?”

“Of course. I live to surprise you. Ahh,” he said, his tone quickly changing from husky and intimate to friendly and outgoing, “these must be friends of yours. Care to introduce us?”

Maggie noticed then that Rita had picked up her purse, and her three girlfriends had now joined them on the sidewalk. After making introductions, Alex nonchalantly placed his arm around Maggie’s shoulders as they walked back toward her parents’ house as a group.

Maggie went to unlock the front door while Alex retrieved his luggage from his rental car. Her girlfriends pushed inside after them, and Maggie bit back her exasperation. “Come on, Alex, I’ll show you to your room. Becca, why don’t you go grab some iced tea from the fridge. I’m sure Alex is parched in this heat. We’ll meet you guys on the front verandah.”

Alex followed her up the stairs, and she felt their gazes on them the entire way. It was only after they had reached the landing and continued up that she heard her friends start to move from where they had been standing at the foot of the stairs. Maggie led Alex down the short hallway and opened the door on the end. She stepped aside to let him enter, and then she closed the door behind them. As Alex set his bags on the floor and turned to face her, she pounced on him, sending him tumbling backward onto the side of the bed with Maggie on top of him. Maggie grasped his face in her hands and kissed him desperately. Alex groaned against her mouth and clamped his hands firmly on her ass, squeezing hard.

“Can you get rid of your friends?” he grated as he sucked on her neck.

Maggie groaned and tore at his shirt. “Screw my friends. I’ll tell them I was helping you unpack.”

“Maggie,” Alex groaned as she reached down and squeezed his cock through his jeans. They engaged in a small battle as Maggie’s hormones demanded that he take her then and there, and Alex worried that her friends would either hear them or come up to see what was taking so long. Alex finally won the battle, and he and Maggie returned downstairs to join her friends, who had taken the iced tea and five glasses out onto the verandah and were waiting not so patiently for them.

Maggie had to endure an hour of her friends getting to know Alex and flirting with him just as aggressively as they had with Jesse. When the phone rang, Maggie went inside to answer it.

“I just wanted to see if we were having company for dinner tonight,” her mom said from the other end.

“Company?” Maggie asked, frowning as she looked out the window to see Marilyn claim her seat next to Alex. “Oh! You mean Alex?”

“Yes. I take it he arrived on schedule then?”

“That’s right. I forgot that you and Dad knew when they were both coming.”

“They wanted to surprise you. I think that was very sweet of them. I liked Jesse very much, and I’m sure I’ll like Alex just as much.”

“I’m sure you will, too. Yeah, Alex is here. Marilyn is making a fool of herself with him on the front porch even as we speak.”

Maggie’s mom laughed. “I’m just so grateful that they both agreed to go along with your little deception about them having girlfriends. Knowing the harridans in this town, they would just say it was typical that a member of our family would gravitate toward gay men,” she said in an aggrieved tone.

Maggie finally hung up with her mother and clutched the phone as she glared through the picture window and saw Rita lean toward Alex, purposely displaying her cleavage. She narrowed her eyes, and as she went to return the cordless phone to its stand, a thought struck her.

Clutching the phone to her chest, she walked back onto the front porch and stood in the doorway, extending it toward Alex. “Alex, your girlfriend is on the phone. She said you didn’t answer your cell phone, and she wanted to make sure that you arrived safely.”

Alex frowned at her but played along. He rose off the porch swing and took the phone from her. Maggie stepped aside, and he walked into the house, raising the phone to his ear and pretending to talk. Maggie let the screen door close behind him and turned back toward her disappointed friends.

“He’s going to be awhile,” she told her friends, who nodded and started to gather up their things, making their good-byes as they went down the porch steps.

When Maggie walked back inside, it was to find Alex standing in the foyer, holding the inactivated phone in one hand with his eyebrow raised in question.

“Well, I had to get rid of them somehow,” Maggie snapped. “Now put the phone down, get your ass upstairs, and get naked. We have about three hours before my folks get home from work.”

Laughing, Alex placed the phone on its stand on a small round table and threw her over his shoulder before he bounded up the stairs two at a time. She directed him to her bedroom, and he shut and locked the door behind them before he lowered her onto her bed. Maggie reached her arms out to him, and Alex went to her gladly, clearly happy to be with her again for the first time in over a month.

When her parents got home with warm smiles of welcome for Alex, his luggage was already unpacked, he was freshly showered, and he and Maggie were sitting on the couch channel surfing as they caught up with each other.

* * * *

The next day, after Alex had slipped into her bedroom shortly after her parents had left for work and they had indulged themselves, Maggie showed Alex around town and went through the same cycle of introductions as she had done when Jess had visited. They laughed together as they walked through her small town, and Maggie would lean over and give him juicy tidbits about a scandalous past associated with a particular building or its past owner or would relay an embarrassing incident that had taken place in or near it.

Maggie didn’t protest as a couple of her friends caught up to her and joined them in their sightseeing. They passed the day pleasurably, and she even accepted an invitation for the two of them to join up with her friends at Donovan’s Pub after dinner that night.

At the pub, their group commandeered a large table, and Alex stuck to her side like glue. He turned down numerous offers to join her friends on the small dance floor, explaining that he didn’t want word to get back to his girlfriend, who was the jealous type.

“Surely Maggie will keep your secret,” Becca breathed coyly as she leaned against Alex, pressing her breasts against his arm.

“No, she won’t. She promised my girlfriend that she would protect my virtue while I was visiting and would rat me out in an instant if I did anything that would piss her off. And believe me, it’s not fun being frozen out by my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend sounds really possessive,” Rita said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“Frankly, I wouldn’t want it any other way. Gives my ego a boost to know she’s so possessive of me.”

“But if she doesn’t loosen the leash…”

“Oh, she understands me quite well. I promised her at the very beginning that I would never cheat on her, and she trusts me. I would never do anything to betray that trust. But she’s got a slight problem with insecurity. Can’t quite understand what I see in her sometimes. Needs me to reassure her that she’s the only woman I desire,” Alex said as his eyes teased Maggie.

“Well,” Maggie said, “maybe if you hadn’t sown so many wild oats before you met her, she wouldn’t feel so insecure.”

“And it was all those oats which helped me discover what it was that I really wanted in a girlfriend. And now that I’ve found it in her, I’d be an idiot to ruin it. Once you’ve had steak, it’s hard to go back to greasy hamburgers. And frankly, I want to go on enjoying my steak,” Alex replied seriously.

“Ohh,” Rita breathed. “That is so damn romantic. Why can’t the guys around here be so? Do you think you can teach a class on romance to them before you leave, Alex?”

The entire table burst into laughter as they joked about who should take the class and imagined how they would act in it.

“Yeah, I can see it now,” Marilyn choked out through her laughter. “Bobby Smith grabbing his crotch and spitting a wad of chew next to Alex’s shoes as he says, ‘But I told her I wanted to do her and would spit out my chaw before I kissed her. What more does a gal want?’” The whole table roared at her impersonation.

Troy came up around then and introduced himself to Alex.

As he shook Troy’s hand, he remarked thoughtfully, “So you’re Maggie’s ex. Jess told me he had met you. How’s school going?”

Troy pulled up a chair and joined their group. While he and Alex conversed, Rita leaned over to Maggie and said, “Now Troy wouldn’t have to take Alex’s class. He oozes charm.”

“That’s very true,” Maggie remarked noncommittally as she watched her past and present lover have a civilized conversation. She was as uneasy as she had been when Troy had met Jess, although she couldn’t tell why. Jess and Alex knew she hadn’t been a virgin when they hooked up, and they knew her only really serious boyfriend had been Troy. They also knew it was over and that she had nothing but vaguely friendly feelings for the man. But she was still uneasy and made sure that they left pretty soon afterward when it looked as if Troy were settling in for the long haul and wasn’t moving on.