Rough Play (4 page)

Trent snorted. “Except for when he returned to Texas and then those first couple weeks when we got here. He moaned all over the place like Lane is now.”

Lane’s eyes narrowed, a burger inches from his mouth and his lips parted. Before he could get a word out, Jacob waved him off. “Right, right, you’re not moaning about Gretchen.”

Rebecca patted Grant’s chest and looked at him. “He had a good reason.”

Jacob stared at his plate and ignored the lovebirds at the end of the table and why he’d gestured at Grant in the first place. Grant was about finding one woman and settling down. That wasn’t at all what Jacob was doing with Flora. Lord help him if she ever heard him say as much, because she’d hang his ass out in a sling and he’d never hear the end of it. She was making him crazy.

All this teasing and joking around wasn’t enough. He didn’t behave this way with women. Pissing all this time away for some laughs and one gut clenching, cock hardening kiss that he never should have ended. What the fuck was the matter with him? When had he ever kissed a woman like that and not followed through? He shook his head and tended to his meal as the diner slowly thinned out.

This game they were playing was going to end. Never should have started in the first place.

Other people ate and left the place until there were more empty tables than full ones. The three girls came out with cups, a pitcher of something red, a pie and forks.

Rebecca sighed. “Oh my God, Sangria. Flora makes the best Sangria.” She rubbed her pregnant tummy. “Worth giving it up, but oh man.” She closed her eyes and breathed. “I think I can smell it from here. So good. When I can have a drink again, she’s promised to make me my own pitcher. All just for me.”

Grant caressed her neck. “Just think of all the pie Gretchen gives you and the extra fries Tonya loads you up with to get you through until the baby comes.”

She nodded and laughed. “True, because after this baby comes, that’s going to be over with.”

The girls settled at a table nearby, leaned over the pie in the center and dug in, laughing and talking. The full wine pitcher was drained cup by cup. The pie plate emptied. He’d known them all in various ways for a while. Tonya he knew best. She often served him breakfast and lunch. If she happened to be around in the evenings, he also saw her then. Because of Tonya, he knew the three of them regularly did pie-eating contests and that Gretchen was currently winning.

Gretchen he knew less about. She was the shier one. Or maybe quieter. He didn’t know her story and Tonya never elaborated. Gretchen was his landlord, so he saw her here and there around the trailer park. She made things like bird feeders and by the smells often rolling through the trailer park, she cooked a lot.

Flora, the one who intrigued him most, he knew the least about. Again, Tonya had been silent. Any question he’d asked, Tonya would answer with a simple
ask her
. What he did know, she lived somewhere outside the trailer park. The reason he only saw her here and there over the past few months was because, as a plumber, she often worked in nearby towns. She had a great ass, sweet curves and a taste that kept him awake at night. That was all he knew.

He ached to know more.

The diner had emptied to nothing but the girls and his brothers. And the girls were clearly wasted by the sound of their laughter, flushed cheeks and table slapping while talking.

So, a bonus moment for him. Flora would need a ride home. Not that he’d try to get her into bed drunk, but he damn sure wasn’t against waiting for her to sober up.

Trent caught his attention. “You going to take your plumber home?”

He nodded. “Somebody needs to.”

Rebecca and Grant got up, planning to take Tonya when Trent slid keys across the table, put his hands flat on the top and stared down their baby triplet, Lane, and announced he’d take Gretchen. “Here are my keys, bro.”

Lane gave him the death stare from hell. They all knew that look. Lane had been landing it on them for years now. Without touching the keys, Lane marched off and stood before the women.

Jacob chuckled and slid Trent’s keys back across the table to him. “Eventually he’ll admit he’s crazy about her.”

Trent stretched his arms. “
Gonna
be the best damn day of my life too.”

Jacob nodded. “I don’t get it. What’s he hiding from?”

Trent could only shrug. It’s all they knew to do when it came to Lane. Until the man was ready, there was no forcing information out of him.

He walked to their table and put his hand on the back of Flora’s chair to get this started. If all else failed, he could negotiate a night on her couch and pick things up come morning. “Come on, Plumber.”

Lane shook his head. “They’re not done.”

Not done? He looked at the empty pitcher in the middle of the table then at the three glassy eyed women. He was pretty sure they were well past done.

Then Tonya mumbled something about cleaning the diner tonight, but Jacob didn’t catch half of it because Flora stood and stretched. Her arms reached overhead, chest thrust forward and back curved into an arch. Her shirt lifted and there was her stomach. Bared, smooth, a slit for her navel. Blood thundered through his veins.

She yawned and headed to the kitchen, calling out something about their music. That’s all he caught. Everything else was blocked and trapped behind the pounding of his pulse and the ache in his pants of watching her ass sway as she walked across the room. Noted the shape of her thighs and then back up to her ass and curve of her hips to waist.

For the better part of the next hour, Jacob ended up in a card game with his brothers while the girls cleaned tables, swept and mopped. His ass was going numb. Head starting to throb from the pounding loud music that blasted through the empty diner and his cock was in a steady state of ache from watching Flora.

The way she moved and turned. How she bent and twisted as she worked. This was the longest he’d seen her at any one time. He soaked in every last drop until he was moments away from a hand-job in the bathroom.

He shook his head, focused on his cards. She was still there, out of the corner of his eyes, but he leaned elbows on the table and paid closer attention to the game. Or made an attempt at it. One thing was certain, his head was more in the game than Lane’s. Which wasn’t saying much at all.

Jacob caught Trent’s attention and tipped his head toward Lane as Lane’s narrowed eyes followed Gretchen across the room. Trent opened his mouth, another ribbing or something about to roll out, but Jacob shook his head and stopped the man.

Lane was the loner of the three of them. The one who held back for his own reasons. Stubborn reasons and stupid at times, but that was Lane. The more they pushed and bagged on Lane, the more stubborn the man was going to be.

Flora walked by, the mop shoved in the rolling bucket and she tossed him a wink. “All done.”

The best part of all this cleaning, she was no longer stone cold wasted. Which meant the night wasn’t over. Not even close. If he had his way, she wouldn’t be working tomorrow.

Lane folded his hands and stood. “We done?”

Gretchen laughed and Lane dropped back in his seat. “Lord no. There’s a pile of dishes three times taller than I am.”

Dishes?
Damn it.

Trent shuffled his hand, a grin turned up his lips. “Must be a short stack.”

“Short jokes, baldy? Really?” She whacked him with the damp rag she’d been cleaning tables with on the way to the kitchen.

Trent’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I shaved it on purpose.”

“Cause it’s thinning or receding?” Gretchen called out and headed in the kitchen.

Jacob laughed and rested the back of his head in his hands. “I like her.”

Trent nodded. “Me too. She looks like a weakling, but she’s a tough little shit.”

A crash rattled from the kitchen and Jacob was on his brothers’ heels getting in the door.

He was at the back and, as the three of them were the same size, he was peeking over shoulders, looking for broken glass or crashed shelving. A hole in the wall from a wrecking ball. Anything.

“There was a crash,” Lane stated.

Gretchen leaned over the sink with her hand under the water faucet. “I dropped some dishes in the sink.”

Dishes. That was it? He glanced the room over again. The room was long and fairly slender. Tonya stood over the grill and poured water onto it. Water sizzled and a cloud of steam rose up and slithered through the vents. A big silver door was at the end of the room and a shadow moved over the slick surface. Then there she was. Her cheeks flushed. Across the room, he could see the sweat that had soaked her hair from all the mopping earlier. He wanted to see her covered it in. Hear the slick noise of her sweating body slapping against his and feel the heat of her against his mouth.

Tonya left the grill and filled her pitcher back up with water. “We’re fine. Nearly done. If you boys are tired, you don’t have to wait. Really. Totally sobered up.”

Oh no. Flora wasn’t getting away from him. Thankfully, he didn’t have to say anything since Lane was so hung over Gretchen, he stepped forward and asked to help.

The corner of Flora’s lips tipped up as she crooked her finger at him. “You’re with me, Mr. Iverson.”

With a smile tugging at his lips, he followed her toward the back and darkened area. He was with her all right and if he had it his way, that wasn’t changing until mid-morning.

Chapter Four

Flora wiped her hands across her hips and concentrated on breathing. One shouldn’t have to actually think about breathing, but the more she was running into Jacob the past few days, the more her breath struggled. And now here he was. Right behind her. Close enough she could smell him and that rain-clean scent. Close enough she could turn around and have him in the dim light of the diner’s back room. But not here. Not when four people were just around the corner.

Oh yes, she had just about reached that line before she couldn’t take anymore.

“Leading me into the dark where you’ll take advantage of me?” His voice was lowered to a whisper and slipped over her skin with this amazing shiver.

She stopped at the ice machine, lifted the lid and picked up a five-gallon bucket. “Absolutely. Use those muscles of yours to scoop ice into this bucket. Then you can carry it for me.”

“Not what I had in mind.” He grabbed the metal scooper from the hanger inside the machine. The light was just bright enough to catch his darkened gaze. “You like my muscles, do you?”

She leaned on the ice machine and faked a heavy sigh and a yawn. “I’d like them more if you’d put them to work. Now scoop.”

“Bossy.”

She grinned. “Tired.”

“How about I finish this ice for you, take you home and give you a full body massage?”

Her knees weakened. Wow. After being in a constant state of extreme awareness of Jacob Iverson, what she needed was more than a full body massage. But man, oh man, what a start that would be. She pointed at the ice machine, unsure of where they were headed or what they were doing. She’d teased him hard over the last few days. Mostly with quick touches in public, but he could have stopped her at any moment. Taken her elbow and arm and pulled her outside. Something, anything.

He’d given her smoldering looks, but that was it. Just hot looks that set her teeth on edge. Made her thighs clench. She’d never tolerated games and teasing like this, but then again, Jacob made it exciting. Things like his fingers twirling in her ponytail right now with his knuckles grazing her neck and shooting streams of shivers down her back. It took a lot of focus, but she managed to point to the ice. “Work first. Then play.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her hair a gentle tug and released.

He filled the five-gallon bucket faster than she thought possible and led him around to the front of the diner, dodging the kitchen. She stepped up the ladder she’d already put out, removed the lid from the coke machine and climbed back down. “Dump it in, then two more
bucketfuls
and we’re done.”

“That’s it?”

She smiled. “That’s it.”

He grabbed a nearby chair off a table, pulled it around and faced it toward the coke machine. “Sit.”

She slipped onto the chair at his command.

He grinned. “I like obedience.”

She chuckled. “It’s more about me running on my feet over this concrete floor for the last three hours than obeying you.”

He leaned over. A hand closed around the back of her chair just over her shoulder. “You say that now. Wait ‘til later.”

Oh, God. And that right there was why she was so into this
thing
they were doing. The spicy scent from the curve of his neck. Simple, short sentences that prickled her skin. Warm breath easing over her shoulder. That stripping line was getting pretty damn close.

He stood and carried the bucket around the corner and into the back. She waited and admired the sway of his hips as he walked. The way his jeans clung to his thighs and butt.
Gah
, she could just reach up and get her hands on all that. Give both cheeks a full squeeze. Then he returned and poured the ice into the drink machine. Only he didn’t use the ladder, merely stretched and emptied. His arms reached high. His shirt pulled against his flat stomach, molded across his chest and she could do nothing but sit back in the chair and stare with her tongue thick in her mouth.