The Mating Game (12 page)

“Mom! Uncle Dom and Uncle Sam are fighting in Dad’s study again! They’ve knocked over the lamp you gave him, too! They need a time-out!”

Both men hastily unlocked themselves and glared fiercely at Edward and Christiana, who stared at them from the doorway as if they were a pair of naughty six-year-olds.

Christiana waggled her finger, a perfect imitation of Sophie when she was riled.

“Fighting is to remain outside. You’ll put holes in the rugs and walls again. You know the rules!”

Edward looked at the men, surprisingly mature for his seven years. Christiana, only four, enjoyed the thought of her mom chastising her huge uncles.

“Don’t be a tattletale, Christi,” Edward chastised quietly.

Christiana pouted. “But—”

Edward continued as if she hadn’t even interrupted, sure in that way only kids have, that his words would be heeded. “They were only playing. And anyway, Dominic is going to go get his mate. Aren’t you?”

Surprised by the astuteness of the young lad, Dominic nodded solemnly.

“Sure am, Edward. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pack before your Aunt Sophie comes to read me a lecture and lock me in my bedroom for an hour of time-out.”

Christiana turned to Edward.

“How could Mom
read
him a lecture? She just waggles her finger and talks lots.”

“Come on, hotshot. I’ll tell you out back.”

Samuel laughed as Edward dragged Christiana out into the backyard, and began to talk quickly to her. The men found it amusing that she hung on his every word.

As they quickly left the study, they noticed Zachariah staring after the two kids, a proud, happy look in his eyes.

“You okay, Grandpa?”

Zachariah snapped back to reality. “Sure am, Dom. I hear you’re off to pick up your mate? Congratulations, son.”

Dominic rolled his eyes. “It’s not a done deal, Gramps. She’s gotta accept me first.”

Zachariah snorted. “The day one of you men can’t twist a decent female around your left paw is the day I take you out back and thump your hide raw! You’ve had the ladies drooling over you since before you were a teen. I’m sure you’ll manage.”

The old man turned to Samuel. “And you had better look out for yourself, my boy. You think you won’t settle down. Let me warn you, lad. You’re gonna meet her right when you don’t want to, don’t expect to, and she’ll lead you a merry dance, just like all the other boys. So don’t get too cocky, you hear?”

Samuel merely grinned. “Me? Cocky? Grandpa, I’m shattered!”

The old man snorted, and turned around muttering. “Damned youth of today. No idea! No respect!”

The two men laughed, certain that their grandfather had a large grin across his features. They headed out the back, Dominic plotting how to tame his redhead.

* * * * *

Later Wednesday afternoon

“
Mary
! Please stop that pacing, you’re giving me the most horrendous headache.”

Mary ignored her cousin and continued to pace in front of her office window. “How can I possibly be giving you a headache when you’re supposed to be practicing your touch typing?”

“Rather easily, hon. With you swinging back and forth like a pendulum behind the monitor, I’m beginning to feel seasick!”

Mary stopped pacing to stare out the window into her small green backyard. With a squeak of the chair, Chloe stood up and came over to her cousin.

“Why don’t you go back, hon? It’s obvious you’ve left stuff undone with Dominic.”

Mary shook her head.

“He’s a one-night stand man. There’s no way he wants a meaningful relationship, and there’s no way at this stage I’d settle for anything less.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “You convinced him to have a one-night stand, why not seduce him into an affair? From there you can move into a relationship.”

Mary shook her head. “He’s not like that. He’s a love ‘em and leave ‘em man. I’d just end up getting hurt.”

“Sure,” Chloe scoffed, “and like you’re not hurt now.”

Mary pressed her lips together. She
was
hurt, but it was so much more than that.

Through the past three nights since she’d been with Dominic, she had been dreaming the most erotic dreams. Far more heated and desperate than any other erotic night journey in the past.

She woke each morning, the small hickey he had given her throbbing with a desperate need that pounded just as demandingly in her pussy.

She had already worn out two sets of vibrator batteries. Nothing seemed to compare with her Dominic, and she was getting worried. How could a girl get over a one-night stand, when one relived each and every moment nightly? When one’s dreams
added
the fantasies to one’s memory?

“I think I need to go shopping. Want to come watch me splurge on a new pair of shoes?”

Chloe sighed and went to shut off the computer. “Why not? Matthew is still reading that new coding book, isn’t he? He’ll be fine for a few more hours at least. We might as well pick up the makings for dinner, too. How that boy manages to eat twice as much as the two of us combined is beyond me.”

Mary hugged her cousin. “We can check on him on the way out. And apparently growing young men eat like crazy. Next thing we’ll know he’ll be not only taller than us, but bigger and stronger. The days when we could scold him and tower over him telling him he was to do what we said are unfortunately long gone. We should have enjoyed them more when we had them.”

“I hear you, sweetie. Let’s go spend some money. I have the latest Victoria’s Secret catalogue in my bag somewhere…”

Mary laughed as she and Chloe left her small study. Nothing like spending a bundle of money on sexy lingerie, shoes and tops to cheer a girl up.

Arm-in-arm, the cousins went in search of their young man, and to soothe themselves with an afternoon of shopping.

Chapter Thirteen

Dominic studied the small but neatly kept front garden. A great expanse of neatly trimmed grass had some surrounding flowers and foliage, but still retained its simplicity and overall green feeling.

Double-checking the address he had copied from his files before leaving, he made sure he wasn’t about to scare some innocent stranger. He wasn’t sure what his infamous plan was, but he knew something would come to him. It always did.

He switched off the ignition of his large motorcycle and removed his helmet.
Sha
king out his sweaty hair, he let the wind blow through it for a moment. He had made the long drive in record time. Looking at the almost-set sun, he cringed slightly as he prayed silently in grateful gratitude to have not racked up speeding fines along the long highways.

Removing his leather gloves, he ran his hands through his shoulder-length waves in the futile attempt to bring some order to his locks.

Deciding nothing earth-shattering would come to him procrastinating outside Mary’s home, he climbed off the huge machine. Just like him, it was dark, powerful and full of thrust.

Grinning at the wicked thought, he stalked up the front path. Passing the neatly weeded flowers, he smiled at the similar wildflowers growing haphazardly as were in his own backyard. He liked the garden. It was neat, yet unrestrained. Much like his Mary.

Ringing the doorbell, thoughts of what he could do to Mary as she opened the door flitted through his mind. Foremost in his fantasies was backing her up against the wall and kissing her senseless. A very close second was ripping her clothes off, tearing off his own, and plunging balls deep into her without any preliminaries or words.

With a large grin on his face, he felt his cock lengthen and become painfully erect beneath his leather pants as he heard light footfalls coming down the hall towards the closed door.

He felt an incredible spurt of disappointment as a tall, lanky teenage boy opened the door, looking vaguely suspicious.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded rudely.

“You must be Matthew Dennison. I’m a friend of your cousin Mary.”

Much of the hostility seeped out of the boy, but the wariness and caution remained.

“She’s not home. I can leave her a message that you dropped by. What’s your name?”

Dominic grinned. “Oh, I’ll stick around. You and I have a few things to talk about.”

Some of the teen’s hostility returned. “Talk about? Huh?”

Dominic leaned forwards, slightly intimidating. It wouldn’t do to really scare the kid. Mary would be pissed if he did that. But intimidating him a little wouldn’t hurt, particularly seeing as like most teenagers he seemed to talk in monosyllables. If the kid were to grow up with a decent job, he might as well start learning now.

“It’s polite and hospitable to let a guest enter one’s home when they have business to discuss.”

Matthew bit his lip as he obviously contemplated the wisdom of letting him in.

“Business?” he questioned, more politely than he so far had acted.

Dominic nodded. “A little matter from Rutledge Security Company. My name is Dominic Rutledge.”

The boy whitened considerably. Dominic cursed himself. He hadn’t truly meant to scare the kid, just shake a bit of the cockiness out of him.

“Mary had nothing to do with that! It was just me! You can’t touch her on that!”

Dominic sighed. “Look, Matthew. The thing is, I know it was you, and your cousin merely got you untangled. I’ve talked to my brothers and we want to offer you a traineeship on strict conditions. You’re skilled. You know you are, and we want to drag you onto the straight and narrow, away from your idiot friends. Can we chat about this inside, or do you want your nosy next-door neighbor—who is currently peering at us through the curtains, by the way—to listen to every word?”

The boy stepped aside to let him enter surprisingly quickly. Dominic entered, prepared to put forward his best spiel.

At least the kid didn’t seem so hostile anymore, he had probably only been defensive of his cousin’s home. That was a good thing, in Dominic’s mind. Anyone prepared to care for and protect his Mary gained points in his estimation.

* * * * *

Mary let herself and Chloe into her house, pleased and surprised when they entered to the smell of meat simmering. She sniffed. Smelled a little like tacos. The large black motorcycle parked outside their house, on the other hand, had her worried. If one of Matthew’s dropkick friends had stopped by to dare him into something else illegal and stupid she’d have a hissy fit.

“Matthew?”

“In here, Mar. We’re cooking dinner.”

Mary blinked, her heart sinking.
We?
Not good, not good at all.

Chloe picked up on it too. “Matthew Dennison, you better not have invited a horde of your friends over for dinner. Mary and I have just spent a fortune on shoes and girls’ stuff and can’t afford to feed your mass of thousands!”

“Oh no! Oof—”

Mary sighed and set down her two shoeboxes, three shopping bags crammed full of naughty Victoria’s Secret gear, and two new low-cut tops on the side table. She had better find out whom Matthew was entertaining.

“I’ve had a rough day, Matthew. I swear if you’re in trouble again—”

Mary felt her throat tighten and her head go light as she entered her kitchen to find Dominic in black leathers standing over her stove in her grandmother’s white frilled apron stirring meat and tomatoes.

He took a quick look over his shoulder, grinned boldly at her and continued to stir the simmering mixture.

“Matt, can you please continue slicing the lettuce and tomato and grating the cheese? We wanted this done by the time your family arrived home, right?”

“Sure thing, Dominic. So you’re sure your brothers aren’t pissed at me for that hacking stunt?”

“Language, boy!” Mary choked out, still trying to believe what her eyes were showing her. Dominic was happy to wear a white ancient frilly
apron
?

“Yeah, watch those words, sport. And yeah, they were…upset. But once we realized we could use your skills to test the holes in our security, and use your youth and…uh…enthusiasm, they were happy to bring you on board. But like I said, there are strict conditions. Any brushes with the law, for
anything
, means we review not only your work with us, but also that whole pressing charges issue. You’ll also need to be honest and up front with us. Anyone offering you money or asking you to do dodgy stuff you need to come to us straight away. We don’t hire and keep on people we don’t trust.”

“Sure, man. I can deal with that. So you’d, like, teach me shi…uh… stuff? Like more complex coding and firewalls and stuff?”

“Sure will. You can teach us stuff too, like where you found our holes, and how you go about doing that without setting off the alarms. It’ll be the normal give-and-take.”

“Neat! Can I tell my friends what I’m doing?”

“In part, you obviously can’t give them details of the systems we show you, but you can tell them that you’re working for us and helping us beef up and constantly upgrade our security measures. That should be enough to impress your buddies.”

“Way cool!”

“Um. Excuse this feminine interruption, but what the hell is going on?”