Wrapped in Lace (10 page)

“That’s my girl,” he whispered but still didn’t remove his hand. “I love watching you. You’re so damn beautiful.”

I couldn’t believe it, but I felt myself moisten again, the ache coming back. I’d read about the elusive multiple orgasms but never actually experienced them myself. Right now, I knew he could get me there again, and it wouldn’t take much. And from the grin on his face, I knew he knew it, too.

His finger started to gently move inside me. “You’re going to come again for me.”

It wasn’t a question. It was more like an order or a promise from him that I wasn’t going to have anything left once he’d finished. He stepped back slightly and looked down at his finger inside me. Normally, I would have been mortified, but I
so
didn’t care. He’d just given me the best orgasm of my life and was about to do it again.

“Even your pussy is beautiful. Can I kiss you? I need to know if you taste as sweet as you look.”

Oh, my God! He did
not
just say that. The man had lost all verbal filter. He definitely wasn’t wimping out this time. He didn’t wait for an answer, anyway, his head already moving downward.

“Jesus Christ!” a loud voice boomed over the room.

Before I could react, Drew had me down off the bar and pulled behind him. I peeked up over his shoulder, discovering Rob was the one responsible for the cursing.

“On my fucking
bar
?” Rob paced a little circle.

I felt myself slinking down, trying to hide, totally humiliated. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway?” Drew yelled.

“What the hell am I doing?” Rob snapped. “That’s what you say? I’ve got fucking sex juice all over my bar.”

I winced, and Drew reached around with his hand and patted my leg. I clung to the back of his shirt, burying my head between his shoulders. I couldn’t believe this was happening. The first time I have any kind of sex in two years, and I get caught. The sex gods were definitely out to get me.

“My God, she’s one of Jack’s teachers,” Rob continued to pile on.

“Enough,” Drew snapped. “You can yell at me all you want, but you leave her out of it.”

“Leave her out of it?” Rob laughed. “She’s all over it.”

I grabbed Drew by the waist before he could lunge towards Rob. I didn’t want to see them come to blows. Their relationship was bad enough already. I whispered Drew’s name, and he turned his head slightly towards me. “Please take me home. I’m. . . .” The words got caught in my throat, causing him to turn all the way around. I didn’t want to cry, but a few tears rolled down my hot, flushed cheeks.

“Piper, sweetheart,” he said softly and pulled me into his arms, stroking my hair. I buried myself in his chest, feeling small and insecure, hoping that Rob couldn’t see me. “I’ve got you.”

“I realized I hadn’t left you the keys to lock up. That’s why I came back,” Rob said quietly. “I didn’t see anything, Piper, I swear.”

Drew’s head whipped around. “Don’t talk to her. Don’t say another thing to her.”

“Calm the hell down. Piper’s my friend, too.”

This time I wasn’t fast enough, and Drew was just a half a foot from Rob before I caught him. “Don’t!” I begged as I stepped between the two of them, which meant I was now in Rob’s full line of sight. Damn, I should have just let Drew hit him.

“Just let me kick his ass,” Drew said, his teeth gnashed together.

“I’d like to see you try, baby brother.”

“Oh, shut up, the both of you.” I knew the only way to get out of this was if I put on my big girl panties and stopped it. The fact that my panties were ripped to shreds somewhere didn’t matter. I turned around and faced Rob. “Keys? Give me the keys.”

“I’m sorry,” Rob said quietly.

“Keys?” I said again, holding my hand out.

“Look, I’ll lock up. You and Drew just go on home.”

“No,” I said firmly, unsure how I was holding his gaze.

“Give her the keys,” Drew barked.

“Why, because you aren’t done yet?” Rob yelled.

I wasn’t sure what came over me, but my fist landed right across Rob’s jaw. I’d hit a few men in my life, mostly bullies on the playground and a few of my mom’s deadbeat boyfriends, but never like this. I was furious, and apparently, I’d stunned the Landon boys into silence. “No, because I don’t want to think about you cleaning up any of my
juices
, you idiotic, insensitive asshole.” Now, I knew I was partly to blame for this whole mess. It wasn’t the best idea to have sex on someone else’s bar, but Rob had been a complete jerk about it.

He rubbed his jaw then tossed the keys down on a table. “Leave them in my mailbox on your way home.”

Neither Drew nor I moved until Rob was out the door. Drew pulled me into his chest, and I broke down sobbing—my little mask of bravery now in pieces on the floor. “I’m humiliated.”

“He didn’t see anything,” Drew whispered.

“How do you know?”

“I know my brother. He knew what we were doing, but he didn’t see anything. He’d be bleeding on the floor if I thought he saw you.”

“I thought you were going to kill him, anyway.”

“I didn’t need to. You handed him his balls rather nicely, and your right hook did just fine.” He gave me his adorable, approving smile.

“Still, I am his son’s teacher. If this gets out, I could lose my job.”

“It won’t get out. Rob wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s done much, much worse.”

*

I looked in
my rearview mirror, seeing Drew right behind me in his pickup. He insisted on following me home. I tried to pull myself together after the whole Rob fiasco, but I wasn’t fully over it yet. Drew knew I was upset and didn’t want me driving home by myself. It was sweet, and I was grateful. He’d held me for a long time after Rob left and iced my hand, worried I had hurt myself, even though I insisted I was fine. I was hoping he’d take as good care of my heart as he did with my hand. I was much more worried about that.

I pulled into the driveway and got out, waving to Drew that I was fine, but he pulled in behind me and got out of his truck. He marched towards me and pinned me against my car, staring down into my eyes. His hands went to my cheeks as he tilted my head up and studied my face.

“No more tears?” he asked.

I hadn’t cried any on the way home, but now I found myself blinking back a few tears. Drew was touching my heart and making me an emotional mess. I shook my head, but it wasn’t very convincing.

“Come here,” he said, taking my hands and pulling me towards the old Magnolia tree in the front yard. He pushed down on the old wooden boards nailed into the trunk, checking their strength before motioning for me to climb. “Up you go.”

No one had been up the makeshift stairs since Drew and I last went up as teenagers, not to mention the fact that I was in a dress sans panties, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I kicked off my boots and started up. “Don’t look up my dress.”

Drew laughed, swatted my ass, then climbed up behind me. We reached our branch, the one we’d sat on so many times before, but this time Drew put his arm around my waist, and I leaned close into his body.

He kissed the top of my head. “I always wanted to sit like this with you.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. “It’s nice.”

“I wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend so many times that last year you lived here.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He looked up at the stars. “Scared, I guess.”

I waited, wondering if he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend now. I know it seemed juvenile, but the schoolgirl in me still wanted to hear those words. But they never came.

We sat for a long time huddled together under the Christmas sky, watching the stars. I had a lot I wanted to say to him, a lot I wanted to ask, but this wasn’t the moment. This wasn’t the time for talking. This was the time for quiet. I’d always read about moments like this, when you can just sit quietly with someone, feeling completely connected without the necessity of words. His fingers gently rubbed my arm, and I reached down and played with the charms on my bracelet. This was turning out to be the best Christmas of my life. I just hoped it could last beyond the holiday.

DECEMBER 25, CHRISTMAS DAY

DREW

The snow was
lightly falling outside. When I was a kid, I always prayed for a white Christmas. It didn’t hold the same magic as an adult, but this Christmas just might live up to the magic of Christmases past. I stood at my Nana’s stove, scrambling some eggs. Somehow, I’d beat her up this morning, probably because I was up all night thinking about Piper, her soft hair, her sweet smell, how her skin blushed when she exploded around my finger. I’d never forget that moment. I pulled at my sweatpants because my dick wouldn’t forget about that image, either. Damn Rob for ruining our romp on the bar.

“Merry Christmas,” Nana said, walking into the kitchen in her light blue fleece bathrobe. She reached up and patted my cheek. “You’re cooking for me?”

I kissed the top of her head. “Merry Christmas.”

She leaned down and smelled the pan. “You’re going to make a good husband one day.”

I decided to ignore that comment and plated the eggs. I poured some orange juice, and we sat down together at the island, a red poinsettia between us. “Christmas at your house was always my favorite part of the day,” I said, eating some eggs and washing them down with the juice.

“So glad you’re here this year,” she said, patting my hand. “How’s Piper?”

I started to choke. How did Nana find out about me and Piper? I’d forgotten what a small town this was. “She’s fine.”

She patted my cheek again, her blue eyes sparkling, and repeated, “How’s Piper?”

“She’s fine,” I said, again trying to keep a poker face, but Nana could see right through me. She always could.

She took a big bite of eggs. “You two were always a perfect match.”

“Nana, please.” I felt like I was fourteen again. My whole family was so nosy, it was unbelievable. I hadn’t introduced them to a woman since I left McAdenville, but now they all seemed to have an opinion. At least they all seemed in favor of Piper and me getting together.

“Ok.” She tossed up her hands then reached into her robe pocket, pulling out a little box and sliding it in front of me. “Merry Christmas.”

“Please tell me it’s the keys to the Ferrari,” I said as she laughed. “Seriously, Nana, you don’t need to buy me presents anymore.”

She pushed the box towards me. “I didn’t. It belonged to Pop.” I lifted the lid and pulled out two rings. “And me.”

I recognized the rings immediately—their wedding bands. “Nana, I can’t take these.”

She pulled them out and clasped her hand around the rings. “Pop carved these rings from an old piece of wood he found in an abandoned church. He couldn’t afford to buy me a diamond or even a simple gold band back then.” She smiled and a few tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Nana, I can’t take these. You should keep them.” Nana had put Pop’s wedding ring on her thumb after he died and never taken it off until now.

She shook her head. “Years later, when the wood was starting to show wear, he took the rings and had the titanium band added underneath.”

She placed them in my hand, and I looked at the thick, dark wood surrounded by a thin layer of titanium. They were beautiful, and I’d never seen anyone else with anything like it. I held them tightly in my hand.

“Read the band.”

I turned Pop’s ring over. “When something’s broken, fix it.” I looked at Nana’s ring, and it finished the saying, “Don’t throw it away.”

“Your Pop was a practical man. He knew we’d have tough times, troubles. But in all our years, we never gave up. We always fixed what was broken with us. It wasn’t always easy, but that’s the key to success, not just in marriage, but in life.”

I wondered if this was some not-so-subtle way of her telling me to fix what was broken between Rob and me.

“Of course, it also helps to have a short memory and find the humor in everything,” she said then closed my fist around the bands. She leaned down and kissed my fingers.

My throat was closed. I couldn’t get any words out. I missed Pop so much. He always knew what to do, what to say. I wrapped my arms around Nana. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of them.”

“Find someone to share them with.” She cupped my cheek then lightly slapped it. “Ok, let’s talk about Christmas plans. The whole family is going to Rob and Ellie’s this morning to watch Jack open his gifts. Then Christmas dinner is at your folks’ house.”

“Dinner is fine, but I won’t go to Rob’s house.”

She finished up her eggs. “I figured.”

I tilted my head and waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “You’re not going to try to convince me, twist my arm, guilt me, coerce me?”

She laughed and got up from her stool, putting her dirty plate in the dishwasher. “No, but I hate the idea of you being alone most of the day.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Nana started for the doorway and turned back. “I wouldn’t mind if you invited someone over. You’d have the whole house to yourselves.”

I was sure I just stopped breathing. Surely, my eighty-year-old grandmother was not suggesting what I thought. “Nana?”