Booty and the Beast, page 6
She underestimated me. I might’ve been insulted if I wasn’t about to get laid.
“Only twenty?” I asked. “I can go all night.”
“Twenty will be more than enough, especially since this will get very uncomfortable.”
“I’m pretty adventurous.”
“I don’t have time to explain.”
“I’m not naïve. I don’t need much instruction.”
“Good,” she said. “Because if you do this right, we’ll both get what we want.”
Innocent little girl.
“I’ll do it twice if you let me.”
Her phone buzzed once more. She didn’t read it, just waved me down the hall.
“Give me five minutes,” she said. “Then I want the only words out of your mouth to be yes, Charisma. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Who was she kidding?
The minx had already purred for me. She was more than ready. Eager.
I stripped off my shirt before I reached her bedroom. The pants came next.
Fuck, I knew I had a good kiss, and I had moves that would make the devil himself envious, but I had no idea it’d work so easily.
But that was the privilege of a man with nothing left to lose. It made it easy to pretend that he had everything.
I’d clawed, scraped, and fought for all that I had in this life.
After tonight, I’d have Charisma.
And after her, I’d have my rightful spot on the Ironfield Rivets.
3
Charisma
A girl didn’t often get cause for good old-fashioned payback these days. But when an opportunity presented itself? Oh, it wasn’t a bitch.
I was.
And what fun I had doing it.
Sure, kissing Nick Hart was idiotic, foolish, and reckless. But my inner sixteen-year-old had dreamt of it since the first day I realized I’d had a crush on the man who would ultimately destroy my entire high school existence.
Besides, I had a plan.
A devious, sneaky, totally fool-proof plan that only a man like Nick could fulfill.
And if that meant teasing the prick—both him and the monster that had strained his jeans?
All. The. Better.
My doorknob rattled, and I took the brief moment of peace to ensure my clothing wasn’t wrinkled, panties hadn’t miraculously landed in Nick’s pocket, and my lipstick didn’t make me look like I’d just street walked my way across the Ohio River Bridge.
After all, I worked damned hard to ensure I was presentable, respectable, and picture perfect every minute of every day. Neat hair. Well-manicured nails. No uninvited hunk of manmeat wedged between my teeth.
I’d wasted my teenage years feeling terrible about myself. Now that I had complete and total control over my image, this wallflower was blossoming in full view of the garden.
Mom had a habit of knocking only to announce that she was letting herself inside. It’d started when I was six with my bedroom door and had become a quirky little tradition now that I was an adult…even after I’d removed the spare key from above the light fixture in the hallway outside my condo.
Hurricane Rhonda surged inside my home with the gale-force winds of a mother who had her eye fixed on a direct collision course with my love-life.
Mom was a lovely, vivacious woman with a big heart and bigger plans for me. She’d recently lost her own weight—a solid forty pounds. Of course, this only gave her more energy to which she directed toward me.
And her own wardrobe.
Today, Mom sported skin-tight purple jeans, a sheer white top, and a short leather jacket that would never close over her chest—the one part of her that hadn’t lost the weight.
That she liked best of all.
She bundled her hair with a lilac scarf, refused to believe she needed the reading glasses she used as an accessory on top of her head, and recently decided she loved earrings. The loopier, less practical, and more she looked like a Christmas tree, the better.
Today, she wore bells. Three dangled from each ear, tinkling as she burst into my condo.
“I know, I know.” Mom handed me a package in a plastic bag, reconsidered, and unwrapped it herself. “You hate when I do this.”
I hated a lot of the things she did.
“Gonna have to be more specific, Mom.”
She unveiled twin photographs in black frames and grinned. “I found your senior pictures from high school and couldn’t resist. You need a bit of home on these walls.”
“Where…” I chased after her as she began picking my art off the walls and measuring the frames in their place. “Where did you find those?”
Mom moved quick into the kitchen, and I followed the tinkling of her earrings before she decided to hang the portraits over the dining room table.
“They somehow got lost in the garage. I found them buried in your Dad’s box of car parts. Can’t imagine who…I mean…how they ended up there.”
I glared at the photos of me—about one hundred pounds heavier and a million times more miserable.
“I meant to burn them,” I said.
Mom scolded me. “Oh, Charisma. This is your past. No sense in hiding it.”
“I’m shunning it. There’s a difference.”
“Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous.” She spoke to the Charisma from the six-year-old portraits, but a lot more than weight had changed since then. “You should be proud of what you’ve done.”
“I am. But I’m proud in a very quiet way.”
“How about your bedroom?” Mom didn’t so much as ask as bulldoze straight through my home and down the hall. “That way you can see how far you’ve come each and every morning.”
“I don’t need reminders of high school anywhere near my bedroom, Mom.”
Except one.
Where the hell had Nick gone?
Mom’s surprised squeal answered that question.
Until that moment, I’d believed I had my life under control.
I’d lost the weight. Focused on my career. And, in the last fifteen minutes, I’d concocted a plan to detract my mother’s ultimate goal of matchmaking me with any walking, talking man—impotency notwithstanding.
Nick Hart managed to undermine everything by standing perfectly still…
And exposing himself to my mother.
“Hello…” Mom’s mouth dropped open. Her gaze dropped low, but it didn’t return to his face. “How do you do…and how do you do it…”
Nick had big, receiver’s hands. Great for catching a football.
Horrible for covering his own blitzers.
Was the man a bigger dick or ass? Christ only knew because both of those particular assets favored him.
Nick stood as a mountain of mouth-watering, knee-buckling perfection. Muscles atop muscles. Definition shadowing definition. I’d spent three years working with the Rivets, surrounding myself with the greatest athletes in the country. Nothing should have shocked me about rock hard abs, individually twitching pecs, or a defined V funneling my vision down, down, down over his abs, to his hips, and finally to the part of him ready for kickoff.
Drooling might have been appropriate, but my stunned, utterly humiliating gasp of pure surprise pleased him a little too much.
I practically licked my lips. Praised the Lord. Nearly patted my thighs and beckoned him to come to me.
In what universe was it even remotely fair that the biggest, thickest, most impressive beast should be attached to the world’s most frustrating dick?
I gritted my teeth. What the hell was wrong with me?
And, more importantly—what the hell was wrong with him?
Why was he naked?
Oh…this was going to make my plan very, very complicated.
“Mom…” I did my best to avoid staring directly at thickening manmeat unsuccessfully hidden between his cupped hands. “I want to introduce you to Nick Hart…my boyfriend.”
Nick’s wicked grin disappeared as Mom’s triumphant cackle filled the room.
Maybe it came six years too late, but, after catching Nick with his pants down—literally—I’d found the perfect moment to exact my revenge.
All Mom wanted for me was a man in my life.
Didn’t mean I had to like him.
Or care about him.
Or give a damn about him.
Nick Hart was a panty-twisting hunk of pure masculinity doused with charm and dripping with sexuality. And, in my mother’s opinion, he’d make a wonderful boyfriend for her daughter…
So wonderful that she’d never, even for a second, doubt that it wasn’t a fact.
No more matchmaking.
No more nagging.
No more micro-managing my life.
And for that, I had to thank the biggest bully of my past for saving my future.
“Your what?” Nick nearly released the hounds with a bewildered shrug of his shoulders.
“Your what?” Mom praised Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Jenny Craig. “My baby has a boyfriend?”
“You remember Nick…from high school?” I stared him down, voice straining. “We met up recently, and, well…”
Now he was naked in my bedroom.
Mom had yet to take her eyes from Nick. “Oh, of course. Nick! Yes, my baby found her high school sweetheart!”
She annunciated every excited word with a clap before turning to slap my shoulder.
“You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend!”
Nick smirked at me.
Suddenly, my foolproof plan had one very giant fool.
Me.
“Oh, it was real sudden,” Nick said.
“Well…it’s good to see you again…” Mom’s stare was anything but matronly. “All of you.”
Nick nodded. “I’d shake your hand, but…”
Just the implication nearly revealed everything he’d attempted to shield behind his palms.
She reached him anyway. “You wouldn’t want to be rude though—”
I hissed between my teeth. “Mom.”
“Oh, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She patted my cheek while fanning herself. “So, you’re sneaking a boy into your bedroom. It’s about time! Certainly never had that opportunity in high school.”
She didn’t need to remind me.
Or Nick.
I took her arm. “Let’s…let him get decent.”
“Oh, he’s fine.” Mom giggled to herself. “Just fine.”
I tugged her from the bedroom, but I hadn’t moved fast enough.
A sweet tenor voice called to her from the living room. I froze.
“You brought Dad?” I squealed.
Nick practically bolted to the window. Mom scrunched her face into a nervous smile.
“No…no, that’s not Daddy,” she said. “I didn’t know you had company…”
Oh, this was much worse.
“Rhonda?” The sophisticated voice echoed through my home. “The door was still open, so I thought I’d pop in…”
A stranger appeared in my bedroom—an exquisitely dressed, utterly handsome, thoroughly delicious black man. His shoes were designer. His glasses this year’s style. His waist snug and trim beneath a bubblegum pink vest.
His eyes completely passed over me, widened as he surveyed Nick’s naked body, and nearly watered with tears of joy.
“Oh, thank you, Lord,” he said. “I knew I’d been a good boy this year.”
Nick tightened his hold over his own good boys and cleared his throat.
“Kayden!” Mom wrapped the man in a deep hug, as if she weren’t standing in her daughter’s bedroom with a naked man within arm’s reach. “So glad you stopped by. I wanted to introduce you to my daughter.”
Of course.
Only my mother would round up random strangers, give them my address, welcome them into my home, and then attempt to sit us down with coffee while sampling wedding cake.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Mom, are you setting me up inside my own house?”
She had a pleasant, chittery laugh. Kind of like a squirrel…only nuttier.
And probably rabid.
“Oh, I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said. “It’s been so long since you’ve seen anyone, Charisma…at least…with clothes on.”
Nick nodded towards Kayden. “Hey. How’s it going?”
Mistake.
Kayden had a delightfully dimpled smile.
Unfortunately, he reserved it only for Nick.
“Oh…” Kayden sucked in a fierce breath between his teeth. “A lot better now, that’s for sure.”
“Okay—everyone out. Let’s let Nick find his pants.” I pinched Mom before she settled on my bed to watch. “That goes double for you.”
“Fine, fine.” Mom held her arms up. “Let the man get dressed…only if that’s what he wants.”
“Mom.”
I shuffled my reluctant mother and her equally hesitant suitor from my room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy to get rid of Nick.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered between bared teeth. “Why are you naked?”
He relaxed, shrugging his shoulders. I turned, but not in time. I received a front-row seat to most of his endzone and plenty of goalposts.
“I thought you were hitting on me,” Nick said.
“I wasn’t, but I’m gonna pummel you now!” I kicked his pants towards him. “Get dressed! I need you to play along.”
“I usually know the rules before playing the game.”
“You’re my boyfriend. We’re dating. You’re madly in love with me.”
“Should I ask why…?”
I could practically taste my freedom. “No time. Don’t screw this up for me.”
“What do I get out of it?”
Couldn’t believe I was bargaining with a naked man in my bedroom, and I was begging him to put clothes on.
I’d loathe myself in the morning.
“A try-out with the Rivets,” I said. “Can you manage this?”
His smile tortured me, and, for a moment, I feared he could see me without clothes too.
“I’m willing to give it a shot…but let’s agree on safe words before you invite your mother to our foreplay next time.”
I pitched his shirt at his head and slammed the door behind me.
If only he knew the real catastrophe that awaited us.
Hurricane Rhonda had made landfall, and neither of us were prepared.
Most days, my mother deluged me as a Category One storm—simply pestering me about a nice boy she met at the grocery store or passively commenting on my cousin’s wedding invitations, reception hall, or ex-husband who was now ripe for the plucking. Unfortunately, I hadn’t storm-proofed my house before Rhonda barreled inside as a Cat Five, dragging most of the fish in the sea with her.
I loved my mother—but she didn’t always have the best tastes. Sure, she’d latched onto a good-looking, sophisticated, well-mannered man in Kayden…but somehow she’d missed that he seemed more interested in Nick.
Kayden ran his hand over my sofa’s decorative pillows. “I just love these.”
Oh, that didn’t surprise me. “Uh…I think we have a little…misunderstanding here.”
Kayden agreed. He turned to Mom. “When you said you wanted me to meet your daughter, was the barrel-chested, brown-eyed, slice of beefcake also included…or can I take him ala cart?”
I sighed. “This is why you call first, Mom.”
“I let you know we were outside,” she grinned. “Could’ve used a few more minutes warning though, huh?”
Mom was the sort of woman who expressed her delight with flower deliveries, teddy bear presents, and rented barber shop quartets. Maybe I could talk her out of the newspaper announcement.
Indecent Daughter Destroys Dry-Spell with Dirty Date.
I didn’t care about the slander, but I knew my mother too well. She’d use my high school portrait for the article.
Nick emerged from the bedroom without the least bit of shame. Or a shirt. He’d grabbed only his jeans, and even they didn’t hide much. His hardened, sun-kissed muscle begged for a touch…a kiss…a well-placed kick out of my house.
Was it too much for him to at least act modest?
Had my mother not been actively attempting to marry me off, his smirk might have been all I needed to strip down, huddle up, and score all night long.
Kayden gave a mournful sigh. “So…you’re her boyfriend?”
Nick crossed his arms just to pump those biceps. “Pretty hard to believe, huh?”
“It’s always the cute ones.”
Mom didn’t know whether to pout or celebrate. “And here I thought I’d bring Kayden over to spend a lovely evening together. He knows a wonderful tea shop across the street.”
Of course, he did.
“I hadn’t a chance to tell you yet, Mom,” I said.
“No, no.” She raised her hands up, summoning the guilt. “Far be it from your mother to know what’s happening in her daughter’s life. I’ll find out on Instagram…like any other stranger.”
“Let me explain.”
“No need,” she said. “Nick looks like he’s the full package.”
He was no help. Nick loved the attention.
“Tie me up in a bow, and I go great under a Christmas tree,” he offered.
“And I know where to stuff the ornaments.” I tapped my lips. “Hush.”
Kayden patted Mom’s shoulder. “Well…I see this isn’t going to happen, so I should get going.”
“So soon?” Mom asked.
“Third wheels only make things bumpy.” He bit his lip as he gazed at Nick. “Though I wouldn’t mind a ride. Anyway, did you want to write me a check?”
A sudden headache prickled my temples. I faced my mother with no expectations and yet she still managed to disappoint me.
“A check for what?” I asked.
“Fifty dollars,” he said.
Mom flinched.
Nick nearly keeled over the back of the couch. His laugh was a humiliation I hadn’t heard since high school.
She should’ve saved the fifty for my therapy. For twenty-four years, I’d avoided that leather couch in the doctor’s corner office. Pretty sure this would be the cherry on top of the dysfunction sundae that would pay for some lucky psychiatrist’s retirement.
