Spiked Lemonade: A Bad Boy Sailor and a Good Girl Romantic Comedy Standalone (14 page)

Cali stands and lifts Tyler up, twisting her around so she’s on her back and hanging from her neck like a monkey. “Let’s go, kiddo. You have school tomorrow,” she says to her.

Okay, so now Jags and I are alone at a kitchen table with one small light hanging over our heads. Totally not awkward. At all.
So awkward
. “Did you see the storm coming in?” he asks. His question seems hesitant as if he were suddenly nervous to talk to me now that everyone else is gone.
That’s not the Jags I’ve come to know.

“No, I had no idea. I hadn’t turned on the Weather Channel today,” I tell him.

“Yeah, we’re gonna get lots of rain and high winds, I guess.” We’re talking about the weather. Isn’t this the epitome of all uncomfortable conversations between men and women?

I stand up, seeing he’s done eating, but before I have a chance to grab my plate from the table, his hand wraps around my wrist. “Hey,” he says, his voice hoarse and husky. Reacting to his touch and this one simple word, my heart pounds tersely a few times, warning me it’s reacting once again to this man who I don’t want to be attracted to. Since I’m standing and he’s sitting, I look down at him, waiting for him to continue his drawn-out silent thought. “Thank you for making me dinner. I’ve been eating diner food for more than a year now. I had forgotten what real food tastes like, and I don’t really remember the last home-cooked meal I’ve had.” This kind of breaks my heart.

“You don’t know how to cook?” I ask.

“I can fix missing limbs but not a steak,” he says through a shameful chuckle. “I’m sort of inept in the kitchen.”

“Well,” I say, exhaling through my shaky breaths. “I’m happy to cook a meal for you whenever you’d like. I love to cook.”

His hand is still around my wrist, and he squeezes a little tighter. All the while, I’m still looking at him, and he’s still looking at me with this endearing look in his eyes like he wants to thank me again or something. Maybe just the
something
. “Also,” he says, releasing his grip. “I’m sorry about that picture earlier. I was just trying to tease you but…that backfired.”

I nod my head, feeling very uncomfortable talking about this again. “Don’t mention it.” I really mean that as I walk into the kitchen with a handful of plates. Who sincerely apologizes for sending a woman a…dick picture, or whatever it’s called?

Jags silently follows me into the kitchen with another handful of plates and grabs a dish rag to dry the dishes I’m now cleaning.

Thirty minutes of scrubbing and drying goes by without a word shared between the two of us, and it might be the most comfortable I’ve felt with him since the first time we met. Now that all of the dishes are clean, though, something has to be said. “I’ll take the couch tonight. You can have the bed,” I tell him.

“Nah, I’d rather have the couch, but thank you,” he says.

I wipe my hands off on the dish towel and place it down on the counter. “Well, okay, I’m going to go wash up unless you need the bathroom first.”

Why is my heart beating so fast right now? Why does my stomach hurt? What is happening? I want to push away the feelings running through me. Jags’s hand sweeps across my lower back, and I just don’t know what’s going on right now. I’m having a hard time looking up at him, but curiosity forces my gaze up to his face.

There is no expression on his face, however. No tell-all sign of what’s going on in his head. With the silence acting as a building pressure between the two of us, a loud blast of thunder rumbles through the house, and the lights follow with a flicker.

Another flicker.

And another flicker.

Then darkness.

The entire house has gone pitch black, and Jags’s hand tightens around me. “Are you scared of the dark?” he whispers into my ear.

“I haven’t been before this moment,” I respond.

JAGS

WHAT I WANT
to do in this obviously perfect situation can’t happen. Sasha can only handle me in small doses, and I don’t know how many sweet glances I need to give her before it will cover up the grime coming out of my mouth every other minute of the day. She’s shaking beneath my grip, and I don’t know if it’s because I scare her or if she’s scared of feeling something she doesn’t want to feel for me. Usually, the women I have in a dark room are half in the bag or so drugged, they think I look like some hot celebrity. It happened more in Boston than anywhere else I’ve ever been, but regardless, Sasha is neither here nor there in that department, which means I’m probably just scaring her.

“Do you know where any of their flashlights are?” I ask her.

Sasha reaches around me, forcing her body up against mine, forcing a part of my body to poke out against hers.
Oops
. I feel her body stiffen, probably with shock.
I can’t control this thing, sorry.
She’s probably sorry right now too. I hear the drawer behind me slide open and maybe I could be a gentleman and move out of the way to let her grab the flashlight she’s looking for, but I don’t move because I’m curious to see what she’s going to do. I can assume she’s pretty aware that my dick is pressed against her stomach, but strangely she hasn’t moved away from it. I hear her wrestling around with the junk in the drawer followed by a click of a button and a light shining into my face. “Do you have a license to carry that thing?” she asks.

Her question, honest to God, takes my breath away. I cannot for one second believe that sweet, innocent Sasha just asked me that very question, something I would definitely ask if I were in her situation. “I do have a license to carry my dick, actually. Didn’t know they handed those out, did you?”

“Can’t say I did,” she says weakly. I’m taking this girl’s breath away.

“Yeah, they only hand them out to the gifted and talented,” I continue.

Another breath goes missing.

“Gifted and talented?” she asks through laughter.

“Well, one must be gifted and talented to lift heavy machinery and also know how to use it properly.” That did it. Sasha has created an abundance of space between us.

“You’re not really sorry for attempting to send me a picture of your…”

“Dick?” I laugh. “No, I’m not really sorry for showing off my biggest and best asset.”

“I think you’re just being cocky,” she tells me.

“Cocky?” I argue, chuckling, as I lean up against the counter behind me.

“Did you put a filter on your picture? I mean, I
have
always heard that things appear larger on screen.” Is she really asking me these questions? Because this is fucking awesome.

“I should have hash-tagged the image with #nofilter. Would you have believed me then?”

“There’s no way,” she continues arguing. Is she looking for me to prove it to her?

“How many dicks have you seen, Miss Sasha?”

She may be holding the flashlight up to my chest, but the glow allows me to see her eyes clenched shut. “That’s none of your business,” she snaps.

“And the girth of my dick is none of your business, but yet, you’re questioning my honesty about it.” She can’t argue with that.

Her eyes open and I don’t think she knows I can see her face right now, but she’s looking down at the crotch of my pants. “I can see where you’re looking.” Her gaze shoots up to my face, obviously embarrassed to be caught staring. “Do you want to touch it?” I ask. “It’s the only way I can prove myself to you.” Laughter rumbles through me, knowing she’s likely going to freak out in less than a second.

“No!” she snaps. “I don’t want to touch your…”

“Just say-y-y-y-y it,” I tell her.

“No.”

“I bet Landon was the size of a string bean. Am I right?” I keep pushing forward, waiting for her to totally snap. I shouldn’t get pleasure from the thought of her squirming in her pants, but I do.

“Landon’s penis is none of your business, either.”

“Wow, you said penis. I have to say, I’m kind of impressed,” I tell her. “It was small, though, wasn’t it?” After a few long seconds of silence, I reach behind me, grabbing the refreshed glass of Jack I had been sipping and hand it to her. “Here, you need this.”

“I don’t drink whisky,” she says.

“You don’t appreciate big dicks either. Do you know why?” I love that she hasn’t slapped me and walked away by this point. I am pretty sure she won’t give me an answer, though. “It’s because you haven’t tried either, isn’t it?”

Still no answer. I press the ice-cold glass up to her chest, and she recoils from the iciness. “Try it.”

Her eyes are locked on mine with either confusion, question, or maybe she’s just trying to figure me out. I’m not sure which it is, but there is a determination of some sort swimming in her blue eyes. Her nose flares a little—pretty much the cutest thing I’ve ever seen—and she snatches the glass from my hand, placing the rim up to her plump lips. I’m not sure she’ll actually go through with this but somewhere inside of my fucked up head, I believe if she tries the whisky, she’ll try something else she hasn’t tried before too. She’s had the glass between her lips for way too long and it’s given her a chance to inhale the strong scent—that alone could make someone not want to try it.

An arch of her brow hints at a side of her I hadn’t expected to see. She tilts the glass a little more and I expect her to touch her tongue to it and call it a win, but instead she downs at least two shots’ worth.
Oh shit
. She’s going to puke that up.

Her eyes shut tightly and I hear the whisky struggle down her throat. The second it hits her stomach, that’s it. I grab her arm and bring her over to the sink. “Damn, girl. I didn’t think you were going to drink half the glass. That’s whisky not lemonade.”

She lets out a loud “Woot!” and I’m shocked. Like, utterly shocked. This little Southern belle with perfect blonde curls, red lipstick, and a white sun dress is standing before me with a cocky-ass grin on her face right after she downs way too much straight-up Jack. Someone needs to pinch me right now because I might have just fallen in love with her.

“You haven’t had whisky before?” I ask again.

“Nope,” she says with a croak in her voice. “It was good, though.”

A glaze quickly covers her eyes and a smile larger than I’ve ever seen her stretches across her lips. “There, maybe now you’ll lay off my case,” she says, slurring her words a bit.

“Well, no,” I argue. “I can’t lay off your case. You’re still missing out on other things.”

She shifts her weight to her right foot and crosses her arms over her chest while still holding the flashlight between us. “I’m not sure I’m missing out on anything,” she says.

“You didn’t think you were missing out on whisky just a minute ago, either,” I tell her.

Her free hand drops, like she’s frustrated with me, which is exactly what I was going for. What I wasn’t going for, or necessarily trying for, is what she’s doing right now. Her small hand shoots out and firmly grips my cock. To say this is shocking the hell out of me is a complete understatement. With no control wanting to be had, I harden immediately within her hand. I didn’t exactly ask for this, but I sure as hell am not complaining either. I love that I can still see her eyes right now. They’re large. They’re surprised. This is awesome. I’d like her hand to stay right-t-t-t-t like this for the rest of the night.

“If you move your hand up a little, then down, that would be just perfect.”

Gambling my last statement, I lose the hand. Literally. “Jags,” she says. “I’m a little afraid of what would happen if I did that.” The words drawl with her cute southern accent, which sounds enhanced under the influence of whisky.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, doll-face. I’ll keep you safe,” I say quietly.

“I think I’d need a lot more whiskey to be convinced of coming any closer.” Drunken women are usually the only ones who will come near me anyway, so it isn’t a huge shock to hear this.

“That’s what they all say,” I tell her.

The look on her face changes, like I just said something hurtful to her. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says. “But it’s nice to know that’s what
they
all say.”

Jack has a way about him. Almost always, he brings something good to the table, but then it’s normally followed up with something real shitty. Like this. “What can I say?” I finish the deal off.

“How many women have
you
been with, Mr. Jags?” We’re back to the Mr. Jags shit now?

“That’s none of your business,” I use her own words against her. In truth, I couldn’t come up with an accurate number. Sex is like water, it makes up seventy percent of my life, and right now I’m very dehydrated and no closer to a nice cold glass than I was six hours ago. God knows I can’t get an actual girlfriend so I do what I have to do. “Let me tell you this, Miss Sasha. A man who has been with too many women is obviously a man no woman wants to love. Think of it that way instead of considering me a manwhore.” Using this as my exit strategy since I now feel like a million fucking bucks, I grab the rest of the Jack from her hand, leaving her so I can go find the sheets and shit for the couch.

“Jags,” she calls out after me.

“People are sleeping,” I tell her.

“Stop,” she says again.