Page 21 of Best Man Speaking

You’d think out of sight, out of mind would’ve been enough to have rid me of any teenage, angst-driven attraction. But no. Hallie’s tongue is still as sharp as ever, and her ass is what my filthiest dreams are made of. While she isn’t a realistic part of my long-term plans, I’ll allow myself this opportunity to let my imagination run away with itself.

I already have the search terms for the porn I would be looking for: “blond” and “no face” being in the top two. I don’t need the sound and don’t want the faces. I want my own particular fantasy, and God, if I happen upon a hate fuck, it could almost be reality.

Turning onto my street, I instantly notice the car parked in my driveway, hoping against hope whoever’s staying in my pool house doesn’t want to talk. Because looking down at my jean-clad thighs, there’s no missing the imprint pressed against the denim.

I park on the street. It might be my driveway, but I’m not interested in being interrupted in order to move my truck. Grabbing my few folders and laptop case from the back seat, I make my way up the driveway and toward my door, holding in a groan as I hear the gate into the backyard open.

I’ve only just decided I won’t be a dick and ignore whomever the hell Julian set up to stay here when Hallie steps out. As if I’ve conjured her from my own filthy imagination, she comes to a halt in front of me, a slight sheen of perspiration on her forehead, her cheeks flushed.

I move my laptop down to cover my erection.

“I’m not here to rob you,” she says, hands raised, palms facing forward.

“Just some general run-of-the-mill stalking, then?” I ask as if my mind hadn’t been obsessing about her for hours now. The thought of her down on her knees, facing me…or facing away from me—I’m not picky.

“Sadly, not that either. Actually, it looks like I’m going to be staying here,” she says benignly. As if only yesterday, this exact situation wouldn’t have been a fate worse than death.

“And why the hell would you think that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t. Your brother just happens to be evil, and whatever the happy couple wants, the happy couple gets, apparently. Remember, he even gave us rules to follow.”

It’s in no way an explanation for what’s happening right now, and I have the feeling I’m not going to get one.

She moves around the trunk of her car as she talks, lifting a perfectly sealed brown storage box and moving back toward the gate. “Not to worry, though. I’m happy to pretend not to know you if you’re happy to do the same.”

Strangers. Yes, I definitely see myself being able to pretend I don’t know the woman I was just about to go jerk myself off to. Great idea.

Hallie staying here is a development I hadn’t planned on, and the urge to walk away to call Julian, demanding an explanation, is strong. However, words of disapproval aren’t the ones that trip off my tongue.

“Can I trust you not to break in and smother me in my sleep?” I ask.

“About as much as I can trust you not to spy on me through the bedroom window as I change.”

I smile as I place my laptop on one of the boxes, pick it up, and carry it into my backyard. A backyard that now holds a host of brown cardboard boxes, some stacked neatly in piles outside of the pool house, a few others open with belongings half pulled out.

“What the hell is all this?”

It looks like someone has unloaded their life onto my property.

Hallie stands after putting down the box she was carrying and moves her hands into her hair, undoing the elastic holding it in place. The long blond strands fall only for a moment before she lifts the weight of it back off her neck and ties it up once more.

The sensual nature of the movement is unintentional and completely hypnotic.

“This happens to be all evidence of my life up until the age of seventeen.”

I’d always known her parents were shit. They hadn’t deserved Hallie as a daughter and had treated her more like a paid staff member, happy to have her around if and when it suited them and their social needs.

A work-family barbecue? They had a darling daughter and couldn’t be more proud, ready to show her off, carting her around like a prized pet.

A cruise around the Caribbean? Or a week skiing in the French Alps? A child-free vacation for the summer and winter breaks it was. For a while, she’d been able to stay with her grandmother, but once she’d died, there’d been no one left to take care of Hallie. Between her parents and the damage I’d done, it’s no wonder she has commitment issues, happy to yo-yo between places and people. Julian hadn’t said much over the years, but I knew enough to know Hallie had kept her distance. A distance she insisted upon, whether inadvertently or not.

No matter how morbid, I’m curious now. The past is a common ground for us, if not a particularly comfortable one. I move closer to the boxes, peering into a few open ones. “Plenty of notebooks with my name scribbled inside them?”

“Hmm, maybe not a notebook, but I’m sure there’s a voodoo doll that looks like you with a pin right through its heart,” she replies without bothering to look at me as she moves around her things.

“Huh. I guess it didn’t work. I haven’t had many struggles with women.” I lift a brow in her direction as my eyes catch on a box with photos in it, another with an assortment of stuffed toys.

“I didn’t put the pin through the penis, genius, just the heart.”

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