Page 29 of Betting Blind
“Oh my gosh,” I huff, “that was incredible.”
He kisses me gently on the lips, but guilt washes over me. “Wait.” I pull him back when he starts to move. It’s got to be painful for him to not have release himself.
“Don’t worry about me. Watching you is all the pleasure I need,” he says deeply, making me flush all over again. If he can do that with his hands… I nearly tremble just thinking what it would be like to have sex with this man. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
Once his feet are on the ground, I stand on wobbly legs at the edge of the tailgate and reach for his hand to help me down, but he wraps his arms around my legs, throwing me over his shoulder like a Neanderthal.
“Jack!” I protest, but the only response I get is a firm smack on my rear as he takes off, running circles around his truck. I’m laughing so hard I’m snorting as I playfully swat his back, hollering at him to release me. “You’re gonna pay for this!” I yell, but he ignores me.
“I can’t give you what you want.”
His earlier words bounce around in my skull the same way I’m bouncing against his shoulder. I’m not supposed to enjoy him this way, but it’s hard to keep my silly heart from swelling. I finally have some excitement in my boring life, and I’m not so eager to let it go.
Chapter 14
Jack
It’s nice out for a Sunday evening. There’s a slight breeze, and the summertime sun is still giving us plenty of daylight. I catch the scent of smoke floating from a grill as I get out of my truck, momentarily closing my eyes and breathing in a lungful of warm air.
Friday night was unbelievable. Cassidy’s soft moans still echo in my brain, and I try my best not to picture her beautiful breasts or the way her body fit perfectly against mine. She matches my hard edges with her soft ones, and if I’m not careful, I just might fall for her. Glancing down at my gym shorts, I smirk. Don’t want to give Derrick an unexpected surprise.
The two of us meet up every Sunday to go over all things money and budget. He’s not only my confidant, but he’s also my bookkeeper—a responsibility he takes as seriously as watching out for me and my bonehead brother.
Ben never returned my phone call. I take my phone out to check my messages and see that our text thread is practically barren. Odd, but not terribly unlike him. Sometimes he goes a day or two without responding to me, and I’m sure my voice message pissed him off pretty good. I can only hope he’s lying low somewhere, not causing any trouble.
Walking through the entrance of The Pound, my eyes wander over the space, and I’m already imagining the things I’m going to do to fix it up. I want my guys and Cassidy to be proud of where they work, instead of being afraid that the ceiling tiles will break over their heads at any moment.
A sinking feeling settles deep in my stomach when I remember that this was Cassidy’s last weekend working for me. How can that be possible? These three weeks have passed quickly, yet I remember every moment we’ve spent together as if they just happened.
The woman drives mewild.
I’ve got to be the biggest idiot in this town for getting involved with her when I know damn well I can’t give her anything more than a quick fuck and a paycheck. But how can I help myself when she struts around me with lingering, tempting touches while throwing mischievous glances from across the room the way she did last night?
She’d licked her plump pink lips as she poured beers for the table of men she was serving, winking at me as she pretended to flirt with them, and God as my witness, I almost passed out from the blood rush to my groin. When she slipped off to the back, I sneakily followed her into the locker room. She knew I was there, but the way she teased me by not turning around and then pretending to be startled when I grabbed her from behind thrilled me to the point of almost stripping her right there.
Spinning her around so her back rested against the cool metal, I kissed her hard as she rubbed her body against me, giving me the gift of those soft little moans again. She nipped my ear, leaning back with a playful smile on her pretty lips, and I palmed her ass, closing any distance between our bodies. I loved the little gasp she made at the feel of my hard-on against her.
Speaking of hard-ons… I look down to see that I’m pitching a tent in my thin shorts like a teenager. Shaking the thoughts of sex from my mind, I tuck myself in the waistband and hang a left from the main floor to my office. Clearly, I’ve failed miserably at keeping her at arm’s length. Now that we’ve breeched that barrier of intimacy… there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her, and that thought absolutely terrifies me.
“Hey, man,” I greet Derrick and he gives me a classic “what’s up” head nod. My office space is bland and simple, with only a few filing cabinets and two beat-up chairs sitting in front of my desk—one of which Derrick is occupying with his feet propped up on the corner.
“I don’t have good news,” he says grimly. My eyes fall on several binders sitting open on my desk, and I sit, carefully scanning over each of our financial pages for this year.
Slamming the books closed several minutes later, I look at D. The sympathy pinching his brows together only angers me further, but I know he’s distraught to be caught between two brothers he thinks of as his own. “This is ridiculous. Two hundred dollars missing last week. That leaves us eight hundred dollars short this month alone.”
His mouth forms a tight line as I clasp my hands together and roll my thumbs around each other quickly.
“I don’t understand how he could do this to me… to us!” I rake a hand roughly through my hair before slapping my palm down on the cheap wooden surface of my desk. The action startles Derrick enough that he lowers his legs to the ground. “I’ve let this go on for far too long.”
Eight hundred dollars may not be devastating, but the thought of dipping into the cash I’ve saved to renovate this place just to be able to pay the mortgage makes my skin itch.
“What’s gotten into him lately, man? It’s like he doesn’t give a shit about this place anymore,” Derrick says, staring off. The words he doesn’t speak are loud and clear—Ben doesn’t care aboutusanymore.
Lately, he’s been harder to get a hold of, and it’s gnawing at me that he’d leave me hanging like this for days on end. The Ben I know wouldn’t steal from me or our business, especially after everything we’ve been through to get to where we are now. I know he’s been doing some sketchy shit these last few months, and that’s on me for enabling him, but something about all of this doesn’t sit right with me.
“Derrick, in all the time you’ve known Ben, what is the one thing you would say without a doubt that you know about him?”
He taps his chin thoughtfully. “He’s always there. For you, for me, for anyone.”
