With This Fling (Summersweet Island 5)

“Good morning, Dean!” Karen greets me as she slides off the freezer. “What brings you out on this crappy morning?”

The sky has been cloudy and overcast since dawn, sprinkling off and on as soon as the sun came up and refused to shine. It started coming down again pretty hard, luckily right when I walked through the back door and not when I was out in it. Which is the reason Laura and Karen were able to have so much uninterrupted girl chat without having to stop for customers. I only passed two other people on my way here. Everyone seems to be staying indoors, waiting for the rain to pass.

“Oh, nothing much,” I tell Karen, stopping in front of Laura and handing her a large coffee with two sugars and a splash of cream from Island Brew. “Mr. Big Cock just had a coffee delivery for Ms. Sugar Pus—”

Laura’s hand quickly flies up to clamp over my mouth before I can finish. Her cheeks flush, and her nose crinkles up in that adorable way when she’s trying to give me a mean look.

“You need a bell around your neck.” She shakes her head at me.

I grin against her palm. And then I behave like a toddler instead of a fifty-seven-year-old man by licking her hand.

She lets out a laughing squeal as she jerks her palm off my mouth and wipes it on her shorts, and all I can do is smile down at her like an idiot. I missed her. Nine hours without her and it felt like nine years.

She’s going to spend the night with me tonight if I have to tie her to the bed.

Laura takes a sip of her coffee and lets out a long moan that goes right to my dick. Then she steps up to me, presses a hand against my chest as she pushes up on her toes, and smacks her lips against mine. “Thanks for the coffee.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, a shocked look comes over her face, and she pulls back from me with a jerk. Like she can’t believe she just did that. Even I can’t believe she just did that, and I can still feel the heat from her lips against mine and still feel her hand resting on my chest like she just branded those areas with a hot iron. It was so natural. So easy. She just stepped right into me without thinking about it and gave me a kiss for the coffee. Like it’s something we do all the time. Like I bring her coffee every morning, say something to annoy her, and still get a kiss for my trouble.

“Oh no you don’t.” I shake my head at her when she tries to take another step back from me. Snaking my arm around her waist, I haul her against me, dipping my head and giving her a proper kiss. Part of me does it because I know it will annoy her that I’m doing this in front of Karen. But the majority of me does it because I fucking need to.

She keeps her arm holding the coffee out to the side so it doesn’t spill, but as soon as my tongue pushes past her lips, her free hand comes up to curl around the back of my neck. I take my time, memorizing everything about the taste and feel of kissing her, locking it away in case I ever have to go this long without it again. Laura sighs into my mouth, and her body melts right into mine like she’s been counting down the minutes until we could do this again, just like I have.

“Don’t mind me; I know the way out.” Karen laughs from a few feet away, making me end the kiss even though that’s absolutely the last thing I want to do.

I don’t let go of my tight hold on Laura, and she doesn’t try to pull away for once. Her hand moves from the back of my neck, sliding it around and down until it’s resting in the center of my chest again. She doesn’t even look over her shoulder as she nods and says a distracted goodbye to her friend. Her eyes stay locked on mine.

“Hi,” she finally says shyly when it’s just the two of us alone in the stand, with the sounds of whirring ice cream machines and the rain pounding against the roof enveloping us.

“Hi yourself.” I smile back, running my hand up and down her spine, watching her eyes flutter closed, and a contented sigh comes out of her when my hand wraps around the back of her neck and starts rubbing the stress out.

“I didn’t hear your motorcycle pull up. I hope you didn’t get caught with it out in this rain.” Her eyes slowly open back up to look at me, and for a minute, I forget what she just said. There’s nothing quite like having Laura’s eyes on me. Looking up at me with her head cocked to the side, a smile tipping up the corner of her lips, and making a dimple pop in the center of her cheek that I want to kiss.

So I do.

She giggles a little when I kiss the indent in her cheek, scratching my facial hair against her skin before pulling back.

“Left the bike in the hotel garage. Felt like going for a walk and getting some air, so LaVon let me borrow an umbrella.”

A brave soul who also decided to go for a walk in the rain steps up to the serving window behind Laura right then, collapsing her umbrella and shaking the water off of it when she gets under the cover of the awning. Unfortunately, I have to let go of Laura and let her do her job. She moves away from me and sets her coffee down on the counter, greeting the young woman with a chipper smile and telling her about a special she’s running today, while I happily watch her work.

“Do you have any plans about two hours from now?” Laura asks me after getting the customer’s order and turning away from the window.

I’d like to tell her my only plans for the day include getting her naked again as fast as possible, but I decide to wait until there’s not a customer standing right here. Grabbing a Styrofoam bowl from under the counter next to me, I hand it to Laura for the woman’s hot fudge sundae order.

“Not that I know of. The wedding schedule says we’re free until movie night on the beach later tonight. As long as it stops raining.”

“Yeah, Birdie has been blowing up my phone all morning, freaking out about the weather,” she speaks a little louder over the noise of the ice cream machine as she fills up the bowl.

As soon as Laura finishes making the sundae, she walks by me from the industrial fridge where she just loaded it up with whipped cream, taking the spoon and napkins out of my hand that I grabbed and held out for her.

“So, two hours from now… would you be able to come back here, help me unload a delivery, and put everything away? It should be here around eleven and will only take about a half hour with the two of us.” Laura looks away from me to hand the sundae through the window, ring up the order on the register, and give the woman her change, chatting to her the entire time about the rain. “Thanks for stopping by! Stay dry!”

I have to swallow past a fucking lump in my throat when she so easily asks me for help, then turns right around and charms a customer with her sunny disposition, like this isn’t a big fucking deal. Like she didn’t just casually ask me to help her, the same way she was talking about the weather. The fact that she could even say the words “help me” without forcing them out or rolling her eyes makes me feel like I could pick up a car and chuck it down the street like a baseball.

“Y-Yeah, yep, no problem,” I stutter, nodding and acting like something didn’t just happen here. Something big. “Although Bodhi did send me a text right before I got here that just said ‘help.’ I should probably see what that’s about.”

Laura walks up to me, tapping the side of my hip with her hand to get me to move. “Oh God, that’s probably about the baby.” She sighs, opening the cupboard under the counter where I slid out of the way and pulling out a huge bag of Reese’s Pieces.