“Ours?”
I leaned in, too, so both of us were close. So the two of us blocked out everything else. “You need a man touching you?”
“Men,” Colton corrected.
“You’ve got us right here, tiger.” I pointed between Colton and myself.
The blue of her eyes went darker, her cheeks flushed and her hand crumpled the order form. We watched as she took a moment to pull herself together, to fortify that fucking wall she put around her emotions. Inwardly, I grinned, for we were getting to her. Slowly, but surely.
She licked her lips, looked between the two of us. “Every day you stop in. Every day you ask me to go out with you and I say no. Don’t you take no for an answer?”
“If you really meant it,” Colton said seriously. Neither of us would force our intentions on a woman. But we knew the signs of when a woman wasn’t interested and Ava hadn’t shown any one of them. Ava was just scared. I didn’t blame her. We were bossy men. Intense. We wanted everything from her, but we would give her the same in return. We wouldn’t treat her half-assed like Roscoe did his wife. Hell, I hadn’t even glanced at another woman since I laid eyes on Ava. Only thought of her—those fiery eyes, thought of her tiny hands trying to wrap themselves around my dick, wondering if her pussy was bare or if she had a little strip of hair pointing the way to heaven—when I rubbed one out in the shower. Every fucking day. We’d love her completely. Fuck her completely. Cherish her.
“Sugar, a woman’s nipples don’t go all hard for men she doesn’t want.”
She glanced down and sure enough, two hard points poked against her flannel. Instantly, she crossed her arms, blushed prettily. As if that was going to keep me from thinking about the color of those tight tips, how they’d feel in my mouth.
Colton reached out, brushed a knuckle down the side of her neck. “A woman’s pulse doesn’t race for men who don’t make her hot.”
“We’re patient men, Ava,” I told her. “We’ll wait for you to switch your no to a yes.”
I could smell strawberries and, of course, that meant I was as hard as a fence post in the middle of the Seed and Feed.
Again. Fuck.
Realizing she was sinking into us, she stepped back, tilted up her chin. Fortified those defenses. “In the meantime, you’ll continue to kick men out of my store? I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“We know what you need.”
Those words lit the fire in her eyes, just like I wanted. Yeah, I sounded bossy as fuck, but I had a feeling, deep down, she liked her men in charge. At least in the bedroom.
“Do you always argue and bicker with the woman you want?” she asked.
I glanced at Colton, then turned to look at Ava again. Grinned.
“Sugar, this isn’t bickering.”
The bell above the entrance jingled, signaling we were no longer alone.
“Oh, what is it then?”
“Foreplay.”
2
AVA
* * *
Bossy men. They were everywhere. My father was the king of that annoying universe. I’d left Denver, and his powerful thumb, behind. Like I was going to go for an arranged marriage. I huffed out a laugh at the thought.
Smile, nod and say “I do” just because that was what Daddy wanted? Yeah, right.
And to be stuck with Casper Johnston the Third—or Perry, for short—for the rest of my life? Fuck, no. We’d dated. No, he’d escorted me to functions, parties, tennis matches. People had thought we were together. Hell, he had, too, and so had my father. Absolutely not. Fuck no.
He might be my father’s right-hand man, powerful and rich in his own right, but I didn’t care about any of that. The fancy house, country club, private schools for little Perrys. I didn’t want to marry a corporate VP, for that’s what I’d get with Perry. Married to the executive position. I’d be Mrs. VP.
What I wanted was to marry