Hate You Not

I’ve got something I could put in that mouth.

I clamp my molars on the inside of my cheek and tell myself to get a fucking grip. I work so much, I’m hardly ever with a single woman for more than an hour or two—not unless you count the women that I work with, and I don’t, because I’d never fuck someone from work.

Unfortunately for me, June is billboard beautiful, like one of the old-school cover girls I used to jerk off to when I was thirteen, and she also seems to hate me. Every time she rolls her eyes or sends a glare my way, it makes me want to carry her to bed and fuck a smile onto those soft lips.

At the very moment I think that, right as my dick is twitching like it’s ready for a party, she flicks her eyes over at me and then digs something out of her purse. And that something is a little tub of lip stuff.

Fuck me. She rubs her finger in the pale pink stuff and starts to smear it on her lips, and I’m hard. Just like that. One pass of her finger over that full lower lip, and if she looks my way—if she looks down below the steering wheel—she’ll see my dick outlined in black denim.

My dick that hasn’t fucked in almost three months. My dick that could have gotten play at a fundraiser last week had I not been in a weird place because of Asher. My little brother. Who is dead.

Even saying those words in my head doesn’t put my over-eager dick back in its place. I grit my teeth.

“I didn’t see this place when I drove through before,” I say as I turn onto the paved county road.

“Probably because you don’t know where it is.”

She pops her lips together just a little, and I grit my teeth.

“Yeah. I don’t.”

She does something new with her mouth. Is that a smirk? I can’t tell without shifting my eyes from the road, but I think it is. A little fucking smirk. I let my breath out, trying to be quiet about it.

“You gonna tell me?” I ask.

“Unless you have mind-reading capabilities and plan to read it from my brain, I guess I’ll have to, won’t I?”

I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing. I guess I do a lousy job of keeping my amusement off my face, because she says, “What?”

I hold my hands up. “I didn’t say anything.”

“It would be ideal if you could hold onto the wheel.”

“I had it with my knee.” I put both hands around the wheel again, still trying to hide how damn much I’m enjoying this.

“Do you even drive?” I know the muttered question wasn’t mean to be voiced, because her jaw drops in surprise just after she asks.

“Do I drive?” This time I can’t help a laugh. “You mean at home?” I grin at her. “You think my driving skills are shit, huh?”

“I think what you mean is crap.” She lifts an eyebrow, reminding me the kids are right behind us.

“Why wouldn’t I drive?”

She lifts a shoulder, staring out the window with her jaw set like she’s feeling stubborn.

“All that money,” she drawls after a second.

“You think I use my money to pay someone else to drive me around?”

She makes a soft sound, maybe a snort, but I can’t tell because I’m turning left, so I’m focused on the road. “People do it,” she says.

“That’s true.” People I know do it. “But I don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Oliver says. He leans up toward us, then looks out the window. “I just saw a cow!”

“I want to see a cow,” Margot says.

“That money I offered you,” I say quietly to June, “was because I care about this. Not because I have plenty to throw around.”

She snorts loudly. “Oh, puh-lease. I know how to navigate to Wikipedia, believe it or not. And Forbes, and the San Francisco Chronicle. I even have a little bitty sort of photographic memory. So anyway, don’t give me that baloney sandwich.”

I chuckle at that. “Baloney is for people who can’t afford bologna, you know.”

She throws her head back, rolling her eyes. “They’re the same thing, Burke Bug.”

I wink, looking over at her as I roll up to a stop sign.

“Mama knows her Oscar Mayer.” She smiles. Then, without looking at me, she turns around and talks to the kids between our seats until we’re on that little strip with all the shops, and she turns back around and points. “Take a right there, into the playground parking lot.”

I do, and I see it—a little shed-looking building with wooden walls and pale, worn shingles. It’s about the size of your typical boardroom. Definitely no bigger.

“There’s a playground!” Margot shouts.

June nods, looking smug. “I thought we could go there with our floats.”