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Dex James was one of Maverick’s brothers. He–Dex, although probably Mav, too–definitely did not have a cocktail weenie between his muscular thighs.
The man exuded big dick energy.
He also had an easygoing, quick-to-smile, quick-for-fun kind of way about him. Which was completely the opposite of me. I’d been called uptight. Rigid. High maintenance. No doubt last weekend in Denver when I was super stressed, super annoyed and super behind on my book.
I’d taken it out on Dex. And Mallory, too, although she was used to me, as Bridget’s best friend, of being a little crazy after all these years.
“I was working on the second sex scene,” I told Lucy.
“I want to read it,” she said, her voice eager, eyes lighting up with anticipation. “God, what is that noise?”
“Chainsaw. The guy next door is trimming trees, I think.”
Mr. VanMeyer had been running that machine for the past hour.
“Jump to page thirty-two,” I told her. We wrote in a word processing program that was shareable online so she could toggle to my document and read what I wrote with ease. Like right now where she opened it and went to that page.
I grabbed the glass of iced tea from beside my laptop and took a big gulp while she read. It was a warm day, and I had all the windows open.
“Wow, Lind, that’s super-hot.” In the little display on my screen, she fanned herself.
“I know. It’s–”
“That guy, isn’t it?” she prodded with a sly smile. “The one you and your sister went to Denver with last week. Whatever his name is. You’ve made him be the hero of your book.”
“What are you saying, that he’s my muse?” I shook my head with a little more vigor than the question deserved. If Lucy could pick up on it, I was worried. “Nope. Definitely not him. He’s not a cowboy like in my stories.”
I couldn’t imagine Dex James wearing a Stetson like the heroes I wrote. Sure, he’d look good in one. Or a potato sack, but a cowboy wasn’t his personality.
“So? I’m sure he’d love to put you on your knees.” Her dark eyebrows went up and down, then she grinned. “When’s the last time you had a guy do that? Boss you around.”
Never. Still, my panties were wet from the possibility. And the top unchecked box on the man list. There were many things on that list I’d started with my mother when I was fourteen and AJ Alvarez asked me to go bowling. Back then, it had honest on it. Friendly. Courteous. As I got older, I added more things, like loyal and good with kids. The one I was thinking about now was sexually attentive. Guys in the past who I’d let into my bed hadn’t been selfish, but they hadn’t been attentive either. Or bossy.
An alarm came through the video call. “Shit, I have to go,” she said with a sigh as she swiped at her cell. “Ariel will be off the bus in ten minutes. Bye!”
The video call ended. I pushed back my chair from the kitchen table and grabbed my glass to refill it. The whirring of the chainsaw was incessant. I might have pushed through before, but I needed a break from the noise. Shutting the windows was only going to make the house stuffy and wouldn’t block out Mr. VanMeyer’s yard work completely.
It was time to leave the house. I needed to get groceries anyway. I always went on Saturday afternoons, only today I’d stalled for a few hours as the words flowed from my fingertips.
Thinking about sexy times with Dex. Bossy, me on my knees, sexy times.
“Gah!” I said to the empty kitchen.
Dex was all kinds of wrong. He lived in Denver, not Hunter Valley. He was young. Two things that said not permanent and that was what I was looking for. A permanent, as in forever, man. Mr. Right.
I set my glass in the sink, then tore the list of what I needed at the store off the notepad next to the fridge.
Going upstairs, I checked my face in the bathroom mirror, swiped on some colored lip gloss and ran a brush through my hair.
Outside, I stopped in my front lawn to see what Mr. VanMeyer was up to.
We were in an older neighborhood in Hunter Valley and the trees were large, the landscaping well established. There were shrubs separating our two yards, but he had a massive cottonwood that gave his backyard lovely shade all day and mine later in the afternoon when it blocked the Western late day sun. It wasn’t that one he was working on though, which was good because I liked that shade, but a second tree that had been dead for a year or two. He was finally trimming some of the lower branches he could reach from the ground.
He wore his usual outfit of jeans and white t-shirt with suspenders. No matter the season, this was his outfit every day that I’d known him, which was my entire life since he lived in his house when my parents bought ours after they were married. I came along two years later and had been here ever since.
He saw me, shut the chainsaw off and waved.
“Hiya, Lindy!” he called. He was a kind man, always happy, but a little crazy.
