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“Yes! Thanks, man!”
He thrust out his knuckles for a bump, and I reluctantly tapped fists. Colt might bug the shit out of me, but he was still someone I had to maintain a decent working relationship with.
I jogged around the house and climbed aboard the mower, scanning the yard to ensure Colt hadn’t half-assed it. There was one sketchy area I went over, but mostly it was up to snuff, so I steered through an open gate and into Iola’s yard.
About thirty minutes later, I drove the mower back up the ramps extended from our pickup. Ryder loaded the edger and hedge trimmer from the side.
“Oh, you boys!” Iola called from her front porch. “You didn’t have to do that!”
Ryder and I returned to her front steps.
“It was no trouble, ma’am,” Ryder said. “It only took a few minutes.”
“But I can’t afford to be one of your clients.”
“Then it’ll just have to be our secret,” I said with a wink.
She squeezed my arm. “Well, at least let me thank you with a slice of pie.”
I exchanged a look with Ryder, and we grinned. Starting lunch with dessert? Heck, yes. Colton could sit in the pickup while we indulged.
After a nice chat with Iola, which included her telling me all about her new matchmaking venture she was launching and that if I hadn’treallymarried Wes, then I should apply for her services.
Ryder had muffled a laugh as I contemplated the Catch-22 I found myself in. I couldn’t admit that Wes and I were married, but that meant unleashing a matchmaking nana on myself. I remembered the match she’d tried to make for my friend, Clark, and it was not pretty. Percy Helix had been a pompous ass who’d ditched Clark midway through their date.
And Clark had been relieved when it happened.
“Uh, thanks, but I’m not really looking for love.”
“Oh, pfft! Everyone needs love in their lives. You’re a good man, Beckett. You helped out an old lady like me when you could have saved yourself some time under that awful sun. You deserve a proper thank-you.”
“The pie is more than enough.”
Ryder caught sight of my desperate eyes and added, “It’s really delicious, Mrs. Fletcher. A perfect thank-you.”
“No, no, no. I insist.” She beamed at me, eyes sparkling. “Laurie Ellis has given me start-up funding. I just need to build a client roster, but don’t you worry, Beckett. I’m going to find you the perfect woman…or man?”
“Uh, I’ve only dated women,” I said.
Not a lie. Wes was the only man I’d felt a spark with. The only man who made me want to get closer and closer. At first, I’d thought it was just our bond as brothers. We’d become good friends, and I trusted no one more. But over time, that urge to get close had transitioned to a physical craving.
One night, after a particularly heated debate over the best Batman—obviously Christian Bale, though Wes insisted on Michael Keaton—and wrestling match, I’d gone to my room flushed and semihard and found myself fantasizing about what might have happened if that wrestling match had gone on long enough for my cock to grind against Wes, if perhaps he was hard too…
I’d had my hand around my cock before I could fully process what I was doing and how freaking bad it would be to allow myself the pleasure. I stroked, images unspooling of Wes pinning me down, of him jerking his own hard cock from his sweatpants and making me suck it.
I’d come so hard to fantasies of my stepbrother that my head had spun and a sickening pit of guilt opened in my stomach.
I’d never been able to look at Wes the same way. But I’d never, not in a million years, ever expected him to reciprocate like he had in Vegas.
I should regret it. I wanted to regret it.
But I couldn’t. Not then. Not now.
Wes had given me my heart’s deepest, most shameful desire.
I’d hold that inside me for a lifetime, treasuring the intimacy we shared, even if it had lasted for little more than a day.
But regret or not, it couldn’t happen again, so I gave Iola the best smile I could muster. “All right, Iola, do your worst.”
