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“Oh, for fuck’s sake. How long, then?”
My laughter rumbled up from my chest. “By my estimate, and according to the way I want to handle you, at least five weeks.”
“What if I work out with you daily to strengthen my leg? What if I don’t complain while doing it?”
“Then maybe four weeks.”
“That’s it? Just one week shaved off?” he asked petulantly.
“You have to ease your way into an intensive workout, Leland.”
“Fine. But I’m sending you a calendar invite for four weeks from today. If I’m not ready by then, I’ll saw the fucking leg off and ride your cock with a bloody stump.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” I said, grinning and shaking my head at him. We’d made up for all the lost kisses throughout the years, and my hands had become intimately reacquainted with his body, but I wouldn’t cross that final boundary until I was sure I could do so without restraint, because I had a strong feeling I would lose all of it once inside of him.
“Franky,” he began, still staring back at me. “I don’t want anything between us when the time comes. I’m always safe. You can still trust me.”
“I know,” I said, brushing the backs of my fingers down his cheeks. “And I hope you know that you can still trust me.”
“In this I do,” he said. Neither of us addressed the clarification of his trust in me. I knew I still had work to do.
Leland yawned, his lust forgotten for now.
“You’re tired,” I said.
“I’m fine. It’s still early, and I’m not ready for the night to end.” He sought out the patio where our beers were waiting for us. “How about I shower all of this paint off of me and change into something warmer, and you get the fire table going?”
I agreed, removing the protective lid from the concrete table as he entered the house. The doorbell rang minutes later, and I wondered who it could be as I made my way inside the house.
“Lucas?” I questioned in greeting.
“From the look on your face, I’m guessing you forgot about our meeting,” he said, and I flipped through my mental calendar in search of an evening meeting I may have scheduled with him.
“Come in,” I said, coming up blank but not wanting to leave him on the doorstep while I figured it out. With my sole focus being Leland, it was highly likely that I’d dropped the ball on this. It was late, but not late enough, and with him being my neighbor, our meetings tended to be less formal and fluid.
He took Leland’s unoccupied seat, pushing his beer bottle aside to lay out a folder.
“Lucas,” I said delicately, as he’d been about to withdraw his schematics. I’d never been the type to tiptoe around a deal, and I wouldn’t start now, so I got straight to the point. “I’ve decided to go into business for myself. I apologize for wasting your time, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I’ve finally decided to act on it.”
Lucas gazed at the unopened beer bottles, as if only now noticing them, and then glanced over his shoulder into the house. He sighed, falling back in his seat. Lucas was handsome in a rugged sort of way. He came from a good family and had inherited the business after his father passed away some years ago. He would never speak to my soul the way Leland did, though, and in the bedroom, he wouldn’t be as malleable beneath my hands as Leland was. Lucas and I may have been similar on a surface level, but Leland and I were the same on a cellular level.
“Does this have anything to do with the jealous ward you’ve been charged with taking care of?” A playful, albeit disappointed, smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“He’s not as young as he looks,” I said, but I was sure he knew that. “And what do you mean by jealous?”
“Didn’t he tell you? He all but told me that your cock was a wrecking ball, and that my ass wasn’t built to withstand it. Can’t remember if that was before or after he insinuated that sex with you was an experience akin to violence,” he said, and my brows leapt up my forehead. “Good violence, I assumed. I got the impression that brutality was his foreplay. And yours,” he added.
“Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry for his behavior…” I started, wondering what Icouldsay instead.
“No,” Lucas said, with a knowing grin. “You look too pleased to be sorry.”
Lucas assured me all was forgiven, and I asked for his discretion. He wasn’t friends with Cole and Jasper, but my sons were friendly with him whenever they stopped by while Lucas and I were speaking across our yards, and Cole had sat through a few of our meetings at the house before. It would’ve been easy for Lucas to slip up and say something that Leland and I weren’t ready to share.
Leland returned bundled up and sporting a scowl.
“Sorry, did I take your seat?” Lucas asked, but he made no move to relinquish it. In fact, he crossed an ankle over one knee and settled in further. At this point, he was toying with Leland good naturedly, but since Leland hadn’t heard our conversation, he still viewed Lucas as a threat and clearly didn’t take kindly to him infringing on his territory.
Lucas didn’t know Leland the way I did, though. Leland would always win at games like these.
