Why was it that nothing I ever said seemed right?
I straightened up and pushed the cart to where she was far too engrossed in the back of a packet of cookies for it to be real attention. “I’m gonna go. I can walk back to get my car—”
“Can you go back to the asshole trying to hit on me? It’s kind of easier than this Brett who’s a little too nice to me,” she said, interrupting me.
“Your ass looks really good in the those shorts. Spankably good, actually.” What? She asked.
She threw the cookies into the cart and looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Spankably good? Really? What the hell kinda crap is that?”
I darted forward and let go of the cart. I took her wrist in my hand and yanked her body toward mine, then smacked my hand against her ass. “That kinda crap,” I laughed into her ear.
She spun and smacked my arm. “I didn’t need a demonstration. Now my ass stings, you prick.”
“Here. Let me help.” I reached and slapped her other ass cheek, making her squeak. “There. Now they match.”
“Brett Walker, you have five seconds to fucking run with that cart before I choke you on my flip-flop.” The hardness of her eyes said that although she was fighting a smile, she was really not kidding.
I laughed and, grabbing the cart handrail, moved faster than I was probably allowed to with a heavy cart on a slippery floor. Thankfully for me, years of being an idiot by riding these carts up and down the aisles while being yelled at by my mom as a kid had served me well, and I kept control of it as I rounded the corner to the next aisle.
Then a sharp slap rung out through the aisle, and a sharp sting radiated across my left ass cheek.
“Motherfucker!” I hissed, grabbing my butt.
Lani skipped past me, laughing loudly. She spun around to face me, her hair flying around her shoulders. She had the wildest grin on her face. It was the kind of smile that could light up an entire town if it had to, but fuck me, it was her eyes. They danced with the laughter that spilled from her lips as they focused on me.
“Shit,” I said.
That. Hurt.
“What?” Her tongue peeked out between her teeth, giving her a playful look. “Your ass looked spankably good. It’s not my fault.”
I took a deep breath and ran my tongue over my top teeth. “Don’t think you’re going to get away with that, Lani Montana.”
She held out her right hand, glanced at her palm, and then turned it toward me. “I think I just did.”
I slowly shook my head. “Oh no. You really, really didn’t.”
The smile dropped from her face pretty quickly, and when she didn’t respond, I pulled my favorite chips off the shelf and dropped them in the cart with her things.
“Did you just threaten me?” she squeaked out.
I pushed the cart forward until I was standing right in front of her. I hooked two fingers beneath her chin, and with a cocky smile curving my lips, I said, “I don’t threaten, kitten. I promise.”
“And that means what?”
“It means you get to wait until I’m ready to get you back.” I chucked her under the chin and pushed off on the cart. I whizzed down the aisle, stopping at the end, and then I turned back. She was staring after me, confusion written in the furrow of her brow and the tightening of her lips.
Oh, man.
This was going to be fun.
And probably kind of dangerous...
“So, tell me something.”
“Hm?” I turned my attention to Lani.
“Did you just kind of wake up one morning and decide to be a giant asshole? Or was it a gradual thing?” She licked around the top of her ice cream cone, her pink tongue bright against the pure whiteness of the ice cream.
I blinked and swallowed. Please, don’t do that again. “I don’t know,” I answered with a shrug. “I guess it was a gradual thing. I just changed and that’s the person I became.”
She sidestepped a large rock on the sand. “Okay, but of all the things you could become, why a manwhore?”
“It’s hardly a career.”
“It is if someone pays you.”
I clamped my jaw shut tightly to stop myself laughing at her. “I can’t see that going down particularly well with my family. Could you image the look on my father’s face if I told him I was leaving the business to be a whore?”
“Yes, and I might just pay to see that conversation.” She flashed me a half-grin.
I glared at her.
“What? By all accounts, you’ve been doing it for free for eight years. Why not start getting paid now while you’ve still got the ability to get it up?”
This time, I couldn’t keep the laughter in. “Nope,” I said with a firm shake of my head. “I have my rules, and I’m sticking to them. I’m determined to prove my family wrong.”
Lani licked her ice cream again and looked at me. “Help me out here. I’m a bit confused.”
Help? She wanted help? She was going to need it if she didn’t stop licking that fucking ice cream the way she was.
“Really?” I drawled. “I couldn’t tell from the manwhore line of questioning.”
She laughed. Her shoes swung beside her from where she was gripping them tightly, and she shook her head to get the hair from her face. A few strands were stuck on her eyelashes, and I reached out, softly pulling them away.
“Thanks.” She smiled. “So this thing...the agreement you have with your family. What exactly is it?”
I explained about the dinner we had while she munched down on her waffle cone. “Pops didn’t give me much of a choice. As shallow as it sounds, I’d be fucked if I was cut off. I’ve never done anything except work for my parents.”
“Let me get this straight,” she said and licked her fingers. “No partying. No womanizing. No bad anything.”
“That’s pretty much it.” I grimaced.
“Usually I’d say that all work and no play quote, but it sounds like you’ve been balanced on the play side for too long, so this might even it out.”
“I’m not all bad, you know.”
“Yeah? I don’t see you feeding homeless people.”
I laughed. “I do good stuff for people. I prefer to keep it to myself. That’s all.”
She held her hands out at her sides and stopped walking. “Brett, how am I supposed to help you if you’re apparently hiding good deeds?”
“I’m not hiding it.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I just don’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
Do I have to have a reason? “Because I just don’t. It wouldn’t make a difference to how people view me, so there’s no point. I don’t do good stuff for myself. I do it because somebody needs to.”
Lani looked up at me. Her head was slightly tilted to the side, and there was a dark curiosity in her eyes. I could sense that she wanted to push me, but I looked at her firmly.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I bet it would make a difference. If you really...Never mind.”
“If I really what?”
“Nothing.” She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in this one.
“No.” I darted around her so she couldn’t walk any further.