I lean forward and whisper into her ear, my nose grazing against her soft skin. “Within reason.”
She scoots forward and tugs on my leather jacket while her eyes look up at mine. “What does within reason mean? What are your limits?”
“It’s startling to me that whatever you’re thinking might pass someone’s limits.”
“Just keeping my options open.” She wickedly grins.
I study her for a second and then answer, “No public nudity—”
“Well, there goes my idea.”
“Funny.” I nod at her. “Nothing that involves the freezing lake. Unlike you, I’m not interested in whether or not I can get a black foot. And I refuse to purchase the giant recycled material flamingo you couldn’t take your eyes off two stores down.”
“But it would be the perfect toilet paper holder,” she fake whines and then pouts her bottom lip. I stroke it with my thumb and shake my head.
“Sorry, babe. That flamingo will have to find a home with someone else.”
“Fine,” she drags out. She folds her arms across her chest, glances around the bar and then her head whips to mine. “Oh, I know.”
I don’t like that look on her face, the one that says I have something good to make you do. Is the pickle vodka really worth it?
“Do I even want to know?” I ask, a little worried that she’s going to make me lick the underside of one of the tables. At that point, the answer would be no. The vodka is not worth it at all.
“Do you want me to drink that disgusting vodka?”
I look down at the vodka and then back at her. “I really do.”
“Good.” She smiles and props herself up. “Remember when you went to the bathroom and left me here, at the bar, all alone with no one to talk to?”
“Yesss,” I say, unsure of where she’s going with this.
“Well, while you were ‘pissing’ as you so crassly said, I met a very nice woman who seemed to have taken a liking to you.”
“Oh yeah?” I buck up. “Hard not to resist such a rugged man like myself.”
Emma rolls her eyes and says, “Well, she said she would give anything to rub her face up against a set of abs like yours.”
“How does she know I have abs?” I ask, getting an idea of where this conversation is going.
“I confirmed when she asked. I said they were little divots you could get lost in.”
“Did you now?” I smugly ask.
“Don’t make me get a pin to pop that obnoxiously large head of yours. I was just giving the woman a happy image to consider during her day.”
Picturing a little old lady with white curly hair and a pink cane, I look around to find her. “All right, so what’s the deal? And where is this woman you speak of?”
Emma rubs her hands together and gets ready to lay it on me. Fuck, she’s cute. “She introduced herself as Floats Like a Barge Marge and she’s the dishwasher in the back. So the deal is, I drink this vodka and you let Floats Like a Barge Marge rub her face against your abs for ten seconds.”
My eyebrows lift in question. “You’re going to let another woman touch me with her face?”
Emma shrugs and takes a look at her nails. “Not like you’ve claimed me or anything so I have no reason to claim you. Although, if you actually put out yesterday instead of teasing me, your abs might be hearing a different request right about now.”
I knowingly nod. “You’re going to keep throwing that in my face, aren’t you?”
She leans forward and whispers, “Tucker, that was torture, so yeah, I’ll keep throwing it in your face.”
“You thought that was torture? You have no idea, babe. I can make it way worse.”
“Is that a threat?” She leans even more forward so our foreheads are almost touching from my bent position.
“I can make it one.”
Looking between my eyes, Emma says, “Don’t forget, Tucker. I’m the one with the hot pocket; you just hold the peperoni. You need my warmth way more than I need your meat.”
She leans against her chair and folds her arms again, causing me to throw my head back and laugh. Fuck if that weren’t the truth.
“Playing hard to get now?” I ask with a raised brow. She just stares at her nails. I sigh. “Fine, Floats Like a Barge Marge can rub against my abs.”
“Really?” Emma claps her hands excitedly and then lifts off her chair, standing on one of the rungs, and wraps her arms around my neck. Without seeming to take a second to think about it, her lips press against mine briefly before she taps on the bar counter. “Phillip, can you please tell Floats Like a Barge Marge that her dreams have come true?”
He nods, throws his towel over his shoulder, and heads behind the mirrored bar to the back. When Emma turns to me, she smiles brightly, kisses me again but this time, with a little tongue.
Hell, I like that. I like that a whole lot. I start to bring her in even closer when she pushes against my chest to sit back down.
“Hey, I was in the middle of something. Get your ass back up here.”
She wiggles her finger at me. “Uh-uh, you have to get those abs ready.”
“What do you want me to do? Hop up on the bar and start doing crunches?
“Might be nice.” She leans her elbow on the bar and props up her chin. “Kind of dreamy actually. Let’s see it. Do some sit-ups.”
I pull my jacket closed and turn my body slightly away from her. “I’m not some piece of meat you get to parade around. I’m a man with feelings,” I tease. “I have emotions and needs. I’m not just on this planet to give in to your every demand.”
She laughs, picks up the pickle vodka, downs it one swift swallow, cringes for a second, and then pats her mouth dry with a napkin. “Yeah, we both know that because if you were giving in to my demands, I would have had at least five orgasms by now instead of the one from my vibrator.”
Holy fuck, Emma. Never in my life would I have imagined such a sentence coming from her sweet little mouth, but with every day we spend together I see a different side of her that I fucking like. Sassy, smart . . . sexy.
“I told you not to be salty.”
“And I told you to fuck me. I guess we both don’t listen to each other.” She winks and turns toward the kitchen door just as it starts to swing open. Phillip steps out first, holding a towel in his hand, leading the march like he’s the front man of a boxing posse.
In the right corner, we have Tucker Jameson, construction worker, and all around sex throb. In the left corner we have . . .
My mind goes blank as Floats Like a Barge Marge steps into view. Turning to the side to fit her shoulders through the doorway, a six-foot-five woman stomps—yes, stomps—toward me wearing a white apron, hair net, and white knee-high stockings. I gulp as she smiles, revealing a lovely gold shade set of teeth. With one swipe of her paw, this woman can flatline me in a second, and I’m a big fucking dude.