Page 254 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

DANIEL

I pulled up to Melly’s house at eight-fifteen the next morning.

The crew from Pearsons was already at work and I saw Melly’s car on the street.

She was home. Maybe she was in bed sleeping, although doubtful with the noise being made.

Maybe she was in the shower. I shifted in my seat because I knew exactly what she looked like there.

No, she had work, although the library didn’t open until ten.

Yes, I knew that not because I checked out a lot of books, but because I looked it up.

Earlier this morning. After my own shower where I rubbed one out and came all over the tile.

Fuck, my dick was always going to be hard in that bathroom from this point on.

And now, too, just thinking about her.

No matter how much I wanted, I wouldn’t barge in her house and fuck her up against the wall. Not only because our sex contract was for my house, but because every single guy on the crew would know what was up. Beyond my four stupid-ass brothers.

We hadn’t kept our… fling a secret. Her friends Mallory and Bridget knew there was something up between us since they practically bolted from the bar for us to be alone together. I had no idea if Melly told her friends about what happened after they left or not. The storeroom. Last night.

I was forty years old. I didn’t really care what people thought of me or what I did with Melly, who was a consenting adult.

But she was a discreet woman. Respected, demure–at least in public–and pretty much a good girl.

If word about me having sex with someone got out, people wouldn’t think twice.

But if Melly having sex spread through Hunter Valley, tongues would wag.

I’d be seen as the old lech who corrupted her.

Little did people know that she was the one doing the corrupting.

After my brothers really left the night before–because I’d pulled the blinds on them– Melly hadn’t lingered. It was sex, inside a loosey-goosey contract of sorts. She wanted boundaries, I’d respect them.

This wasn’t a relationship.

The plane left on Saturday. I’d even started to pack.

I climbed from my truck and Earl hopped down after me. My breath came out in big white puffs because the temperature was barely above freezing. Ice crystals sparkled on the grass where it hadn’t yet melted away from the sun creeping across the lawn.

Two guys were putting in the new edging, the strip that would hold the pavers in place and define the driveway’s shape.

Like Mom’s place, the house was large, on a large lot, and set back a ways from the street.

I’d grown up just down the road and never paid much attention to this particular house when I was a kid, but studying it now, it was well tended.

I would’ve remembered a For Sale sign out front so I guessed Mrs. Vigaro had lived in the place for decades.

The driveway went alongside the house to a separate garage at the back.

Hers also curved in a semicircle in front of the house.

There were a lot of pavers to lay. And that didn’t even account for the walk which would be done to match.

If the weather held, the crew could have it done within a week.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Sea Bass came around one of the company pickups. In sturdy boots, worn jeans, a thick vest, and beanie, he was dressed for work.

So was I. I could’ve picked up a prescription at the pharmacy I needed for the trip, put my mail on hold, or many of the other things on my going away to-do list, but that wasn’t happening.

I could’ve gone to a movie. Or played pickleball or eaten breakfast at the diner like all the retired people around here.

None of that was happening. Melly’s yard was a Pearson job site, and I would see it done right.

I tipped my chin toward the bobcat, the earth mover we used for everything from digging holes in the ground to planting a tree to hauling heavy loads–like stone pavers–around a job.

It had been backed off the trailer, ready to be used.

“Someone needs to drive that thing. Kevin and PeeWee over there aren’t certified. ”

The guys doing the edging were in their early twenties and friends with Danny. Their strong–and young–backs did a shit ton of the heavy work. Earl had gone over to them and they were giving him pets.

“Jorge is going to run it. We got this, D. You’re retired, remember?”

“That can change,” I said. “You’re an asshole and that can’t.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re still salty about last night?”

“You had your noses pressed up to the glass like the Seven Dwarfs looking at Snow White.”

An instant grin crossed his face. “If Snow White looked like that, I might have been–”

I punched him.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” he said, leaning forward with his hand over his nose. I didn’t hit him all that hard because it wasn’t broken and he was still conscious.

I pointed at him. It wasn’t the first time I clocked him or any of my brothers and it wouldn’t be the last. But I was pissed because of Melly and I wasn’t fucking having it. “Don’t you fucking finish that sentence.”

Another Pearson pickup slowed and parked on the street.

Deek got out holding a to-go cup of coffee, Steaming Hotties written on the side.

“Jesus, you’re shit at retirement.” He approached and looked at Sea Bass.

“What happened to you? If you have to put in another workman’s comp claim for hitting your head again, I’ll–”

Sea Bass pointed at me.

Deek set his free hand on his hips. “Seriously? Why are you even here?” he asked, then added when he glanced briefly at the house. “Oh.”

Kevin and PeeWee had stopped working and stood watching us. Deek passed Sea Bass the coffee, took hold of my bicep and pulled me across the yard. He finally stopped in front of a large blue spruce tree. From the height of it, I estimated it to be thirty years old.

“You’re here to work,” he said, not as a question.

“Yes.”

“You can’t handle retirement, fine. But go help on the golf course job. We’re moving the big boulders for the retaining wall over there today.”

I pointed at the ground between us. “No. This job.”

He took a step closer. “You and Melly Harwood? Seriously, D?”

We hadn’t talked after I pulled the window shade down, blocking them out, but they saw her. In my flannel. Only my flannel.

“Yeah.”

“You’re leaving in a few days,” he reminded. “She’s a forever girl.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Hell, yes she is,” he countered. Now he was protecting her.

I shook my head, swiped my hand through the air. “No. We have an understanding.”

His eyebrows winged up. “An understanding.”

I nodded. “It’s only until I leave.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty hard to get your dick in her if it’s in Scotland and she’s here.”

Now I pointed at him. “Watch it,” I hissed. “That shit’s what got Sea Bass a bloody nose.”

“Out of every woman in town, you choose her? She’s Danny’s ex,” he reminded.

I shifted my feet, moving into slightly uncomfortable territory. “They went out twice. Coffee and lunch,” I explained, easily countering that excuse.

He knew what coffee and lunch meant when it came to a woman. Not serious.

“Still, D. You’re dating the same woman as your son.”

“Not at the same time. And we’re not dating.”

“Well, that makes it different then,” he said, the words loaded with sarcasm.

“She’s not interested in him. She told me she doesn’t like guys her age.

I talked to Danny. He’s not interested in her.

Says she’s–” I cleared my throat, not wanting to share how he thought Melly was too vanilla.

I’d never been with a woman who was less vanilla than Melly.

“Anyway, he’s not interested and he’s wrong about her.

So fucking wrong.” I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my lips.

“She’s like… twenty-four or something.” He wouldn’t let this go.

“So?” Yeah, that was a little bit of a problem, but she didn’t want a guy her age and I wasn’t a guy her age. She got wet and came beautifully for me. And looked beautiful with my cum all over her.

“She’s going to want to settle down. Have kids. She’s got a dog and puppies coming, for fuck’s sake. You’re forty and just got done with all that. You really want to start over like Dad?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. He could yell at me all he wanted, but comparing me to Dad?

Low fucking blow. “This is nothing like Dad. I didn’t leave a woman with two little kids for my secretary.

This is sex, Deek. For a few days. Nothing more.

” He looked contrite, but not completely satisfied. “She doesn’t want a relationship.”

His eyes widened. “She said that?”

“Yes.”

“So she wants you, and with complete respect when I say this, for your dick.”

Now he was catching on. “Yes.”

“Little Melly Harwood going after you, YOU, for your dick and nothing more.”

I ran a hand over my face. “Why is that so hard to imagine?

“Because this is Melly Harwood and you’re more ornery than a bear that sat on a cactus,” he said, shifting his feet on the crunchy grass. “She’s a librarian who wears glasses!”

I tipped my chin down and eyed him. He meant that to be a deterrent, but it wasn’t.

“Oh.” Yeah, the naughty virgin librarian thing finally came to him. “Look, we’re all for you getting back out there. But her?”

“Why do you and everyone else keep calling her little Melly Harwood?” I pushed. “Yeah, she’s petite or whatever, but no one ever calls me huge Daniel Pearson.”

“Because she’s quiet.”

She wasn’t quiet when she came all over my dick.

“Shy,” he continued.

She boldly sat on my face so I could eat her out. Oh, and wanted to pick out lube so I could fuck her ass. So desperately shy.

“Innocent. Like a nun.”

Not any longer.

“That means she can’t have sex? She’s a librarian, not a nun,” I reminded. “You think she’s so delicate, physically and emotionally, that I would hurt her?”

“No, of course not.” He set his hand on my shoulder and looked me squarely in the eye.

“You sold your business. You’re leaving the country.

You’re finally, after raising a kid for all these years, moving away from home.

It’s what you’ve wanted since you had to quit college.

Why her? Why the fuck NOW? You’re. Leaving.

In. A. Few. Days.” The last words he enunciated clearly and slowly as if I wasn’t right in the head.

“We have an agreement,” I said, as if that explained it all. Which it did. We were having sex until I left for Scotland. Wild, dirty, naughty, and not vanilla.

He rolled his eyes. “For sex.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you’re here to go inside and have sex with her?”

I shook my head. “No. I want to see her project done. She doesn’t need this mess and all you assholes staring at her even more.” I waved my arm to indicate the missing driveway and walk. The mound of sand ready to be spread. The stacks of pavers to lay on top.

“You’re protecting her.”

“Yes.”

“From us.”

“Yes.”

“Because you care about her.”

“Yes!”

He smirked. “D, you came here this morning to fix her driveway, not fuck her. Think about that.”