Page 259 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

DANIEL

I’m at Bridget and Mav’s place for dinner. They want to meet you.

Now?

I have a feeling they aren’t going to give me any food until you show up.

I frowned at her text.

“What’s up?” Sea Bass asked, coming over and slapping me on the shoulder. He’d gotten over the fact that I punched him this morning. We beat the shit out of each other over the years often enough that it was forgotten as soon as the swelling went down.

We–all five Pearson brothers–were in my backyard having beers and tossing logs. They–the logs, not my brothers–were close to the same weight and heft as what I’d be tossing during the Highland Games.

While it was dark out, I had my exterior lights on and enough of the back field was lit. We’d been at it for about an hour. We were all sweating, not bothered by the dropping temperatures.

“I’m invited to dinner,” I told him.

“You two lazy asses done already?” Saint called. He had the end of a log cupped in his hands by his hip and the length resting on his shoulder, Seth right by him ready to adjust it if needed.

Sea Bass grabbed his beer from the edge of the deck, ignoring him.

“Yeah? Now?” Sea Bass asked me.

He looked me over. I wasn’t in any shape to go to dinner without a shower first.

“I guess. Melly’s invited me to eat at Bridget and Mav’s place.”

The thump, thump of the tossed log cut through the air.

“Too far to the left,” Saint muttered, disappointed in his toss.

The caber had to be tossed so the top hit the ground, then toppled over as close to perfectly straight as possible. It wasn’t about distance, but direction.

“Mav? The James Inn, right?” Sea Bass knew him from that project.

The inn’s construction finished over the winter and the place had been open for about two months, although the landscaping was on hold until spring.

We’d already edged all the flower beds and dumped the good soil, but plants were on standby.

Currently, we took care of their snow plowing and starting in the summer, we’d handle the mowing and all groundskeeping. It was a big contract.

“That’s him.”

I thumbed a response to Melly.

I’m tossing logs with my brothers.

She wrote back a few seconds later.

Mal wants to know if you’re wearing a kilt.

I grinned. Sounded like Mallory was there, too.

If I come to Bridget’s place, it’s outside of the contract.

I’d have sex with Melly anytime, anywhere, but she was pretty adamant about our agreement.

When I came upon her in her bedroom this morning, she’d been masturbating.

Even at gunpoint, I couldn’t have walked away from that because of location issues, so obviously I’d had to make immediate modifications to the contract.

But this was dinner.

You’d be coming for dinner. Not sex.

We were thinking the same thing. Still… if our arrangement was just sex, because why could it be anything else since I wasn’t sticking? Getting to know each other and meeting her friends was meant for relationships.

I wrote back.

You’re the one who would be coming, sweet girl.

I imagined her blushing as she read that. I couldn’t help typing out those teasing words and grinned as I did.

“Why does D have that weird fucking smile on his face?” Deek called to Sea Bass. “Did he just fart or something?”

I ignored him and continued to stare at my phone wondering if Melly being a dirty girl extended to texting.

“He’s texting with little Melly Harwood,” Sea Bass yelled back.

“Stop calling her that,” I muttered, waiting for the little dots to appear indicating Melly was typing back.

“You going to punch me in the nose over that, too?” Sea Bass asked.

Saint and Seth came over, grabbed their beers. Now I had an audience.

“Are we all standing around watching him text a girl?” Deek asked.

“Yes,” the others said at once.

“Not just a girl, it’s Melly Harwood,” Saint added as if we were in fourth grade.

“Fine,” Deek grumbled. “Does little Melly Harwood want more dick?”

I looked up, glared at Deek and secretly wished it was true. I only met Melly yesterday morning and I’d had more sex since then than… fuck, I didn’t even want to say.

My dick and I were insatiable now. Especially after what we did earlier and I couldn’t tell the guys about it. Sure, we talked about women we’d fucked in the past and technically, this thing with Melly was as casual as any of the others.

But I never watched any other woman kneel on her bed and masturbate. Or watched her lower herself down on a dick for the first time. Or… every other filthy thing we’d already done.

“I need to rethink my ladies strategy. If D here’s got his dick all hard for the little librarian, maybe there’s something to be said for the quiet types,” Sea Bass considered.

“The librarian’s taken,” Saint muttered. “What about a schoolteacher? There are a bunch of those.”

“Kindergarten, maybe,” Seth clarified. “You’ve got to be slightly crazy to teach middle school.”

“So fucking true. Remember we stole Mr. Mongaroy’s toupee in sixth grade?” Saint asked. Seth laughed at the shared memory.

“The only person sweeter than little Melly Harwood are the nuns at the Our Lady of the Highway out by the interstate,” Deek prompted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Melly is not sweet, and she is far from a nun,” I clarified, trying to fix the perception they had about Melly. I thought Deek and I went over this already.

“You saying the little librarian’s a freak in the sheets?” Sea Bass asked, then reached up and covered his nose.

I glared and my cell chimed at the same time. Broken nose averted.

“She’s gotta be for him to be into her like this,” Saint said.

“He’s old and hard up. Sometimes you’ve gotta take what you can get,” Seth countered. “And he’s not staying, so he’ll be in Scotland before he gets bored of a dull lay.”

“Watch it or you’re going to unleash the kraken with those words,” Sea Bass warned. “I agree though, a dull lay’s better than your hand. A crazy lay, now that’s worse than getting chlamydia. You can take antibiotics to make it go away, but crazy? That can stick around for a while.”

“That shit burns,” Seth told him.

“Crazy is a Stage Five Clinger and burns a fuck of a lot longer,” Sea Bass countered.

I really didn’t want to know why the two of them knew so much about chlamydia. I sighed, ran a hand over my hair. What the fuck were they even talking about?

“We went from talking about D’s dick getting hard for the hot librarian and now you’re talking about STDs?” Deek wondered.

“He’s not saying a word,” Saint countered, waving his arm in my direction. “He can’t be sexting if he’s just standing there. This is boring as hell.”

Mal says don’t move. We’re all coming there.

For a second, I processed that she was coming over to fuck. Then I reread it and frowned at my bright screen.

What?

I needed to make sure I understood what was happening. My dick couldn’t read, and he was doing the thinking for me. Bad combination when it came to texting with little Melly Harwood. My brother’s stupid-ass chatter was also brain numbing.

Mal just told them about you going to the Highland Games. The guys want to toss cabers with a pro. Um… they’re packing up the food to bring over.

My brothers stared at me. “Well?” Seth asked.

“Melly and others are coming here.”

You’re coming here? You, Bridget, Mav, & Mal?

And Lindy, Dex, Theo, Silas, Eve, & Mac.

Excellent. She was coming here.

My house is within the contract. Now it’s dinner AND sex.

I’ve never seen them organize so fast. Be there soon.

I looked up, my brothers staring at me. “Guess we’re having some visitors. The guys want to learn how to caber toss. They’re bringing food.”

“Sweet! Food,” Saint said.

“Who all’s coming?” Sea Bass asked, a sly smile sliding across his face. “If it’s just Melly we don’t need to watch her tossing your caber.”

I rolled my eyes. I named everyone from the text.

Deek laughed, then held up a finger. “Wait. There’s a Melly… Mel, Mav, Mal, and Mac?”

I didn’t care about anyone else. The only one I wanted to see was Melly. Coming all over my dick later.