Page 11 of Pour Decisions (Stryker Family #3)

JD

Dealing with a ton of work stuff? I can handle it—thrive on it. But dealing with work stuff when I get home and I can’t miss Kat’s presence has me more thrown off than I’d care to admit.

Kat is everywhere—lounging on the couch with Bubba, cooking and dancing in the kitchen, talking to herself (or Bubba) while she does yoga on the back porch. Her easy, warm laugh while she watches TV can penetrate my headphones like I’m not wearing them at all. Or maybe I just like to hear it.

The mornings are the most perilous, especially on days when she has to go in early, like today. She’s in the shower, filling the air with the scent of her fruity-smelling body wash.

I take a deep breath and let it out, trying to ease myself through the exercises I’m supposed to do between our physical therapy sessions.

I hate doing them, even though the air is nice and cool out on the back deck at this time in the morning.

I want to be back in the gym, pushing myself until I can barely move.

Walking Bubba and doing my light exercises out here isn’t unfurling the mental knots I have.

Especially knowing that Katrina is naked inside my house, her body slick and soft.

Bubba stretches his front legs out and rests his chin on them, looking at me. Judging me for having the absolutely brilliant revelation that Katrina would be naked in order to take a shower.

“I didn’t ask for your judgment,” I say to him. He lifts his head and tilts it to the side, his eyes going big and sad. It breaks me down in an instant. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed you read my mind.”

He rolls onto his side for a belly rub, all forgiveness, and I give it to him. I finish my exercises and go inside for water and more coffee. The shower is off now, so I go to my room to gather my clothes.

I step into the hallway, and my heart stops. Instead of being fully dressed, as she usually is when she leaves the bathroom, she’s in nothing but her tiny towel. Her back is to me and she bends over to pet Bubba, who’s oblivious to what he’s causing her to do.

I can see pretty much everything I’ve been dying to see for ages. Bubba prances ahead of her, right where she needs to walk, and the towel starts to slip. I suck in a breath. Is there any point to adjusting myself in these shorts? They show it all anyway.

Katrina hears me and whips around, locking eyes with me. Neither of us speaks or moves for a moment, and the air between us crackles with energy. Kat shifts, her towel dipping. My eyes dart to the swell of her breasts over the top of it.

“I didn’t…I forgot my stuff.” She clears her throat. “My clothes. In my room.”

“It’s fine,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay!” Her voice sounds strained.

Her feet unstick from the ground and she darts to her bedroom. I take a second to gather myself, then go to the bathroom to shower. I’m still uncomfortably hard and hate myself for it.

I shouldn’t do this. I should not do this. She’s my ex. She’s still the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in my life, but I can’t jerk off to her now that she’s living in my house. She’s in a vulnerable spot. And all these feelings can’t go anywhere.

But she’s not here and she won’t know. I can release the tension and deal with the guilt later.

I tighten my grip on my cock anyway, a full shiver going down my spine. This isn’t the first time I’ve jerked off to her, but it’s the first time in a decade that I have any new mental material to work with.

I try to take my time, but the images of her are too close to the surface for me to hold back. I stroke my cock hard and fast, and come with a shudder and a gasp in an embarrassingly short amount of time. I hope the shower is loud enough to cover that sound.

I let my head thunk against the tile wall. The tightest knot has loosened, but I’m still wound up. My hand can’t take care of it all, but it has to.

I go through the day physically, but mentally, I’m still in that hallway, looking at every inch of exposed skin.

I need a full Katrina detox before I go home again, so I text Nana about making dinner at her place. Going to my Nana’s usually helps me focus. She never bullshits me and helps me see things from a clear perspective.

Nana never met Katrina in the year or so that we dated, but that was only because it was the year she went on a months-long cruise with her best friends, shattered her hip on a hike up a volcano, and had to be in rehab for a few months.

I wonder how things would have panned out if I’d had Nana to go to in person when everything was falling apart.

I go to the store after work to pick up dinner to cook for both of us. One of my cousins made a joke that because Nana taught all of us to cook, she should have us all take turns coming to cook for her. Then, she took the joke and ran with it. I’m not sure if she’s cooked herself a meal in years.

Her house is a little chaotic, with her flowerbeds overflowing and all kinds of wind chimes and bird feeders along her porch. Bubba runs up the stairs ahead of me, tail whipping back and forth. Nana appears moments later, her ancient dog, Coco, in her arms.

“Hey, hun,” she says, pulling me in for a kiss on the cheek. Nana, like the rest of both sides of our family, is tall, so she doesn’t have to pull me down too far. “What’re you cooking us?”

“Shrimp scampi.” Her house is small, so we’re just a few steps away from the kitchen.

Bubba lays down smack in the middle of the limited floor space, and I shoo him to the edge.

He scoots to where the linoleum meets the carpet and gives me sad eyes.

Even though I know his games and know I need to limit his people food, seeing his little sad face almost makes me crack.

I’ll give him some shrimp later.

“You got dessert?” I ask.

“Yep, courtesy of Sarah Jane. Did you know she started a booth at the farmers’ market?” Nana asks.

Sarah Jane is one of my aunt Nadine’s daughters and she's about six years younger than me. She’s always been quiet, so we haven’t hung out much. I have a ton of cousins on my mom’s side, so we mostly only see each other at family reunions. I tend to hang out with her older siblings more.

“I didn’t know she baked,” I say, putting my bags on the counter.

“She’s damn good at it. I’m glad she’s getting out there after her breakup. Serves that shitbag ex of hers right. She’s going to open a whole shop someday.” Nana pauses. “Shoot, I just remembered something. Hold on.”

She grins, then pulls her huge phone from her mumu pocket and slides her glasses down her nose to text. I start getting everything set up so I don’t have to go digging for pans while I’m cooking. Her kitchen is tiny, but familiar, so I can get a lot done in the small space.

“You look tired,” she says once she’s done texting, easing into one of her old wicker chairs and putting her dog into her lap. “You working too hard?”

“I’m working just enough.” I pull out a pot for the pasta and fill it with water.

“Enough to look like shit?” Nana snorts. “I swear, that father of yours trained you to work yourself to the bone.”

I take a deep breath and let it out. Nana is my mom’s mother, and she doesn’t hold back her opinions on how my dad runs the business.

Basically, she thinks he drives me until I’m running on fumes, and that he drives Wes crazy trying to get results.

When I was in my early twenties and had to do the lower-level work, like working in the distillery or doing shifts at the bar, maybe.

But now I’m in full control of myself, and I choose to work hard.

“We just have a lot going on right now.” I open the package of shrimp and dump them in a bowl under running water to thaw them. I wish the grocery store in town was big enough to have fresh, cleaned shrimp, but Jepsen is too small for that.

“You always do.”

I shrug, ignoring the feeling of Nana’s eyes laying into me from behind her glasses. “Dad is thinking of semi-retiring soon, so I have to step up. Make him feel like he can comfortably leave the company in my hands.”

“Oh lord.” She sighs and leans back in her seat. “That man isn’t going to stay retired for more than a hot minute. Delia will drive him up the damn walls before long.”

I huff a small laugh. I think half the reason my parents have stayed married as long as they have is because they don’t have to see each other all that often.

Dad’s locked away in his office, of course.

Mom stays busy in the community and working with the charity arm of the company, and Dad gives her free rein to do what’s best.

And even then, Dad told Mom to go decorate my house so she’d stop redoing random rooms while he was at work. Mom has gifted Bubba more of her craft projects than I care to count, just because she can’t sit and do nothing for more than a few hours.

“He’s not retiring and sitting at home all day. He’s going to become an adviser to the company like his dad did,” I say. I salt the water before it starts to boil. “So he’d be there, but not really. He’d weigh in, but I’d have the final say in the decisions.”

“So he’ll turn stone-cold crazy like his dad?” Nana laughs, which has always sounded more like a wheeze. “That grandfather of yours has been nuts since way back.”

“Hopefully not.”

Nana’s assessment of my grandfather—my dad’s dad—is spot on. His crazy ideas actually worked to build the company into a big brand in the region, but then he went off the rails until my dad pulled him back on to prevent bankruptcy.

Then there was the whole ‘faking his death and showing up to his funeral’ thing, which is one of my earliest memories. I’m sure that’s fucked me up somehow, but I don’t like to think about it too much.

“Anyway, back to you working your tail off,” Nana says. “It’s great that you have a strong work ethic. It really is. But who are you working for?”

“What do you mean? I work for the company.”