Page 36 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

COULD YOU PLEASE KNOCK FIRST?

Bea

We did it.

We sold out.

We sold out, and not just because the kids in the college’s summer program flooded the parking lot and Simon’s boys alone ordered six burgers and finished off my fish.

And I have two new parties booked before the end of July.

Simon, of course, disappeared as soon as the last order was placed, leaving me to clean up on my own.

Probably just as well.

Between the way he brought customers in and then worked some kind of crazy magic that had over half of them asking for my newsletter and socials links so they could track where I was every day, I was in danger of jumping his bones if he hadn’t taken off so quickly.

Everything’s cleaned and put away, and I’m doing one final inventory check when he climbs into the back of the bus and pulls the door shut behind him.

Still shirtless.

Which is just—holy hell.

He told at least six customers that push-ups and jogging are all he does for exercise, but my god.

The man’s abs are tight, with the subtlest of man-V’s disappearing into his waistband. His pecs are delicious. And his shoulders—his shoulders are the reason shoulders exist.

Broad, with tight balls of muscle at the tops of his arms, holding up biceps of steel.

He’s not bulky—more lean muscle—but he could’ve been successful as a model even if his face wasn’t handsome as hell.

And don’t get me started on his ass.

The twin dimples on either side of the groove of his spine right above his waistline.

The curve of his butt.

The way I’ve stolen glances at him all day long.

Simon Luckwood has been hiding the body of a god under his shirts.

He beams at me as he steps around the chef’s table and approaches me. “Your competitors would like to invite you to their next barbecue and have requested that I inform you that you’re to bring your own bean bags for cornhole, which is a request that I assume you understand better than I do.”

Is he serious? “You—you networked for me?”

“I didn’t want them to resent you for us selling out first, so I made sure to draw customers to the other vendors as well. Far better to be friendly competition than cutthroat enemies, no?”

I’m sweaty and smell like the worst part of a dirty gym bag. I got a burn on my hand from misbehaving fry grease. My feet ache because I need new shoes, just like Hudson, and also just like Hudson, I haven’t prioritized them yet.

And I’m throwing myself at Simon and kissing him like he’s just rescued me from a desert island.

Because in a way, I think he has.

He catches me without stumbling, wrapping his bare arms around me and slanting his mouth against mine.

Like he’s been searching the high seas for me for decades and had almost given up hope.

Or possibly just like he’s horny.

Or maybe he likes me.

He totally likes you , my vagina squeals.

She’s such a hopeless romantic.

Of course he likes me , I tell her back while I thrust my fingers through Simon’s short hair and hold him closer and kiss him deeper. He wouldn’t kiss me if he didn’t like me .

And that’s what this is.

Mutual attraction.

Combustible mutual attraction leading to him pushing me back against the bus wall at the end of my kitchen while he grips my ass.

A window latch jams into my back. “Audience,” I gasp.

He stares at me, dazed, his hair disheveled, his blue eyes unfocused and aimed mostly at my lips, which are tingling with the need to be attached to his again.

I tug at his shoulders. “Lower.”

His gaze darts to my breasts, and I press my shoulders back without thinking.

Yes, please, kiss me there .

Like he’s reading my mind, his head lowers to my left boob.

Wait.

Was that what I— no .

I meant?—

Simon’s mouth and hot breath land on my shirt just above my nipple, and my head rolls back against the window while an incoherent noise comes out of my throat.

He lowers his mouth to my nipple and sucks hard through the fabric, and my clit sits up and takes notice too.

“Why—magic?” I gasp.

“Why delicious?” He peels my shirt up, ducking lower to kiss a trail up my stomach to my sports bra— a sports bra, Bea? Seriously? —and then he slides his fingers beneath the tight band, making my skin shiver and quake with his touch.

Fewer clothes.

He’s right.

Fewer clothes make this better.

“Better than my fantasies,” he murmurs against my skin.

My lips ache with the need to kiss him back.

And— windows .

Right.

Right .

“Simon—”

His thumbs stroke the underside of my breasts. “Yes, darling?” he says between open-mouthed kisses to my stomach.

My eyes cross.

My brain goes blank.

Do I even have a brain?

Strip him! my vagina orders. Strip him and ride him and let him be our sugar daddy!

She and I don’t see eye to eye on everything.

But—“ Oh god ,” I gasp as his thumbs work their way up to my nipples.

He’s pushed my sports bra up so it’s choking the upper part of my breasts, but he’s pinching my nipples and rolling them between his thumb and finger and oh my god , when he puts his mouth on one nipple and sucks, everything goes blinding white with pure, uncut craving.

Pants off.

Pants have to come off.

Ride him.

I’m wet.

I’m swollen.

I’m aching.

He sucks harder, still torturing my other nipple too, and I whimper. “So good.”

Instead of answering, he hums softly, the vibration making my knees wobble.

I’m gripping his hair and I want to touch myself because it would only take three strokes to get me off right now, but I can’t let go of him because my brain has forgotten how to brain, and also if I let go of my grip on his head, will he stop what he’s doing to my breasts, because this—this is exquisite.

Exquisite torture.

I didn’t know a man could do this to me just with his mouth on my breasts.

And yet—“Simon,” I pant. “Please.”

He releases my nipple from his mouth, then blows on the wet skin, and I gasp again.

“Please what, Bea?”

“I don’t—know.”

“No?”

“Feels—so—good.”

“Naturally.”

My eyes are half-crossed and my knees might give way, and here I am, laughing at the man now sucking my other nipple into his mouth.

“Oh god,” I gasp again.

And that’s before he grips my thighs and slides both of his hands up under my loose shorts toward my panty line.

I widen my thighs.

His thumbs trace the edges of my panties.

I’m so turned on, I can smell myself.

“Touch me,” I whisper. “Oh my god, please touch me.”

“Here?” he murmurs against my breast, his thumbs drifting farther from my pussy.

“ Simon .”

“I rather like when you chide me.” He licks the tip of my breast oh-so-lightly, the barest touch, making me shiver again even though it’s a hundred degrees in here. “Perhaps I should misbehave more.”

“You’re misbehaving—plenty.” Talking is hard. Breathing is hard.

Not coming is hard, but I can’t come.

I’m not quite there .

He rubs his chin around my nipple, the stubble setting my skin on fire.

“If I were to misbehave more—” he starts.

“Please play with my breasts and stroke my pussy,” I gasp.

“Your pussy?” he murmurs.

“Why is it so much hotter when you say pussy?”

“Because you haven’t tired of me yet.”

“ Simon .”

A mischievous grin flashes at me, and then the man is sliding his hand beneath the cotton of my panties to stroke my hot, wet flesh, and?—

“Bea!” someone bangs on the back door. “Open up. I have lettuce and tomatoes for you.”

“ Oh my god ,” I gasp.

I’m halfway into an orgasm and my brother is here .

I shove Simon back and try to yank my sports bra back down, but it’s stuck.

Of fucking course it’s stuck.

It’s a hundred degrees in here and I’ve been sweating like my sweat glands are waterfalls all day, and oh my god , that’s Simon’s first impression of me naked.

“Bea?” Ryker calls again. “It’s too hot for you to have the doors shut.”

Simon’s eyes snap into focus.

He looks at me while I’m trying to pull the tight, wet material back over my boobs, then at the exit at the front of the bus, then down at his own bare chest.

“Why’s the goddamn door locked?” Ryker yells.

Simon meets my gaze.

His blue eyes are black as midnight, pupils dilated. He sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks on it, and that orgasm that was half-started makes my legs wobble.

He’s tasting me.

My brother’s trying to break down the door to get in here, and Simon Luckwood is licking me off his thumb.

“Bea?” Ryker yells again.

“Hold on, I had my head in the fridge,” I yell back.

It’s a gaspy, whimpery yell.

The kind that says something else entirely was going on.

“Where’s your security?” I add to Simon, softer.

“Likely laughing their arses off nearby, conspiring with the universe to make me earn this,” Simon murmurs as I finally get my bra straightened enough to yank my shirt down and head toward the back of the bus.

“I—sorry,” I manage.

He grins. “Oh, don’t be. I enjoy a good challenge.”

How does the man keep getting even more attractive?

I shuffle on weak knees to the back of the bus and unlock the door to let Ryker in.

He’s waiting in his usual overalls and dirt-covered T-shirt and boots, holding a waxed box of produce at one hip, and as soon as the door is fully open, he immediately looks past me.

“Hello, mate,” Simon says behind me.

“Where’s your shirt?” Ryker asks him.

“Did you know the women on this campus and in this town will buy burgers from a man who’s not wearing one?”

Ryker’s gaze wavers from Simon back to me. “You’re peckering out your burgers now?”

“Sorry?” Simon says. “I’m unfamiliar with that term.”

I would laugh, but my vagina is too busy crying over what almost was. “Do you know the restaurant Hooters?” I look back at Simon, who’s flung himself into one of the seats at my chef’s table.

Probably to hide the massive boner I glimpsed when I was panicked and wrestling my bra back in place.

And at that thought, my vagina whimpers once again.

We almost had that boner.

Simon’s brows furrow. “Hooters? I don’t believe I do.”

He’s lying.

The man is lying.

Like he wants to make me say it out loud.

“It’s a restaurant whose main draw is that all of the servers have very large breasts and they wear tight, skimpy T-shirts.

” I gesture to my own breasts, realize they’re lopsided because I couldn’t get the damn sports bra back on right, and then cross my arms over my chest before Ryker cares to look close enough to notice.

I can play off every single sweat drop and smell in this burger bus right now as what happens after a long shift on the hottest day of the year, but I can’t explain to my brother why my boobs are crooked.

Or why my lips are probably swollen.

Simon props his elbow on the table, chin on his fist, his thumb brushing his bottom lip, which reminds me once again where that thumb was just a minute ago. “Fascinating. And that has to do with me being shirtless…?”

“Rumor goes around every once in a while that someone’s starting a restaurant called Peckers to compete. Where shirtless men in tight pants serve the ladies.”

That smile.

That smile will live on in my dreams until the day I die.

Because when Simon Luckwood smiles that smile at me, I know he’s thinking about when we can get together again. I know he’s thinking about how much he enjoyed basically getting caught with his hands in my underwear.

I hope he’s thinking that he likes me.

“Seems a splendid idea,” he says to me. “We certainly demonstrated how well it works today, did we not?”

“We’d have to test it with other men to see if it was the naked torso factor, or if it was the you factor,” I tell him.

“I’ll put out a call on socials now that you’ve gotten me some new followers.

See if any other guys around town are willing to work for tips for a day to stand in my burger bus shirtless. ”

He frowns.

Simon.

Frowning.

Look at that. He’s hot when he’s frowning too.

Ryker makes a noise. “You fucking will not .”

“Oh, because you’ll do it?” I ask him.

He ignores the question. “Will you take the damn vegetables and go home?”

“Yes and no. I’ll take the vegetables, but I’m not going home.”

He closes his eyes and sighs heavily. “Why not?”

“Well, old man, because I’m coming to your house. I owe Simon dinner for helping me sell out today. And you have the best grill and the most room for his kids and security team and Daph and Hudson too.”

Ryker stares at me without blinking.

I give him my best you-love-me-and-you’ll-love-dinner smile.

“This isn’t a private dinner?” Simon asks.

Ryker growls. “Fuck, no. Bring the army to my house. Better cook something good.”

“Do I ever not?”

My brother looks at me, then down at my crooked breasts, then over at Simon, then back to my face. “Guess we’ll see.”