Page 51 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

IT MIGHT BE SECOND BEST, BUT IT’S BETTER THAN NOTHING

Bea

Daphne and I are barely home after the pizza party before my phone rings.

She takes one look at my phone screen, smirks, and heads for her bedroom. “I’m going to put on my noise-canceling headphones and rock out for a while,” she says.

“Don’t stay up too late. You have work tomorrow.”

She flashes a thumbs-up, like we’re both thinking about her working and not about Simon calling me when we both spent all of dinner trying to touch each other any way we could in public.

At least, I’m thinking about touching Simon.

Daph was at the other end of the table. She might not have been thinking about me touching Simon.

Either way, she disappears into her bedroom.

I duck into mine, answering the phone on its fourth ring. “Hey.”

“Do you have any idea how much I detest cheese?” Simon says by way of greeting.

I kick off my shoes and flop down onto my bed, which I neatly made this morning for once. “A lot?”

“It causes a level of discomfort in my entire midsection that I don’t wish to contemplate, much less describe.”

“Did you accidentally eat cheese?”

“No. But despite how much I detest cheese, I cannot stop thinking about how much I would enjoy eating melted cheese off your breasts.”

I absently rub one of my breasts as the tingling starts. “You couldn’t fantasize about honey instead? I thought you had honey fantasies.”

“It’s the oddest thing. I must have cheese on my brain. I definitely have you on my brain. But eating cheese off you? I fear something in me has broken from a lack of alone time with you.”

“Are we having phone sex?”

“Very poorly if you have to ask. And if I’m thinking of cheese.”

I’m simultaneously amused to the point of laughter and turned on to the point of frustrated. “What are your kids up to?”

“They’re playing that bloody awful creature game Hudson showed them.”

“At your house?”

“In addition to her mother’s care, Lana has a client with a sudden emergency. She received the call the moment we left the restaurant.”

“Do you know who’s the best babysitter ever?”

“Mary Poppins?”

“Daphne.”

“Your roommate and best friend and semi-adopted extra child? That Daphne?”

“She has the energy of a squirrel, the background to know all of the trouble kids can get into, and now the wisdom to prevent other kids from doing what she did.”

“Excellent. When can she arrive, and when can I join you at your place? Wait. Is Hudson there? Wait again. Do we care if Hudson is there?”

“Griff got a suite at one of the hotels by the college. Hudson’s crashing with him the next two nights.”

“Only two nights?”

“All-Star break is short. And the only reason Griff can stay until Friday morning is because the commute to Toronto for his next game is short.”

“Is Daphne free tomorrow evening?”

“Probably not. She has a very active social life. And it’s a work night.”

Simon growls softly.

“But she loves me, so she’ll probably cancel her plans and watch your kids so that you and I can hang out here alone. Watch a movie. Eat popcorn. Maybe play some Scrabble.”

“Beatrice.”

I smile at my ceiling. “Yes, Simon?”

“I have never adored a woman who tortures me quite the way I adore you and the way you torture me.”

“I like to set my expectations low so that I’m not disappointed.”

“I would like you to set your expectations high so that we can improve this orgasm count.”

An aroused shiver slinks through my body. “If my expectations are too high though, I might be disappointed. And so might you.”

“Oh no, darling. I never underperform when expectations are high. Especially when exceeding expectations is so very satisfying.”

“I thought you liked being a lazy bum.”

“No, I rather overachieved being a lazy bum. There’s a difference.”

“Simon?”

“Yes, darling?”

“I think I adore you too.”

“Quite the pickle, is it not?”

“ Indeed ,” I reply, just like he would.

He chuckles, and another warm, delicious shiver makes its way over my skin.

“So tell me, darling,” he says softly, “what are you wearing?”

Oh yes.

I am all in on this. “What do you want me to be wearing?”

“Preferably nothing at all, in my bed, but as that is not an option…tell me about those lacy bits of undergarments you had on when you were last here.”

“My thong?”

“Yes. What color was it?”

“Red.”

He groans softly.

“With little black bows.”

“Will you put them on again?”

“Now? Or tomorrow?”

“Both.”

I lift myself off the bed and eyeball the stack of laundry in the corner. My body is flushed, my hormones buzzing, and that thong is right on top. “I have something else for tomorrow. Something better.”

“Impossible.”

“I’m changing into my red lace thong now.”

His breath comes through the phone, ragged and desperate.

“What are you wearing?” I ask.

“A cotton T-shirt, socks, and a pair of boxer-briefs.”

“Is that how you always walk around your house?”

“No. My trousers are highly uncomfortable when I’m this aroused.”

“Where are you?”

“My bedroom.”

“What does it look like?”

“Emptiness and loneliness and bleakness.”

I’ve shimmied out of my shorts and plain pink cotton panties, and now I’m dancing into the thong. “You could hire a designer to fix that.”

“Having you here would fix that.”

“What would your room look like if I were there?”

“It would look like a naked Bea splayed across my rumpled white sheets, which is my very definition of heaven. Have you changed your knickers?”

I finagle myself out of my tank top without dropping the phone. “Yes. I’m in my red lace thong.”

“Are you still wearing anything else?”

“A completely not-matching beige cotton bra.”

“Take it off.”

“One strap at a time, or do you want me to reach behind my back and unclasp it so it falls off?”

“Bea…” His voice is getting hoarse.

“Yes?”

“I’m picturing your breasts and gripping my cock.”

I want to see Simon’s cock. I’ve felt it, but I haven’t seen it. “Just gripping? Not stroking?”

“I fear it would take fewer than five strokes considering how turned on your voice makes me.”

“I want to stroke your cock.”

“I want to lick your dimples and tease your pussy with my fingers.”

My legs squeeze together. “Simon?”

“Touch your pussy for me, Bea. Slip your fingers under that lace and play with your clit.”

I lean back on my bed and do exactly as I’m told, imagining my fingers are Simon’s, that he’s rubbing my clit with his thumb while his fingers tease the slick, wet skin between my thighs. “Feels—so—good,” I whisper.

“Are you wet?”

“Soaked.”

He groans softly again. “I want to feel you.”

“I want to taste you.”

A strangled noise comes through the phone.

I slip two fingers inside myself. “Simon?”

“Yes, my beautiful minx?”

“Are you hard?”

“As granite, love.”

“Stroke yourself.”

“Bea, I am so utterly close?—”

“I—am too.”

“You should—come first.”

My head rolls back on the mattress, thighs open, the lace of my thong soaked. “I wish you were here.”

“God, Bea.” He’s panting.

Panting and gasping softly, and I want to be there with him.

I want to be jerking his cock. I want to cradle his balls and feel him on top of me, pumping inside me, kissing me.

“I want you to touch my breasts again,” I whimper.

I’m close.

So close.

“I would like to worship your whole body.” His voice is strained. I picture him with his eyes half-closed, watching me touch myself, and my entire body comes unraveled.

“Oh god, Simon, I—I’m coming,” I gasp as I come in one hard, fast spasm. It spreads immediately into heavy aftershocks that travel from my toes to my fingertips to the roots of my hair.

“Thank fuck,” he gasps, and then he’s groaning softly again.

“Are you?” I pant.

“Yes.”

“Want—more,” I gasp while the tremors continue in my core.

“Soon, love. Soon.”

It’s not usually like this.

Dating.

Screwing around.

Whatever you want to call it.

Every time I’ve dated anyone, we’ve dated .

Evening dinners several nights a week.

Then his place. Then I’d get home late and hope my brothers didn’t know what I was up to.

But with Simon—we have to fight for time.

Either he’s with his boys, or Daphne or one of my brothers needs something, or I’m booked somewhere.

He’s leaving soon.

I’m staying soon.

And we’re still fighting for these moments of time between the other slices of everyday life.

And when we get them—they’re electric.

“Simon?” I whisper as his breathing evens out on the other end of the phone.

“Yes, Bea?”

“You are my favorite part of this summer.”

He makes a soft sound halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. “You are a most unexpected treat.”

“Is it helping?”

“Helping what?”

“The publicity. Helping your career.”

A long stretch of silence lingers on the other end of the phone.

“Simon?”

“I…have a confession.”

I blink at the ceiling. “A confession?”

“No one suggested that I see you for the publicity or visibility or any other trickery involving any form of the press.”

“No one—what does that mean?”

“I merely wanted an excuse to continue to see you…without having to confess to even myself how much I wished to continue to see you.”

I sit up and stare at myself in the mirror over my dresser, watching my eyebrows try to settle between surprised and irritated and flattered, my jaw flapping open, my forehead wrinkling, my breasts chilling out, completely naked, nipples still tight from that orgasm, phone to my ear, and?—

And I completely lose it.

Laughter overtakes me as I flop back on my bed.

“You… You’re not angry?” Simon asks.

I can’t answer.

I’m laughing too hard.

Laughing, and maybe crying just a little too.

“Bea?”

“You’re a disaster.”

He barks out a laugh too. “That I am.”

“And you’re perfect.”

“That I am most certainly not.”

“ Simon .”

“Ah, do say my name like that again.”

“Have you ever had a normal relationship with someone where you could just say that you liked them and they could say they liked you back and you did dinner dates and sometimes went to each other’s houses to make out and watch TV and cuddle and have sex and cuddle more?”

The silence stretches longer this time.

“Simon?”

“You are the closest I have ever come to that level of perceived normality.”

My heart squeezes.

My hopelessly romantic vagina does too, but mostly, it’s my heart.

“And I’ve hardly seen you in nearly a week.

” His words are rushed, like if he doesn’t say it quickly, he won’t say it at all.

“But I still—I miss you. I think about you constantly. I wonder what you’re doing when we’re not speaking.

I feel a contact high from being in your presence even when we’re both clothed and unlikely to be naked because I simply enjoy…

you. And I don’t entirely know what to do with that. ”

“Do you know my favorite thing about you?” I whisper.

“I’m honestly afraid to guess, and I rather hope it’s slightly unflattering. I’m far more comfortable in the uncomfortable and awkward. If you could do us both the favor of insisting it’s my British accent, that would be lovely.”

“My favorite thing about you is that you’re so very, very real, when you have all of the tools at your disposal to be anything but.”

He’s quiet again.

Am I wrong?

Is this not real?

The stories about his parents, about his spite smile, about his intentions to never have this level of success, his confession that he never wanted to be a father and he’s afraid he’s messing it up—who would say any of that if it wasn’t real?

“And my favorite thing about you,” he finally says, “is that I feel safe being real with you. Truly, it’s a gift I cannot adequately thank you for. Regardless of what happens at the end of the summer, you, Beatrice Best, and your friendship have changed my life for the better.”

My eyes water.

My heart—yep.

My heart’s done it again.

It’s fallen headfirst into love with a guy who will likely never fully love me back.

And my vagina smirks in an I told you so and swoons a little too.

I curl up on my bed and wish I was curling up next to him. “Simon?”

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow is Griff’s last night in town, and I don’t want to miss it. But I’ll ask Daphne if she can hang with your boys on Friday.”

“One would think two security men would be sufficient,” he says with a sigh.

“Not one who’s met your kids.”

“Speaking of my children—I should check in on them.”

“You’re doing a good job,” I whisper. “They’re going to be the best people ever when they grow up.”

“You’re entirely too good for me.”

“Doubt that.”

I can hear him smiling as he answers. “One day, Bea, you’ll see the truth of the matter. And until then, I shall humor your incorrect opinions.”

I’m smiling and rolling my eyes as we hang up.

He’s wrong.

Simon and I?

Neither one of us is perfect.

Far from it.

But together?

I think we’re bringing out the best in each other.

And that is the last thing I expected. But it’s my other favorite thing about him.