“My private life is nobody’s business but mine.” He kissed me on the forehead, right above my eye. “And your business too, now.”
“That reporter woman, Brooke Summer, she asked if I was sleeping with you, and she acted like she knew something.”
“Probably just fishing. Does it matter? Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed to be linked with me?” He grabbed me suddenly and lifted me up to sit on the countertop. I hadn’t been picked up like that since I was a kid, and the good feeling it gave surprised me.
With his hands gripping me around my hips, he kissed me hard, pushing me back until my head tapped the upper cupboards.
I had been so fuming mad from that horrible woman, and all those people tramping on my lawn, not to mention stomping all over my geraniums. Now, though, alone with Dalton, my anger dissipated.
“I’m not embarrassed,” I said. “But aren’t you? Like, to be seen with me? I’m not exactly Hollywood starlet material.”
He kissed me again, sucking my lower lip into his mouth briefly, then offering me his tongue. He must have brushed his teeth, because he tasted minty. Mmm, refreshing. I wanted more.
Pulling away, he wiped a strand of my blond hair back behind my ear. “Nobody is Hollywood starlet material. Nobody. They’d have to build one from robot parts to get what they want. You do know there are entire industries devoted to the illusion, from hair and makeup people to digital retouchers?”
“Do you think that reporter knows you’re in my house right this minute? Getting your package groped by me?” I reached down and made my statement true. He had nice balls that really filled out the package area.
He bounced his eyebrows. “They’ll never catch me.”
“So what if they do? They’d just take your picture and ask you stupid questions. Isn’t it good for you to get more publicity?”
“The way to get good publicity is to pretend you want your privacy.”
“Interesting.” I kept fondling his package through his jeans, enjoying guessing what was sausage and what was beans.
He winced, and the package in my hands grew in size.
“Careful what you start,” he said.
I pulled my hands away and put them behind my back. “Sorry! I have no control over my mouth, or my hands.”
“One of the many things I love about you.”
I snorted in surprise. He said the word love.
“Breakfast,” I said, eager to change the topic.
“Right.” He held one hand up, motioning for me to stay seated on the counter. He got the eggs out of the grocery bag and started hunting for a frying pan.
“Right here, sexy.” I parted my legs so he could access the cupboard beneath me. I was wearing the blue dress again, and pretty sure he’d get a view of my panties.
He crouched down to get the frying pan, but couldn’t resist taking a nibble on my bare calf. My freshly-fucked panty zone pulsed with heat. Oh, the way he touched me—like I was a fancy android-sex-bot and every square inch of me was a turn-on panel. Oh, my circuits! He licked and nibbled my calf and then my bare knee.
In a robotic voice, I said, “I am your sex-bot. How may I pleasure you?”
He stood up slowly, giving me a sly look. “Nobody’s ever asked me that before. Not in that exact way, at least.”
“I am the Peach Three Thousand. Your pleasure is my top priority.”
He reached into the cupboard behind my head for a bowl, pausing to drink in more kisses. I was so hot, my baby oven felt like an incinerator. Which was weird. But not entirely unpleasant.
His voice throaty and thick, Dalton growled near my ear, “I’m going to wear out your warranty.”
I would have reached down and tried to pull his clothes off right there in my kitchen, but he moved away and danced over to the stove. I sat and watched as he made breakfast for us, to eat for lunch. There’s no lunch quite like breakfast, when you missed the latter because you were making love and napping.
“C’mere, sex-bot,” he said once our meal was ready.
I sat across from him at the walnut pedestal table in the corner of our eat-in kitchen. The table was a “loaner” from my mother. She’d found it a few years earlier at a garage sale, covered in decades of layered paint and marked up from love and abuse. She’d painstakingly stripped off all the layers of paint in our garage, using a heat gun and finally a chemical stripper to get into the carved detailing. The wood was still scarred, its giant ruts filled with walnut-stained compound, but that was what she called “character.”
There are two kinds of people who love antique furniture. The first kind appreciate character in all its many flavors, meaning flaws and quirks in everything, from people to towns and objects. The second kind is those who think everything made today is crap. I’m glad my mother is the first.
As we ate our scrambled eggs and bread (I had three slices of toast while Dalton begrudgingly had one that he savored), we talked about antiques and furniture restoration. I wasn’t that surprised when Dalton told me he liked mid-century modern pieces with teak wood and clean lines. Considering the guy was staying in a silver bullet Airstream trailer, it made sense he couldn’t just like normal furniture from IKEA, or whatever the rich-person equivalent of IKEA is.*
*Now that I think about it, there probably is no rich-person equivalent of IKEA, no more than there’s a rich-person version of marble cheese, Pabst Blue Ribbon, or beans and wieners.
He talked some more about his house in LA, and as he did, there was an awkwardness in the air. He shifted back and forth between explaining his home to me like I would never see it myself, and then changing tone and saying things like, “But of course, you’ll see for yourself that the swimming pool isn’t garish at all. Make sure you bring your sunscreen, though, because your pale Washington skin is unaccustomed to so much sunshine.”
“I could tan if I wanted. Just six to eight weeks of blisters and peeling skin, and I’m as brown as my cousin, Shayla.”
He pointed to the ceiling, as she was still upstairs. “Your roommate’s also your cousin? Wow, I really am in a small town.”
“Don’t say it like that. We’re not all related.”
“Are you related to the Weston family?”
I gave him a sidelong look. How did he know about the Weston family? They’d lived in Beaverdale for generations, but their descendants never married anyone from the town. Spouses were always met elsewhere, then imported. They didn’t even have their weddings in Beaverdale, but you couldn’t fault them too much, because through their lumber mill they did employ a good portion of the town. They also sunk money back into the community, sponsoring local sports teams, and paying for improvements to the recreation center. I’d certainly enjoyed the new tennis courts countless times. Not playing tennis, but walking by and enjoying the fit young men sweating and chasing the yellow ball.