Slow Burn

Chapter 9

BECKETT

I let the hot water sluice down my back as I soap up and clean the ocean’s salt from my skin. The wave sets were pretty damn impressive this morning. Nothing like the ones I learned from at the beaches up in Santa Cruz, but decent nonetheless. Add to that the forty minutes I put into running on the beach’s waterline after surfing, and I’m a happy man.

Well, I’d be helluva lot happier if I were standing here with Haddie, soaping up that ridiculous body of hers. Sliding sudsy hands over her smooth skin and perfect curves, and then sliding something else inside her until we’re both panting, spent, and needing to soap back up again.

Goddamn.

The onslaught of thoughts and desires that the memory of that body invokes has me hard as a rock with no relief in sight.

Not if I can have anything to do about it.

Her body might be the holy frickin’ grail of perfection but something in her eyes said what’s inside doesn’t jibe. The confidence she exudes—that she used to own like her golden tanned skin—is tinged with something now. Whether it’s sadness or grief … who the fuck knows? But the glimpses are there when that wall she lives behind slips every once in a while. And when it slips, so do the connections she’s made to everyone around her.

Well, everyone but Rylee, and that’s to be expected, them being best friends and all. Just like Colton and me.

And hell if I don’t miss that asshole. Happy for him that he found happiness with Ry after all of the shit that’s happened to him, but damn if I don’t miss his sarcastic mouth and annoying micromanagement at work.

I pull myself from my thoughts when I realize my dick is still flying full staff in my hand from thinking about Haddie. Then why in the hell has my mind veered to Colton?

Dude, that’s fucked-up. I laugh out loud into the shower stall, knowing I must be stressed over all the preparations at work for the upcoming race season if I’m about to ease the ache from Haddie and my mind shifts gears halfway through to Colton.

Thoughts back to where they should be, on sweet, sweet Haddie, I roll my head back as my hand begins to stroke, adding only a small measure of the pleasure that Haddie gave me that night—when I resisted, tried to do the right thing to prevent what could be a fiasco of catastrophic proportions if our one night together went sideways.

Sideways. Hm, now that’s an option when it comes to bending that sweet-ass body of hers.

I close my eyes and recall the purr from deep in her throat that she emitted right before she came, how her fingers tightened on my body, fingernails digging in when she let go.

I can feel my body tensing, my orgasm gearing up to release some of the rampant need that seeing Haddie the other day made resurface. It’s lingered persistently, like a ghost, always reminding me of every damn thing about her.

And then Rex starts barking like a damn maniac.

At first I force myself to block him out, focus on the task at hand, but then realize that someone is at the door. Are you fucking serious? I stand there midstroke as I try to decide whether I should finish or should just chalk it up as a sign that I need to wait because I’ll have the real thing soon enough.

Optimistic thinking at its finest. Even though the woman I’m after has proven more complex than a goddamn Rubik’s Cube.

Fuck. Waiting it is, then. I turn off the shower just as the doorbell rings again. I can barely hear it above Rex’s howling and tail thumping against the wall by the front door. It’s wagging, so it must be someone he knows at least.

“Just a minute!” I yell as I rub the towel over my head momentarily before wrapping it around my waist. I make my way to the door, mentally telling my dick to downgrade its status, although all thoughts of Haddie and the boner I just had completely vanish when I see the smile on the other end of the peephole.

“Shit,” I sigh as I reach out to grab the door handle. I make a quick check that I’m not pitching a tent beneath my towel, and my own smile widens without preamble. The door swings open, and she gives me a once-over, up and down with a smart shake of her head. Before I can even say hello, she’s barreling into the house right past me.

“It’s ten a.m., and your lazy butt is just getting in the shower? Is that how I raised you, Beckett Dixon?” She breezes in, and I know she’s serious because she’s using my middle name. I hold back a laugh because I can see her bloodhound nose trying to scent if I’m here alone or have had any females in the house as of late.

“Hi, Mom.” I roll my eyes, one hand holding my towel up at my side, and my smile growing wider as I watch her set the bags in her hand on the counter before meandering around the family room. Her seemingly aimless stroll to the couch is actually a fishing expedition to see if there is an errant Cosmopolitan magazine on the table or a pair of pink flip-flops randomly left about—a surefire sign in her eyes that I’m settling down, ready to marry and give her grandbabies.

Ha. That’s about as likely as me giving up racing.

“You can tell your lady friend who was in the shower with you to come on out now,” she says loudly as she walks past the hallway to my bedroom, her hand down at her side, petting an exuberant Rex all the while. “I won’t judge, I promise.”

“Mom,” I laugh with a shake of my head and exasperation in my voice, “there is no one in my bedroom.”

“What about your shower? You were in the shower, right?” The expectancy in her voice makes me sad I’ve disappointed her because at heart who wants to let his parents down, but seriously, marriage and a baby? At this juncture in my life, it’s something I most definitely want, but it’s a blip on my radar for the near future.

I run a hand through my still soaked hair. The woman is relentless in her pursuit for a grandchild. Early retirement from her teaching job has been good to her but has also left her bored and pining for someone to coddle and rock and sing the ABCs with.

She walks past me and now that I know my towel is secure, I grab her and wrap my arms around her. “Hi, Momma. Good to see you.”

She slinks her arms around me and pulls me in close. “Hi, baby. You’re getting me all wet!” She pushes me away as quickly as she pulls me near. To her it’s been hard enough to let us go, so she tries to prevent the emotions that are clogging her voice from spilling over as if I don’t see it each and every time.

“Well, that’s what happens when you waltz on in when I’m in the shower, now, isn’t it?” I quirk an eyebrow up at her, a smart-ass smirk on my face.

“Oh shush!” She shoos me away but doesn’t move as love fills her eyes.

God, I love this woman. Class, grace, and comfort all rolled into one. I study her as she does me and notice the lines a little deeper around her mouth, her cheeks a little fuller, and her eyes sparkling with happiness. She may be a constant proverbial thorn in my side, but I’d drop anything on a dime for her if she needed me.

I readjust my grip on my towel, and she swats at my arm. “Relax. It’s not like I haven’t seen your goods before. I did wipe that rear end of yours, you know.”

“Yeah, like thirty years ago,” I correct her as she turns her back on me and gives one more glance around to make sure I’m not lying to her about having company.

Her appraisal gives me a second to slide a glance at the clock, knowing this little visit is going to make me even later for work than my run already did. I mentally scan my calendar and figure I can take my scheduled conference call with Firestone on the drive in.

“So tell me,” she says as she walks over to the counter and pulls out plastic containers of sugar and chocolate chip cookies, various other packages of food, and then last a tin-foil-covered dish, which has my stomach growling because it looks like my favorite of hers, lasagna. “Why is my handsome son not shacking up with some hot, little thing?”

“Ha. I’m the handsome son. Then where does that leave Walker?” I’ll take any chance I can to throw a dig at him, even when he’s not around. Brotherly love and all.

“Now, Becks, don’t be mean to Walk. He’s just as handsome as you, just in a different way,” she scolds as she places the container into the refrigerator.

“Is that lasagna?” My mind shifts to what’s more important, food. I’ll put up with the ration of shit she gives me any day if she’s going to fill my fridge and bring me home-cooked goodness.

I’m all for being self-sufficient, but cooking is for the birds. Plus I suck at it.

“Yes, it is,” she answers, not really hearing my question before she continues. “Walker says you came up to the ranch all hot and bothered by someone. Why aren’t you busy with her this morning?”

Fuckin’ Walker and his big fat mouth. I should have known better.

“Hmm?” she says when I don’t answer. And the way she says it, like she has absolutely no interest, and as always, I play along and act like I don’t notice her blatant intrusion into my privacy.

“Mom, you know Walker. He’s such a chi—” I cut myself off before I can say the word chick, knowing I’ll get scolded for it.

“Beckett,” she scolds, “do not use that word around me. You should know better by now. That’s a word men in bars use, and frankly, yes, you’re a man, but one, you are not in a bar, and two, you are educated and should know women are not meek little birds that chirp.” I roll my eyes, her back facing me, as I hear the reprimand for what feels like the hundredth time in my life. “Quit rolling your eyes. Now, tell me all about her. Does she by chance have a pair of pink flip-flops?”

“Jesus, Mother! You and your pink flip-flops!” I bark.

“Don’t ever doubt me. I told you I had a dream, and your wife was wearing a pink pair of them….”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re handsome. Now, quit trying to distract me, and tell me all about her!”

I stop myself from sighing out loud before thoughts of Haddie cloud my head, and my frustration with whatever it is we have comes tumbling out of my mouth.

“That good, huh?” she says in response to my exhale and continued silence, the smile on her face so wide, I swear her cheeks are going to crack.

I stare at her, the correction on my tongue, but I stop myself. I’m a goddamn grown man—in a towel, no less—and my mother is here scolding, probing, hoping I’m sleeping with someone. And yet I can’t find it in me to let her down and tell her there is no one on my immediate radar.

Talk about twisting my balls … and not by any means in a pleasurable way.

There’s so much wrong with this picture, I don’t even know where to begin. My mother wanting to discuss my sex life? Talk about getting the heebie-jeebies.

“There’s a possibility there,” I tell her, hoping the response is enough for now. “How are you doing?” Time to change the subject, get her talking about dad and their aches and pains and their newest plans for travel.

I walk up behind her and place a kiss on the top of her head, the open container of cookies calling to me. I grab one, settle down on the barstool, and prepare for the rest of my conversation with her.

No one ever rushes Trisha Daniels.

No one.

Not even her elder son, who’s going to be so damn late to work, it’s not even funny.

Lucky for me I’m in good with the boss.