Page 6 of A Little Love

“I love you, Mama Kay!”

Nolan took the chance and added two French Vanilla creamers, but one sip told him Tricia was right. The coffee was stronger than anything he’d experienced, even overseas. He added three more creamers and a single sugar.

“Thank you for the coffee,” he said, while Tricia placed their take-and-bake pepperoni pizza order.

“No,” Kay replied. “Thank you for your service.”

Ten minutes later, pizza in hand, they headed back to his truck. He held the door for Tricia to climb up. “Friendly town.”

“Scio’s a small place,” she said with a smile and shrug. “When everyone knows everybody else, it pays to be nice.”

Chapter Three

“Not that I’m opposed to bright bordello red or anything, but wow,” Tricia said, methodically moving through the kitchen while she taped off the brand new cabinets, granite countertops and molding. He still had the floors, light fixtures, and electrical outlets to replace, and the new stainless steel appliances hadn’t yet been delivered. Once he was finished, it would be a complete remodel job. The only remaining item on his checklist: these serial-killer inspiring, deep crimson walls. “What were the old owners thinking?”

“They weren’t afraid of color, that’s for certain.” Once more lying flat on his back (under the kitchen sink this time—a dual sink that was, as of about ten minutes ago, complete with garbage disposal), Nolan finished tightening the new hoses on the new faucet he’d just installed. He’d been living here a week now, camped on his sofa in a sleeping bag because every singleroom in this house needed work and he didn’t see any point in spreading out if that meant he was going to have to constantly be moving his stuff from room to room. Fortunately for him, everything he owned fit, literally, in one tiny corner of the massive living room. Unfortunately for him, every single thing he owned fit in one tiny corner of his new living room. He really needed to get more stuff, something Tricia had commented on the second day she’d simply shown up on his porch with a brand new broom, mop and bucket, and an entire carrying caddy chock-a-block full of cleaning supplies. All of which had been presented to him, complete with red ribbons artfully tied into bows.

“Kinda makes it feel like Christmas, doesn’t it?” she’d asked with a self-satisfied grin.

He had to unwrap everything before he could use it. Except the broom. He left its ribbon alone. It made sweeping seem more… cheerful, somehow. So did imagining Tricia, dressed only in red-ribboned zippers made of clothespins. Yeah, that mental image had resulted in a week’s worth of cold showers, and that was even after he’d replaced the water heater.

“What color are you thinking about painting in here?” Tricia asked, checking the cabinets to make sure they had fully dried. Scrubbing them all down had been her first job that morning. Sanding had been the last thing she’d done before going home last night. So far, she’d been here every single day. Within a half hour of her arriving home from work, he’d hear those footsteps skipping up his porch steps and then would come that by now familiar knock.

She had an unusual knock. Most people only rapped maybe two or four times, relaxed and casual. Cops knocked three times, high, strong and authoritative. Tricia, on the other hand, knocked in a sharp, fast series of ten or twelve. He’d tried to count once, but the longer it went on, the faster she tended toknock, making it hard to tell if she was doing it out of happiness or urgency. He honestly didn’t know if he liked it or not, but it was hers and it was unique. And it didn’t matter anyway because he was getting used to it. Worse than that, he was starting to look forward to it. To the point that he found himself watching the clock, anticipating not just her arrival but that moment when she walked into his house on such a wave of happy energy and enthusiasm that it was damn near tangible. The kind of tangible that made a guy want to reach out and touch it.

Or her.

Down, boy, he told himself wryly, staring up at the underside of his dual sink and feeling that (by now, also familiar) throbbing sensation burning low in his abdomen. Living in a state of near constant arousal was becoming a way of life for him.

A shadow crossed his chest, blocking out what little light he had to work by. Not that that meant much, since he’d finished tightening down the hoses almost ten minutes ago. He was pretty much just lying here now, building on the crick in the small of his back, staring and thinking.

“Earth to Sergeant Anderson,” Tricia sang, and the next thing he knew she had dropped down, squatting over him in a way that straddled his hips. She was very careful not to let her shapely bottom rest on him, but it was a damn close thing and when she bent over him—two thin inches of empty air being all there was between him and her lying on top of him, belly to belly, her jean-clad hips hovering directly over his suddenly straining zipper, and the gorgeous mounds of her breasts glimpsed so far down the ‘v’ of her low-cut tank top that he could actually see her bellybutton—all he could feel were all the parts of him that she wasn’t actually touching.

He put his tools down and looked at her, a crooked smile answering hers as she braced her hands upon the floor to eitherside of his ribs and leaned as far into the cabinet as she could without her breasts brushing him.

“Yes?” he drawled, but in his head one thought and one thought only reigned with absolute certainty.I am going to fuck this woman. His cock pressed hard against the zipper teeth of his fly, as if it could feel the heat of her hovering just above him.

“Are we going to paint today?” she asked, walking two fingers up the middle of his chest to give him the smallest, most beguiling tweak upon the chin.

One good tweak deserved another. His fingers itched, but he left her nipples unmolested.

“Yes, we are,” he replied, and if she noticed his voice was a little huskier than normal, she didn’t say anything.

Her eyes sparkled; she’d probably noticed. “What color did you get for the kitchen?”

“A nice, soothing off-white.”

She made a face, screwing up her nose. “White? Yellow is cheerful. Why can’t we paint it yellow?”

“Because I got white. Tons and tons of white.”

She was still smiling, even as her face screwed up that much more. Making it clear exactly what she thought of his color palette. “But why?”

“Because everything goes with it. I can decorate how I choose and not have to worry about color clashes. It was also on sale.”

“Clashing with what?” She laughed. “You barely have furniture!”

She made no effort to get off him, so Nolan made himself comfortable lying half-in and half-out from under the sink. He folded his hands, tucking them under his head to keep himself from succumbing to the ever-intensifying urge to cup her bottom and pull it down into firm contact with the straining of his cock. “That doesn’t mean I want what I do have to be mismatched. I just got the 70s orange and teal nightmare thehell out of here. We’re not going to replace it with a whole new modern-day mess.”

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