Page 41 of Side Hustle
And that was it.
A sincere compliment from Rip and I was flying to the moon, gold flashes of light exploding behind my eyelids. All those years of wanting him and then loathing him slipped away in a single orgasm. I yelled something I wouldn’t remember, my voice cut off by his mouth back on mine, his tongue diving in at the same time as his cock. The waves reignited when I felt him stiffen above me, his thrusts faltering and finally stopping with him buried as deep as he could go. He tucked his face in my neck and his whole body shook. The sound of his faint grunt became sweet music to my ears.
We lay like that for long minutes, just two bodies breathing together, still connected physically and emotionally. I was so happy I could have cried, which sent warning bells ringing in my brain. This was just some fun between two friends. Nothing to cry about. I blew the hair out of my face, too exhausted to reach up and push it off my sweaty skin.
“I’m so baking you brownies,” I said, voice wobbling.
The bed shook with Rip’s chuckle. “Please don’t.”
“Hey!”
But then he was pulling out, rolling off me, and walking to the bathroom, his magnificent glute muscles flexing with each step, and I lost track of the argument.
Holy sex gods. Someone should make a statue of his butt out of the gold they found on his land. Tourists would come from miles around to view that type of perfection.
“One down, twenty-nine to go,” he called over his shoulder.
I bit my lip, but couldn’t help the grin that took over my face as I stared at his ceiling.
Yes, please.
16
Hazel
I slept late the next morning, knowing I didn’t have to work until later in the afternoon when I’d head out to Janey’s place outside of town. She wanted to do a re-grand opening of her yoga enterprise. She’d called me a few weeks back and told me that goat yoga was waning in popularity. Quite frankly, I was surprised she’d lasted as long as she did. Have you smelled goat droppings recently? Ew. Instead, Janey was dead set on cat yoga. And because Granny owned the National Cat Protection Society, naturally, we were top of mind. I had the privilege of transporting twenty aging cats to Janey’s place and enticing them with catnip while she led the first feline yoga session. There’d be time after the class for me to advertise what we did at the Protection Society, so hopefully it would be a win-win-win. Make a few bucks in my pocket and Janey’s, maybe shuttle some funds to Granny’s in the way of donations.
I stretched up tall and grinned at the muscles aching in my thighs and the back of my right arm. Last night had been the most fun I’d had in a long time. We’d only gotten through two condoms before I bowed out, much to my disappointment. Turned out, too many orgasms could wear a girl out. To punish myself for ending the evening, I left Rip warm in his bed to do the walk of shame at two in the morning.
“What’s the grin about?” Granny fired at me the second I stumbled into the kitchen.
I rubbed my eyes and realized Poppy and Polly were standing right there, their heads tilted to the side, examining me.
“Oh shit, is it Friday?” I grumbled, my brain scrambling as to what they were doing here and how quickly could I divert them to a topic besides why I slept in this morning and walked around with a perma-grin.
The ladies always got together at Coffee on Friday morning, occasionally taking the gossip party to one of their houses when the baristas gave them the skink eye for taking up a table for too long. And right now, they were givingmethe eye, which only spelled disaster. These three ladies could sniff out a scandal with a single glance.
“No, child. It’s Thursday, but we called a special meeting on account of the gold.” Yedda patted me on the back.
I looked between the three of them, my brain waking up enough to realize they each wore starched jeans and had bandanas wrapped around their wrinkled necks. My finger circled in the air.
“What’s all this?”
“Why, we’re gold miners, of course!” Poppy shook her head at my supposed naiveté. “If Rip thinks he’s the only one who can find gold in this here town, he’s sadly mistaken. I’ve spent plenty of time in those caves. It’s only fair I find some too. The gold is waiting for me, I can feel it.”
Her eyes sparkled, reminding me of cartoon characters who got dollar signs in their eyes at the mention of a hidden fortune.
“It’s just not right that another man struck it rich,” Polly cut in. “We’re going to dig until we find gold too.” She swung a rusty shovel up on her shoulder, a clump of dry dirt falling off and hitting Granny’s yellow patterned linoleum.
I didn’t move, not quite sure what to say. These three were nuttier than a squirrel turd. It took Granny rubbing her bony hands together in glee to get me to speak up. I couldn’t let Granny go out there and dig for gold when her eyesight was so bad she’d never be able to tell if she found any. If gold were a rattlesnake, it would have to bite her before she’d recognize it. But I knew better than to tell them no. The easiest way to get Polly and Poppy to do anything was to tell them not to. Easiest way to get Granny to do anything was to tell her there’d be a party involved. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree there.
“Oh, ladies. I don’t know.” I looked at the empty coffee mug on the counter with longing. I could have really used a cup before dealing with the self-named Hellish Haven. “I don’t really have a good feeling about this. When Rip and I found that gold, I could sense it, you know? And right now? I got nothing.”
Granny nodded, quite familiar with my “feelings.” I’d been operating with a fully formed sixth sense since I was born. Several times I’d even sensed an earthquake a few minutes before it hit, running to find Granny and getting us to a doorway for safety. She knew my sixth sense was as accurate as my nose. Granny had a sixth sense too, but it wasn’t about natural phenomenon. It was a unique ability to read people. Almost like a mind reader.
Polly’s mouth fell open on an offended huff, and it would have made me giggle except Poppy chose that moment to shift her hips to the left and her eyes went glassy. A sound like air leaking from a balloon filled the kitchen, followed by a stench that curled my nose hairs. Sheesh, having a finely tuned sense of smell was a real bummer sometimes.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Poppy murmured. “Leftover Tex-Mex for breakfast was not a good idea after all.”
