August: Calendar Girl Book 8 Read online

  “Fuck, it’s making me crazy now. Need you here, sweetheart,” he moaned.

  “I’m licking up and down your shaft, smooth and swift. I reach my hand down to cup and fondle your balls, and then take you down my throat in one swift suck. It’s so deep I can hardly breathe, gasping around your length until you take mercy on me and pull back, giving me more room. You taste so good, like the sea and man. My man. Oh, baby, I’m so wet for you.” I gasped and Wes’s breath came in labored pants as I set the scene.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I snaked a hand between my own legs and under the lace of my undies. “I’m soaked for you, Wes.”

  “You touching that pretty pussy?” he growled.

  “Mmm, yeah, thinking about you tugging on your hard cock, imagining it’s me is such a turn on, baby.” I groaned and worked my clit in fast, tight circles. It didn’t take long for me to start humping the air, reaching for a body that was fifteen hundred miles away.

  “You almost there?” I asked when he groaned.

  “Oh, yeah, you fucking that sweet cunt with your fingers, nice and hard like I would?” The mental image roared through me, and thinking about how large his fingers were inside me sent a fresh flood of moisture through my sex.

  “Yeah,” I rasped and held my breath, pushing two fingers into the wet heat. I let the base of my hand crush my clit, sending tremors of pleasure from my center, up my chest, and out each limb. “Gonna come…”

  “Me too. I’m yanking hard on my cock, thinking about how I’m going to take you up against the front door the second you get here a couple weeks from now. I’ll tear your panties off and shove into you, pierce you with my dick so hard you’ll never want to leave me again.”

  “Wes, Wes, Wes…” I chanted, lifting my hips, fucking myself, imaging him pounding me into the wooden surface. My guy loved fucking me against walls and doors. I pressed hard on the bundle of nerves that literally throbbed in time with the sound of his harsh breathing through the line, and my orgasm ripped through me. My entire body tightened, the sensitive tissue between my thighs clutching at the two fingers I still had imbedded deep inside. “God, yes! I love you,” I whispered in the phone just as his voice rushed out in a stream of profanity.

  “Fuck, baby. So good. Sexy, fucking woman. Christ. Mine. All mine,” he roared into the phone, and I leisurely fingered my clit, letting the little jolts of pleasure work their way out as I listened to my guy get off on the thought of fucking me. Soon his breathing slowed. “Sweetheart…I love your voice. It’s like liquid sex on the phone.”

  I giggled and held the phone tight to me ear. “I enjoyed hearing you come for me. Thanks for reciprocating.”

  He hummed. “Mmm, pleasure was all mine, Mia. I’ll be busy tonight, but call me anyway. Leave me a message before you go to bed so I know you’re okay. And remember, I love you.”

  I smiled huge. Being intimate with Wes, even by phone, gave me the second wind I needed to figure out how I was going to deal with the well-meaning Cunninghams.

  “I love you too. Have a good day at work.”

  “You too, sweetheart. Call if you need me.”

  I wanted to tell him that I’d always need him, but that was too mushy even for me. Instead, I just waited until he hung up, clinging to the phone like it was my own personal lifeline.

  * * *

  That evening, a dream I’d had a few times over the years came back. I was around four years old and playing at special park-like area connected to one of the local Vegas casinos. A young boy with a mop of yellow curls on his head led me around by the hand.

  “Dad says I have to keep an eye on you because he has a real important meeting with your mom.” The boy was older than I was, maybe two times as old. He had funny looking hair and big teeth with a gap between the two front ones. “How old are you?”

  “Four and a half,” I answered as if I were much older than I looked.

  He climbed up a small rock wall, went down on a knee, and held out his hand to help me climb. I put my foot on the nub tentatively until I realized that I could balance pretty well.

  “I’m ten already. Double digits,” he said with a sense of pride as if aging were something a person could win an award for, and he’d already gotten his trophy.

  Instead of grabbing his hand, I pulled myself up. Even though I was really proud I’d made the climb, I pretended it was easy. “My pops says age is only a number. One that’s best served on one of those black-and-white-and red wheels they have at Mommy’s casino.”

  “Roulette?” His eyebrows came to a funny point.

  I shrugged, not really sure, though Pops liked to hang out at the table that had it. That’s where he was now. Playing that game. Mom was working her fancy show with that man. I knew it had to be really important because she wore these outfits with diamonds all over them and big feathers coming out of her hair and behind her back. The ones from her back almost touched the floor, and they were so soft. She would let me pet them, but I was never allowed to play with her fancy clothes. She said they were too expensive and worried I’d mess them up.

  “My dad likes your mom,” The boy said as he swung from one rung on the monkey bars to the other. I stood at the edge of the spot where he’d swung but couldn’t reach the bars even on my tippy toes.

  “Everyone likes my mom. She’s an act-tress.” My tongue got stuck rolling around the word Mommy said all the time. “If people don’t like her, she’s not doing her job right.” I repeated what Mom told me before.

  The boy nodded, his hair flopping over his eyes. He pushed the strands away, and his intense green eyes stared back at me. People told me all the time that my eyes were like a cat’s, but I thought this boy’s eyes looked more like a cat’s. Kind of like Mom’s. “Well, my daddy says he wants to marry your mommy and be a family. That would make you my sister.”

  I frowned. “He can’t marry my mommy because she’s already got my dad. With a ring and everything.”

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. “Really? I don’t think he knows that.” His happy face turned sad. “I was hoping for a mommy and yours is pretty and nice.”

  I shook my head. “She’s not very nice, just good at pretending to be nice.”

  His head tipped to the side. “Is she mean to you?”

  Walking over to the swings, I sat down. “No. But she doesn’t like me as much as my friends’ mommies like them.”

  He got behind me, pulled back the swing, and pushed me forward, giving me a good head start. I would be able to keep it up now that he got it going. Then he went over to the other swing and sat but didn’t move it. “Then I don’t want her as my mommy.”

  “Yeah, maybe your daddy could pick a nicer one?” I offered.

  “That’s a good idea. I think I’ll help him find me a really nice and pretty one. Maybe you could help me?”

  I smiled wide and dragged my foot on the ground stopping the swing. “That would be fun.”

  The boy and I spent the next hour or so walking around the casino, holding hands, pointing out women that could be his new mommy. Unfortunately, we couldn’t agree on the right woman before his dad and my mommy found us. She was crying, and when she got down on one knee, she shook me and screamed that we were supposed to stay at the playground. The man got down at eye level with the boy, put both hands on his shoulders, and scolded him, but the boy didn’t cry. He apologized, and his dad told him how scared he was and hugged him tight. My mom didn’t hug me at all. The boy looked at me with sadness in his eyes over his dad’s shoulder, mouthing, “sorry.” I waved and watched as the man grabbed Mom’s hand, pulled her close, and kissed her.

  The boy’s dad kept kissing Mommy until she shoved him away and told him to stop. He asked her to come with him, to bring me and run away, leave this life and go with him. Right then, my pops walked up, showing Mom a bucketful of chips. He lifted me up, spun me around, and hugged me hard, the way he always did. My pops gave the best hugs. Then he showed Mom the bucket and pulled her into his sid
e, saying we were going to a steak dinner. She smiled and turned away from the boy and the man as if she’d never even known them.

  I watched as the man’s shoulders slumped and his head hung forward. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and the boy waved goodbye to me.

  I woke with a start, the dream still so vivid it was as if I could hear the ping and trill of the casino all around the room, see the slot machines and the bright lights blinking on and off. Closing my eyes, I slumped back down under the duvet, flattened my pillow, and turned it over to the cold side. Usually, I could control my dreams enough that I could go back to them or think about what I wanted to and dream of that. This time when I closed my eyes, I went head first into another memory.

  Mom and Dad were fighting again. Maddy was with Aunt Millie back at the house. It was her fourth birthday, and we were picking up her present. Pops wanted to visit Mom at work and make sure she was going to be home in time for the party. Mom didn’t think it was fair that she had to cut work short to celebrate a four-year-old’s birthday. Said that Maddy would never remember it anyway, so what did it matter?

  That’s when a man bumped into the two of them on the street. A teenager stood next to him and caught Mom around the waist. She turned, ready to yell at the intruder even though they were being helpful. I knew instantly it was the boy from the past only much older. The father looked unchanged. He even wore a big cowboy hat like he’d worn that day a few years before. When Mom saw his face, she turned white as a ghost and backed into Pops. He caught her this time.

  “Meryl?” the man said to my mom, whose hands shook at her side. “My God, it’s been years. Uh, this is, this…”

  “Maxwell.” Her voice broke as she said the young teen’s name.

  Max. That’s right. His name was Max. Only I’d forgotten that before. The teen tipped his own cowboy hat and responded, “Ma’am,” before shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. I could still see the blond curls of his hair peeking out from beneath his wide black hat. Then he glanced at me. Those pale green eyes sparkled with kindness as he tipped his hat toward me. “Howdy, little miss,” he said, and I smiled. I’d wondered if he remembered me from before, but I doubted it.

  “Who’s this?” Pops asked Mom.

  “Uh, this is an old friend. Jackson Cunningham and his son…Maxwell.” It was as if her voice cracked under the sheer pressure of having to say the boy’s name. Pops held out his hand and introduced himself. Jackson’s blue eyes never left my mom’s. Hers never left Max’s. There was something there within her gaze, a secret hidden so deep, I knew the truth would break us all if it came out into the light of day.

  The five of us stood there awkwardly, Jackson staring blatantly while Mom seemed to shrivel into herself. Pops finally broke through the moment by tugging my hand and announcing we were late for an important event.

  “Um, yeah, we have to go. It was good seeing you, Jackson. I hope you and Max, uh, your son, have been well.”

  “Wait, Meryl, let’s exchange numbers.” Jackson reached out a hand as Mom shook her head and skirted his grasp, trailing after Pops and me. “Don’t, Meryl. Not again…” His plea was almost a whisper in the wind.

  “It’s for the best. You’re better off.”

  The alarm clock sounded, but all I could hear were those seven words rolling around and around within the clutches of the dream, but more recently, in my very own walk down the hellish path that was memory lane.

  “It’s for the best. You’re better off.” I squeezed my eyes together tight, trying not to remember.

  “It’s for the best. You’re better off.” Her voice was soft, sounding almost like a song.

  “It’s for the best. You’re better off.” The scent of her perfume swirled through the air of my bedroom long after she’d gone.

  “Mia, my darling…” I vaguely remembered her petting my forehead while I clung to sleep, only ten years old with my princess-themed comforter, too hot, but tucked tight around me. She kissed my hairline and whispered those very same words. “It’s for the best. You’re better off.”

  That was when my mother left and never came back. For a long time, I’d blocked that memory, thinking it wasn’t real, that I’d imagined it. The same way I’d blown off the dreams about the boy and his father. Only they weren’t dreams. They were memories, ones that made one thing clear as day.

  I knew Maxwell Cunningham and his father knew my mother.

  Chapter Eight

  “Max, we need to talk,” I said as I entered the kitchen. Cyndi was making a big belly breakfast, complete with pancakes, bacon, and eggs. My stomach growled loudly as the scent of bacon wafted around the kitchen.

  Cyndi pointed to an empty plate at the table while Max loaded it up full of all the fixings. I sat like an elephant—my legs, too tired from holding the weight of my burdens, collapsed beneath me. “Here, eat. We do need to explain a few things,” he said gruffly.

  Before I could start, Cyndi interrupted. “Now, I know you’re probably mad,” she started while setting down a steaming cup of coffee in front of me. With an efficiency I knew I’d never had, she plopped in two teaspoons of sugar and a splash of cream, remembering exactly how I took my coffee. Things like that added to her overall lovely nature. She paid attention to the small things. The little tidbits that made a person feel comfortable, like how they took their coffee in the morning. “I’ll start by saying I’m sorry,” Cyndi announced.

  “No, you’re not,” I stated plain as day, watching her face closely to see if there truly was even a speck of remorse.

  Her blue eyes rolled, and she stopped and pressed a hand to her belly, the egg crusted spatula hovering in the air in the other hand. “You’re right. I’m not sorry. You need your sister here, and we need to meet them.”

  They needed to meet them. That was the part that threw me for a loop. “Why? What goes on between me and my sister has nothing to do with you or your husband or his business.” I glanced at Max and he looked down, doing a great job of avoiding the conversation and pushing his uneaten eggs around his plate. Max not shoveling the food down his gullet was another thing that stuck out. The man liked to eat. Meaning, every time I’d ever seen him eat, he’d clear two plates of food before anyone else in the near vicinity could remotely finish one.

  Max sighed deeply, his entire body heaving with the effort. “We’ve come to care a great deal for you, Mia. Can you just accept that and let the rest go?”

  I huffed, picked up a fat slice of bacon, and shoved it in my mouth. The crisp texture and salty, meaty goodness flowed over my taste buds like a blanket of perfection. Bacon. God’s perfect food. I chewed thoughtfully for a few moments, thinking about how I wanted to address this. Yes, they were being kind, overly so. But—and it was a pretty big but—they had done this without consulting me. It’s my life, my family, not theirs. They needed to understand the severity of what they’ve done.

  “Look, Max, Cyndi…” I gestured to them both. She put down the spatula, turned off the burner, and waddled over to her husband. He looped an arm around her waist while she gripped his shoulder. They presented a united front, and something about that didn’t sit well with me. Regardless, I had a point to make, and by God, I’d make it. “You cannot meddle in my life. I am here to do a job. One you’ve paid a hefty fee for. Even though we’ve become friendly, it does not give you the right to home in on my problems. You are my client. I am essentially a hired hand, not your family. What you did, bringing Maddy and her fiancé here, was so far out of bounds, outside of anyone’s comfort zone…” I shook my head, not knowing how to finish what I needed to get across without crucifying them.

  “You overstepped a line.” My own voice shook with the anger bubbling at the core of the problem.

  Max inhaled and nodded. “I’ll speak for my wife and myself when I say that we regret the way we invaded your life, but please know that our intentions were in the right place.”

  “Yeah, well, the road to hell is paved with good int
entions.” I pursed my lips together and brought a knee up to my chest, balancing it on the chair. “Please remember your place. I think the lines are getting blurred here. I am pretending to be someone to help fool your investors until you find your real sister. As much as I wish it were true…I’m not your sister. You do not get to act like the big brother saving his little sis.”

  Saying that put it out there in black and white. Max clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. Cyndi leaned down, kissed his temple, and whispered something that sounded a little like, “Tell her,” into his ear, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Several excruciating minutes of an uncomfortable silence passed until, finally, Max opened his eyes and loosened his hold on his wife. “Okay, Mia. I get it. We’ll play it your way.”

  “Max honey—” Cyndi started, but Max threw a hand up cutting her off.

  He shook his head, eyes laser-focused on me. “Can we move on from this?” he asked me, his tone now that of a hard and fast businessman.

  I nodded and played with my napkin, suddenly feeling as if I were in the wrong somehow. The conversation turned so quickly that I didn’t even have a chance to bring up the dreams, or memories rather, before he stood abruptly, his chair grating along the tile floor. “Got to get ready for work, Mia. Today is a suit day.”

  “A suit?”

  His chin jutted. “We’re meeting with the investors. Time to put that sisterly facade into place.” He grumbled in a way that sent pointed spikes deep into the tough barrier around my heart. The one that I’d just barely put in place this morning after finding out they’d duped me. Admittedly, his words stung. No, they downright hurt. My concerns were valid, and he was the one that overstepped his authority, not me. So why did I feel like the scum on the bottom of a landfill worker’s shoe?

  “When do we leave?” I asked around a mouthful of eggs.

  “Forty-five minutes. Cyndi honey, I’ll be on the porch. I need some air,” he muttered and walked off.

  I finished my breakfast and thought about how I was going to get him back into the jovial mood he’d been in most of the time I’d been here, but I couldn’t come up with anything. And of course, now with tension between the two of us, we had to meet with the committee of investors and present this new sibling relationship, making it believable enough that they’d forgo transferring the ownership for the time being.