Can't Touch This (Can't Touch This #1)

“Uh…” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know. It’s all…new.”

“New, old, long, short. All the same.” He patted me on the shoulder as the carpenter strolled through the front door with a spindle for the staircase. “When I met Marge, I knew. One look, three dates, and two weeks later on New Year’s, I told her I loved her. She made me wait two months before she said it back, but every time she hugged me…I knew.”

Keeping my voice down, so other tradesmen wouldn’t hear their boss become a giant love-struck fool, I asked, “How? How did you know?”

David grinned. “Oh, if she loves you, you’ll know. Her hugs will have this weight about them. They’ll reach inside your chest and motherfucking squeeze.” Skirting around me while pulling on his gloves to continue demolishing the wall separating the kitchen and lounge, he added, “But just like you’ll be able to know that she loves you without admitting it, she’ll be able to tell you love her in return. My advice? Don’t hug that girl unless you want her to know. Because after that…she’s got your balls for life.”

* * *

Vesper: I just got home. I know it’s past six p.m. but I really need to pick up a few supplies for the pet store aspect of the clinic. I know we said dinner tonight and I’m sorry to mix business with pleasure…but would you like to come?

Me: I like mixing pleasure with anything. Call me a pleasure addict. And by come, do you mean inside you or just accompany you? (If you didn’t guess, I’d like the first one to be the answer).

Vesper: If you come with me to run an errand. I’ll come with you when I make you come later. Enough ‘coming’ for you?

Me: I’ll have to think about it.

Vesper: How about I add an extra appetiser to tempt you?

Me: Go on…

Vesper: If you come with me, I promise you have an open-ended invitation to use me in whatever way you wish…to come.

My cock grew grabby hands—literally, if the damn thing could operate a phone, it would’ve ripped it from my fingers and slapped back an answer full of expletives and lots of begging.

Vesper: What do you say?

Me: I say you have yourself a deal. I’ll spend the entire errand thinking up ways to take you up on your offer.

Vesper: And that is why I keep you around.

Me: For my brainstorming?

Vesper: No, your insatiable need to come.

Me: You mean my inexhaustible need to do whatever you want.

Vesper: That, too. Now stop texting me and get your butt over here. I want to bite it.

Me: Sounds painful.

Vesper: It will be if you’re late.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

———————

Vesper

COULD YOU DIE OF SMILING too much?

Because my face literally felt like it would fall off. I worried about premature lines around my eyes. I cursed my aching cheeks. And I lay awake at night wondering how the hell I’d gone from stuck-up stressed-out vet to this giggly ignoramus who couldn’t stop thinking about the last time she had sex and walking around like a uterus on a stick.

When my doorbell announced Ryder had taken my butt biting seriously and taken only half an hour from our last text to arriving, Visa marched with me to the front door and hissed as I opened it wide.

“Well, hello to you too, you nasty pussy.” Ryder ducked, offering his knuckles to the upturned feline nose.

“I, eh, wouldn’t do that if I were you.”