I’m so hard diamonds would feel like cotton balls next to my cock. I want inside her.

I want inside her now.

But she comes first. She always comes first.

I’m selfish a lot of places. But in the bedroom—or the shower, the couch, in front of the fireplace, on the beach at midnight, on my kitchen table, behind the stadium, in a broom closet, wherever—I’m a goddamn fucking gentleman.

Tillie Jean’s thighs clamp around my head and she muffles a scream as she grips my hair so tight I feel it all the way in my balls. “Oh god, yes yes yes.”

Her breathy orgasm moan makes my cock weep, and the taste of her climax on my lips gives me a euphoric high.

Fuck, yeah, I did that.

And I lick and lap at her until her thighs fall open and she collapses back on the table, which squeaks, sputters, and then gives up the ghost.

“Aah!”

“Fuck!”

Her hands and legs flail as the whole table tips sideways.

I grab her around the waist and shoot to my feet, except they’ve lost all feeling, and I sway backwards across the kitchen until my ass collides with something furry.

Furry?

“Maaaa!” a goat bleats.

“What the fuck?” I spin, still holding Tillie Jean, who squeaks as we trip over a massive furry goat with just one horn.

“Oh my god, the door.” She squirms. “Turn around. Turn around!”

“Maaa!” the goat bleats again.

“Sue?” a voice calls in the night.

Tillie Jean squeaks harder.

“Maa maaa MAAAAAAAA!” the goat yells.

“Dammit, Sue, where are you?” someone answers.

Grady.

Tillie Jean’s brother is out looking for his goat, who’s standing in my kitchen, right on top of Tillie Jean’s pants.

“Bad Sue,” TJ hisses. She finally gets herself disentangled and hides behind me as I realize it’s chilly in here, and anyone can see us if they happen to be strolling along the alley behind the house. “Go away. Go! Shoo.”

Sue eyeballs her, then dips his head—yes, his head—grabs one of her shoes, and turns away.

She starts to dart after him, looks down at her own bare breasts and her crooked thong, gasps again, and does the lady squat, attempting to cover all of her naked parts while penguin-walking after the goat. “Sue!”

I lunge for the goat myself, and it breaks into a jog while Grady calls its name again.

Running with the hard-on from hell?

Not awesome.

In case you were wondering.

Also not awesome?

Suspecting that my own fist is the only thing that’ll be giving me relief tonight.

Again.

I turn the corner of the house and am halfway to the sidewalk when Sue drops Tillie Jean’s sneaker at Grady’s feet in my front yard.

Grady looks down at the shoe, then up at me. He has the same sly grin that Cooper wears when he’s being an ass, but it’s not quite as hard as it should be. “Is that TJ’s?”

“No idea,” I lie. “He broke into my back door with it in his mouth. Not mine. That’s all I know.”

Grady stares me down.

I stare right back.

If he asks what’s up with my boner, I’ll tell him I was watching porn and invite him in.

Swear to god, I will.

Jesus.

I need to get out of this town.

“Heard you’re abandoning us for the holidays,” Grady says.

“Miss real sunshine.”

“Gonna miss Tillie Jean’s Christmas log too.”

That should not sound the least bit erotic, but my cock still twitches like he wants to hear more. “Mojitos and steel drums top Christmas logs every time.”

He’s still grinning. “Suit yourself, dude.”

I start to reach for the shoe the same time he does, realize I probably smell like his sister’s pussy, and back off.

What the fuck am I gonna do, tell him I’ll take it back into my house for her?

“You seen Tillie Jean?” he asks.

“No.”

Shit. Shit. That was such a bad lie.

He glances at my junk.

I scowl at him like he’s Anthony Bryant digging in at home plate with the tying run on first. Don’t ask how many times that fucker’s hit a home run off me when we’ve played Milwaukee. I don’t want to talk about it.

Just want to throw better so he can’t do it again next year.

“Sure you haven’t seen TJ?” Grady asks.

“Not since dinner.”

He doesn’t believe me, but I stay stone-faced. I won’t crack. I won’t.

He lifts the shoe. “Guess I’ll leave this in her mailbox. Thanks for finding my goat. Enjoy the tropics.”

I grunt.

Another goat bleats somewhere in the distance.

Sue answers.

A third goat maaas from another direction.

Grady takes Tillie Jean’s shoe, crosses the yard to her mailbox, taps the damn box, then whistles as he continues down the street, his goat trotting along with him.

And when I turn back to my own house, I catch sight of a Tillie-Jean-sized figure darting half-clothed in the moonlight back to her own place.

Fuck.

Not how that was supposed to go.

Not at all how that was supposed to go.

But it’s probably for the best.

Maybe she’ll get a boyfriend for Christmas, and then I can legitimately wipe her off the list of eligible women around here.

At least, a guy can hope.

22

Tillie Jean

Absence does not make the heart grow fonder.

In my case, it makes the heart obsess, cringe, re-imagine a different ending—no, I don’t want to talk about sneaking out of Max’s house while he was talking to Grady, because even I know I’m lying when I say I didn’t want word to get back to Cooper that I was there—question why I can’t stop thinking about him, get irritated all over again since I don’t even have his phone number, start to ask my friends a million times over the holidays if I’m being ridiculous, realize yes, I’m very much being ridiculous if I have to ask and then stop myself this many times.

Max Cole is a freaking drug.

He’s a hot-mouthed, hard-bodied, sometimes broody, sometimes happy, sometimes funny, well-equipped—oh, yes, I felt that—growly bear drug.

It’s been three weeks since he left, and I haven’t heard a peep from him or about him. Cooper’s not saying a word. Trevor and Robinson left for shorter holidays and came back and haven’t said a word either.

Not that I’ve seen them much.

I even made a couple trips into the city to see my Fireballs girlfriends, and they didn’t mention him either.

And now I’m standing in my studio at home, paintbrushes in hand, glaring at the painting I was working on last night after my shift at Crusty Nut.

It’s a bear.

It’s a freaking bear with Max’s eyes and Max’s smirk, which doesn’t fit at all with the blues and greens and purples of his fur.

He’s a technicolor hippie bear hiding dark secrets in his beautiful brown eyes.

I groan and toss my brush down, wipe my hands on my smock, and grab my phone.

Seventeen missed calls and four texts.

That’s weird.