Join the Club - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,15

that I’d knocked down while putting my cake down earlier.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Ready.

Yes.

I was wet with him.

I needed to go because I didn’t know what state I was in from the waist down.

My fingers found purchase, and I nodded my head into the dark.

“I’m ready,” I whispered, moving my fingers forward and wrapping them around the glass in front of me.

I kept the beer bottle.

Chapter 3

Sometimes I just look at him and bad things come out of my mouth.

-Delanie to Dillan

Delanie

One week later

I was outside watering my plants when I saw a weed that needed picked.

Bending over at the waist, I reached forward, being sure to hold the water hose out wide at my side and plucked the little devil out of the earth by the roots.

“Die,” I said to it as I plucked it and tossed it over my shoulder.

“Harsh.”

I squeaked and whirled around with the water hose swinging in a wide arc.

Seconds later, I was drenching Bourne with it.

He lurched backward and whipped off his shirt, wiping his eyes with the saturated shirt, and said, “I can’t believe you just did that.”

I had my hand over my heart as if it would help stop it from beating out of my chest.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathed as I looked at him. “What the hell? Why would you just come up behind me like that? You’re lucky I didn’t have a shovel!”

His eyes narrowed. “You would’ve hit me with it?”

I shrugged and tossed the water hose down, then moved to the wall where I quickly shut the water off.

“I would’ve. It would’ve been on pure instinct, though. Ask Dillan what happened the last time she snuck up on me and I had my curling iron in my hand,” I said as I turned back around, my hands on my hips.

His eyes took me in, and I realized what I must look like.

I’d been working the dogs all afternoon in the heat.

I was wearing what could be considered Daisy Dukes.

My once blue jeans that were now considered way too short to wear anywhere but at home were riding up high on my thighs. My white wifebeater tank top was shucked up on my belly, exposing my stretch marks, and I had a red and white bandana in my hair holding it all in place.

I was a hot, sweaty mess and the last person in the world I wanted looking at me right now in this state was Bourne Pena.

Yet, there he was.

Looking hot as hell in his jeans, work boots, and shirtless.

Rawr.

I licked my lips and tried to keep my eyes focused on his face, but I had very little self-control when it came to Bourne Pena.

Like, nil if I was being honest.

“I’ll do that,” he murmured, his eyes raking over me.

They dilated, and I swallowed hard, wondering if this was how it was going to be for us from now on.

I knew what he felt like inside of me, and all I could think about right then was having him back where I wanted him most.

He must’ve read the thoughts on my face because he cleared his throat and said, “You have something around the side of the house you need help with?”

“Umm,” I hesitated. “No?”

He looked over his shoulder and I could see his sister, Priscilla, in the yard.

She was flipping through a magazine as she walked back toward her front door, obviously just having gotten her mail.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think you need help.”

I frowned at him as he gestured for me to precede him around the house.

The moment we got there, he had me pressed up against the rough brick wall, and his mouth was on mine.

“Watched you for fifteen minutes picking out weeds,” he growled against my lips, shoving my shirt up to expose my breasts. “Weeds, dammit. You’d water the flowers, see a weed, and bend over. Rinse and repeat. For fifteen minutes. Ask me what color thong you’re wearing.”

I licked my lips, which happened to be very close to his, meaning I licked his, too.

He growled and shoved my shirt and bra up around my throat, exposing my breasts to his hands.

“What color?” I asked breathlessly.

He dropped his mouth so that he could run his tongue around my nipple.

“Pink,” he growled. “Hot. Fucking. Pink.”

He was right.

After the incident—as I now liked to call it—I’d started wearing much sexier under clothes.

Which was why, right now, I was wearing a hot pink thong with a matching hot pink bra.

You could see it through the