firm hand,” he growled into her ear. “A spanking hand.”
He wasn’t sure how long they stood there lost in each other’s eyes. Hers told quite a story. Summer was turned on by the thought of submitting. It wasn’t hard to imagine her over his knee with his fingers in her dripping pussy while he turned her ass a rosy pink.
“We’re going to have a problem if you keep looking at me like that,” he warned her.
Summer blushed. She crooked her finger and asked him to come closer—
lower.
“What?” he grunted.
“I’m not wearing panties.”
“Excuse me?” he nearly shouted. Knowing she was out in public with her pussy laid bare was not okay with him.
She smiled coquettishly, and whispered, “There’s a pair in my bag. I thought you might want to put them on me yourself.”
What a clever but very wicked girl! Asking him to put her panties on was an open invitation to finger and lick her sweet pussy.
“All you have to do is ask,” he teased. “Anytime you need my hand in your panties, you just let me know.”
“Cocky shithead.”
“Dripping pussy,” he growled against her ear.
“On that note …” She giggled. “I think we should get to the car and spare me the embarrassment of anything dripping down my leg.”
Her words acted like a blowtorch on his balls.
He took her hand again and lifted it to his mouth. “Don’t underestimate how much I want you.”
Feeling like a god with the whole world bowing before him, Arnie led his fair lady from the hotel and out into the California sunshine. It would take an entire year for him to learn their every move that morning had been scrutinized. If only he’d noticed Giselle lurking behind a large, potted fern, maybe some of the shitstorm hurtling their way might have been avoided.
13
Emotion clawed at his heart. A thickness in his throat made swallowing impossible. The deep, rich scent of flowering blooms filled the air. It was so heavy Arnie tasted it.
“Your mother, Lianne, embodied all the best qualities a woman could have. She was sweet and full of life.”
He was at the farm, walking alongside his grandfather as they toured one of the laboratory greenhouses when the conversation suddenly pivoted to the subject of Arnie’s dead mother.
Just like that, it was hard to keep his shit together.
“She taught me a song in sign language.” Darnell Senior steered his scooter to a rack of blooms in the back corner of the humid grow building.
“The song was our private wink-wink. Sometimes when the strain of this family got on our nerves, we would send hand signals from the song and laugh.”
Arnie’s heart boomed in his chest. It was highly unusual for anyone to bring up Lianne Donaldson Wanamaker, so his grandfather’s walk down memory lane rattled him.
When the old guy began to sing and sign, there was a good possibility Arnie was gearing up for a boo-hoo moment.
The sign language and off-key mashup of “You Are My Sunshine” and “Let the Sunshine In” hit him like a rocket blast
He put a hand on his chest and struggled to take in enough oxygen to remain standing. The songs meant nothing, but something stirred inside him as he listened.
“Lianne was our sunshine.”
Yep, he was definitely heading for an episode. Arnie estimated how far he’d fall when he hit the ground.
His granddad swiveled on the scooter seat, planted both feet solidly on the ground, and stood. He moved to a large plant and touched one of the rose’s petals.
“I’ve been developing a hybrid tea rose. Buttery yellow with hints of dusty pink along the furled edges.” His grandfather bent to smell the lush blooms. “This one has taken years and three different botanists.”
Arnie’s heart thumped heavily. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
“What do you think?”
Were his eyes blinking? Arnie wasn’t sure, so he tried a nod and cleared his throat with an awkward-sounding gulp.
“It’s, uh, nice.” He lifted one shoulder. “Pretty.”
“I wanted something to look and smell like sunshine and sweetness.”
Oh, shit. He was going to face-plant right at his grandfather’s feet. Numb fingers grabbed the edge of a table for an anchor.
“It’s named for her. Sweet Lianne.”
Whoa. His head swam. Gray encroached along the periphery of his vision, and for a few seconds, Arnie was sure he was about to go down.
“Are you all right, Arnie?”
“Fuck, Granddad. No! Warn a guy next time.” Tears and other uncool, unmanly shit threatened to cause an embarrassing situation.
Darnell Senior chuckled and thumped Arnie on the back. “Son, your reaction is exactly what I was