Hammered (Blue Bay Crew #3)- Cathryn Fox Page 0,38

on my jaw as those two words come out a bit shaky.

She frowns and her hand tightens over mine. “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. We can go back—”

“Come on. I’m fine. Let’s go check it out.”

I hop from the truck, grab our bags from the back and meet her on the wooden walkway leading to the front porch. The aged boards groan beneath my weight as we both go quiet and make our way up the path. Someone has been keeping the place up, but more needs to be done. We walk along the boards, and in the distance, water laps on the sandy shore and crickets chirp in the tall grass nearby.

“A porch swing. I love this,” she says and drops down into it. “Can I sit here for a minute?”

“You can sit there all night if you like, but the mosquitos might eat you.”

“Come sit with me,” she says and pats the seat beside her. I plunk down and give us a slight push. The old chains groan as a comfortable silence envelopes us. She breathes in deep, like she’s sorting and examining the different scents surrounding us, and I can almost feel the tension leaving her bones as she exhales. I like that she’s comfortable here, with me.

“You want to hear something funny?” Haven asks, breaking the quiet of the night.

“Sure, tell me a joke.”

“Well,” she begins as I kick my legs out. “I always wanted to have an apiary.”

“Really, you want a bee farm?” She nods and I try to figure out the punch line. “Why is that funny?”

She thinks about that for a second. “I don’t know, it just seems silly, I guess.”

“Nothing silly about that, Haven. If you want an apiary, you should get an apiary. What made you think of that tonight, anyway?”

“I was on this set once. I was only around five, I think, and we were in a house on a lake, with lots of flowers. I used to watch the bumblebees in between scenes. They just went from one flower to another, like they didn’t have a care in the world. I think I used to envy all that freedom, to be honest.”

I nod as I let that sink in. Life couldn’t have been easy for her. Always in demand, always faking a smile, even when she didn’t feel like it. “I can understand that.”

She blinks and looks at me with hopeful eyes, like I might be the only person in her entire life who sees her for her, and not an actress. It pisses me off so much, I swear I could punch something. “You can?”

“Five years old is pretty young to be on the set.”

“Tyler, I’ve been acting since I was four months old. Do you remember that old tissue commercial? The one where the baby is pulling them all from the box?”

“That was you?”

“That was me. I was practically raised on the set. Rock was with me up until we were pre-teens, until he took up martial arts.”

“Was that lonely for you? I mean did you have any close friends?”

“I had my tutor. She was really nice.” When I frown, she hurries out with, “Seriously though, I was used to it. I didn’t know any other way of life.”

Jesus, she was raised on the set. My life was far from perfect, but hers sounds like a goddamn nightmare you can’t wake up from. I don’t say that. Who am I to judge her life? Instead, I smile at her and say, “You were cute in that commercial.”

“Hey, what do you mean were?” she says and whacks me again.

I laugh. “If you want to go fishing, you need a rod and a worm,” I tell her. “But you’ll only catch trout, not compliments.”

“Hey, I wasn’t fishing,” she says with a laugh.

I grab her and pull her onto my lap. Her knees press onto the swing on either side of me, and she drops down, her hot core centered on my thickening cock. “For the record, you’re not cute anymore.” She opens her mouth, and I kiss away whatever it was she was going to say. She softens in my arms and I slide my tongue in to taste her, deepening the kiss until we’re both breathless. I inch back, press my forehead to hers and say, “You were cute when you were little, but now you’re beautiful, Haven. You light up a room when you walk into it. I almost had to