Karen Kendall - After Hours

He had popped the original door off its hinges and was hauling it around the side of the house when a bright blue Mini Cooper zoomed up, red hair flying out the driver’s-side window. Peggy popped out of the munchkin-mobile like a cork from a champagne bottle—but her mood was anything but celebratory.

“Bastards!” she spat. “Chauvinist pigs from hell! Stupid assholes!” She waved a crumpled piece of paper at him, and then her eyes fell on the new door.

“Did Derek and the twins get any sleep? Sam? They doing better? The jerk didn’t try to come back, did he?”

Troy absorbed the change of focus and emotion with calm amusement. “Derek slept. So did Sam. Danni and Laura not so well. But I’ll make them take naps this afternoon and go to bed early. No, the jerk did not come back. Did you sleep? Judging from the purple bags under your eyes and the yawn that’s pulling your mouth over your head at this moment, I’d say no. Now, what has you in such a lather?”

“I didn’t sleep because I got this!” She waved the paper again, and he took it from her hand while she continued to rant. “You haven’t received the notice from the school? That they’re moving all the athletic teams to the youth center for practice and games?”

“I never opened my mail yesterday. Why are they doing this?” Troy started to read.

“They have canceled the girls’ football league for the season! Because there aren’t enough time slots at the center to go around! But do they eliminate the boys’ program? Oh, no. Just the girls’!” Peggy was beside herself, practically hyperventilating. “It’s just powder-puff, so it has no significance. It’s expendable!”

Oh, boy. He finished scanning the letter and gave it back to her, frowning.

“They can’t do this!” she said.

“Unfortunately, they can. A private school gets no state or federal funding, so they’re not subject to the same rules that public schools are. What other teams got cut? Girls’ softball? Any boys’ activities?”

“I don’t know—I haven’t had a chance to look into it yet.”

“Well, do me a favor. Help me get this door lined up so I can drop the pins into the hinges and then lock it. Then we’ll go back to my place and make some calls.”

“What about the back door?” she asked. “Does the creep have a key to that?

“He doesn’t have a key to anything anymore. Sam had the locks changed. I’ll drop off a set of these to her on the way over to Coral Gables.”

Peggy helped him line up the hinges on the new door, and dropped in the bottom pins while he got the top one in. Troy had to plane the wood slightly so that it would open and close easily.

She watched him as he worked, muscles in his arms flexing and sweat trickling down his back, disappearing into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. She traded in some of her anger for pure female appreciation and lust.

Troy’s hair was still mussed from the previous night and he hadn’t shaved: sawdust particles clung to some of his beard bristle, and even in his eyelashes. She resisted the urge to wipe his face for him—he probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

He finished planing the door, opened and closed it with satisfaction, and then grabbed a broom to clean up the mess. She took it from him. “Let me do that, and you can put away your tools.”

He raised a brow. “You’re going to clean up after me? Hey, wanna do my laundry and make me some brownies, too?”

Peggy whacked him in the butt with the broom. He turned, grabbed it and used it to pull her toward him. “I was only kidding,” he said against her mouth. Then he kissed her, sending sexual electricity shooting through her veins. She lost herself in his kiss for a while, as he stroked her tongue with his and explored every crevice of her mouth. She almost forgot her anger.

He smelled a little ripe, but she didn’t care. His scent was all he-man, macho and competent. She didn’t know why it turned her on that he could fix doors and replace porch floors, but it did.

Not that she had to get all girly about it. She was sure that she could nail planks to a deck and pop a precut door into a frame, too. So there. She broke the kiss, irritated with herself. I can do anything he can.

An irrelevant thought popped into her head. “Do you leave a toothbrush here at Sam’s?” He’d tasted of mint.

“Not exactly.” A smile crept onto his face. “I used Derek’s after he left for school.”

“Ugh!”

Troy shrugged. “It was better than dragon breath, and I figure what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You’re not going to give me away, are you?”

“Depends.”

He still had his hands on her shoulders, and they tightened in mock menace as he squinted down at her. “Depends on what?”

She thought about it for a second and then grinned impishly. “On your performance back at your place.”

“My performance?”

She twisted away and ran laughing for her car, slamming the door and locking it just before he got to the driver’s side.

He leered at her through the glass, his hands on his hips. “If you’re brave enough to show up at my house after that little challenge, I’m gonna teach you something about performance.”

“Ooooh, I hope so.” Peggy turned the keys in the ignition and sped away. In her rearview mirror, she saw him sprint up the steps to lock Sam’s door and then sprint back to the curb to get into the Lotus.

SHE WAS NAKED in his pool when he arrived and began to strip off his clothes purposefully. “You better watch out, little girl,” he said. “Shark’s almost in the water.”

She turned to climb out as he dove in, but he was too fast. He caught her neatly by the ankle and jerked her backward. She shrieked and landed with an almighty splash, feeling his arm snake around her and then his hand between her legs. She surfaced sputtering, pushed the hair out of her eyes and said, “You don’t wait for an invitation, do—oooh—you?”

“Oh, I think you issued that before you took off in that little munchkin-mobile of yours, honey. Excuse me, what was that?”

“Aaaaaahhh. Ohh, yes!”

“You’re so agreeable all of a sudden.”

“Not a munchkin—haahhhh—mobile!”

“It’s no bigger than a doughnut,” said Troy, flipping her onto her back and capturing a nipple in his mouth. He squeezed her breasts together and licked back and forth at the tips, while she almost came on the spot. She tried to wrap her legs around him, but he wouldn’t let her.

He raised his head and pushed her through the water over to the dual metal handrails on one side of the pool. “I think you’d better hang on to those, babe.”

A little alarmed at his expression, she did. He pulled her body straight, so that she was floating on her back in the water. Then he parted her legs and walked between them. He cupped the cheeks of her bottom in his hands, squeezing gently and looking right at the core of her, which she found embarrassing in the bright sunlight. She wriggled and tried to move back so she could pull her knees together.

The cool water slapped at her sex, which felt divine. Everything was freer, more sensual in the water, cleaner.

Troy wouldn’t let her budge more than six inches. “Where’re you trying to go?” He growled. “I see something I want to eat.”

A flash of heat streaked through her, causing the little bud at her center to throb almost painfully. The thought of his mouth on her, tongue flicking skillfully, suction applied just right…

He grinned at her wolfishly. “You want me to kiss you there, don’t you?”

She swallowed and didn’t reply, just closed her eyes halfway and willed him to do it.

“You want me to treat you like an ice-cream cone. Lick all around the edges, catch any drips, maybe take a little bite off the top now and then.”