A Major Seduction Read online

  “But an honest perv.”

  “Yeah.” She hugged his arm, and they turned around, walking back the way they’d come. They passed the Cava house, and all the while Maria wondered what to do about this new information, and what it might mean. She had to talk to Olivia again then feel Mike out…so to speak. No sex with the guy. Not yet.

  Though God knew that couldn’t come soon enough. Bobby wouldn’t be the only one going home for some self-gratification.

  She groaned. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Amen.” Bobby paused. “You’re sure you aren’t game for a quickie?”

  She smacked him, and they teased all the way home, where he dropped her off. She tried a quick cold shower, which didn’t work. Followed by some fun time with Mr. Happy and her rechargeable batteries. Finally unwound enough to sleep, she ended up dreaming about Major Mike the control freak throughout the night.

  When she woke the next morning, her eyes felt like they’d been rubbed by sandpaper. She had a kink in her neck, and she couldn’t stop thinking about her dreams involving Mike Cava, body butter, and an all-over massage.

  “I think I hate him,” she muttered as she rolled out of bed into what would no doubt be a long-ass day.

  Chapter Three

  Maria glanced at the clock, waiting for Olivia to finish her classes so they could plan for the weekend. After ringing up a customer, she smiled and waved, alone again on a Friday afternoon at Sew and Go and More, her current employer thanks to her in with the owner—Laura Thompson, her mother.

  With her mom due to return next week from her business trip to Charlotte, Maria only had ten more days to manage the store. She couldn’t wait for her mom to come back. Normally she put in thirty to forty hours a week working retail, a lowly but happy worker bee. But with her mom gone, she’d had to be in charge and put in longer hours. It wouldn’t have been so bad except the older ladies who normally worked the weekends could be such a pain, taking themselves—and crafting—way too seriously. Not like her mom at all.

  Maria had never gone through the awkward teenage years where she’d loathed her mom. With her father and his family deceased and her mother without living relatives, Maria had only her mom and her friends to call family. They’d grown closer as the years passed.

  Olivia breezed through the door and joined Maria behind the counter. “I’m here, I’m here.”

  A familiar face entered the store and headed straight for the quilting section.

  “Oh hey, Mrs. Lawrence,” Olivia said before Maria could. “Making a new quilt, I see.”

  Fannie Lawrence smiled. The woman had to be breaking ninety, but she came into the store at least once a week for supplies. “I am. My great-granddaughter just turned nine. She’s visiting next week, and we’re going to quilt together.” She gave Maria a disappointed headshake as she approached the counter with her purchase. “Poor Laura. So sad her own girl won’t quilt.”

  Maria huffed. “Come on, Mrs. Lawrence. I’m working for her. That’s got to count for something, right? I just don’t have the patience for quilting or knitting or sewing.”

  “Or standing still, apparently,” Olivia murmured.

  Maria laughed, feeling nervy. She couldn’t help it. She really couldn’t sit still. Even when sitting, her knee bobbed like a sewing needle. “It’s my own fault. I didn’t get my run in yet today.” Running, her favorite exercise if she didn’t count sex. Since she hadn’t done the horizontal snake dance in several months—ahem, half a friggin’ year—she needed to stick to running on the beach.

  She rung up Fannie.

  “Oh well, get yourself a nice break and enjoy the weather. I hear it’s going to be cooling off, in the high eighties this weekend.” Fannie nodded, grabbed her change and her bag, and slowly left the store.

  “I want to have that much gumption when I’m ninety-six,” Olivia said.

  “Is that how old she is?”

  “Yep. She’s going to be a regular at my coffee shop when it opens—she told me.”

  “You sure you won’t be breaking her budget? As it is, Mom gives her a huge discount because she’s a regular.”

  “Nah. I know her son, and he’s loaded. Said his mom is sitting on a wad of cash because she has so few expenses.”

  “Good to know you’re aware of everyone’s finances in town.” Olivia could be a little scary.

  “I’ve done some market research. Stats on Swansboro’s average income, age, gender, you name it. I’m on track for this town. And best news ever”— Olivia beamed—“I just had my last class today. For good. Now all I have to do is save a little more, and I’m in. Woo hoo!” She made a few fist bumps to the ceiling while the bell above the door jangled.

  “I didn’t realize knitting was so exciting.” Mike stared from his sister to Maria and raised a brow. As usual, the man intimidated just by breathing. He stood heads above her, probably at six three or four. He wore jeans and a tight T-shirt. The breadth of his chest, the size of his biceps and thighs, and his amazing washboard abs gave him a power over Maria she should have found embarrassing.

  When she could stop wheezing, she’d blush. She knew she would.

  “You okay?” Mike frowned.

  Olivia elbowed her in the side.

  “Ow. Fine.” She coughed. “Er, just had something go down the wrong way,” Maria rasped and coughed again to give truth to the lie. “So what can we help you with, Mike? Looking for knitting needles? Yellow yarn? A fold-away cutting station?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, right. I’ll get right on knitting as soon as I finish my needlepoint.”

  Olivia leaned closer to Maria and confided, “He did make a latch hook Snoopy rug when he was little. He finished his before I did.”

  “Hey. Mom made me.” Mike flushed.

  God, he was hot. Maria cleared her throat. “So what can we do for you?”

  He stared at her and frowned. Even his annoyance attracted her. So not fair. She concentrated on being done with him. Trying hard to forget her crush. Really trying.

  “Mike?” Olivia prodded.

  “Just wanted to see if her date went okay.”

  “Oh?” Olivia exchanged a puzzled look with Maria.

  Maria explained, “Bobby and I were walking on the beach and passed by Mike last night. I hadn’t even thought about it. It’s just so easy to park near the house and access the beach there.”

  “Right.” Olivia had a crafty look Maria recognized. But she sounded blasé when she asked Mike, “So what now? She’s fine.”

  He opened his mouth then closed it. His brows drew closer together. “So did he?”

  “Did who what?” Maria asked, not sure what he wanted from her.

  “Did Bobby ‘go down on you’ again?” he growled. “He was dying to, remember?”

  Olivia gaped at him.

  Maria didn’t know what to say.

  “Well?” He put his hands on his trim hips, and his biceps looked like fleshy boulders.

  Olivia turned to her with a huge grin on her face. “Did he?”

  “Oh my God. No, he did not.” She turned and snapped at Mike, “Not that it’s any of your business. What the hell is your problem?”

  All the tension seemed to deflate from him. “Oh. Good.”

  “Good?” She didn’t know what to think. “Where the hell do you get off asking me about my sex life? I’m twenty-four years old, not twelve. Besides, I don’t ask you how many bimbos suck you off on a daily basis.”

  “Whoa.” Olivia looked from her to him and held up her hands in surrender. “Easy, guys.”

  “You want to know, just ask me.” This Mike she’d never before seen. And wow, she wanted to get to know this angry, sexy, forceful man like nobody’s business.

  “Well, I don’t want to know. I’ll be in the back room.” Olivia escaped to the office and closed the door behind her, leaving Maria and Mike alone together.

  “Go ahead. Ask.” Mike crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I
don’t want to know,” she said primly. “But if I want Bobby to eat me out, I’ll ask him. And fuck you very much if you don’t like it.”

  He just stared at her. After a moment, he said, “Nice mouth, princess.”

  “Whatever. Mike, get out.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Buy something or get out. I’m running a business, not a charity. Seriously though, my love life is not your concern.” Not that it had been in middle or high school either, yet he’d still taken it upon himself to look out for her.

  “It is.”

  “Excuse me?”

  An older lady took a step inside the store.

  Mike turned around to see who’d entered, still glaring, and the woman turned around and left. He looked at Maria again and scowled. “You’re like my little sister.”

  “I am not your sister. At. All. And you know, I’m glad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re an asshole.” She let her festering anger free. “I can date or fuck whoever I please. You don’t like it, too bad.”

  He stomped three steps to the counter and loomed over her. “I care about my sister. I care about you.”

  Not the way I wish you would. “I’ve been living without you for a long time, Mike. My little-kid crush disappeared years ago. I have sex. I like sex. And I like men. There. Now you have the deets about my love life. Buy something or get out.”

  He grabbed a ball of yarn and set it before him. “There. Look. I didn’t mean to piss you off. I’m just not used to you—”

  “Not following you around like a puppy dog? Lapping up any stray form of affection? God, I was pathetic. But no more. I deserve a guy who wants me for me. Besides, you’re too old. You’re what, thirty-four?”

  “Thirty-one,” he bit out.

  “I’m twenty-four and in the prime of my life. I need to live a little, you know? Hell, you can barely handle me saying the word ‘fuck.’ Imagine me doing it.” She wiggled her brows, pleased beyond measure when his expression darkened and his gaze traveled from her mouth to her breasts and back up to her eyes.

  Holy shit. Mike Cava had just given her the proverbial eye-fuck!

  “Imagine, hmm?”

  Excited but not willing to be drawn into a conversation that would inevitably backfire and have him scurrying away, she shrugged off the discussion. “That’ll be four-nineteen.”

  “Huh?”

  “For the yarn.”

  He reached into his pocket and slapped a five on the counter. “Keep the change.” He leaned closer still, until she could feel his breath on her lips. “Honey, you want to play footsie with your guy friends, fine. But keep that shit away from my sister.”

  “Because she’s all virginal and pure? Please.” She laughed at him, knowing Olivia would find that funny as hell. The girl acted all prudish, but she liked sex as much as Maria did.

  His eyes looked so dark she’d swear they were black. “Please, what?”

  She felt as if she’d fallen under a spell. She wanted to look away but couldn’t even blink. He licked his lips, and she did the same. “What?”

  “Please, Sir.” He reached his big hand forward and caressed her neck, and her entire body lit on fire.

  “Sir?” she squeaked.

  “Yeah, that’s what they call me unless they want a good spanking.” He gripped her chin with enough firmness to make his point. “Now quit being a brat and behave yourself.”

  Her eyes widened, realizing once again he was toying with her and winning. “Brat? Fuck you, Cava. Get out!”

  He smirked, gave her another one of those impossible leers, then turned to leave with a swagger.

  “You’re an idiot if you think I want anything to do with you, Major Cava. That ship sailed long ago.” She tried to beam him with the yarn but missed and hit the window in front of him instead.

  He laughed. “Still the same old Maria.”

  “Still a jackass,” she yelled back.

  He left, and the store sat in silence. Maria digested all that had happened, and by the time Olivia stuck her head out of the office, she’d come to a decision.

  “What the hell was that about? All that yelling about sex stuff? Really? You and Mike?” Olivia stared at her. “You hate him now or what? What’s going on?”

  Maria walked to her best friend, took a few breaths to compose herself, then hugged Olivia so tightly she choked.

  “Can’t. Breathe.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Maria glanced around, making sure Mike had left the vicinity. “It actually worked.”

  “What worked?”

  “My new plan.”

  “Hell. I knew it. What plan?”

  “Well, I was trying to get him out of my head once and for all. I meant to use Bobby to do that. And by use, I mean Bobby was down with sleeping with me. No issue there. Then we saw Mike, and Bobby said Mike was jealous. Jealous, Olivia!”

  “Okay, that’s a new one.”

  “I thought a lot about it. Maybe he was just acting protectively, like he always used to. But today? Asking me about Bobby with that tone? I swear he looked at my breasts, and I don’t even have them.”

  Olivia snorted. “You do too.”

  “Yeah, I do. But he never noticed them before. He did today. So now I’m playing hard to get. And it’s working.” She grinned so hard her face hurt.

  “I thought you tried that before.”

  “When I was ten, but he was too into chasing grown girls to notice.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “He thinks I’m with Bobby. That I’m no longer interested in him. And it’s killing him.”

  “Nice.” Olivia seemed to consider the situation. “Just don’t overplay your hand.”

  “Oh?”

  “Too much distance might push him farther away.”

  “Your brother? Please. He’s stubborn and thinks he’s always right.” That bit about spanking? Calling him Sir? Oh wow. Maybe he was into that D/s kinky stuff. She so needed to find out.

  “That’s true. Mike is a huge know-it-all. But he’s a good guy. You’re not planning to use him and lose him, are you? To break his heart to get back at him for your years of unrequited love?”

  “Where do you get this stuff?” Maria shook her head. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Look, you can’t tell him any of this. But I promise you. That man is mine. Now I just need to trick him into believing it.”

  “All’s fair and blah blah blah, right?”

  “Yep. That man is mine.” She gave an evil laugh and rubbed her hands together.

  Olivia joined her. They spent her last hours behind the counter debating about pizza versus Chinese food and how best to handle Mike in the coming days.

  And Maria made more plans…

  Mike stormed back to his car and slammed inside. What exactly had just happened in Sew and Go and More? The fairylike cutie he’d expected had instead been a she-demon with a mouthy attitude that turned him on. Aroused by a petite blonde he used to consider a sister.

  The key words being “used to.”

  What the fuck?

  He had no idea how it had happened, but first seeing her in that sexy sundress then with that fuckwad Bobby somebody, he now viewed her in a completely different light. No longer the cute girl next door, his baby sister’s best friend, Maria now put him in mind of hot, sweaty sheets and full pink lips he kept imagining wrapped around his cock while he pumped in and out of her mouth.

  “I’m going to hell,” he groaned. Maria and cock should never go together, yet he couldn’t not think of them in the same sentence anymore. Perhaps he was losing it for real. It had been months since he’d last gotten laid. Of course. Sex would solve everything.

  Pleased he thought he’d found the answer to his new dilemma, he called Brad and arranged for an outing. Tonight they’d hit a few clubs along the beach and find women who wanted a good time. Nothing more, and for damn sure nothing less, because he didn’t think his aching cock could handle it if he didn’t co
me soon in something beside his hand.

  He arrived home and took a long shower after easing himself to fantasies of Maria, despite not wanting or meaning to. “Totally going to hell,” he muttered as he dried off and dressed.

  Brad arrived to hear him talking to himself. “Ah, you on meds, bro?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Because I once dated a nurse, and I’m pretty sure I could get you some more.”

  “Ha ha.” They left and drove down to a popular hook-up bar in Atlantic Beach.

  After making small talk, Brad asked, “What the hell crawled up your ass and died?” His smile grew. “Or should I say who?”

  “Is it just me, or is Maria different?” Mike heard himself asking and wished to hell he hadn’t.

  “Different how?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe her hair’s longer or something.” He felt like an idiot the longer he talked, so he downed his beer.

  “Maybe you’re finally seeing the real her.”

  “Meaning?”

  Brad sighed. “Meaning the girl has spent years trying to get you to notice her. And bro, she’s really cute. Nice and funny, and Mom and Dad love her. But you never saw her as anything but Olivia’s clone.”

  “They’re always together.”

  “Not always.”

  Remembering her and Bobby at the beach, he described what he’d seen to Brad.

  “Oh yeah. Sergeant Bobby Thorn. Nice guy.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  Brad looked affronted. “You don’t think I checked his ass out the minute I heard she was seeing him? Cavas take care of our own.”

  Mike nodded. “Good.”

  “But Bobby’s a good kid.”

  “Kid? He’s maybe two or three years younger than you.”

  “More her own age, sure. He’s solid, and he treats her well. What’s not to like?”

  The conversation severely annoyed Mike. “Yeah? Well, he was talking about going down on her on a public beach, for Christ sake.”

  Brad, the ass, laughed. “Who wouldn’t want to go down on her? Or are you into guys now? I mean, it’s okay with me if that’s your thing. But, bro, Dad might—”

  “Fuck you.” Mike glared and finished his beer. “It’s just… She’s all grown up and changed. Different.”