Free An Accidental Gentleman by M.Q. Barber

enticing nudity at his back.
    She brought round, firm breasts to bear as she hooked her arms around him. “I found something better than dreams.”
    “Yeah?” Lungs tight, he worked for breath. The cresting wave flashed up ahead, the long paddle so worth the trip. “What’s that?”
    “You.” Clenching his shoulders, she hugged him suspender-style and rested her chin on him. “That the way you like it?”
    He upped his game to a quasi-corkscrew with a twist at the tip. A surefire finishing move. “Yeah. You like watching?”
    “Mm-hmm.” Diving, she skimmed his chest. “But I’m a hands girl.” She displaced him and took over, matching his rhythm, her grip sure and confident. “I like doing better.”
    Katherine grabbed what she wanted, when she wanted. And she wanted him.
    He spilled over his fist and splattered his shirt tails.
    As lethargy hit, he dropped his head against the seat. That orgasm, Christ. Fast and hard, a freight train rush he’d lost years ago. Even with her presence limited to fantasy, she improved on everything. Must be those tinkering skills. Loving a woman who learned his body mattered now. Emotional virtues and tenderness he’d never considered at seventeen, when a lapping wave served to get him off.
    “I know you don’t date, Katherine.” He hunted for fast-food napkins on the floor mats in the back and came up empty. The inside of his boxers would have to do. “But last week I would’ve said I’d never pick one woman over the variety of staying single. People change. You can, too.”
    The more he demonstrated her importance to him, the faster she’d recognize the rightness in their pairing. She needed time to get comfortable and feel secure with him. Her complaint about men pretending they cared enough to hang around—a bad breakup. Anyone burned by an ex would be skittish about new relationships. The more he showed up, the more she’d learn she could rely on him.
    Cursing the new stains on his shirt, he righted his clothes and tucked himself away. Dinner mandated a stop somewhere with a drive-thru. Imposing on Rob again when he and Nora had lovey-dovey baby feelings oozing out all over the place would make him a shit friend. A sad sack peeping through the window instead of taking care of his business. He deserved a life of his own, one with a partner. With Katherine. He peeled out of the parking lot.
    He’d start tomorrow in the gym at work, because any idiot who’d hurt her and leave her so gun-shy about more than sex merited a pummeling, and the punching bag would make an excellent proxy. And then he’d shake the imaginary asshole’s hand for getting the fuck out of his way. Katherine belonged with him, not some bad-boy shithead who didn’t understand the responsibilities a man had toward his woman.
    Him, voted most likely to die in a late-night TV stunt, the poster child for responsibility. Twenty years of behaving like that guy, maybe not a jerk but not a long-term catch, either, and now he’d finally wised up only to fall for a woman who would’ve preferred him the other way.
    God had to be laughing his ass off.
     
     

Chapter 3
     
    Driving Erin’s little errand-runner, Kit turned off on a packed-dirt road with a hand-painted plywood sign reading Ballfield in cobalt blue letters. Some joker had hung a matching cap over the stake sticking up the back.
    A passel of cars and trucks in darn straight rows for impromptu mud-and-grass parking lay ahead to the left. Families crowded around trunks. Men balanced Coleman chest coolers and pint-sized children on their shoulders in about equal measure. Waiting on a stampede of older kids crossing the entry, she searched for Brian’s crimson coupe. Mid-life crisis car for sure, but he had the good sense to choose a sporty old workhorse and not a flashy dick extender.
    The athletic complex where the youth leagues played, out by the airport, featured nearly a dozen diamonds. This middle-of-nowhere plot boasted two, both with