Flipping Love You by Erin Nicholas

4

He was aching and hard, and his cock was pressed almost painfully against his fly now. She scooted down his body until she sat just above his knees. He was already unbuttoned and unzipped, so she started working the denim and cotton down his hips. His cock was free within seconds and she took a moment to stop and run her hands over his thick shaft.

“Ooh, this is going to be fun.”

Again she surprised him and his heated reaction seemed to stab him in the gut.

She was more enthusiastic about sex than any woman he’d been with in a while. As a teenager, the girls he messed around with had been either enthusiastically interested in everything new or shy and stiff. As he’d gotten older, he’d found a variety of women to date, flirt, and hook up with. Most women he knew enjoyed sex and they had a good time. But he definitely led the way.

He’d learned a lot being the youngest in a large clan that had more than its share of testosterone. His brothers and male cousins were all older than Zeke, and the Landry males were well known for loving women and loving to love women. They also had no filters and there were no topics off limits. So he’d heard plenty of talk about sex and other things that happened in bedrooms, truck beds, and the backseats of cars.

Of course, practice made perfect, and the bayou girls ran a little hot too. It also didn’t hurt that the steamy summer nights in Louisiana made it easy to talk people out of their clothes.

In general, Zeke knew that he delivered in this area and enjoyed doing it, but he didn’t mind at all having someone tell him exactly what she wanted and having her enthusiastic input as he followed her directions.

He lifted his hips and shoved his jeans and underwear down. She had to lift her butt off of him to get everything to his ankles and then off. She had to slide down his body to undo his boots and throw everything on the floor. Having her kneeling over him, undressing him and taking plenty of time to run her hands over all of the skin and body parts she was exposing, was a fun and unexpected torture.

By the time she had him naked and crawled back up his body, he was raring to go. She straddled his thighs again, wrapping her hand around his cock and stroking. With that he was going to last about thirty seconds. He grasped her wrists and gave her a little tug, pulling her up off his body. She tumbled over his chest, their noses almost knocking together.

He cupped her head in one big hand and kissed her deep, stroking her mouth with his tongue the way he had her pussy. She ran her hands over his shoulders, chest, and down his sides. Her hot naked skin pressed against his cock and he knew that his first time inside her wasn’t going to last long.

He reached down and grasped her by the waist, shifting her to the side and onto her hands and knees, loving the way he could move her so easily. That was hot.

“Oh, yes,” she said enthusiastically.

He loved her enthusiasm. He loved that she knew exactly what he was doing and thinking and wanted it all.

He ran a hand up and down her spine. “You’re sexy as fuck this way,” he told her, his voice rough. “You okay?”

She lowered her upper body, resting her head on her crossed forearms, her ass up in the air. She wiggled it, and said, “So okay.”

Damn, he hadn’t even been inside her yet and he already knew that he would want this again and again.

His hands cupped her ass and he squeezed, kneading for a few seconds. Then he leaned over and snagged his jeans, pulling his wallet out of his pocket, flipping it open, and withdrawing three condoms.

Three. They had three times at this.

And again, having not even done it once, he knew three would not be enough.

He tossed the other two onto the bedspread next to them, and ripped the one open, rolling it down his shaft.

He stroked himself a few times trying to tamp down some of the pent-up need. But looking at this woman prone on the bed with her gorgeous ass in the air, there was no hope for tamping down this burning desire.

“You ready, cher? Here I come.”

“Well, I hope not right away,” she teased.

On impulse, he gave her ass a little slap.

She gasped and moaned.

Perfect. She just might be perfect.

“I love this position,” she said. “And I love it hard and fast. Just so you know.”

Yep, perfect.

Zeke took his cock in hand and lined it up with her opening, pressing forward slowly. Damn, she really was a tight fit. But it felt like fucking heaven. He eased in, her pussy squeezing him.

She clenched around him with a gasp as he got about halfway.

“You good?” He realized he was gritting his teeth.

This was exquisite. And hell. He wanted to slam forward. But he also wanted to take his time. Not just because it felt so amazing and he wanted to draw it out, but because he truly did think he might hurt her.

“You’re so big,” she said, her voice tight. “Amazing.”

He was so glad she’d added that last word.

“You can take me,” he told her.

He’d meant to phrase it as a question, but it hadn’t come out that way. But he knew she could. Not just because her body was hot and wet and ready, but because of her confidence and attitude so far. She would’ve told him to stop. She would’ve changed things up. She would’ve pushed him away. That gave him the confidence to press forward two more inches.

She gave a long groan and leaned back into him. That made him sink in another inch.

“I bet you get your way with women all the time, don’t you?”

He huffed out a breath. He didn’t know why she kept surprising him. He supposed because she looked like a sweet little thing. Then she’d made him so easily feel like an ass about the goat and clearly not giving a shit he was bleeding to death by the side of the road. Now she was letting him fuck her and talking dirty to him in a way he hadn’t experienced before. She had been a surprise from the beginning. And he loved it.

His life was very routine, very predictable. And he liked that. He was living and working in the town he’d grown up in, surrounded by people he’d known since birth. Nothing happened to shake him up or to knock him off-kilter. Ever.

There were the typical storms and ups and downs of life, but he was enveloped by family and friends who helped him through all of it, and vice versa.

But this woman hadn’t been predictable for one minute and the only person getting rocked by it was him.

“I get my way a lot with pretty much everyone.” He decided to be honest, even though it was in-bed teasing.

She nodded her head against her arms on the bed. “Yep, I can see why.”

He eased in a little further, suddenly loving that this was taking a little time.

He reached around for her clit, but found her hand already there, her finger circling. Well, okay. That meant he could settle both his hands on her hips and hold on while he thrust the rest of the way into her.

They groaned together, and he hesitated for just a second, enjoying…everything about the moment.

Then he pulled back and thrust again. The third time she met his thrust, pushing back into him. She had one hand between her legs, but the other was now braced on the mattress, helping give her leverage.

Zeke had the dominant position here, but it definitely seemed that she was fucking him right back. They moved together like that for several minutes, their bodies slapping, the heat building, their moans and gasps filling the room. He felt her clenching around him and for some reason it hit him that he wanted to see her face when she came with him buried deep.

He pulled out and, even before she got her entire protest past her lips, he had flipped her to her back, pulled her off the bed, and pivoted to put her up against the wall. He leaned into her as she wrapped her arms and legs around him with a smile.

“Well, hi.”

“Hey, girl.”

He thrust into her and absorbed her gasp with his mouth as he kissed her deeply.

Her legs and arms tightened around him as he held her ass and thrust repeatedly. When he felt her tightening again, he lifted his head so he could watch. She let her head fall back against the wall and within a few strokes was clenching around him and crying his name. That fired his blood and he pumped deep three more times before coming with a growl.

He held her up against the wall as they both fought to bring their breathing back to normal. She stayed wrapped around him, seemingly content to be held against the wall this way.

When his skin felt a little cooler and he could draw a complete lungful of oxygen, he leaned back, taking her with him, and turned back to the bed. He lowered her to the mattress and headed to the bathroom to deal with the condom. When he stepped back into the bedroom, she was still lying on her back on the bed, one arm slung over her face. Her gorgeous body was spread out on full display. The two condoms still lay next to her and he was incredibly grateful he had more than one.

He climbed up on the bed next to her and stretched out along her side. She moved her arm and rolled her head to look at him. She gave him a smile. “I forgive you for almost killing that goat.”

He ran a fingertip down her body, from between her breasts to her belly button. Goosebumps broke out and she gave a little shiver.

“If you’re still able to remember anything about that goat, I haven’t quite done my job here.”

“You’re thinking you’re going to make me forget about the whole incident entirely?”

“I really think that might be in my best interest.”

She laughed and turned onto her side to face him. She ran a hand over his shoulder and bear tattoo, tracing some of the ink with her fingertip. “I think you should definitely give it your best shot.”

Then she surprised him yet again, by pushing him onto his back, climbing on top, and getting him all worked up again within minutes of one of the hardest orgasms he’d had in a very long time. This time she got to ride him cowgirl and reverse cowgirl, both of them getting their way.

Which was really the very best way to have mind blowing sex.

And as he fell asleep next to her, nearly two hours later, Zeke decided that maybe having his world rocked had been underrated all this time.

* * *

Jill left her hot, hunky one-night stand in bed. He didn’t even stir when she slipped out of bed, showered, and got dressed. He slept like the dead. Which was fine. But she did want to have a conversation with him about a possible new friends-with-benefits arrangement here in Autre.

She gave a little shiver of pleasure remembering the night before. It had been a long night but so, so worth it.

Zeke would be perfect for a once-a-month-or-so-scratch-each-other’s-itches setup. Clearly the guy scratched other people’s itches on a pretty regular basis. No one got that good without a lot of practice. But if he’d come over when she needed scratched, she was okay with that. Great even.

Other girls could watch movies with him and have dinner with him and…whatever else he wanted them to do. If he was into those other things. In fact, it would be awesome if he did that stuff with other girls. As long as he’d give her some more of what he’d given her last night.

She even left him a note that read Goats? What goats?

She wasn’t typically super flirty. Or flirty at all really. That just wasn’t her personality. But something about this guy with the Louisiana drawl and hot tattoos, not to mention the little I’m-pretty-adorable-aren’t-I grin and the dirty talk and the way he’d made her body sing, made her feel a little flirty.

Feeling better than she had in weeks, she headed for the penguin habitat that was being built just up the road.

The penguins were due to arrive in three days and it was making her very anxious. She’d hired a couple of the Omaha zookeepers to drive the penguins to her. She was in Autre to make sure the habitat was finished to her standards. The birds needed a place to live when they got here after all. In the ideal world she would be the one driving them down, but it was too long a trip for one person to make by themselves and there was no way to park a trailer full of penguins at a roadside motel halfway between Omaha, Nebraska, and Autre, Louisiana.

So she’d used some of her sixteen million dollars to hire a couple guys she’d worked with for the past two years and knew penguins well to make the trip. She was going to fly the men home so they were only driving one direction. They were leaving the new truck and trailer with her. You never knew when you might need to haul a few penguins somewhere.

She couldn’t believe this was her life and the kinds of things she was thinking about now.

She found the arched sign that read Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild and the road that turned into what Charlie had referred to as the animal park, though Griffin had rolled his eyes when she’d said it. Jill parked her car in the little gravel parking lot just inside the fence line.

Her phone dinged with a text just as she shut off the engine.

She looked down and smiled. It was from her best friend, Evan, back home in Kansas.

Evan: WTH? Have you been eaten by alligators already? Text me.

Jill knew her mother was trying to “be good” and not text Jill but was, instead, driving Evan crazy asking how Jill was.

Instead of texting, she put in her earbuds, dialed his number, and got out of the car.

“So that’s a no to getting eaten by alligators then?” he asked when he picked up.

“Well… it wasn’t an alligator.”

Evan frowned. “What are you…” He paused. “Wait. Seriously? You hooked up with someone? Already?”

She felt how big her grin was. “The welcoming committee here is really nice.”

“And I was worried you wouldn’t make new friends.”

“I was very friendly.”

“Did you make him lasagna?” Evan teased.

The one and only time she and Evan had crossed over the just-friends line had been years ago after the funeral of a very good friend and Jill had taken Evan lasagna to cheer him up.

“That was my mother’s lasagna,” Jill said. It wasn’t that Jill couldn’t make lasagna. She just didn’t want to. Lasagna was a lot of work. “And I don’t need lasagna to get other guys naked, thank you very much.” Hell, she hadn’t intended to get Evan naked that night. That had just happened.

Evan just laughed. “I guess what they say about southern hospitality is real, huh?”

Evan was pretty laid back and had definitely had his share of what’s-your-name-again-baby hook-ups back in the day, but she knew her friend would not approve of picking up a stranger in a roadside motel in small town Louisiana where she knew exactly two people, so she decided to change the subject.

Jill started up the path that led into the animal park. “Hey, want to tour my new office with me?” she asked. “I’m just heading to the penguin habitat. I haven’t even seen it yet.”

“Definitely. You know that this whole thing is really cool, right?”

She did. Mostly. When she wasn’t freaking out about the enormous pressure she was feeling.

The first thing she saw were the lemurs. She showed Evan.

“No way.”

“Yep. I told you how this started as a petting zoo, right?”

Evan nodded. “Your friend Griffin joined the vet practice there, in part because of the petting zoo. It was becoming more than the one vet could handle.”

“Right. The main vet got pregnant and wanted to cut back. But initially he was just taking care of otters and goats and that kind of stuff. Then Charlie came to town and decided to turn the whole thing into an animal park. Charlie not only got the lemurs but a sloth, some red pandas, and a bunch of other stuff. And Griffin.” Jill smiled. “Griffin and Charlie stopped up at the motel to say hi last night. I’ve never seen Griffin happy like that. I mean, he’s still gruff and stuff, but he’s actually happy now. It’s really great.”

“There’s a sloth?” Evan asked.

Jill laughed and continued up the path to the little hut where the sloth—Slothcrates, according to the sign—lived. She and Evan also saw the red pandas, a few peacocks, three porcupines, and four parrots.

“Up at the main barn, they also have a tortoise, several ducks, some hedgehogs, a few pigs, rabbits…a bunch of stuff,” Jill told Evan. “And apparently there was talk of adding a zebra or two. Griffin had rolled his eyes about that too, but I get the impression that Charlie gets what she wants from him.”

“Is Charlie on this welcoming committee?” Evan joked.

Jill felt her cheeks flush with even that little reminder of Zeke. She switched the phone’s camera to show him the penguin habitat she’d finally found.

Not that it was hidden. In fact, it was right out in the middle.

Dammit.

“Ugh.”

“What’s wrong?” Evan asked. “That looks amazing. From where I’m sitting anyway.”

“I just...” She sighed and looked at her friend again. “I knew that penguins in a small town in Louisiana would be a novelty. I know plenty of people will want to stop by and see them. The penguins are one of the most popular exhibits in Omaha, even.”

“And that’s bad because…”

She knew she was going to sound whiny. But this was Evan. He’d known her since they were kids. He’d definitely seen her whiny before. “These penguins are special. And not just because they’re mine,” she said quickly. “But this program they’re a part of has a lot of stipulations.”

“Okay, like what?”

“These penguins have been living a very solitary existence with A.J. as their only human contact. They’re used to peace and quiet. And they need to have baby penguins soon. If bringing them to Autre and a whole new environment is a risk, then introducing chaos and noise, with a lot of tourists and more human interaction, could derail the entire project.”

She should’ve thought about this more.

Though thinking about more than she already had seemed impossible. This had been keeping her up at night ever since she’d met the penguins a month ago.

“The project is pretty much just to keep them alive and make sure they have more penguins, right?” Evan asked.

“Yeah.” Jill shrugged. “But they haven’t bred in all the time A.J.’s had them, Evan. They’ve been kept away from any temperature fluctuations, weather threats, predators, even changes in their diets. Their environment has been extremely stable. But they haven’t bred. They have to reproduce in the next year or they’ll—we’ll—be out of the program. Can you imagine? The foremost expert on Galápagos penguins in the United States inheriting eight of them and then getting kicked out of a program to save them because…she can’t?”

“Okay, you need to calm down,” Evan told her. “These penguins have belonged to you for a month. And you’re just now getting moved to where you’re going to settle them. Give yourself a break.”

Jill took a deep breath and blew it out.

“You’re going to be fine. There’s no one better for this,” Evan said reassuringly.

“I don’t know…I mean, I do know that.” It was a fact that she knew more about penguins than anyone else that was a part of this program. But… “These people are intimidating. They’re so enthusiastic, for one thing,” she said. “They’ve all already hatched new penguins. This is the only waddle that hasn’t had a baby.”

“I love that groups of penguins are called waddles,” Evan said.

Jill had to smile. Evan knew lots of random penguin facts because of her. She appreciated her friend’s interest in her passion.

“Anyway, these people have a lot of money and they are really into this program,” Jill said.

“You should love that,” Evan told her. “You are really into saving penguins. You should love that all of these people are too and are willing to put their money into it and, even more, take these penguins in and take care of them personally.”

“I know. And I do. But they are definitely looking to me to be the expert.”

“You are the expert.”

“Yeah. With a bunch of celibate penguins.”

Evan just chuckled at that.

Of course, all of that was definitely part of why she was feeling the pressure, but it was also weighing on her because a very dear friend had entrusted these birds to her, that he’d loved so much.

She hadn’t slept well for four weeks now. In fact, last night she’d slept harder and deeper than she had since the penguins had come into her life.

She honestly was thankful to Zeke for that.

Jill looked around.

“Okay, the enclosure is right in the middle of this ‘animal park’, but it’s pretty quiet here.”

“Show me around,” Evan encouraged.

She took a deep breath and focused on the structure in front of her.

The habitat itself was really beautiful. “Wow, Evan. This looks…amazing.”

Of course a couple million dollars and instructions not to spare any expense probably had something to do with that.

She’d admittedly been skeptical when Griffin and Charlie had assured her that they had people who could handle this construction job, but it turned out they’d been right.

“It looks like it from my side too. Is it what you wanted?” Evan asked.

“It is. I can’t tell if it’s finished.” She paced along the section of clear wall that looked into the enclosure.

She’d sent sketches and photographs with what the habitat should include and it looked like they’d done everything.

She switched the camera again so Evan could see.

“It’s an oval shape,” she told him. “About two-thirds of the perimeter is a clear wall, while the other one-third is made up of trees, rocks, and shrubbery. They made it look exactly like my sketches.”

“It looks great,” Evan told her.

She pointed. “It’s an island of sorts. There’s a moat between where I’m standing and the main land area the penguins will occupy. The moat is twenty feet across and thirty feet deep. The wall will keep the penguins inside, and other stuff out. Like humans. And wolves and bears. And alligators.” Jill shuddered thinking about all of the things that could make a snack of her penguins. “So that gives them additional space to swim. The water in it and the pond on the island is temperature controlled. So is that building.” She showed him the structure where the penguins could be kept in inclement weather—extreme heat, cold, or hurricanes, for instance. Yeah, she hadn’t had to worry about hurricanes in Omaha. But tornadoes had been part of their emergency planning.

“That building,” she said, pointing to the larger building set off behind the penguin house, “is where my office will be and the other side is storage, including the freezer where the penguins’ food will be kept.”

“So… is it finished?” Evan asked. “It looks complete.”

“It does. It looks like they’ve checked every box on the list I sent. They even got the lava rocks in here.”

In the distance she could hear the lemurs chattering and parrots squawking. There was the sound of a vehicle on the dirt road that ran in front of the entrance, but it was far enough off that it was hardly disturbing.

The sky overhead was bright blue, there was just a slight breeze, and the temperature was already seventy-four degrees and she could feel that it was going to get warmer.

It was going to take her some adjusting as well. Louisiana was much hotter and more humid than Kansas. Certainly the Great Plains had heat and humidity in the summer, but by this time of year the autumn air was cooling off.

“So, now that you’ve seen it and it’s complete and they did a great job, do you feel better?” Evan asked.

She took a deep breath and thought about his question. “Yes,” she answered after only a few seconds. “How the penguins adjust is still a question, but I’m so grateful that I had a place like this to relocate penguins. I’m grateful for the space, but I also really appreciate having someone like Griffin here in person. I do know more about penguins than Griffin does, but I know he’ll be willing and able to get his hands dirty if needed. Or to just listen to me bitch about my penguins being little prudes.”

Evan laughed. “You know I’ll always listen to you bitch about your penguins not putting out.”

She nodded. “I know.”

Evan and Cori had been very supportive of Jill taking on this project and this crazy move and everything else that went with it. But honestly, her phone calls, emails, and video calls with Tori, Charlie, Griffin, and even the other owners—Sawyer, Maddie, Owen, and Josh—as well as Jordan, their educational director, had made Jill truly feel welcomed and like her penguins had the backing of the entire Landry clan.

Jill knew that Griffin understood the enormity of the project she was undertaking and he would take it seriously. Griffin was an animal advocate first and foremost and had done a lot of work with conservation efforts working on a tiger propagation program at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. He was enthusiastic about this program for professional reasons first.

But he was now a part of the Landry family and the Landrys thought bringing penguins to their animal park was really damned cool.

Of course, that had added another layer to the pressure on Jill too. She knew that this was also the family business. The way they made their money. And that mattered to Griffin, her biggest professional ally here, because it was personal for him.

So yeah, bringing the penguins here was much more than just a favor to a friend.

Jill blew out a breath. “Okay, tell me this is going to be fine,” she said to Evan.

“This is going to be better than fine.”

So she had some conflicting pressures—the private group that needed the penguins to thrive and reproduce and the Landry family who wanted to expand their business—but surely there was a way to make this all happen.

“Right, one step at a time,” she said. She looked around again. “I kind of thought the guys who were working on the enclosure would be here this morning.”

They knew she was coming to town today. Granted, she wasn’t supposed to be here until this afternoon, but she’d expected at least the main contractor to be here to be sure everything was finished. He’d been great about communicating with her via text, sending her multiple questions, answering hers, and following up.

She crossed to the gate that led into the enclosure. She definitely needed to be sure the storage area was ready to go. She had big shipments of supplies coming in tomorrow, not the least of which was a truckload of fish. She supposed her office chair could wait, but it wasn’t like fish could just sit on a truck for an extra day.

She pulled on the gate but it was locked. Which was good. And bad.

“Dammit.” She looked at her phone. “I need to go,” she told Evan. “I need to get a hold of the builder.”

“I know. You’ve got a lot going on. But this all looks great and I know it’s going to be amazing.”

“Thanks, Ev. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“You better.”

They disconnected and she pulled up the number she’d put in as “penguin builder guy” and typed out a text.

Jill: In town early. At the habitat. Was hoping to meet you and go over things. When will you be here?

She waited for a moment, but no little dots popped up indicating he had received her message and was replying.

She looked around. There really weren’t any indications that construction was still going on. There was no caution tape anywhere, nothing draped with tarps, no piles of supplies or materials. Still, she’d like to talk to the builder. She looked down at her phone, but there was no new message from him yet.

She blew out a breath, then decided to check out more of the enclosure.

Maybe just the outside was finished and there was still more work to be done inside.

She shook the gate again, but it was tight and barely gave. She looked around, but there was clearly no other way in. But, dammit, this was her penguin habitat.

So she climbed over the fence.

That sounded easier than it actually ended up being. The gate was tall and the metal rods ran vertically with no horizontal beams to support a hand or foot.

She was very grateful that she made time twice a week to work out. And couldn’t help but wonder how much easier this would have been if she’d worked out four or five times a week.

But she felt pretty cocky when she dropped to the pavement on the other side.

Then remembered that the moat was not only twenty feet across, but it was deep. Like penguins-could-dive-and-swim-in-it deep. And it was cold.

Dammit.

They had definitely listened to her instructions. Including the ones about the penguins preferring cooler water temps.

Still, she wanted to get over there and it looked like the only way onto the island was to go through the penguin building that sat on the edge of the island. That was also locked.

She really had no choice here.

So she prepared to jump into the water.

Then she remembered her phone.

Relieved, she pulled it out, held it over her head, and eased herself into the water instead of jumping and started doggy-paddling.

But she hadn’t remembered to take her shoes off.

Dammit.