Flipping Love You by Erin Nicholas

6

Zeke was shocked by how glad he was to see the woman who was standing on the other side of his door.

She looked amazing.

Actually, she looked like a mess. Her hair was up in a high ponytail, but the tie had slipped and a large strand was now hanging against her right cheek and over her shoulder. She was dressed in a plain green v-neck t-shirt that was fitted to her toned body and a pair of denim shorts that hit her mid-thigh.

She was also…damp.

Her clothes weren’t soaking wet, but they weren’t dry. In fact, her shoes—basic white canvas sneakers—also looked wet.

She had streaks of dirt all over as well. The front of her shirt, her shorts, her arms, legs, and cheek.

Yeah, she was definitely a mess. And he felt his heart rate kick up anyway.

Still, he frowned as he pushed his screen door open. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Alligator.” She pointed in the direction of the house next door.

He glanced in that direction though didn’t expect to see anything. It was probably Chuck. He was harmless.

For an alligator.

“You ran into a gator?”

She nodded.

“That happens around here once in a while.” He reached out and grabbed her wrist, tugging her forward. “Come on in here.”

She stopped right inside the door, right in front of him, and he became aware that he had only a towel on.

He’d just gotten out of the shower when he’d heard the banging on his front door. Everyone in Autre knew this was his house and he could only assume that someone was in big trouble pounding like that. Since he knew everyone in town and ninety-eight percent of the people who would come to his house for help were relatives, he hadn’t thought much about answering the door half-naked.

Now he was thinking about it a lot.

Jill’s gaze was tracking over him from his shoulders across his chest down his abdomen to the dark gray towel he had slung low on his hips.

Her eyes on him, her body so close to his, the scent of her, all combined and his body stirred.

“You came looking for me?” He couldn’t even express how that made him feel. When he’d awoken alone in bed in the motel, his heart had actually sunk. He wasn’t sure that it had ever happened to him before.

The women he typically went to bed with knew the expectations—that they both have as much fun as they could before the sun came up. It was kind of a Cinderella thing. He’d be Prince Charming for a night, but he was a regular working guy, who was way more likely to own a pumpkin than a fancy coach, again the next morning.

The women he barely knew would continue being women he barely knew. The women he knew, because they’d grown up in the same town, would continue being women he ran into once in a while at the bar, a bonfire, or crawfish boil. And they might end up in the same bed again at some point. But the next day did not mean they would be having brunch together or going to the movies that weekend or to Sunday dinner at her grandma’s house after church.

This time though, when he’d awakened without Jill next to him, he’d been incredibly disappointed. He’d shaken it off, of course, but now looking at her standing in his front entryway and looking at him as if she was very much in the mood for brunch and he was a giant plate of bananas Foster French toast, and hash browns—and yes, he was projecting his favorite breakfast foods here—had his body heating and his cock stirring.

He tucked his finger under Jill’s chin and tipped her head back so that her eyes met his. “How did you find me?”

With her gaze diverted from his chest and abs she shook her head slightly. “I didn’t. I didn’t know this was your house.”

“Really? What are you doing here?”

“I was next door. Then I came out and there was an alligator and I decided I should come and get someone who might know what to do about that.”

“But you didn’t know it would be me?”

She shook her head again. “I figure anyone who lives here would know what to do if there was suddenly an alligator in their backyard.”

He felt his mouth curl at the corner. “True enough. Especially down in this part of town.”

His backyard was basically all of the Landry land that ran from the edge of Autre to the bayou. His neighbors included his brother Zander, his brother Fletcher, and his cousin Mitch. They had called this end of the road Bachelor Row for the past few years since all the guys had moved into the old family homes that were clustered down here.

But now that Mitch and Fletcher were both very much not bachelors, the town was going to have to come up with something else. Plus, the house next door to Zeke was getting remodeled for the new penguin veterinarian who was coming to town. And she was a woman. So not a bachelor. So…

His eyes widened. “You said you were next door?”

She nodded. Then her eyes widened. “Wait, you live here?”

He looked down at himself, then gave her a grin. “I don’t just walk in and shower at other people’s houses.”

Hell, he loved the shower he’d put in upstairs. He didn’t even stick around and shower at women’s houses when he spent the night.

Jill’s eyes dropped from his face to his naked torso and she seemed to lose her focus again.

Laughing softly Zeke again tipped her chin up to look him in the eye. “What were you doing next door?”

“Checking out the house. But there’s not much to check out. The contractor hasn’t done much with it.”

“Why were you checking to see what the contractor had gotten done?”

His heart was hammering harder now. But he was starting to connect some dots.

And he found the resultant line surprising, but exciting.

“It’s my new house.”

Holy shit.

That was…awesome.

Jill was the veterinarian.

He’d been corresponding with her via text and email but her texts had been about the penguins and he’d known her as Dr. Morris. Her email address had been jmorris11 so hadn’t given her name away either. He hadn’t put that together last night.

But now?

He was definitely putting this together now.

This meant the woman who had rocked his world last night wasn’t just passing through town. In fact, she wasn’t going anywhere for a very long time.

“You’re the new penguin veterinarian.”

She was clearly a little surprised. “You’ve heard of me?”

He chuckled. “Definitely. I’m related to the people who own Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild. For one thing.”

She tipped her head. “Really? So you know Griffin and Charlie.”

“Charlie’s my cousin. Of course, I also happened to be the one who built the penguins their new habitat.”

Her eyes went round. “You…what…you’re kidding.”

He lifted a hand to run it through his wet hair.

Her eyes followed the motion, seemingly riveted on his arm. He wasn’t sure if it was the tattoo or what exactly. But he did know that Jillian was fascinated with his ink. She had traced all of it with her fingers and tongue last night more than once. And he had a lot of ink.

He dropped his hand and reached for her. “I’m also the guy who’s remodeling your house.” He ran his hand up and down her arm. She didn’t pull away but she didn’t lean into his touch either. It seemed that she was far more focused on the conversation.

“I thought that was two different guys.”

“Nope. I own Landry Construction. My cousin Mitch takes lead on a lot of the animal enclosures, but I’m the one you’ve been texting with about the penguins. And I do most of the building and remodeling around here.” He tugged her a little closer. “I’ve been the one emailing you questions about that house for weeks.”

She winced. “Yeah. Um. Sorry about that.”

“While, on the other hand, you gave me very detailed information for the penguins.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I care a lot more where the penguins are living than where I will be.”

“Clearly. But now that you’re here, we can finish your house.”

Her eyes widened again, and she stared at him. “We’re going to be neighbors.”

He let his grin grow slowly as he stroked his hands up and down her arm slower. “Yup.”

She tipped her head back and groaned.

But it wasn’t one of the hot oh-my-God-yes groans she’d been giving him last night. This was more of an oh-crap groan.

“You’re clearly not as excited about that as I am,” he said dryly.

Her head came up and she met his eyes. Now there was no roaming over his half naked body. She shook her head. “It just feels complicated to live next door to the guy I’m hooking up with once a month.”

He was confused. “We’re hooking up once a month?”

“That was what I was going to propose anyway. Friends with benefits, you know? After last night I thought that could be kind of fun.”

“That would be fun. Very, very fun,” he said. “But why only once a month? I’m up for that kind of fun way more often.”

“Sure. But then it turns into more like dating or a relationship or something rather than just getting together for hot sex.”

“And I take it the relationship and dating thing is something you’re trying to avoid?”

“Very much so. And living next door to you means that we’ll see each other occasionally and since you’ll be saving me from alligators on a regular basis, we could potentially turn into actual friends. And that makes the hooking up even more complicated.”

Having the sun up hadn’t made him feel any less attracted to, slightly confused by, surprised by, and definitely amused by this woman. “But friends with benefits has friends right in the title.”

This all sounded good to him. Having a neighbor he could get naked with whenever the urge struck, who didn’t want anything else from him, sounded pretty damned great.

“I’m just really not interested in a relationship,” Jill went on. “I’m not good at them. And I don’t really have time for them. And I don’t put the effort into them, which ends up bothering the other person after a while. Which is understandable. I’m not blaming anyone. I just really like to have everything laid out and everyone on the same page. And I like sex. It would be really perfect to be able to have amazing sex, but only when it’s convenient.”

Zeke gave a soft snort. Convenient hot sex. It really did sound pretty amazing.

“I don’t see why we can’t have that. Hell, being neighbors makes the whole thing even more convenient, right?” he asked.

“It couldn’t be an all-night thing like last night. I don’t have time for that very often.”

“If you just want to walk through my door, only wearing a robe and nothing underneath to save time, and bend over the back of my sofa, I’m not gonna kick you out, cher,” he told her. He was half-teasing. But only half.

She finally gave him a hint of a smile. “I can just show up on your front porch anytime I need an orgasm that I don’t want to do myself?”

Something about the way she said that—whether it was the word orgasm or the mischievous little twinkle in her eye or how damned easy she was making it all sound—made heat clench in Zeke’s gut. He reached up and cupped the side of her head.

He brought her in close and put his mouth against hers. “Any fucking time.”

Then he kissed her.

He hadn’t expected to see her again. He’d thought she was passing through. When he’d awakened alone in bed, her stuff had still been in the motel room indicating she was only out temporarily. He’d been disappointed, yes, but he’d also gotten out of the room quick. They had a hot one-night stand. That had been pretty clear. So he’d gotten out before they had to have any kind of awkward morning after. But he’d known he was going to be thinking about her for a very long time to come.

Now she was not only here on his front porch, but was staying in Autre. Even more, she was going to be living next door.

His day had gotten a lot better very quickly.

She leaned into him as he kissed her. Their tongues tangled. They both moaned and her hands started to roam over his chest and abs.

He really needed to get to work.

Except that the client who had been texting and emailing him this morning was the woman who was right now cupping his ass through his towel and pressing into him.

“Welcome to Autre,” he said roughly against her mouth.

She gave a soft laugh and leaned back. “This town is not what I expected.”

He grinned. “I think a lot of people say that. Maybe not for the same reason you think, but Autre surprises a lot of people.”

He took her hand and started to pull her deeper into the house. “Turns out I don’t have to rush off to work after all, so how about we go upstairs—”

She dug her heels in and he stopped.

“What do you mean you don’t have to go to work right away? I have an entire house that needs to be remodeled.”

“Your fault. If you’d answered a few emails, it would be a lot further along.”

She looked slightly abashed at that. “Well, I have to get to work. And I have to run back up to the motel to shower again.” She looked down at her dirty clothes and shoes. “I checked out the penguin habitat earlier.”

He frowned. “You got dirty at the penguin habitat? What did you do? It should be all locked up.”

“How about I just warn you, since we’re going to be running into one another regularly, that I often end up messy, dirty, wet, and other things when I don’t mean to.”

“I like you messy, wet, and dirty.”

She put a hand against his chest and pushed as he stepped closer. “Yeah, yeah. I also don’t do the friends-with-benefits-hook-up-thing two days in a row.”

“Why the hell not?”

“No time. Because it starts to build expectations. Because it makes things more complicated.”

He narrowed his eyes and studied her. “I’ve never done friends-with-benefits. You might have to fill me in on the rules.”

“I might have different rules than most.”

“Well, if I’m your friend-with-benefits, I guess your rules are the ones I should know.”

She studied him right back almost as if she didn’t believe him. “You’ll just let me take the lead here? You’ll just do this however I want to?”

He leaned in and met her gaze directly. “I will do just about anything for the taste of that sweet pussy again. But now that I know you have penguins too? I’m not going anywhere. Whatever rules you’ve got? I’ll follow them.”

Her pupils dilated and he watched her catch her breath. She swallowed. Then smiled. “You’re into penguins?”

“You could be bald and fat and named Roger and I’d be trying to get closer so I could hang with the penguins,” he said sincerely.

She laughed. “Okay, neighbor, I’m going to go clean up at the motel and then maybe we can meet at the penguin habitat and go over everything you’ve done there. Make sure everything is ready to go for when they show up in a couple days.”

“Okay. But you know you can clean up at your house. I can get rid of the gator for you.”

She gasped. “I forgot about that! Yes, please get rid of the gator. But what do you mean I can clean up at my house? There’s nothing at my house.”

“You didn’t go upstairs?”

“No. Why?”

“Because I did redo one bedroom and bathroom. I knew whoever you were, you’d at least need that much. So essentially, you’ve got a motel room over there. You can’t cook or do anything like that, but you have a bed and a working shower and a toilet.”

She looked startled. “Wow. That’s…thank you.”

“Sure.”

“Seriously. That’s…that was really thoughtful.” She wrinkled her nose. “I should have returned a few emails.”

“Yes, you should have.”

She looked sheepish.

“But…” This was going to sound like a come on. Especially after the conversation they’d just had. But… “There’s no soap or towels or anything over there though. Do you want to borrow some of mine?”

Her gaze dropped to the towel he was wearing. And there was no way she missed the erection tenting said towel.

“Um…” She lifted her gaze to his again and wet her lips. “This is going to sound like a come on, especially after the conversation we just had,” she said.

He felt surprise jolt through him.

“But,” she continued. “Could I maybe just use your stuff here? That would be easier.”

“Of course.”

And that was the moment Zeke realized he really liked her.

He didn’t let women use his shower.

He didn’t shower at their places because he liked his shower much better. But he didn’t let them shower at his place either.

Because one, shower sex was a lot more difficult and awkward than porn made it seem. Which was a bummer, because he’d installed a shower bench that he’d thought would be sexy and perfect.

And two, long hair clogged his drain.

He didn’t mind snaking his drain for his own hair, but it was gross for anyone else’s.

And yet, here he was leading Jill to the steps, and telling her, “It’s the third door on the right. Towels are in the closet. Borrow whatever soap and shampoo you want. I’ve got a couple kinds of shampoo and body wash and some really great hair conditioner.”

She lifted a brow. “You have a couple of kinds of body wash?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He answered with the same thing he’d told his brothers when they’d asked. “Sometimes I want to smell like spring rain and sometimes I want to smell like a mountain morning “

“Oh my God.”

“You only have one kind?” he asked, as if that was crazy.

“I have soap,” she said simply.

“Just soap? What’s it smell like?”

She shrugged. “Soap.”

He looked at her, feeling a surge of what he could only describe as like. He liked her. In his family they were all boys, and most of his female cousins lived outside of Autre. Kennedy was the only Landry granddaughter who had grown up in Autre and she was…not a typical girlie-girl. But he generally knew from the girls he’d dated that things like soap and shampoo mattered to most of them.

He reached up and pulled the ponytail holder from Jillian’s hair. He ran his fingers through the long tresses.

She seemed startled by that as well.

“You’re low maintenance?”

She laughed out loud at that. “You have no idea.”

But he wanted to have an idea. That all seemed to come out of the blue, but he wanted to have an idea what she was like, he wanted to figure out just how low or high maintenance she was, he wanted to know what kind of towels she would pick out if she was picking out her own, and he definitely wanted to be her friend-with-benefits. Though he was definitely going to press for more than once a month. Twice a month, or even three times, wasn’t that much. Especially if they just got right to it each time.

Though the idea of not talking to her and teasing her and showing her the ins and outs of a good old Louisiana crawfish boil—because he somehow knew this girl had never sucked a crawfish before—made him feel like he was definitely going to be missing out.

“So yeah, go clean up, then we can go over to the penguin habitat together.”

She looked down at her shoes. “My clothes are pretty dry, but I’ll have to change shoes, though,” she said with a sigh. “They feel gross.”

“I’ll get you some from Paige for now. Then later, after the penguin habitat, I’ll help you move your stuff up to the house. You can definitely stay there from now on.”

He now wanted to be there when she saw the bedroom and bathroom he’d remodeled. It was all he’d been able to get done in that house, and that had been driving him crazy, but he at least wanted to see her reaction to what he had done.

He always took pride in his work and he loved when people told him that it was even better than they’d envisioned.

Considering Jill had given him zero direction, he had no idea if this was going to be better than she’d envisioned, but if she really was low maintenance and didn’t care about this stuff, then it would be easy to wow her.

“Who’s Paige?”

“My cousin Mitch’s girlfriend. They just live three houses over. She’d be happy to loan you shoes.”

Jill rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about that. I have a way of ruining shoes.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t really think about things, like what I’m wearing, before I do things. Like this morning when I climbed into the penguin habitat and jumped into the moat.”

Zeke’s brows arched. “You climbed into the penguin habitat and jumped into the moat?” he repeated. “Why?”

“I wanted to get inside and see everything. And the guy with the key was running late this morning.”

“Because he got very laid, very well last night and needed a little extra rest,” he told her, pointing a finger at her cute little nose. “So…also your fault.”

“Somehow I got out of bed nice and early though. Guess we know which one of us wore the other out.”

“Or which of us did all the work,” he returned.

She laughed.

God, he loved teasing her.

“Anyway, no worries. Paige has been here long enough that she knows what kind of footwear it takes to be on the bayou. Let me go get something from her. If you ruin it, you can replace it. You’re a millionaire after all, right?”

Jill’s sudden smile nearly knocked him on his ass. It was quick, bright, and full of amusement.

“Hey, that’s true. I’m definitely still getting used to that.”

He chuckled. “Something like that won’t take long to get used to.”

“I’m just not a big spender, and I have pretty much zero taste when it comes to…everything. So, it might take me longer than most.”

She was intriguing. He was often attracted to women. He made friends easily and enjoyed other people and loved nothing more than to just sit around and talk and bullshit and laugh. But there was something about Jill that actually interested him. Maybe that sounded shallow when it came to his other human interactions, but he just wasn’t that often interested in the women he flirted with.

Well, he was interested in them as far as flirting, and having a good time, and then of course when they ended up naked, he was interested.

But most of the conversations he had that were actually fun and thought-provoking and entertaining were the ones he had with his family and friends. And most of his friends were family. He was as close to his cousins as he was to his brothers, and the entire Landry clan spent most of their social time together. He supposed that meant that he wasn’t looking to women to interest or entertain him.

But Jill was already doing both. And she wasn’t even trying. She only wanted to hook up with him once a month.

He was either going to throw her over his shoulder and take her upstairs and give shower sex another shot or he was going to take a big step back and insist she head up to the shower alone.

He did the latter. Which surprised him, actually.

“Go clean up. I’ll get dressed and get you some shoes and then we’ll go see the penguin habitat.”

He was really proud of that thing too.

She took a step toward the stairs, then turned back. “Actually…”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any food?”

That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “Food?”

She nodded. “I obviously don’t have any food in my house. And I haven’t had breakfast. I’m starving. I mean, we’re neighbors, right? So rather than borrowing a cup of sugar, I’m wondering if you have any cereal.”

“Cereal?”

“Breakfast cereal. Sugary is preferred. If it’s fruit flavored of any kind, bonus points.”

He shook his head. “No cereal. Sorry.”

She sighed. “If you had, you would’ve been too good to be true.”

As her gaze tracked over his naked torso again, Zeke was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to press her up against the door and kiss the hell out of her before going down on her and making her come in his mouth.

She sure seemed horny for a girl who only wanted to hook up once a month.

And his body definitely liked her.

“I don’t have any cereal, but I can feed you.”

He did not mean that to sound dirty. And maybe it was only in his head.

“So you do have food?”

Yeah, it seemed that her mind was firmly on actual food rather than where his had been.

“No,” he said honestly. “I don’t have any food but I know where we can get some.”

“You don’t have any food? Like crackers or an apple? I’m not picky.”

“I might have ketchup. And I do have beer. But I don’t really eat here.”

“Where do you eat?”

“My mom’s or my grandma’s mostly.”

“You eat all of your meals at your mother’s or your grandmother’s house?”

“In fairness, my grandmother’s place is a restaurant,” he said. “But, yeah, I eat at least most of my meals at her place. If I can’t sit down to eat something, I can always pop into the kitchen to grab something. I go to my mom’s at least once a week though.”

Jill looked horrified. “Can you tell me where the grocery store is?”

“Yes. But I’m not going to. You’re going to go get cleaned up, I’m going to get you some shoes, then I’m going to feed you, then we’re going to go look at the penguin habitat.”

“I could find the grocery store by myself.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“But I really want to see inside the main building at the enclosure.”

“You didn’t pick the lock or break a window?”

“I didn’t even think of that,” she said. “I was wet and freezing by then. But otherwise…”

He grinned. “I know.” Just the amount of detail she’d given him when instructing him on how to construct the habitat said a lot about her passion for the animals and the project.

“Fine. I’ll stick with you this morning. Because of the penguins.”

“Understood.” He paused, then said, “But once you taste my grandma’s food, you’re going to be thanking me for that too.”

“Something you should know about me,” Jill said. “If you’re good to my penguins, you don’t have to do much else.”