Dirty Deeds by Stella Rhys

9

ALY

“Wow. Someone’s surprisingly eager to get out,” Evie grinned as she watched me fly through closeout on Tuesday. “You finally getting excited to go home to that hottie?”

“Uh, no. Not exactly.”

I wasn’t so much excited as I was determined to get rid of the weirdness hanging in the air after last night’s movie fiasco. As far as playing it cool went, I’d totally failed and it was embarrassing. While Emmett sat totally unaffected next to me, I’d acted like a complete spaz, and it made me feel the need to normalize things between us.

Upon confessing as much to Evie, she laughed.

“So what’s your plan of attack to get back in the friend zone?” she asked, running the sales reports as I did final checks on the closing side work.

“Honestly, I don’t have one. I just figured hanging around him and having a conversation while acting completely normal would be good enough. I just want to prove to him that I’m fine. That I’m not like, actively wanting him.”

“Which you are. But – ooh! You know what you should do? Call him ‘dude’ as much as possible,” Evie suggested excitedly.

When I flashed a weird look, her excitement waned to a sigh.

“Mike has been calling me that these days and I fucking hate it,” she explained, making me pout. “It just makes me feel so… desexualized. Like he sees me as nothing more than a friend. ‘Cause honestly, has anyone in the history of having sex been like, ‘You have such beautiful breasts, dude,’ or ‘Mmm, dude, you feel amazing inside me?’”

“Oh my God, Evie.”

I scrunched up my face because I didn’t want to laugh. This was her actual life we were talking about – she just did such a good job of turning it into comedy. It was a defense mechanism. I knew that.

But every time I tried to talk to Evie about her relationship with Mike, she asked for us to table it. And since I had my own off-limits conversation topics, I respected her wish.

“Alright. Calling him ‘dude.’ Definitely doing that,” I nodded, trailing Evie into the office where she dropped the money into the safe. “Are you heading home now?” I asked, grabbing our purses off their hooks.

“Nope. Couple’s therapy.”

“Oh. Right. Has that been helping?” I asked hopefully.

“Totally. Like, so much,” Evie said, flashing me that tight-lipped, crazy-eyed smile that meant yeah right, fat chance. I sighed and let my shoulders slump. “I’m sorry,” I said, defeated as Evie and I made our way out the restaurant.

“And you wonder why I’m dying for you to fuck Emmett,” she snorted as we stood outside to lock up. “My life outside this restaurant sucks. I need to live vicariously through somebody.”

“Well, if you want to live vicariously through me and Emmett being just friends, then by all means, because that’s how things are staying all summer. And till the end of time.”

“Mm-hm,” Evie said, flashing me that same tight-lipped, crazy-eyed smile as we headed for our cars.

* * *

There wassome action movie blaring on the TV when I got home, so I was surprised to walk in the kitchen and find Emmett reading with intense focus at the counter. He had his laptop out and a backwards cap on his head. That paired with his baseball tee and sweats, and he looked like the quintessential jock I’d known as a teenager.

Really, Aly?I cursed myself for finding him so insanely attractive like this. It was like an admission that I’d had a crush on him in high school, and that made me feel all hot and prickly in my cheeks. Good job. Playing it super cool already, I berated myself just as Ozzy looked up from his toy and barked a hello.

The second he did, Emmett’s head snapped up.

“Hey!” he said, promptly shutting his laptop. I cocked my head slowly.

“That was… sketchy,” I laughed, though I was grateful for the moment because somehow, his being caught off-guard had me feeling more relaxed and confident.

It made me smirk and pin my narrowed eyes on Emmett as I went to the fridge to grab my bottle of water. Something about the way he leaned on top of his closed laptop was just so incredibly suspicious.

“Dude.” I shook my head. “What were you doing?”

‘Dude.’ Nailed it,I commended myself as Emmett cleared his throat.

“Nothing. Just work stuff.”

“What’s work stuff?” I uncapped my water and leaned across the opposite side of the counter. “I still don’t even know what you do for a living. What exactly is your job?”

“I just do stuff here and there,” Emmett answered so vaguely I had to grin, weirdly tantalized by his secretiveness.

“Holy shit, Emmett. What do you do for a living?” I pressed. “What are you – a hitman? A male stripper?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You think I could be a male stripper?”

He laughed as I blushed. And just like that, he had the upper hand again.

“Long story short, I invest in whatever stocks or properties Julian invests in,” Emmett finally said, his answer so normal my shoulders kind of slumped.

“Oh.” Nothing sketchy after all. “Good move though. Julian’s always been a genius, hasn’t he?”

“Pretty much. And now he owns the Empires. I’m sure you heard.”

“Uh, yeah, my dad basically flipped out the day that happened,” I snorted as I remembered the day.

My dad rarely called but he called me that day to literally scream into the phone that Julian Hoult – “Emmett’s older brother, and the same Julian you grew up going to Empires games with every Sunday” – had just bought “the whole goddamned team.” It was pretty big news in my family, and I was obviously excited, but I remembered feeling a deep dread as well.

Dad’s fixation with the entire Hoult family had finally waned over the years, but I knew that Julian’s purchase of our favorite baseball team would pretty much serve as new fuel for Dad’s Hoult-obsessed fire.

Which it did.

“Yeah, I can probably imagine your dad’s reaction,” Emmett chuckled with a wary glance at me. Clearing his throat, he changed the subject. “What about you though? How’s your spin-off going?”

“My spin-off?”

“Your restaurant. I figured you opened it to drive business back to the warehouse,” Emmett said. I cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes. That’s… exactly why I opened it, actually. Thank you for getting that. My parents were so upset that I didn’t just dunk all my money into sprucing up the warehouse.”

Before I opened up Stanton Family Market, there was just Stanton Family Seafood. It was one of the city’s prominent seafood wholesalers since my grandfather founded the company in 1941, and since I was a kid, its headquarters was a big, un-glamorous, viciously salty-smelling warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn. When my grandfather passed, my dad inherited the business, and for awhile, he continued selling seafood like shrimp and fish and lobster to the local restaurants that had been loyal to the company for decades.

But by the time I was in middle school, the business was struggling. New management at restaurants switched to new wholesalers. Old regulars started scaling back the size of their orders. Money was tight. I pretended not to know, but Dad borrowed cash from Emmett’s father twice when I was in high school – just to keep us and the business barely afloat.

“Yeah, I remember the warehouse doing… not so great for awhile,” Emmett admitted with a hint of guilt in his voice. “I used to overhear my dad talking to yours on the phone.”

“It’s okay. Everyone knew we were struggling. They were just merciful and pretended not to,” I shrugged, trying to look blithe though my face was burning for my dad.

He always tried so desperately to keep up with the Hoults. I actually didn’t find out till too late that all my childhood vacations to the Hamptons with Emmett’s family were damned near bankrupting Dad. He didn’t have the money they had, but he still tried so hard to keep that glamorous image.

It was no surprise that it eventually all fell through.

Dad couldn’t keep up with the Hoults’ lavish lifestyle, and after Emmett’s dad passed ten years ago, he no longer cared to try. He did, however, hold onto his dying company till about four years ago.

“So four years ago. That was when he finally bit the bullet?” Emmett asked.

“Yeah, he knew he had to sell, but he hated knowing he’d be selling to a competitor. He was like, ‘They won’t keep the name and we’ll just get wiped from history,’” I snorted, shaking my head. “So dramatic.”

“Well, that company was his pride and joy. Even I remember.”

“Yeah. His pride, his joy – the bane of his whole existence. I mean I did get it. I knew it hurt most because he wanted to make my grandpa proud and keep our family name alive.”

“So you bought the company to keep it going,” Emmett said, a faint smile touching the corner of his lips.

“Yep.” I had to grin a bit too because I was still fairly proud of myself for pulling this off. “I already had savings and I spent the next year busting my ass, working nonstop and living as frugally as possible so I could scrounge up the money to buy the company from Dad. But it wasn’t just buying the company I had to think about. I knew I needed something to revive the actual business, too.”

“And that was the restaurant, right?” Emmett guessed.

“Sure was,” I beamed.

I had dreamed up Stanton Family Market as a way to revitalize the company’s image. People saw us as old, outdated, and I wanted to change their minds. So I pulled all my old work connections, landed a miracle investor, and ran a few pop-up restaurants in less expensive locations before finally opening up in East Hampton.

I knew if I could make the café popular, I could make the company relevant again. So I created social media buzz with our over-the-top, admittedly overpriced smoked tuna and roe sandwiches, as well as our notoriously Instagram-able brunches, including that lobster claw Bloody Mary. I emailed a million food blogs and magazines to do write-ups about us. I was busting my ass to rebrand the Stanton Family name to something “cool and relevant.”

And within a year of doing that, our orders at the warehouse started going up again.

“That’s fucking nuts, Aly. Basically, you saved the shit out of your family business,” Emmett said, wearing a broad grin on his face. The fact that he sounded genuinely proud of me made my heart skip a beat. “So, do you ever plan on having a location that’s open for more than just the summer?”

“I’d love to. And I’ve thought about it a lot, but it would only make sense to do that in the city, and I just don’t have the money for that yet,” I said. “And for now, I should concentrate on this first location.”

“I gotta be honest, I looked it up the other day and you’ve got fuckin’ killer reviews,” Emmett grinned, watching me beam like an idiot. “I mean your dad has to be… I don’t know. Crazy happy? Over the moon?”

I smiled awkwardly. “Oh God, my dad is… embarrassingly proud,” I said in a rush before taking a swig of my water. I tried to think of a subject change but right in time, my phone buzzed. “Oh,” I laughed when I saw the text. “It’s your mom.”

“Really?” Emmett snorted as I read the message.

AUNT AUDREY:Oh no Aly!!! Emmett texted me that he’s actually staying in the Hamptons? I hope you’re not angry with me for promising you the house to yourself! He told me he’d be gone all summer!!

“Aww.” I giggled and showed Emmett the screen. As he laughed, I cocked my head. “Dude. Why did you tell your mom you’d be gone all summer?” I asked while texting Audrey some reassurance.

“Because she was trying to set me up with her friends’ daughters.”

“What, are they not pretty enough for your astronomical standards?” I teased.

“They’re pretty,” Emmett said, making me irrationally jealous for a second. “But if my mom’s introducing me to someone, she’s suggesting I start a relationship with her, and like I said, I don’t do those.”

“Have you literally never been in a relationship since high school?” I asked.

“No, I was in one during college,” Emmett replied, giving no details beyond that. I blinked expectantly.

“And… it just wasn’t any good?”

“It was great.”

“What? Then why did it end?” I asked. I knew I was pressing a bit hard, but I also couldn’t imagine a scenario that didn’t involve Emmett being the one who ended things. That was just who he was. In high school, after the two or three-month mark, he always found a reason to blindside his girlfriend and dump her. He was always so blithe about it too. While the poor girl usually spent a month or two recovering, Emmett just went on being Emmett – not having a care in the world.

But judging from his dark expression right now, that maybe wasn’t the case with his last relationship.

“I just didn’t have the time for it,” he said flatly, getting up to make a sandwich. “Any more questions?” he asked, eyeing me before opening the fridge.

“No,” I said, mildly rattled by the return of Angry Emmett. I squirmed in my seat for the next few minutes, neither of us saying a word. Emmett made his food and I just sat there, staring at his muscled back and watching his shoulder blades move under his shirt.

I wet my lips.

“Dude. Did you see what happened with the game last night?” I asked suddenly, opting for some Empires talk to lighten the mood. I held my breath when he didn’t immediately answer.

“No,” he finally said, prompting me to exhale. “I know we won, but I didn’t catch highlights.”

“Well, apparently we went into extra innings,” I said eagerly. “Jennings hit the walk-off homer in the twelfth.”

“Yeah?” Emmett peered over his shoulder, lifting his eyebrow with interest. “Pull up the video.”

I eagerly pulled up the clip on my phone and airplayed it on the living room TV. From the kitchen, we watched the highlight and I breathed easy the second Emmett broke into a grin and said, “Fuck, yes. Amazing.”

“Right?”

“Jennings had to be our best pick-up this past off-season,” Emmett said.

“Well, you can thank your owner brother for that,” I snorted, making him laugh.

Phew.

I breathed easy again because with that little exchange, the tension was gone. And for the rest of the night, he and I watched a replay of yesterday’s game. The only hiccup came when we were heading up to our rooms and I stupidly said, “I wish we saw that game live.”

“What, you didn’t enjoy our movie night?”

My heart thumped at the mention of last night, but I forced a snort and an eye roll to play off my nerves.

“Dude. That movie kinda sucked,” I said as Emmett’s lips twisted into a knowing smirk.

“Yeah, dude,” he eyed me. “It totally did.”

I squinted. Crap. One look at the vaguely smug expression on his face, and just like that, I knew I’d fucked up. I’d overdone it with the word “dude” and Emmett could see right through it. He was totally mocking me for it.

Dammit, Aly.

The whole point of this night had been for the purpose of making things not weird between us and I had to go and mess it all up right at the very last minute.

“So… you going to your room?” I asked Emmett as we headed up the stairs.

“Where else would I be going?”

I blinked, realizing I’d meant to ask “are you going to bed” but in my stupid awkwardness had totally said the wrong thing.

“What, do you want me to come to your room?” Emmett asked, his teasing eye making me almost trip up the steps. Oh my God.

“You’re funny,” I said, trying to play it off as we got to the second floor landing and parted ways.

“Goodnight.” There was a laugh in Emmett’s voice as he called from his end of the call.

“Goodnight,” I called back.

But the weird feeling still clung to me even after I stepped in my room, so pulling up a funny video, I turned on my heel and headed for Emmett.

I needed to end the night on a bona fide good note, and my solution to it was that BBC reporter whose kids waltzed into the background of his interview. It was the exact type of silly video we loved, and it was a perfect solution.

But then I got to his room.

“Omigod!” I yelped when my eyes landed on Emmett’s naked backside.

That back.

That ass.

That was enough to paralyze me but then Emmett turned around and holy. Fucking.

Shit.

Blood rushed to my cheeks as I stared at his hard cock hanging heavily between his muscled thighs. He was big – fucking huge – and from root to tip, he was so thick and smooth I just wanted to reach out and touch it.

My pussy throbbed as I imagined myself doing it.

Can’t I? What if this moment between us just didn’t count?

From head to toe, every inch of Emmett’s naked body was so fucking chiseled I was hypnotized. Almost delirious. I was convinced that every woman in the world deserved to see a body like this before she died. It was so sexy it made me feel sexy. It was carved to such masculine perfection that it flooded me with the most carnal thoughts – filthy images of being stripped naked, bent over and spread apart.

The dirty thoughts crossed my mind just as Emmett growled at me.

“Stop.”

I blinked up in a daze. “W-what?” I breathed as his eyes fell to my lips.

“Stop staring at my dick like you want to put it in your mouth.”

Fuck.

In my mind, I’d denied it.

How dare you? I don’t want your cock! You pig!

I don’t want anything to do with it! But in reality, I could only stand there. My legs were lead and my heart was hammering as Emmett stalked slowly over, his close-up nakedness rendering me both frozen and speechless as he stood in the door.

“Aly.” He enunciated my name with a bite of irritation in his voice. “Why are you just standing there?” he asked, his gravelly voice sounding tight. Controlled.

Blood rushed in my ears as he took another step forward – standing so close now that I swore his cock was an inch from grazing my belly. When he caught me trying to glance down, he clenched his jaw and lifted an eyebrow.

“Do you want to touch it?” he asked, his dirty question piercing the silence of the hallway, sending a shameful rush of heat pooling in my panties. “Because unless that’s what you want, Aly,” he muttered harshly, “you better fucking turn around and go to your room.”

My heart slammed. I never thought I’d take well to hearing “go to your room” as an adult but tonight was an exception, so before I could do something remarkably stupid, I spun on my heel – pussy wet and cheeks burning as I made a panicked beeline for my room.