Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn
Chapter Forty-Six
Dixon
“There’s no way I’m wearing that while you’re sitting there all normal,” Fiona said, giving him the stink eye that always managed to be more cute than intimidating. “Strip ’em off.”
Per usual, the woman had him. How was he going to argue after he was the one who’d just finished telling her all about how he had asked her nana to send over samples of her products? The truth was, he’d only brought it up tonight because he couldn’t stop thinking of the way she’d looked after he’d given her the mini hand massage at her parents’ house. Was it self-torture that he wanted to give her a foot massage? A newfound kink? Or was it just another way to experience that high of getting to watch Fiona Hartigan let go and enjoy herself? Whatever it was, nothing was going to happen if he didn’t get rid of his socks and shoes.
“You’re a pain in my ass, Fiona Hartigan,” he grumbled, not meaning it even a little.
“I know. That’s why you love me.” Her cheeks turned stop-sign red. “You know what I mean. I didn’t mean it literally.”
She was so cute when she got flustered. It made him want to wrap her up and kiss the embarrassment off every silky-smooth inch of her skin. Of course, just being in the same room with her did that, too. Or thinking about her, which he’d been doing way too frequently. Or knowing she was out there going about her life in Harbor City.
Fiona grabbed the tube of cling wrap and the unmarked plastic bottle that smelled of lavender with a hint of eucalyptus that Bridget had included with the samples he’d asked her to send over.
“So why are we doing this?” she asked as she handed him the bottle.
“Honestly?” He lifted one of her feet into his lap and started massaging the foot cream into the arch of her foot. “Because your grandma is a marketing win.”
Clocking her reactions, he repeatedly stroked the ball of her foot, making her eyes flutter shut with pleasure. “Our senior skincare line is not doing the numbers we want despite having celebrity endorsements up to my eyeballs, but—if this works out—along comes this great homespun story about Nana making foot creams and mud masks in her kitchen and there isn’t a beauty press outlet that won’t eat it up. It’s reality TV meets the American dream meets TheGolden Girls.”
He kneaded the pressure points just below the ball of her foot and along her arch until she was all but a melted heap of blissed-out happy on his couch. This was when he should be wrapping her foot in the cling wrap, but that would mean not touching her, not hitting just the right spot again that made her let out a contented sigh. He was a selfish bastard and he wanted more of that, so he got more of the foot cream and went to work on the upper part of her foot, relishing the “oh my God, don’t stop” she uttered under her breath.
“You can’t buy that kind of good press,” he said, moving back to the arch of her foot and being rewarded with a moan. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
Fiona cracked an eyelid open and locked her attention on him. “So this is all just about the bottom line?”
“It is the way the business world measures winning and losing,” he said. “And I always win.”
She got a pinched look on her face and stared down at the coffee table. He’d learned that look. He knew it. It usually came right before she told him about the world being rainbows and unicorns and winning not being everything—except he knew better.
“Dixon—”
He knew what she was going to say, and it was starting to feel like she just might be right. He hated it when other people were right. So he did what he always did—whatever it took to win.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
It was supposed to be an easy kiss, just a quick brush of his lips, but nothing was quick or easy with Fiona. It was all heat and promise as she sighed against him, parting her lips and letting him in. Fuck, she tasted so sweet while she sounded so dirty with those little moans of hers. Lust slammed into him and he deepened the kiss, savoring the feel of her against him. The softness of her lips on his. The hard peaks of her nipples pressing against his palm when he slipped his hand under the hem of her sweater. The tempting heat at the juncture of her thighs as she lay back against the couch and he followed, maneuvering so he was between her legs. He couldn’t get enough.
The thirty-minute dough alarm went off, chirping out a high-pitched buzz.
Hating himself for doing it, he broke off the kiss so he could tell the timer on his Echo to stop.
“We could have ordered in,” he grumbled as he trailed a line of kisses up her neck.
She pushed back, giving him a look of mock horror. “Are you surrendering to the ravioli?”
“Never.” He scooped her up and carried her into the kitchen. “But this isn’t finished.”
He wasn’t sure it ever would be.
