Borrowing Trouble Read online

  Borrowing

  Trouble

  Mae Wood

  Copyright © 2015 Mae Wood All rights reserved.

  Atacama Books

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9862886-2-3

  ISBN-10: 0986288624

  (ebook)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my own Erica.

  Thank you for the twenty years of friendship, laughter, and incessant Monty Python references.

  You are a silly bunt.

  And so am I.

  Prologue

  Trip

  “So, you want to screw one of our lawyers? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Dad was pissed. He tossed the waiver I’d drafted onto his desk and began pacing silently. The silent pacing was the worst. I’d seen it before, but it had been a few years. He only did it when I’d really fucked up.

  “I don’t want to screw her. I want to date her.”

  “I knew you were taking her out for drinks, and I get that. She’s beautiful and funny. Hell, if I were thirty years younger, I’d take her out for drinks myself. Flirting is fine. Sleeping with her is not.”

  I stared him down. Now I was pissed.

  “At least she isn’t an employee,” he continued. “Lord knows we don’t need another sexual harassment suit.”

  “I’m not harassing her,” I barked.

  “Or so you think.”

  “I’m not, okay. I know I’m not. It’s mutual.”

  “How do you know she’s not just humoring you to make sure her law firm’s bills get paid?”

  “She’s not a fucking whore!” I shouted, completely losing my temper. Rein it in, Brannon. “I like her. I want to give this a go, okay? Look, if I were only interested in fucking her, I would have just done it and wouldn’t be standing here.” He doesn’t have to know, that in fact, I have already fucked her. And it was excellent. “I’m serious.”

  “Serious about her the way you were serious about the organic mushroom farm? Because that was ten months of your life you won’t get back.”

  “That was a good deal. The ROI was great when it sold and you know that. But Marisa isn’t a business deal, okay? I’m not looking to flip her.” He stopped his pacing and stared at me. “Am I speaking your language now? Because I intend to invest heavily and take a long-term position. I fucking love her, okay?”

  Holy shit. Is that even true? Fuck. I’ve got an option on her family’s farmhouse for whenever her parents want to sell. Shit. Real estate. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Without another word, Dad strode to his desk and angrily jabbed buttons on his speakerphone.

  Is he calling Mom? Because that’ll be a complete cluster fuck.

  “Jimmy, how you doing?”

  John Millard. Great, he’s called his ‘real’ lawyer.

  “John, I’ve got Trip in my office and we’ve got an issue.”

  “Shoot,” said John casually.

  He’s always so fucking cool.

  “Trip’s saying he’s in love with Marisa Tanner and wants me to sign a waiver allowing them to screw. What are your thoughts?”

  “My thoughts? Hell, if I were thirty years younger.”

  “I said the same thing,” said Dad laughing. “But gauging by his expression, he’s entirely serious and getting pissed that we’re talking about what we’d do if we were his age.”

  “That so? If you sign it, he’ll have a ring on her finger by New Year’s.”

  Christ. I want to date her. I’m not asking to marry her.

  “Really? By the shade of purple he’s turning from anger, I’m saying Christmas. Since we’re talking winter, loser buys a round of golf in Scottsdale as soon as that deal closes.”

  They are fucking betting on me. On when, not whether, I’m going to ask Marisa to marry me. John is such an asshole. We aren’t even really dating yet. They are out of their fucking minds.

  “Done.”

  Dad slapped at the phone, ending the call. He snatched a silver fountain pen from his oversized pen box, quickly scrawled his name on the document, and thrust it at me. “Fine. Bring her to dinner Tuesday night at the house. And don’t fuck this up.”

  Borrowing Trouble

  Marisa

  Chapter One

  The paper in my hands vibrated and I let it fall to the floor. Trip had intimated that he loved me and he had gotten his dad’s permission to have sex with me. Really? He said what? Is this happening? It was too much to comprehend. I sat frozen in the beige leather chair inside Trip’s Piper. My hands began to shake with a mix of rage and fear. I could feel my cheeks heat.

  He talked to his dad about seeing me? About having sex with me? Without talking with me about it first? What the hell is he doing? This is as much my decision as his and it has a hell of a lot more severe consequences for me than it does for him.

  “What the hell, Trip?” I shot. Rage bubbled up through me and my whole body got hot.

  “What? You’re not happy that Dad said it’s okay that we see each other? There was a problem and I solved it,” called Trip from the cockpit.

  I looked down at my hands. Breathe. Breathe. Don’t have a temper tantrum.

  “Hey, you’re awfully quiet back there. Want to get those sandwiches so we can eat? I’m hungry.”

  I let the white noise of the plane’s engine be my response. After a long minute I stood, walked to the small galley, and fished out a sandwich. Without looking at him, I tossed it into the co-pilot’s seat along with a bottle of water and flopped back down in my chair.

  “Come on, Marisa,” Trip urged. “Don’t be like this. I really thought you’d be happy. No more sneaking around and worrying.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” I spat, barely able to stop myself from screaming. I couldn’t control my temper much longer. “This is my life. My fucking life that you’re messing with. What if Jimmy had said no? What if he’d fired my firm? This could absolutely ruin me, so don’t act like you did me a huge favor by doing this without talking to me first.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. He signed the waiver. No more ethical bar to us seeing each other as much as we want.”

  “But —”

  “No buts. He didn’t fire you. He’s not going to fire you. Your firm is keeping our work. Hell, do you want me to move all of our work over to your firm? If that will convince you that us seeing each other won’t impact your business, I’ll do it.”

  “I’m not fucking you to get your legal work!” I shrieked.

  “Whoa, whoa. No one said that. That’s not happening. Hold on a second.” A minute later Trip emerged from the cockpit.

  “Shouldn’t you be up there, you know, actually flying the plane?” I said nonchalantly while I looked out the window to avoid facing him.

  “I have autopilot. We’ll be fine for a couple minutes. Plus, you ripping me a new one didn’t really aid my ability to keep us in the air.” I refused to turn my gaze from the stars in the night sky. Trip knelt in the aisle beside my chair and patted my knee with a gentle hand. “Look. I’m just trying to do the right thing by you.”

  “Doing the right thing by me means including me in major decisions that impact my life. You know the consequences are serious. This is my job, my career, my way to support myself. I don’t want to be known as the lawyer Branco uses because I’m seeing you. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m sleeping with you to keep your work or to get more work. I also really don’t want to lose Branco’s business, if this goes south,” I whispered, as my eyes filled with
frustrated tears.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he soothed, running his hand in small firm circles on my knee. “Breathe. Everything is okay. I just wanted to fix it. I really thought you’d be happy. Are we going to be okay?”

  I turned to him and released a big breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding in. His blue eyes burned into mine, obscuring the rest of the world from my vision.

  “I’m serious about this, Marisa. This isn’t a lark for me. I want to do this right. Can we eat dinner and keep talking?”

  I nodded, the rage coalescing into a hard lump in my throat. Trip cupped my face in one hand and squeezed my knee with the other. He placed a firm but chaste kiss on my forehead. “Let me say it again: I’m serious. Let’s not borrow trouble. We’re going to have a great weekend. I’m going back up to the cockpit and I hope you’ll come join me when you’re ready.”

  I nodded again. Trip’s mouth quirked upwards. “Also, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one with a temper.”

  I buried myself in my own thoughts and began nervously fiddling with the lapis bracelet Trip had given me.

  Okay. The world hasn’t ended. But it could. This was never a good idea. Even if Trip’s conversation with Jimmy went okay and Jimmy’s cool with me and Trip being romantically involved, what happens when Trip and I end things? Does Branco pull its work? Do other clients pull their work?

  Even if that doesn’t happen, how am I going to explain to my partners that I’m dating Trip Brannon? It’s putting that part of the business at risk. I know some of my partners aren’t going to like that at all. Also, it is super creepy that Jimmy Brannon knows I’m going to fuck his son. Fuck. Seriously, why did I do this? What am I doing?

  “Hey,” Trip called out. “Come on up here. You’re being too quiet and its starting to freak me out a little.”

  I stirred in my seat and took a cleansing breath.

  Okay, this weekend. He’s right. Let’s have a great weekend. St. George should be awesome. I’m not going to borrow trouble. I nabbed a sandwich and a Dr. Pepper out of the galley and made my way into the cockpit.

  Never been in one of these before.

  Trip was adjusting the instruments with half a sandwich suspended from his lips when I settled into the co-pilot’s seat. “Sorry about that,” I said softly.

  “No, I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have talked to you about asking my dad to sign the waiver before I did it. I knew he was going to be okay with it and I thought it would be nice if I just took care of it before we left town.”

  I pursed my lips, nodded solemnly, and cracked open my bottle of Dr. Pepper. “All’s well that ends well, I guess. I’m sorry I yelled at you. It just caught me off guard.”

  “Yeah, this was definitely not what I had planned for our flight.”

  “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

  “That I will. Are we okay?”

  “Yup. It was a surprise. I mean, I knew we’d have to deal with it at some point. I just wasn’t expecting that and I totally raged out on you.”

  Trip chuckled and took a swig of water from his bottle. “I’m not the most mellow person either. You’ve seen me. You’re a fighter. I like that.”

  “So, two type-A lawyers. This should be interesting.”

  “I find it riveting,” said Trip, turning to face me. He shoved the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and quickly ate it before taking my hand. He lifted it up to his lips and kissed its back, then grazed the tips of my fingers with soft kisses. He gently placed my index finger in his mouth and lightly nipped at the pad. “Absolutely spellbinding. Let’s see if we can get this flight back on course.”

  Trip dove toward me, pinning me in the cramped co-pilot’s seat with his warm, lean mass. With a barely controlled desire, reflecting my own, he kissed along my mouth and neck. I ran my hands down his strong arms and shoulders, pulling him into me. A forceful kiss sent my head slamming into the plane’s wall. Trip withdrew and cringed. “Ugh. That’s a mood killer.”

  I rubbed the back of my smarting skull. “Yeah.”

  Trip shook his head and retreated to the pilot’s seat. “So this is nothing like I planned,” he said, adjusting more knobs and buttons.

  I laughed. “I don’t expect so.”

  He gently tilted my head forward and kissed my aching crown. “I’ll be more gentle.”

  “Gentle is one thing I’m not asking for.” I winked naughtily at him and moved to the cabin. In the middle of the aisle, I stopped and turned to face the cockpit. “Autopilot?” Trip emerged from the cockpit and nodded, his eyes wild with desire.

  “Good.” I grabbed the hem of my long sleeved t-shirt and ripped it over my head while wiggling off my favorite electric blue Asics. I moved my hands to the waistband on of my yoga pants and pushed them to my knees before kicking them off. Standing in front of him clad in black satin panties and lace bra, I looked directly and unabashedly into his face. “Is this what you had planned?”

  “You read my mind.” I suddenly found myself on the cabin floor flat on my back, my breasts covered in kisses while Trip furiously tore at his own clothes. He pulled down the cups of my bra and began to suck at one of my nipples while palming and caressing my other breast.

  So much better.

  I felt a muscular arm move behind me and my bra gave way. He pushed it off my arms and tossed it aside, his mouth never leaving my chest. I moaned and bucked my hips to meet his. The brief contact made Trip growl and his teeth grazed my nipple. He pressed his entire body down on me and his stiff cock dominated my thoughts. I reached to pull off my panties and found Trip’s hand tugging them down as my thoughts evaporated into a fog of desire. Seconds later, I was entirely naked in Trip’s Piper.

  Trip rocked his hips into me, teasing me with erratic pressure on my clit. “Please,” I urged. “Please.” I reached down between our bodies to grasp him, but he pulled away.

  “I can’t leave the cockpit for too long. Are you sure?”

  I rammed my hips upwards in search of more delicious friction. “Yes, please, more,” I exhaled in a staccato.

  “Roger that, beautiful,” he said. He rolled me onto my stomach and pulled my ass into the air. Reaching around to massage my clit, Trip pressed himself to my entrance.

  Holy fuck. Please fuck me.

  I pushed back into him, forcing him inside of me.

  “Christ,” he swore.

  A wicked smile danced on my lips and he pushed in, filling me completely. Trip folded his body over my back, thrusting and rocking into me — never once abandoning the steady beat he was drumming on my clit. My body began to tingle and shake. The orgasm washed over me and I longed to collapse, my legs nearly giving way. I brushed Trip’s hand away from my clit and reached though my legs to caress him.

  “Oh. Fuck, Marisa. Fuck,” he bellowed with uneven breaths. He twitched inside and his body blanketed mine. He kissed along my spine and withdrew. I flattened onto my stomach and stared at the large bolts holding the chairs to the plane’s floor and the piece of paper that bore the blessing for me to bask in the post-orgasmic glow provided by Trip Brannon. I smiled contentedly.

  Now that’s how to start a sex-cation.

  Chapter Two

  Saturday morning rolled in. I woke up to the click and hum of the air-conditioning window unit and the squawk of seagulls. I turned my head and looked at Trip asleep flat on his stomach next to me. We were in a large white bed in a room filled with early morning sunshine. The ocean’s roar reminded me that I was at Trip’s family’s house on St. George, a small Florida barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico.

  I slipped out of the bed, tossed on a simple purple linen sundress and went in search of a glass of water. The small cabin was a single story and comprised an entire five rooms. Its interior walls were wooden panels, painted a flat white and filled with generations of family snapshots: Trip as a child flying a kite on the beach, Jimmy as a teenager peddling a bike, a woman, likely Trip’s mom, curled up with a napping infant.

&nb
sp; There were also photographs of people I didn’t recognize going through the intimate acts of family life: a grandmotherly woman blowing out candles on a birthday cake, children huddled over a jigsaw puzzle, a toddler asleep on a beach towel, men standing guard around a smoking grill with beers in hand. The Brannon family cabin on St. George felt like a home and belied the family’s wealth.

  I poured myself a big glass of water from the kitchen faucet and wandered outside. The September morning was warm without a chill in the air. The weathered and worn boards of the wrap-around deck creaked under my feet. The waves rolled in as gulls dove and rose over the whitecaps. A few plovers darted in and out of the surf. There wasn’t another human in sight. No airplanes. No car horns. No engines. Just the sea and the birds. I sank into an Adirondack chair and drifted in and out of soft daydreams.

  “Hey, you hungry?” Trip called from inside the house. I turned to see him pulling a gray t-shirt over his head.

  “Yes, what’s the plan?”

  “You like pancakes? I make mean pancakes.”

  “Pancakes would be amazing. Any luck on coffee and bacon?”

  “I just switched the coffeemaker on. No dice on the bacon. And, before you get your expectations up, it’s just pancakes. From a mix. I add water and stir,” said Trip, emerging onto the porch in plaid boxers and a faded Memphis Grizzlies t-shirt. “Nothing fancy.”

  “I had zero expectations about breakfast, so you are greatly exceeding them.”

  “Any other expectations of yours I’m exceeding?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow and a crooked smile. The clear morning light made his blue eyes sparkle.

  “Let me think,” I said, allowing my fingers to trail along my collarbone as I looked out at the ocean and paused in thought. “No. This is pretty much what I thought.”

  “You thought we’d be up having sex until two am and then I’d make you breakfast?”

  “Yup,” I replied, nodding.