Chapter 14

"So, you've never kissed the guy, but you let him come on your asshole?" Kailee asks, popping a fresh batch of banana bread into the storage cooler. "That seems a little backward. Coming on assholes is usually second-date stuff."

"What kind of second dates do you go on?" I ask.

"The fun kind." Kailee shakes her shoulders and bites her lip. I give her an annoyed look and go back to setting my mixer to mix more bananas, flour, sugar, and infused butter. She stiffens and grows serious. "Here's the million-dollar question. Did you want to kiss him?"

"I did," I grumble. "I can't help it, Kailee. I wanted to turn around, slide my arms up his chest and around that neck I'd like to wring, and kiss the hell out of him."

I'm not lying. I've thought about it for over a week. What would it be like to finally know what Liam Lane tastes like? I've thought about it in the shower, in the tub, baking and doing my business accounting, watering my plants, and in bed at night. Sure, I had to sleep on my stomach for three days because of the welts on my ass, but it was worth it. Thankfully, I have a job that requires standing. I would never have made it as an office worker in a chair this past week. Each time I rub lotion over my ass, I think about him and the exquisite pain.

At the end of the day, he's a literal pain in my ass.

"When do you see him again?" Kailee asks, pulling me out of my daydream about how Liam's hand felt on the back of my neck. Warm. Safe.

I shrug. "Probably the next time he wants to complain about my job or issue me a fine."

I haven't seen him since he walked out of my house. Luckily, I have a busy week with two events. We're currently sitting in a suburban driveway at an adult birthday party and pumping out cookies like they're gold bars. We pulled into the driveway and made damn sure there wasn't even a tenth of an inch hanging in the street just in case Liam dares stop by and wants a new nickname.

Kailee takes another batch of brownies out of the oven, and we move around the truck, Liam forgotten. More customers from up the block come by, and I giggle that they're not even invited to their neighbor's party. We get a lot of that. Word gets around suburban neighborhoods fast when an edible truck is parked nearby. Sometimes, I even have Kailee post on Nextdoor sites in the area. Whatever we make for the party guests, we quadruple it for the neighborhood. Hence, we're baking another batch of everything and still have two hours to go at this house.

Kailee takes a payment at the window and then sucks in her breath, gasping like she can't breathe or is sucking her teeth through a straw. "Lorelei! He's here."

"Who?" I ask, already knowing the answer. A mixture of dread and excitement moves from my stomach to my chest while something else moves down to my lady bits.

I stalk to the window in time to see Liam shut his car door, peruse the front yard of the party with disdain, and flick his eyes to mine. Our eyes meet, and my shoulders slump. He can't find anything wrong with me being here, right? The truck is all the way in the driveway, the packaging is up to legal code, and I give my truck a quick glance to make sure it could pass a surprise health inspection.

His badge is at his waist, and a few party guests eye it and back away from him as he walks directly toward my truck. "Hey, Officer Hot Guy," one woman calls, holding a beer can in the air. "Look at us drinking and eating pot brownies right in front of you. You can't do a goddamn thing, can you?"

Liam ignores the woman and doesn't break eye contact with me. He doesn't even glance at Kailee or nod at her in greeting when he approaches the truck.

I pat my hair, mentally chastising myself for not doing more than throwing it into a quick side braid this morning. My black tank top has flour spots across my chest, and I'm a hundred percent certain I smell like a banana.

"Hi, Officer Butt Cream. Want a cookie?" Kailee asks, and I close my eyes with embarrassment. Why did I tell her?

Liam tilts his head to the side, his nose scrunches, and he finally looks at Kailee and then back to me. "You told her?"

I clear my throat. "If I call Chase right now, he won't know anything about it, right?"

Liam blinks twice and puts his hands on his hips. He looks down at my tires, and I cross my fingers that there's not some tire pressure code for food trucks that I don't know. I don't need another fine or another impending court appearance. I don't know how I'll face Liam in court for the first admonishment.

He doesn't speak, and I know that Chase knows. In fact, Liam doesn't meet my eyes, even though he couldn't take his eyes off me while he walked to the truck. "Can I help you, Officer Lane?"

He squints. Maybe using his official name instead of Liam was a bad idea. "Officer Lane? I think you can call me Liam."

"You should totally be on a first-name basis with someone that spanks you with a belt," Kailee chimes in.

I turn to her slowly, my eyes wide. "Don't you have somewhere else to be? Somewhere far away?" I ask through gritted teeth, jerking my head to the back of the truck. "Somewhere with headphones or earplugs? Maybe a gag or some duct tape?"

"Not far away, but I will go to the back of the truck and pull the bread out." She turns to Liam. "I take it you don't want to try Lorelei's banana bread."

Liam shakes his head, still speechless after the spanking comment. When Kailee walks away, he nails me with a wounded look. "You told her I spanked you?"

"I had to explain why I couldn't sit down for a few days. We had drinks. I couldn't sit on the bar stool."

He rubs the back of his neck, and I wonder if his hand feels as good on the back of his own neck as it did on the back of mine. My breath catches just as a customer comes to the window and asks for a cookie.

I process the payment and hand the cookie to the customer, careful to obey every rule and check the person's ID, scan it, and explain they cannot drive after eating it. Liam's eyes are on my face the entire transaction, and his ears are trained on every word.

"Why are you here?" I ask as soon as the customer leaves. "Am I in trouble again? If so, can I be punished in that fun way you do?"

"I'm sorry I hurt you."

I back away from the window where I was leaning forward, halfway hoping he was here to spank me again. With his hand this time. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry you couldn't sit down. That wasn't my intention. I thought it was sexy, and you had those books. I thought it would be a good time, and I really wanted to spank you. Hell, I really wanted to do a lot of things with you," he babbles. I should stop him, but this is damn interesting. I spread my hands on my counter and look down at him, watching as he fights the emotions on his face but can't control his mouth. "Your ass was so perfect, and you handed it to me on a platter, and I…oh, hello." His eyes flick to a tall, curly-haired woman suddenly standing next to him, slowly eating one of my cookies.

He quickly looks away when she smiles at him. "Keep going. I want to hear this," the woman says. "You can spank my ass if you're just going around spanking people."

Before I can open my mouth to speak, Liam turns to the woman, puts his hands on his hips, and smiles. "I'm only interested in her ass," Liam says, pointing to me as Kailee snorts from somewhere in the back of the truck.

The woman shrugs. "You're hot. You could do a lot of damage to my ass. I live over there if you change your mind and ever want to tear it up," she says, pointing to the house across the street.

She walks away, and Liam turns back to me, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm fucking this up, aren't I?"

"I'll ask one more time. Why are you here?"

"Will you go out with me?"

I was not expecting that. A fine, yes. Another ride downtown to the police station, sure. "What the hell?" My face is hot, and my armpits are suddenly wet.

He blows out a deep breath like he can't believe I'm making him say it again. "I would like to take you on a date, Lorelei."

"What kind of date?"

He looks up at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since he got out of the car. The intensity of his eyes makes me tremble. My hands inch toward the edge of the window like they're hopeful he'll hold them. "I want to take you out to eat and get to know you. No pot questions. No discussion of what you do for a living. Hell, I don't want to talk about what I do for a living. I just want to go out with you, buy you dinner, and maybe learn your favorite color or what kind of music you like."

I bite my lip and tap my foot, thinking. After a few moments of silence, he looks down at the ground like a chastised child that knows he's in trouble. He should be in trouble. He's tried to ruin my business or harass me more than once. I should tell him to fuck straight off and give him the middle finger as he drives away.

But I really want to go out with him.

Is it curiosity? Maybe. Is it my own special blend of masochism? I can't rule that out. But I also can't discount the fact that I want to know his favorite color and what kind of music he listens to. I want to know his brand of toothpaste and why he smells the way he does. Is it his soap? His laundry detergent? I suddenly need to know his streaming TV of choice and if he likes butter on his popcorn when he goes to a movie. I want to know if he prefers wool or cotton socks, and I yearn to know his sheet thread count so I can imagine how they'd feel on my skin.

"I get to decide what we do," I say.

Liam lifts his head and blinks like he wasn't expecting me to agree to a date with him. "You'll go out with me?"

"Yes, but I decide where to go. I don't want you to decide with your grumpy attitude. From what I know about you, I don't want to end up doing grave rubbings at a cemetery or watching a documentary at the university."

"What's wrong with documentaries?"

"I knew it," I whisper under my breath.

He waves his hands in front of his face. "Fine. What are we doing when we go out? That way, I'll dress appropriately."

"Wear something you won't mind getting butter on or ripping," I say. "And make sure to wear thick socks."

"Holy shit, where are we going?"

"To Crab House to hammer the shit out of crab meat. Don't worry, they'll give you a plastic bib and gloves. I also love hushpuppies more than life itself, but only if we get a side of tartar sauce with them. They're dead to me if there's no tartar sauce. After that, we're going roller skating."

"Roller skating?"

"Sure, they have adult nights. You're going to hold my hand during the couple skate and then you'll buy me a slushy before you let me win at Skee-ball. They have Skee-ball machines there. Then, you'll give me your Skee-ball tickets so I can buy a little stuffed animal and a mini pack of Skittles from the prize counter. Do we understand each other?"

"Right," he drawls. "Roller skating and crab bibs."

"You forgot the Skee-ball."

He takes his phone out of his pants pocket, unlocks it, and hands it to me. "Put your number in so I can text to set up this Skee-ball shit show."

"You've never played?" I ask, typing my number in.

He takes his phone when I hand it back and turns to leave. "What about me would ever make you think I've played Skee-ball, Lorelei?" His mouth turns up at the corners into an almost, dare I say it, smile. "I'll text you tomorrow."

He walks away, and I can't help but think about how often I've heard a guy say he'd text me tomorrow.