Lawn Boys Read online

  “It’s true, sir,” she says tightly. “We’re together. But I can assure you our relationship doesn’t get in the way of my duties.”

  “And I’m eighteen,” I remind the two men.

  Howard seems as though he doesn’t want to continue this awkward conversation, so Damien steps forward.

  “According to the handbook, interoffice relationships are strictly prohibited, specifically in the event where one employee holds power over another.” He flashes us a bright white smile. “This policy has been around since the eighties. Nothing new, huh, Howard?”

  Howard hangs his head. “It’s been around for a while, yes.”

  “Am I getting written up?” Stephanie asks in horror.

  Damien laughs. “It’s grounds for termination, sweetheart.”

  She lets out a hiss of air and I rise to my feet. I wrap my arm around her, pulling her protectively to my side.

  “What exactly are you saying?” I seethe. “That you’re firing her over this?”

  Howard has the sense to look shameful. Damien fucking gloats.

  “Rules are rules,” Damien barks. “In fact, according to the handbook, both employees are to be terminated.”

  Steph trembles in my embrace. “But I’ve given you almost twenty years,” she says, her voice a mere whisper. “Twenty years, Howard.”

  “I’m sorry,” Howard mutters in defeat. “Truly, I am.”

  “You’re firing me.” Steph lets out a ragged sob that makes me want to jump over her desk and kill Damien fucking Rice.

  “Please collect your things and leave,” Howard says. “I’ll be in my office.”

  As soon as he leaves, I snarl at Damien. “You goddamned jealous asshole. I ought to—”

  “Careful now, boy, don’t make me call Sheriff McMahon up here for you threatening me.”

  “Leave,” Stephanie hisses at him. “You’ve done what you set out to do, now leave.”

  He frowns, as if suddenly realizing how this affects her. “You should have known—” he starts, but she cuts him off with a wave of her hand.

  “Leave.”

  With a grumble, he stalks out of the office. She manages to keep her tears at bay, but the moment he steps out, she loses it. I hug her to me to keep her from collapsing to the floor.

  “Shhh,” I murmur against her hair. “Everything is going to be okay, teacup.”

  Last night’s plans got foiled because of Stephanie getting fired. I held her all night as she cried for the loss of her job. Now, today, she’s nearly back to her normal self aside from the puffy eyes. I’ve coaxed a smile or two from her already this morning.

  “Where are we going?” she asks from the passenger side of the jeep.

  “I thought we’d go see someone and then go visit Aiden for some homemade muffins for breakfast.”

  She grins at the mention of my brother. He eventually got his bakery job back, which made him stupid happy. I’m not sure what’s going on with him and his love life, but whatever it is, it’s complicated. I can sense that he’s hiding something from me. Instead of forcing it out of him, I allow him his privacy.

  “Do you think it’ll snow today?” she asks as she squeezes my hand.

  “Looks like it’s possible.”

  When I pull up in front of the building of our destination, she jerks her head my way and frowns. “Why are we here?”

  I laugh. “Come on.”

  She’s already out of the car by the time I reach her side. “You let me dress like this?” she hisses in horror.

  I make a great show of giving her body a once-over. She’s wearing black leggings and boots that go to her knees. Under her big poufy coat is a wooly burgundy sweater that hugs her tits perfectly. To me, she’s fucking hot.

  “What’s wrong with this?” I ask as I motion at her.

  She curls her lip up. “Everything. It’s not professional.”

  “Believe me,” I tell her with a grin. “There is nothing wrong with this outfit. In fact, everything is right about this outfit.”

  She swats at me, but I manage to grab her wrist and pull her to me. I tuck her into my side with my arm wrapped around her. It’s like she fits perfectly against me. It’s where she belongs.

  “Stop worrying so much,” I tell her as we make our way inside and through the lobby.

  The receptionist, Linda, waves at me. “Hey, angel.”

  “Hey, Linda.”

  We walk down the hallway and I push into the office at the end without knocking. Dad looks up from his laptop and gives me a nod.

  “Morning, Dad,” I greet.

  “Anthony,” he says, his voice gruff. “Stephanie.”

  Dad has finally accepted the fact that I love her and that we’re together for the long haul. He just has a funny way of showing his emotions sometimes. My father isn’t smiles and jokes. He’s serious, always. But I never doubt that he loves me or my siblings.

  “Stephanie,” Dad booms, “can you come look at this for a minute?”

  She pulls away from me and walks over to his computer. He points at the screen.

  “This one or this one?”

  Her brows furrow as she scrutinizes the screen. “Neither. That yellow font gets lost in the picture. Do something more striking. I’d do black and move it to that white space. It’ll be more impactful.”

  Dad nods. “I agree. That’s the same thing I told the designer who sent these to me.”

  She straightens and regards him with a frown. “Okay.”

  “I don’t have time to babysit the design team. The ad sets need to be crisp and eye-catching and perfect the first time around. I’m wasting too much time on these situations when I could be pulling in new business.”

  Stephanie shoots me a helpless look. I shrug. My work is done here. All I had to do was get her here. Her experience and knowledge will do the rest. Truth is, Steph is a star at what she does. I know it. Dad knows it. Hell, even Howard knows it, hence the pouty face when he had to fire her.

  “I see,” Steph says cautiously.

  “The corner office remains empty. I can’t seem to find the perfect candidate to fill it. The only qualified person in this town has spent the better half of ten years blowing me off,” he grumbles. Then, surprisingly, his lips quirk up on one side. “What do you say, Greenwood? Think you can keep those designers in line?”

  “Are you for real?” she asks in astonishment.

  “As real as the thirty-seven other times I asked,” Dad grunts.

  “It wasn’t thirty—”

  “It was,” he assures her. “I don’t forget anything.”

  “Technically those thirty-seven other times, you told me the job was mine,” she sasses. “You never asked.”

  Dad snorts and shakes his head. “Attention to detail. I can appreciate that.”

  She smirks. “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “I’ll take it. Thank you. I always wanted to work for the great Quinn Blakely,” she says with a shrug. “All he had to do was ask.”

  Dad actually smiles and it makes me laugh.

  “Start Monday. I want you here with bells on,” he says.

  “Dad, Monday is Christmas.”

  “Hence the bells,” he deadpans.

  “I’ll see you after the New Year, Blakely,” she says, her chin lifting. “I’m taking the holidays off for the first time in twenty years.”

  Dad shrugs. “Yeah, whatever. Your place is here whenever you get back.”

  He offers her his hand, but she gives him a hug. “Thanks, Quinn.”

  Awkwardly, Dad pats her back. “No problem. I know you won’t disappoint.”

  His phone rings and he escapes the hug to answer the call. I hold out my hand and am glad when she puts her palm in mine. I flash Dad a grateful smile before leading her out of his office to the one down the hall that will be hers. We step inside and I close the door behind us. She breaks free from my grip to walk over to the windows while I lock the door behind me.

  �
�Anthony, it’s snowing,” she says, her words breathless.

  I walk over to her and envelop her in a hug from behind. “I knew it would.”

  She swivels in my grip. “You got me a job. You didn’t have to do that.”

  I smile as I push her coat off her shoulders. It falls to the floor soundlessly. “You deserved a lot better than what those assholes were giving you over at the other place.”

  “I know,” she says sadly. “It just felt like family, though. That’s the reason I stayed for so long.”

  Gripping her hand in mine, I bring her knuckles to my lips. “You have a new family now.”

  Her eyes widen. When I drop to one knee, her hand still in my grip, she lets out a strangled sound.

  “Anthony…”

  “Teacup,” I murmur, my lips kissing each of her knuckles. “You make me so fucking happy. I want to make you mine.”

  “I am yours,” she breathes.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out a ring that set me back three years on payments. “Not yet. Not fully. But will you be?”

  When I look up, tears streak down her pretty pink cheeks. Her full lips are parted open in shock.

  “Stephanie Greenwood, will you please marry me? I’m completely in love with you. You make me happy, like I’m on top of the damn world when I’m with you.”

  She nods, but she can’t formulate words. I slide the expensive rock on her finger that both Dad and Aiden helped me pick out. When I rise, she throws herself into my arms, her lips smashing against mine.

  “Is that a yes?” I say with a laugh against her mouth.

  “That’s a thousand yesses, Anthony.”

  I slide my fingers into her messy hair and tilt her head back so I can look into her pretty blue eyes. “I want to hear it again.”

  “Yes.”

  “A thousand more times.”

  She smiles. “You’re so greedy.”

  “Greedy for you.”

  “I love you,” she says tearfully. “So much.”

  We’re long past the low self-esteem and her being uncomfortable with our age difference. She no longer says things about me moving on and leaving her or me not being committed to her. Because I’d die before I left her side. We’re inseparable. And deep down, she knows this.

  “I love you too, Greenwood.”

  She grins at me. “That’s Mrs. Blakely to you.”

  “What do you say, future wifey, want to christen your desk?”

  “Honestly, Anthony!”

  Her feigning innocence is cute considering she’s raising her arms so I’ll take off her sweater. I toss it away and bend so I can nip at the flesh above her lacy black bra.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispers, her fingers threading into my hair.

  “It’s okay,” I tease, “I know the owner.”

  I tug away her bra and when her chest is bared to me, I squeeze her tits as I suck on her nipples. She shivers when my palms slide to her hips and I inch down her leggings. I get them down to her knees before I scoop her up and carry her over to her new desk. She lets out a squeak when I sit her ass on the cold surface.

  “Lie back, teacup,” I instruct, my voice husky.

  She lies back and stares up at me with lust swimming in her eyes. Her tits quiver with each ragged breath she takes. I grab her thighs and push them against her stomach, baring her naked pussy to me.

  “This is mine, forever now,” I tell her as I push my finger into her hot body. “Right?”

  “Yes…”

  I unbuckle my belt and send my jeans falling to the floor. The moment I have my aching dick out of my boxers, I pull my finger from inside her and run her juices all over the tip of my cock.

  “Beg for it,” I urge as I tease her opening with my dick.

  “Please,” she whimpers, her body wiggling as though that’ll magically make me drive inside of her.

  “Beg harder.” I give her pussy a small slap that makes her cry out.

  “Please, Anthony, please. You’re driving me crazy!”

  I grab her hips and yank her toward me with her ass hanging off the side of the desk. My dick impales her. She lets out another wild, loud sound. I push her thighs against her chest, her boots stabbing against my stomach, and slap my palm over her mouth.

  “Shhh,” I murmur as I thrust hard into her. “Keep quiet if you don’t want to get interrupted.”

  Her eyes glitter with excitement as I fuck her hard. She’s just as kinky as I am and the prospect of getting busted has me wanting to blow my load.

  “Touch your pussy,” I demand. “Make yourself come all over my cock.”

  The good girl obeys and as soon as she starts massaging herself, her pussy begins to clench and tremble. Her breathing intensifies and I slam into her harder and faster.

  A moan of pleasure escapes her despite my grip on her mouth. I know the moment she climaxes because she jolts and her body milks mine. With a groan, I come, hot and furious deep inside her. One of these days, after she bears my last name, I’m going to ask her to bear my children too.

  I slip out of her and snag a box of tissues to clean us up with. Once all evidence of our lovemaking has been dropped into the trashcan, I pull my pants up and then help her redress. The room smells of sex and love and happily fucking ever after.

  “What now?” she asks, her voice breathless.

  I tug her into my arms and kiss the top of her head. “Now we begin the rest of our lives.”

  Stephanie

  Four years later…

  “No,” I argue. “It’s ugly.”

  “Ugly?” Quinn rolls his eyes. “Elaborate.”

  “Pink? First of all, that’s your first problem. Second of all…” I huff and put my hands on my hips. “There is no second of all. The pink needs to go.”

  He smirks and scribbles some notes down on his pad. “Noted. Pink is gone. Anything else, partner?”

  I can’t help but smile. When Quinn asked me to partner up with him so that we could expand his advertising agency, I’d been shocked but mostly thrilled. We’ll send a salesperson out to do most of the traveling, but it’s going to require a little more attention than he could do on his own since he still has small children in his house. With both of us working on growing the company, it doesn’t take a ton out of either one of us. He knows he can trust me to treat this company as though it’s my own. Family looks out for one another.

  “Nope. You’re good,” I tell him with a grin. “How’s the new sales guy working out?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Sean? He’s a big dumb idiot that Anthony trained. How do you think it’s working out?”

  Sean is Anthony’s best friend. When Sean got laid off at the marketing firm he started at after college, Anthony got him a job here. What the guy lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in effort.

  “Don’t be mean to Sean,” I chide. “He’s a good kid.”

  Quinn smirks at me. “Speaking of kids…”

  I turn as Anthony strides into the room, sexy as ever in a three-piece suit. He wears them better than his father. Much better. But what makes him so damn hot is the precious cargo he has hanging off his hip.

  “Momma!”

  “Zoe,” I coo as I hold my hands out.

  Anthony leans in to kiss me as he hands our hyperactive two-year-old daughter off to me. She wiggles and moves, tugging at my earrings and jewelry until Anthony has enough. He plucks her from my grip and sets her on the floor so she can go terrorize someone else. When she sees her grandpa, she lets out a squeal of excitement. He pats his lap and she runs over to him. It’s funny to see Quinn go from grumpy and serious to playing patty cake with his granddaughter.

  “And how’s my boy?” Anthony asks as he hugs me from behind. His palms splay over my huge stomach.

  “Big. Active. Hungry.”

  Anthony chuckles against my hair. “Hungry? Are you sure that isn’t momma bear talking?”

  “Well, maybe that part’s mostly me,” I admit with
a laugh.

  He nuzzles his nose against my hair. “How are you feeling?”

  Getting pregnant in my forties was something I’d been worried about. My pregnancy with Zoe was pretty much the same as with Lacy, but this pregnancy has left me a lot more tired and worn out. Thankfully, the doctor assures me that everything is fine with both myself and the baby. I’m glad Anthony pressed on about getting pregnant early on in our marriage even though he was still in college. I always knew I wanted more kids, but my time felt limited. Not wasting a moment on giving me what I wanted, Anthony has gone above and beyond to be not only an amazing husband but a great father as well.

  “I’m fine. Just tired,” I admit.

  He releases me and saunters over to our daughter, who’s abandoned her grandpa to pull stuff out of his bottom drawer. Anthony scoops up the busy bee and puts her back on his hip where he can keep her out of trouble. With her blond hair and steel-gray eyes, she’s perfect in every way. Her bright red Christmas dress is adorable on her, but the green bow I put on her this morning is missing.

  “We’re out, Dad. You’re working my wife too hard,” he grumbles.

  Quinn shakes his head. “She’s barely earning her keep.” He winks at me.

  “Tell Ava and the kids we’ll see them tomorrow,” I tell Quinn. “We’ll bring dessert. Lacy said they’re bringing mashed potatoes.”

  “Bye-bye, Papa,” Zoe chirps as she waves to her grandpa.

  “Bye-bye, Zozo.” He waves back with a goofy grin he reserves just for her.

  I’m still chuckling long after we’re buckled in Anthony’s jeep. Zoe babbles on from the backseat. My husband grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles.

  “You seem happy, teacup,” he says with a grin.

  “I am happy,” I correct.

  “Good. You ready to go home, cougar?” His gray eyes dance with wickedness.

  “Asshole,” I say with a laugh.

  “Asshole!” Zoe cheers from the back.

  “That is so on you this time,” he teases.

  “Still not as bad as when she chanted—” I mouth the word ‘fuck’—“in the middle of church.”

  Anthony snorts. “I thought McAvoy was going to condemn all three of us to hell right then.”