Rachel Gibson - Truly Madly Yours

“Absolutely.”

His gaze drifted to her mouth. “I guess I’ll have to see what I can do about that.”

“It wasn’t a challenge.”

“It was a challenge, Delaney.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek, and her breathing became a little shallow. “A man knows when he’s being challenged by a woman.”

“I take it back.” She wrapped her hand around his wrist.

He shook his head. “You can’t. You already put it out there.”

“Oh, no.” Delaney lowered her gaze to his strong stubborn chin. Someplace safe, away from his hypnotic eyes. “No. I never put out anything.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so uptight. You need to get laid.”

Her gaze snapped to his and she forced his hand from her cheek. “I don’t need to get laid. I get laid all the time,” she lied.

He slanted her a doubtful look.

“I do!”

He lowered his face to hers. “Then maybe you need someone who knows what he’s doing.”

“Are you offering your services?”

His mouth lightly brushed hers as he shook his head. “No.”

Delaney’s breath got stuck in her throat. “Then why are you doing this to me?”

“It feels good,” he said barely above a whisper and placed soft kisses at the corner of her lips. “Tastes good, too. You always tasted good, Delaney.” He brushed his lips against hers. “All over,” he said and opened his mouth wide over hers. His head tilted to one side and in an instant everything changed. The kiss turned hot and wet like he was sucking the juice from a peach. He ate at her mouth and demanded she feed him in turn. He sucked her tongue into his mouth. The inside of his mouth was warm and slick, and she felt her bones melt. She was helpless to stop him now. She let herself go and kissed him, matching his hunger. He was so good. So good at making her feel like this. Making her more than happy to do things she had no intention of doing. Making her breathless. Making her skin itchy and tight.

His hands moved to her knees and he pushed them apart. She felt the brush of his Levi’s as he stepped between her thighs, felt his grasp on her wrists as he lifted her hands to his shoulders. One of his hands cupped her breast and she moaned deep in her throat. Her stomach clinched and her nipple tightened. Through her sweater and satin bra, she felt the heat of his palm. She arched toward him, wanting more. Her hands slid across his wide shoulders to the sides of his head. Her thumbs brushed his jaw, and she slipped her palms down the sides of his neck. She felt the heavy thumping of his pulse and uneven pull of air into his lungs, and pure female satisfaction poured through her. Her fingers moved to the front of his shirt and went to work on the buttons. Ten years ago he’d seen almost every inch of her naked body, and she hadn’t gotten even a glimpse of his chest. She opened the flannel to satisfy an old curiosity. Then she pulled back from the kiss for a good look at him and wasn’t disappointed. He had the kind of chest that inspired women to shove money down his pants. Dark brown nipples and corrugated muscles, taut skin and black hair that trailed down his flat stomach, circled his navel, then disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. Her eyes lowered to the front of his pants and the thick bulge beneath his button fly. She raised her gaze to his face. He looked back at her from beneath lowered lids, his mouth still wet from their kiss. Her hands slipped across his chest, and her fingers made furrows in his soft hair. Beneath her touch, his muscles bunched.

“Be still a minute,” he said, his voice all husky, like he’d just gotten out of bed. “Unless you want the blue-haired lady at the door to know what we’re doing.”

She froze. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. It looks like my first grade teacher, Mrs. Vaughn.”

“Laverne!” she whispered loudly and looked over her shoulder. “What’s she want?”

“Maybe a haircut,” he said and brushed his thumbs across her nipples.

“Stop that.” She turned back and slapped his hands aside. “I can’t believe I let this happen to me again. Is she still there?”

“Yep.”

“Can she see us, do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Staring at me.”

“I can’t believe this. Just last night my mother bitched me out for my scandalous behavior with you at Hennesey’s.” She shook her head. “Now this. Laverne will tell everyone.”

“Probably.”

She looked up at him, still standing between her thighs. “Don’t you care?”

“Exactly what am I supposed to care about? That we were just getting to the fun stuff? That my hand was on your breasts, and your hands were all over my chest, and both of us were having a good time? Damn right I care about that. I wasn’t finished. But don’t expect me to care that a little old lady looked in the window and watched. Why should I care what people are going to say about that? People have talked about me since the day I was born. I stopped caring a long time ago.”

Delaney pushed at his shoulders until he took a step backward. With desire still pulsating along her nerves, she jumped down from the counter and turned around in time to see Mrs. Vaughn totter away in a pink housecoat and support hose. “People in this town already think we’re sleeping together. And you should care since you stand to lose the property Henry left you.”

“How’s that? The last time I checked, at some point during sex, someone gets off. Otherwise it’s nothing more than a grope.”

Delaney groaned and put her head in her hands. “I don’t belong here. I hate this town. I hate everything about it. I can’t wait to leave. I want my life back.”

“Look on the bright side,” he said, and she heard the thud of his boot as he made his way toward the back. “When you leave, you’ll leave a wealthy woman. You sold out for Henry’s money, but I’m sure you’ll think it’s worth it in the end.”

She looked up at him. “You’re a hypocrite. You agreed to your part of the will, too.”

He walked into her storage room and popped back out a few seconds later. “True, but there’s a difference.” With his shirt still unbuttoned, he shrugged into his leather jacket. “That particular stipulation is no hardship for me.”

“Then why were you trying to take off my sweater?”

He bent down and picked up his drill. “Because you let me. Don’t take it personally, but you could have been anyone.”

His words hit her like a punch in the stomach. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying or screaming or both. “I hate you,” she said barely above a whisper, but he heard her.

“Sure you do, wild thing,” he said as he wrapped the cord around the drill.

“You should grow up and became an adult, Nick. Grown-up men don’t have to grope women just to see if they can. Real men don’t look at women as sexual playthings anymore.”

He stared at her across the distance that separated them. “If you believe that, then you’re the same silly naive girl you always were.” He yanked the back door open. “Maybe you should take your own advice,” he said, then closed the door behind him.

“Grow up, Nick!” she yelled after him. “And… and… get a haircut.” She didn’t know why she added the last part. Perhaps because she wanted to hurt him, which was ridiculous. The man had no feelings. She turned around and stared at her blank appointment book. Her life was going from crap to downright shitty. Two hours, she thought. She’d give the gossip two hours to reach her mother, and then only because it would take Laverne an hour to get to her car.

Angry tears blurred Delaney’s vision and her gaze fell to the envelope on top of the cash register. She tore it open. A page fell out with three bold words typed in the center. I’M WATCHING YOU, it said. Delaney crumpled the paper and threw it across the salon. Great! That was all she needed. Helen the psycho woman watching her and slipping notes under her door.

Nick gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. The insistent throb in his groin urged him to turn his Jeep around and relieve his aching need between Delaney’s soft thighs. Impossible, of course. For so many reasons.

If he wanted, he could ring Gail on his cell phone and have her meet him. There were a few others he could call, too, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to have sex with one woman while thinking of another. While wanting another. He wasn’t that big a bastard. He wasn’t that sick, either.

Instead of calling anyone, he pulled his Jeep to a stop next to the burned remains of Henry’s barn. He left the engine running and shifted into neutral. He didn’t know why he’d come here. Maybe he’d come looking for answers in the blackened rubble. Answers he knew he’d never find.

I don’t belong here. I hate this town. I hate everything about it. I can’t wait to leave. I want my life back. Her words still echoed in his head. Still made him want to grab her and shake her.

But she was right. She didn’t belong in Truly. From the moment he’d looked across Henry’s casket and seen her standing there in that green suit and dark sunglasses, she’d complicated his life. When she’d moved back, she’d brought the past with her. All the old complicated bullshit he’d never understood.

Nick looked down at the front of his shirt and raised his hands to the buttons. The Jeep’s engine and the steady hum of the heater were the only sounds disturbing the late morning air.

I hate you, she’d whispered, and he believed her. Earlier, when he’d arrived on her doorstep with her new locks, he hadn’t purposely set out to make her hate him, but he’d done a pretty good job of it. Her hatred was best, and he actually felt a little relieved. No more kissing her and touching her. No more filling his hand with her firm breast, her nipple hard beneath his thumb.