A few blocks from the interstate, Deb made a sudden right turn into the dark parking lot of a strip mall, all of its desultory storefronts closed for the night. She had to make a decision, and the interstate felt like the point of no return. If she got on it, she’d head home. And that was the right choice, right?
Right?
Yes. Of course it was. The conflict and oddball anxiety that had made her squeal her tires into this lot should have been all the evidence necessary to solve her dilemma. She didn’t want the drama and gameplay of a relationship. She had absolutely no desire to introduce any complications to her life with her father. That life was the one she wanted. There was no room for a so-called ‘significant other’ in that life. All this turmoil in her chest and belly over Simon meant that he’d slipped under her emotional fence and crossed into relationship territory. Ergo, leaving that note in his door had been colossally stupid, and she should get her ass on the highway immediately and pretend she hadn’t done it.
What she absolutely should not do is turn around and go back to his house.
If only she hadn’t passed his bike on her way from his house. If only she and Aly hadn’t killed most of a box of cheap wine, which had made her drunk and lonely and sentimental. If only she’d taken Aly up on the offer to crash on her sofa, because she really was too drunk to drive. If only Aly hadn’t called and invited her into town for girl time. If only she’d said no.
If only she’d hadn’t spent the whole night with Simon last weekend, which had changed everything.
If only.
She really was too drunk to drive. Not plastered; she’d had plenty of water, too, and pizza, but she’d probably blow close to the limit, if anybody waved a Breathalyzer at her. It was obviously hampering her decision-making skills, because she couldn’t get her wheels back on the road and head home. She wanted to turn back. He was home now.
Why did she want to go back? For a fuck? Not that the thought wasn’t appealing, but no. That was the problem. It wasn’t horniness that had sent her to his house in the middle of the night; it was guilt. And that was so much more dangerous than sex.
A guttural shout of undiluted frustration tore from Deb’s throat, and she bashed her fists on the steering wheel—sounding the horn and startling herself.
“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!”
Okay. Okay. She took a deep breath. Okay. Obviously, this was going to mess with her head until she could get it dealt with. Which meant talking to Simon. Apologize, break things off, shake hands, move on.
He was home; he’d ridden past her ten minutes earlier. Going back would be the fastest, most direct means to get this done and behind them both.
Okay, then. She put her Buick wagon into reverse, backed out of the parking space, and headed back the way she’d come.
~oOo~
She’d thought of Simon’s neighborhood as ‘sketchy’ until she’d had cause to be in it. Of course, she’d never fully shaken the country-bred notion that ‘The City’ was an alien, dangerous world. Until she’d started fucking Simon, most of what she’d known about Tulsa had been The Promenade, Aly’s gated apartment complex near The Promenade, the tourist attractions, and the Bulls clubhouse—which was in a ‘sketchy’ neighborhood, too—and whatever she’d heard on the ten o’clock news.
Even her couple of years of college had been spent in a small town whose population tripled when school was in session. Cosmopolitan, she was not. She hated to admit how much Tulsa scared her when she had to go somewhere unfamiliar in it. The first time she’d met Simon at his house, she’d been absurdly jumpy, locking her doors as she’d driven down the street, eyeing anyone she passed.
In reality, Simon’s neighbors weren’t that different from her own: working-class folks trying to keep one step ahead of poverty. These were homeowners, largely, or people who rented from private citizens who just happened to have an extra house, through a death in the family or some other ambivalent fortune. Most of the little bungalows suffered the same kind of benign neglect that Deb’s neighbors’ homes often suffered—ten-year roofs left for twenty because roofs were expensive, asphalt driveways with cracks becoming canyons, shutters with missing louvers. But everyone kept their grass mown and their yards tidy, and most porches had pots or hanging baskets of flowers and maybe some inexpensive seating, like plastic Adirondack chairs or something. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood at all. Just people with limited resources doing the best they could to make homes for their families.
Simon’s house stood in the middle of a block. Its two-car attached garage set it apart from its fellows; most houses in the area had one-car detached, set back from the street. But Simon’s stood forward from the rest of the house.
The house had been painted grey many years before; the color had faded to a chalky ash color only a couple of shades darker than the white trim, and weather had worn patterns like moiré over the wood siding.
Deb could see little of that as she pulled onto his driveway and parked beside his bike, but she’d been to the house often enough that its full image overlaid the dim reality of the dark night. Often, when she pulled up, she rued the wasted potential—it could be an adorable little place, with a little time and love. And the large wall of the garage that formed one side of the front walk and porch was a perfect canvas for something funky and cute.
Where property upkeep was concerned, Simon was the worst neighbor on the block, and he probably had the best resources.
She assumed. How the Bulls earned their money was not her business, and neither was how Simon kept up his house. But Deb noticed, and her crafty fingers itched.
Boy howdy, did she have no business getting nesty over Simon’s house…but those concrete flower boxes just sat there, year round, full of dirt so old it had gone as grey as the house. They could be made to teem with vibrant color so easily. One trip to the garden store. Less than fifty bucks, and maybe a couple of hours of work. Even geraniums would be a jolt of life to the comatose place. Those boxes were part of the porch and probably original to the house. Such a waste.
A faint flash of white in the flower box nearest the door caught her eye before she could knock. He was using the boxes for trash now? Okay, that was not cool. Have some house pride, Simon.
She went over and picked up the trash. As soon as she had it in her hand, she knew what it was—the note she’d left him not long before, torn from an envelope she’d had in her glove box.
So he’d read it, wadded it up, tossed it away. Deb stood on Simon’s porch with the wad in her hand and wondered what the sweet hell she was doing. Quite clearly, he wouldn’t be pleased to see her at his door at nearly midnight, and quite clearly he wasn’t ready to talk, since that was what she’d written in the note.
Feeling a lot less tipsy than she’d been, and a lot more disappointed than she should have been, Deb turned, meaning to get back to her car and get on the interstate, which she should have done in the first place, before she’d followed her stupid whim and stopped by on her way home from Aly’s.
The porch light flipped on. The impulse to run had just enough time to tighten her ass before the door behind her opened, and she froze.
“What’re you doin’ out here?”
With a big breath, she spun back. “Hi.”
Simon leaned against the frame of his open front door, his arms crossed over his chest. The shirt he wore strained against his chest and biceps. He was a pretty big guy, with a better-than-pretty-good body, but he was more lean and tall than brawny. He favored loose clothes—jeans that bagged but didn’t quite sag, and t-shirts with extra room—that made him seem a little on the scrawny side. This one fit him like skin and showed exactly how much better than pretty good his body was.
Not that Deb needed the show. She knew every nook and cranny of that body. Every one.
“You here for a fuck?”
The words punched out at Deb, and she tried to interpret the tone that had propelled their violence. Anger? Disgust? Contempt? His face gave her nothing to go on; his expression was perfectly blank. Whatever it was, she locked her knees against the blow of his words. Since she hadn’t run, she was going to face this, deal with it, and end it. “You’re mad.”
He shook his head. “Tired. Long day. Not really into it tonight, Deb.”
“I’m not here for a fuck.” She held up the sad knot of envelope. “I think we need to talk.”
Another slow shake of his head.
“Simon, come on. There’s obviously something that’s gone off between us. Can we be grownups here and talk about it?”
“At midnight. I’ve been drinking, Deb. If you were with Aly, so’ve you been.”
It seemed shockingly intimate that he would know that about her, what she and her best friend did when they got together, and that he would toss that knowledge out so casually. Another exhibit in the body of evidence for their relationship.
He’d also given tacit agreement that there was something serious to talk about. Otherwise why would it matter that they’d been drinking?
But his words and his tone and his expressionless face had taken their toll, and Deb felt weary. And wary. “Okay. Sorry.” She tossed the wadded note in the forlorn planter box and turned around.
This time, she made it halfway down the walk before he called out, “Deb. Wait.”
She turned back. He’d pushed off from the door frame and unlocked his arms. A shiny silver rose, the logo of a big, tacky country bar in Tulsa, was emblazoned across that delightfully snug t-shirt. “Come on in. I’ll make coffee. You know better than to drive so far drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” She wasn’t. Tipsy—and much less so since she’d been standing here like a jackass, feeling every possible feeling.
One shoulder came up, a half-shrugged concession. “Okay. Have coffee anyway.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”
With a doomsday sense that it was a mistake, that even if they wound up talking, things would go the wrong way, Deb walked back and took his hand.
~oOo~
He wasn’t a slob, at least. Neglectful, yeah, but not gross. She’d never shuddered to use his bathroom or shower, and his sink was never full of encrusted dishes. Overall, his house looked like a place a single guy would live—one who was old enough to have realized that filth was unpleasant to dwell in: slightly messy but basically clean.
One space, however, was aggressively organized, and the door to that room stood open when Simon led Deb to his kitchen. Light wedged on the hardwood living room floor; he’d been in there when she’d come up to the door.
It was her favorite room in his house, and she drew up short at the doorway and tugged her hand free of his.
This room could have been in a photo shoot for The Container Store. He’d built cubby shelves that filled two full walls, and in each segment sat the exact-size clear plastic bin. Each bin was labeled and held a different type of material or supply. Tools hung from labeled spots on a pegboard above a wide, adjustable worktable. A complicated lighting system worthy of an operating room hung from the ceiling.
To a crafter like herself, the room was heaven, and it smelled like ambrosia: wood and glue, stain and paint, wax and polyurethane, turpentine and alcohol.
The magnifying lamp shone down on a blank worktable, and that surprised her. “Did you finish it?”
He came up and stood right behind her; she felt the heat of his broad chest pulse out to warm the back of her neck.
“Yeah. Last night.” His voice was gruff and low, almost reluctant.
He was so close that his beard brushed in her hair, moving her unmanageable mop against her ear. He smelled of cedar and sandalwood, the dominant scents of his beard conditioner. A very good combination of aromas. The scent was fresh, like he’d just come out of the shower. In fact, his beard seemed damp, but he’d only gotten home ten minutes or so before she’d come back to his house, so he couldn’t have had a shower.
No matter, and she’d do well to stop thinking about him in situations of nakedness. “That’s great! Where is it?” She quelled the needy quiver in her gut and looked over her shoulder and up, smiling back at him. He still wore that same blank face, and he wasn’t looking at her, but at the empty table. “Simon?”
“It’s in my bedroom. I’ll get the coffee started.” He turned and walked away.
She watched him go. When he went through the kitchen doorway, she made her way down the hallway to his bedroom and flipped on the light.
It stood on his dresser: an intricately detailed scale model of a three-masted ship, fully replicated of wood and metal and canvas. Even the filaments of rope were hemp.
This was the Queen Anne’s Revenge, she knew. Blackbeard’s ship. He had cubbies for books and file boxes of microfiche printouts in his modeling room as well. Simon did his research, so Deb knew, without knowing even one fact about Blackbeard besides the color of his beard, that she was looking at a replica as exact as possible, even down to its cargo.
He’d been working on it most of the time they’d been…doing whatever they’d been doing. Before that, he’d done a Viking longship. All over his house, he had others he’d done before that, including the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The story of his interest in all things nautical—in ships and models and sailing itself—was written in every room of this humble bungalow, on all the walls and surfaces, but the models themselves were the highlights.
She’d seen the Revenge evolve from a scattering of wood and metal bits, and she’d watched him work some, so she’d long understood how skilled he was, and how precise and beautiful his work was. But seeing the finished ship, its hull gleaming and its sails starched stiff, Deb felt a little pinch in her chest. This was art, no matter that he’d built it starting with plans he’d bought at the hobby store. Plans were nothing but a guess, a hope. Simon had turned a dream into reality with his bare hands.
She knew the potent rush that came with willing something into existence, but none of the things she did took such focus and knowledge, such precision. She flailed and flitted at her crafts; Simon honed his art.
That pinch in her chest tightened some more, and Deb stumbled woozily back and sat on the corner of his bed. It was made, after a fashion, the striped comforter pulled up over stacked pillows.
She really did like him. He was smart and kind, good looking, talented, and brilliant in bed. They had important things in common, like this need to create with their hands. They were practically extended family, she a branch of the Brazen Bulls tree, and Simon one of its roots.
Somewhere along the road of the past year and a half, casual friendship and casual sex had forged into an alloy that was something different. Something complicated and complex. Something stronger. A relationship.
Was that dangerous? It was.
All of the evidence against a relationship remained sound. But they’d been forging that alloy for months, and the past few days had pulled the curtain back on their casual pretense. Deb’s feelings went deeper than they should. And Simon wouldn’t have been hurt and angry if his didn’t, as well.
What the hell did they do with all that?
She could smell coffee, so she stood, steadied herself, and went back to the kitchen. They would talk over coffee and figure this out. If he would talk at all.
He stood at the counter, swirling a spoon in one of two white, diner-style mugs before him. He took his coffee black, so Deb knew he was making hers up: two sugars and a splash of milk.
“The ship looks fantastic. You do beautiful work, Simon.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t look away from his studious consideration of her coffee.
A red flash in the corner of her sight drew her eyes in that direction. His cordless phone and answering machine combo hung on the wall beside the cupboards, and the message light flashed. A red LED field showed the numeral 3.
As he handed her the mug he’d prepared, their fingers brushed. Simon had the most gorgeous hands she’d ever seen on a man. They were big without being chunky, with long, agile fingers topped with smooth, nicely shaped, short nails. On each hand, he wore two silver rings, on his middle and ring fingers.
Work had roughened his palms and the undersides of those talented fingers, but not so much that they felt like gravel. More like marble, as if they’d been shaped by Rodin himself.
God, she loved how his hands felt on her skin.
Skittering away from such thoughts and the trouble they brought, she focused on his blinking answering machine and asked, “Did you work today? At the station?” He did auto body work at Delaney’s Sinclair.
He nodded and sipped his black coffee. The heavy chain bracelet he always wore on his left wrist slid back on his arm. Deb’s traitorous attention caught the movement, and her eyes slid to his hand and wrist. The scatter of dark hair, the strong, squared wrist, the hand around the mug.
She blinked and fought for focus again. “What shift?”
“First. Came in right after Gun. Why’s it matter?”
“I paged you yesterday. Usually, you get back pretty quick, so when I didn’t hear back, I called you this morning.” She’d thought he was angry, but had he simply not known to call her? But she’d paged, and that was the main way she reached him. He hadn’t answered that, either.
“The club got cellphones, so we got rid of pagers today. I dumped mine last night, when Apollo and I set shit up.” He came right up to her and leaned, reaching for the phone. His chest pressed on hers, and his beard, fragrant and soft, skimmed her temple.
You have…three…new messages. Message one. Nine … forty … three … a.m. … Friday … March … thirteenth: ‘Hey, it’s Deb. Just checking in. Hope the week’s been good. Gimme a call when you get a sex—sec, I mean. Sec, like in second. Haha. Okay, um, bye.’
He grinned down at her. Deb’s cheeks blazed already—God, what a fool she’d sounded like—but that grin was the first remotely warm look he’d given her on this night, and it made her face catch fire.
Message complete. Next message—the syncopated, oddly pleasant robotic voice cut away when Simon hit the message button again.
“I didn’t know you were trying to get with me.” His demeanor had shifted markedly in the past minute or so. He had been angry; she hadn’t imagined that. The cold bastard who’d opened his door and found her standing there, the man who’d wadded up her note and tossed it away like trash—that man had been angry. But now Simon stood before her, regular old Simon, relaxed and smiling. “I’d’ve thought last weekend would hold you for a while.”
His smile sharpened, became almost predatory. There was something in his eyes, too, something rigid and cold, like steel. Yeah, he’d been angry. He’d been mollified in the past few moments, but traces of his ire still lingered.
God, last weekend. She’d been sore for days. The kind of sore that had made her grin and pause with every pang, remembering how she’d gotten that way.
She remembered now, too, and her body went hot and loose. Her pulse quickened and carried her breath along on its bumping way. He loomed over her, white teeth showing, hair flopping over his forehead, pale green eyes twinkling like lake ice, muscles squeezed into that black shirt. God, his chest. And the vein that cascaded down each of his biceps. It wasn’t fair.
He was so hot, and so damn good in bed, and she knew that grin. That one, she knew very well, even with its unsettling hard edge.
“You need a sex, Debra?” He set his coffee mug down.
Yes. Very much, please and thank you. Even the anger, like a thin thread of razor wire in his smile, his eyes, his tone, didn’t dissuade her body from setting up for a party. In fact, that extra edge was perversely enticing.
This was not why she’d come over, though. She’d come to talk, to set things right, to break up what shouldn’t have been a relationship in the first place.
He took the mug out of her hands and set it on the countertop, next to his. “I’ve got a sex for you right now.” He grabbed her hand and pressed it on the front of his jeans, over the rock-hard ridge of his cock. Holding her there, he thrust forcefully into her grip.
Her mouth watered. Her pussy dripped. There was no way they were talking, not now. She was losing the capacity for speech.
“I…” With a blink to break the magic of his eyes, and a deep breath to feed her inner fortitude, Deb forced out the only words she had that made any sense: “I don’t want to spend the night.”
That hard edge sliced through his gaze like a guillotine, and he shoved her, knocking her to the wall at her back. Her shoulder blades would likely be bruised later.
“And I don’t want you to,” he growled and slammed his mouth over hers.