CHAPTER ELEVEN
Teresa
Well, shit.
It doesn’t matter how many times I fix the dress, I still feel naked on the way into the restaurant for lunch. My nipples are chafed from sliding up and down the front of Will’s shirt, my ass is smarting from being slapped. Don’t get me started on my vagina. She’s down for the count. Do not disturb.
Lord. In. Heaven. Will might be the only man I’ve ever met who talks a big game and doesn’t only back it up, but overshoots the mark. I’m literally walking funny through the entrance and he wasn’t even inside me.
I’m going to need a medevac when that happens.
Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is not going to happen. I am not doing thrust squats in his cucumber patch.
I can’t.
He’s just making it so damn difficult to say no. You’re going to work this little kink out on my lap so we know its flavor, woman. Understand? Then I’m going to hold the door open for you on the way into that restaurant. Going to pull out your chair and dare anyone with a dick to look below your neck. I’m going to be the same man after you take off that dress for me.
And he does. He holds the door for me, kissing my shoulder as I walk by.
Everyone in the small, homespun bar and grill turns in their seat or barstool when we reach the hostess station, probably because I look like a woman who just screamed through two orgasms in the backseat of a Chevelle. Getting hundred-dollar bills stuffed in her thong while a dog watched at least a partial viewing of the show.
Not bad for a weekday.
Logically, I know letting Will touch me is a mistake. Because it’s not just touching. He’s…seeing me. Right through the top layer none of the men who passed before could even put a dent in. My heart starts to slam into my jugular thinking about the way he held me afterward. Not like a woman who’d stripped and given him head. Like a woman he could cherish.
Do you hear yourself? I barely know this man and he’s making me lose sight of what’s always been most important. My brother. I need to pull it together and stay objective, but that’s easier said than done when I can’t distance myself from Will. Not if I want to achieve my goal of getting him to New York. Which will never happen if I go to bed with him.
Why is my conviction on that score fading so fast?
Waiting for the waitress to approach, I cast a casual glance around the restaurant, searching for the man in the white baseball cap. Why? If he was indeed sent by Silas—and I’m still not sure my imagination wasn’t working overtime—I didn’t see the black sedan at all during the last twenty minutes on the highway. He didn’t pull into the parking lot behind us, either. At least not before I became occupied. Unbelievable. I didn’t think of our tail even once while I was…getting tail. Part of me is almost hoping to spot the man, just so I’ll be reminded of the situation’s severity. Maybe then I’ll stop mooning over a certain hedge fund manager.
Of course, Will makes that impossible. He twines our fingers together and tugs me into his side, that warning look I remember from last night in his eyes, directed at a group of men at the bar. I take the opportunity to study his chiseled profile. How long can his possessiveness toward me last? I never took myself for the kind of woman who liked an alpha male growling around her, but I can’t deny it makes me feel powerfully feminine.
This is very bad.
“What are you thinking about?”
I’ve been so absorbed in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize Will was watching me. Very closely. “Food, mostly.”
His mouth twitches. “She lies.”
There’s a sharp, invisible jab in my chest. “Thank you for not, um…”
The amusement fades from his expression. “For not what?”
“I don’t know. For not offering to let me keep the money.” My face heats, thinking of the crisp slide of bills against my hips, my tummy. “For already knowing I wouldn’t.”
Understanding dawns and he dips his head, resting his mouth against my ear. Staying there for a beat before speaking. “I won’t let those lines get blurred, Teresa. Because if you decide tomorrow you want to play something different, you’re going to trust me enough to come get it right here.” He moves back, tilting his head at me. “I also put that money back in my wallet because I like my nuts right where they are.”
Appreciation makes me featherlight. “Smart man.”
“Mysterious woman.”
It’s hard to keep my smile intact while he’s so close, scrutinizing me, interpreting every blink, every breath. What is he seeing? Thinking? I’m about to lose our staring contest, when I’m saved by the hostess.
“Y’all can follow me.” We turn to find a teenager with braces waiting with two menus. She almost drops them when she sees Will, her shoes squeaking on the floor as she scrambles to keep them in her arms. Apparently, I’ve been so distracted by Will’s personality, I forgot how freaking hot he is. “Uh. Can I sit you all in the bar area? We d-don’t allow dogs in the grill.”
Will gives her a patient smile. “That’s fine. Thank you.”
“Sure.”
The hostess doesn’t move for at least a five-count, beaming up at Will the way I used to look at my Spielberg posters. Eventually we start heading in the direction of the bar, though. It’s an ancient place, much like the biker bar where we ate dinner last night, but the clientele is way different. The way they lean on one another’s shoulders and share features tells me they’re either related or they’ve known each other so long, they’ve started to look alike.
Southpaw breaks the ice with the group of men Will tried to kill before with his icy death ray stare, a couple of them going down on one knee to greet the pooch. Southpaw asks Will for permission with a glance, receives the nod, then plods over to receive a round of ear-scratching and belly-rubbing.
As we take our seats, Will is fighting a smile, his phone elevated to snap a picture of the scene. “Caption,” he drawls. “Rub and tug.”
A laugh escapes, but I still shake my head at him. “Do you ever get jealous?”
“Over Southpaw making new friends?” He stows his phone in his front pocket and throws me a devilish wink. “Only if the guy is better looking than me. So it’s happened—”
“Never?”
“You said it, not me.”
My mouth will not stop trying to smile. “I was speaking in predictive text.”
His laugh rumbles across the table, sprouting goosebumps everywhere I have skin. Which is all of the places. “Now if you wanted your belly rubbed by someone else, we’d have a problem,” Will says, the smile no longer reaching his eyes. “Tell me something about you. Something I don’t know.”
My pulse is still spiking after his comment. And whether it’s a habit to distance myself from anything too serious with a man…or a caution signal going off, reminding me I’m getting too close to the man I’m conning, I speak without thinking. “You say all these growly caveman things, like you’re going to drag me back to your cave. But we’re only on a detour together.”
A more screwed-up one than you realize.
His expression is unreadable. Guarded. “Then we should take advantage of the time we have.”
“I have a brother.” The words are out before I can stop them. As if telling him as much about me as possible will balance my guilt over lying. “That’s something you didn’t know.”
Still can’t read him. “How old?”
“Few years younger than me. We live together in Los Angeles.”
There’s a subtle tick in his jaw. “How does he feel about your job?”
“He doesn’t know.” I recall our phone conversation at the airport. “Not the specifics, anyway. Just that I’m not studying for film school at night, like I said.”
A young man stops at the table and drops off a pair of waters, before beelining for Southpaw to join in the petting frenzy. There’s an uncomfortable weight on my lungs, probably because I’m talking about my brother, who I’m worried sick about. The orgasms probably only shook me up more, not to mention the orgasm donor radiating possessiveness across the table. His patience and quiet encouragement compel me to make him understand on some level that my choices are limited.
“My brother didn’t hit a growth spurt until he was a senior in high school.” After we’d already moved across the country, thus making him the new kid on top of being five feet tall. “He wasn’t alienated or anything—he had friends. Tons of them.” My lips tug at one end. “You really can’t help but love him. He once got off with a warning after covering the high school principal’s car in honey and feathers for a senior prank. Getting mad at him is almost impossible because he treats everyone like they’re in on the joke, too. No one is…left out when he’s around.” I shrug. “But people who weren’t close to him always made fun of his height, before he grew. Older neighborhood kids, mostly. They called him Armrest. Sometimes it became too much for him and I’d…”
“Step in and knock heads together?”
“Yeah.” We trade a small smile, but I can’t maintain mine. “But I stepped in too many times, you know? I never let him fight his own battles. He needed to brawl with Henry Bamford behind the bleachers after school instead of me showing up with a ponytail and no jewelry to take his place.”
“The black eye would have faded, but the lesson wouldn’t have?”
“Exactly.”
I’m the real reason Nicky is in this mess, aren’t I?
Will crosses his arms. “You didn’t really fight Henry Bamford, did you?”
My mouth forms an O. “You saying girls can’t fight?”
“I’m saying if a man gave you a black eye, I won’t be able to eat.”
“Then order big, because Henry went down like a sack of spuds.”
A booming laugh from Will brings Southpaw clip-clopping for the table, but Will is still looking at me. He props his elbows on the table and leans closer. “So this brother of yours. He still depends on you?”
I press my lips together to keep the truth from tumbling out. “Old habits are hard to break.”
“He’s alone in Los Angeles now, no sister to take care of him. Might be late in the game, but maybe that’s what he needs.”
“Yeah, maybe.” My nod is too vigorous, so I stop and pick up the menu, searching for a distraction. And holy hell, do I get one. In big, block letters at the top of the menu are the words BEAT PAULA IN AN ARM-WRESLTING CONTEST AND EAT FOR FREE. “Who’s Paula?”
I’m in the process of asking the question when the waitress approaches. She winces, signaling me to lower my voice. “Paula is the owner’s sister,” she mutters, plucking a pad of paper from her apron and casting a quick look over her shoulder. “It’s not meant to be taken seriously.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, matching her tone. “It’s a pretty eye-catching font.”
“That’s because Paula designed the menu,” she explains, leaning in closer. “If you flip it over, there’s also a list of her gator-wrestling championship wins.”
Will coughs. “Gator wrestling?”
“Damn right, gator wrestling.”
The waitress’s slump tells me everything I need to know. That gravel-scraped, whiskey-drenched voice belongs to Paula. And those boot thunks on the floor mean she’s headed our way.
Leaning sideways to see around the waitress, I wonder how I missed Paula on the way into the restaurant. She’s easily six foot three and wearing a miniature cattle skull bolo tie. A black, wide-brimmed hat sits low on her head, nearly covering her eyes, but as she gets closer, she flicks it up with her index finger, proceeding to dissect me and Will through narrowed eyes.
I glance over at Will and quickly realize I shouldn’t have. For two reasons. One, his casual amusement makes me like him even more. And two, it surprises a giggle out of me. The giggle is abruptly cut off, however, when Paula hip bumps our waitress out of the way and slaps both hands down on the table.
“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a couple of city folk have never heard of God’s game.” Paula says, following up her statement with a long sniff. “I meant gator wrestling.”
I nod. “Right. I got that.”
Will nudges me under the table with his foot and I kick him back.
Paula straightens and splits a look between Will and me. “Did I hear someone was interested in a little competition?”
Discreetly as possible, I check the muscle definition in her arms. She could put The Rock in a chokehold. My spaghetti arms don’t stand a chance. “Oh no. No.” I fan my face with the menu. “I was just reading out loud.”
“Size sixty Helvetica,” Paula says, jabbing a finger at the menu. “It’s a trap.”
“I see that now.” Why couldn’t we have driven through a Wendy’s? “Having weighed the chance to eat free and getting my ass whooped, I’m going with paying.”
Looking disappointed, Paula points at Will. “What about you, Big Sexy? You’re awfully quiet over there.”
He does a double take at the nickname. “What do you get if you win, Paula?”
“The only thing worth living for, slick. Bragging rights.”
Southpaw lays his head on my thigh and I smooth a thumb between his solemn, curious brown eyes. For a second, I’m taken out of the conversation, because I swear the dog is asking me if everything is all right. “Shhh,” I murmur to him. “They’re friends.”
At that, the dog lies down on the ground, covering both my feet, and I feel an odd sense of contentment. Right in the middle of being challenged to an arm wrestling match. A prickle on my neck compels me to look across the table and I find Will watching me with a strange expression.
“How about this,” he says, still looking at me. “If Teresa can hang for five seconds, everyone in the bar eats and drinks for free.”
Southpaw’s head comes up. I make a strangled noise, my stomach bottoming out and splattering on the floor. “Excuse me. What was that?”
In seconds, everyone in the bar is gathered around the table, the possibility of free drinks and grub hanging in the balance. There’s a loud crack to my left and I realize with sickening clarity that it’s Paula’s knuckles.
“Oh no.” I shake my head and pick the menu back up, pretending to read it. But all I can see is size sixty Helvetica. “You’re all crazy.”
There’s a chorus of awwws.
Will leans across the table, his expression cajoling. “Five seconds. You can do it.” His head tilts. “You’re the girl who beat up Henry Bamford.”
Am I? Until this very moment, it never occurred to me that I haven’t felt like that girl in…kind of a while. That Teresa wouldn’t have turned in a secret application for film school and written off her chances before the mailman even arrived. She would have marched up to the admissions office and demanded to see who was in charge.
I’ve been in a holding pattern, haven’t I? Working a job that isn’t safe and doesn’t have a damn thing to do with my hopes or dreams. I’ve been mothering Nicky, paying rent, falling into bed late at night, and I’ve forgotten to be excited about things to come. Possibilities. Potential.
There’s no way Will should be able to see past my confident surface. No way at all. I showed up in his room topless, for chrissakes. I sassed, I teased, I just performed a private striptease for him. But he does. His mouth is smiling, but his eyes are serious and I know he’s seeing things about me that I’m only beginning to decipher for myself. There’s more, too. As if he understands because he’s been here.
Have I really set aside who I am? What I want?
“City people, my ass.” I slap the menu down on the table. “It’s on.”
The cheers are deafening. Will hoots and rises from his chair, moving into a spot behind mine. Paula takes his place across from me. Everyone crowds in on all sides. And suddenly my world has been narrowed down to an arm wrestling arena.
“All right, baby.” Will’s voice smokes into my ear. “Here’s how we get to five seconds. You’re going to top-roll.”
“We? And what is that?”
I sound like a hysterical cartoon character, but Will continues undaunted, his breath on my neck, his thumb massaging me between the shoulder blades. “If we make this a bicep game, she’s got you beat, so we’re going to make it about hands, fingers and wrists, to ease the disadvantage. You’re going to work your palm upwards, along hers, like you’re trying to wrap your hand around the top part of hers. Just hold firm and focus on coming over the top of her.”
Paula is mean mugging me across the table, gum being mutilated between her teeth. “I thought you ran a hedge fund,” I mutter to Will.
“I didn’t always,” he mutters, laying a kiss on my cheek. “Five seconds. You got this.”
“I was wondering why you aren’t already married. Mystery solved. You get a lap dance and your date gets her arm torn off.”
Another kiss and this time his lips linger on my temple. “You could look at it that way. Or you could look at it mine. Thank fuck I’m not married or I’d have missed the girl who gave me a lap dance, then took on the local gator-wrestling champ. All before lunchtime.” His fingers slide up into my hair and tug, firm and gentle all at once. “Thank fuck, right?”
I don’t have a chance to respond, because Paula props her right elbow on the table, brandishing her baseball glove hand. There’s a tattoo on her wrist that says, “No Weakness, No Pain, No Mercy.”
“That’s a quote from The Karate Kid, right?”
Pleasure floods Paula’s expression. She’s actually quite pretty beneath the promise of terror. “Yes. It is. Thank you for noticing.”
I swallow and take her hand, trying not to dwell on the size difference.
Voices pipe up from all sides, some shouting for Paula to win, others praying out loud for free beer. But I do my best to tune them out and focus on Will’s steady presence at my back. Behind me, beneath me or on the other side of a wall, nothing seems to dull his potency.
A man steps up to the table. “Are both parties ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Paula pushes between her teeth. “I was born that way.”
This woman really thinks I’m going to be an easy victory. Seems to me a pro would have done some warm-up stretches, if she was taking a match seriously, right? Especially Paula. It’s these thoughts that get my adrenaline pumping. I tighten my grip on my opponent’s hand—a lot—and only get to savor a split second of nerves flitting across her face, before the man yells, “Go!”
It’s the longest five seconds of my life.
Forget alligators. This woman could wrestle a fucking stegosaurus.
I’m glad Will is behind me, because I’m pretty sure my face is the kind of mottled red only worn by women giving birth to watermelon-sized babies.
But I win.
Or at least, I last for six seconds, before my arm gives out and goes crashing down to the table, but I don’t even feel it. Don’t even hear the thunk above the cheers and back slapping and high fives. I don’t hear it above my heart.
“I won. Ish.” I leap up from the table and stand there, dumbfounded, satisfaction wrapping around me like a bear hug. “Holy shit.”
There’s eight tons of adrenaline coursing through my veins and I need an outlet, so I turn and walk straight into a proud-looking Will, pulling his mouth down to mine for a kiss. It’s only meant to last long enough to serve as an outlet, but Will’s tongue sinks into my mouth, owning it. He lifts me off the ground and kisses me like we’re at the bottom of the ocean and he’s passing on all the air left in his body so I can survive.
I absorb every addicting second of it. While I still can.