CHAPTER TEN
SOMETIME ON SUNDAY afternoon Hayley had gone home. Because, she had insisted, she wasn’t able to work in either his T-shirt or the dress she had worn to the bar on Friday.
He hadn’t agreed, but he had been relieved to have the reprieve. He didn’t feel comfortable sharing the bed with her while he slept. Which had meant sleeping on the couch in the office after she drifted off.
He just... He didn’t sleep with women. He didn’t see the point in inviting that kind of intimacy. Having her spend the night in his bed was bad enough. But he hadn’t wanted to send her home, either. He didn’t want to think about why. Maybe it was because she expected to stay, because of her general inexperience.
Which made him think of the moment she had taken him into her mouth, letting him know he was the first man she had ever considered doing that for. Just the thought of it made his eyes roll back in his head.
Now, it was late Monday afternoon and she had been slowly driving him crazy with the prim little outfit she had come back to work in, as though he didn’t know what she looked like underneath it.
Who knew he’d like a good girl who gave head like a dream.
She had also insisted that they stay professional during work hours, and it was making it hard for him to concentrate. Of course, it was always hard for him to concentrate on office work. In general, he hated it.
Though bringing Hayley into the office certainly made it easier to bear.
Except for the part where it was torture.
He stood up from his chair and stretched slowly, trying to work the tension out of his body. But he had a feeling that until he was buried inside Hayley’s body again, tension was just going to be the state of things.
“Oh,” Hayley said, “Joshua Grayson just emailed and said he needs you to go by the county office and sign a form. And no, it can’t be faxed.”
For the first time in his life, Johathan was relieved to encounter bureaucracy. He needed to get out of this space. He needed to get his head on straight.
“Great,” he said.
“Maybe I should go with you,” she said. “I’ve never been down to the building and planning office, and you might need me to run errands in the future.”
He gritted his teeth. “Yeah, probably.”
“I’ll drive my own car.” She stood, grabbing her purse off the desk. “Because by the time we’re done it will be time for me to get off.”
He ground his teeth together even harder, because he couldn’t ignore her double entendre even though he knew it had been accidental. And because, in addition to the double meaning, it was clear she intended to stay in town tonight and not at his place.
He should probably be grateful she wasn’t being clingy. He didn’t like to encourage women to get too attached to him, not at all.
“Great idea,” he said.
But he didn’t think it was a great idea, and he grumbled the entire way to town in the solitude of his pickup truck, not missing the irony that he had been wanting alone time, and was now getting it, and was upset about it.
The errand really did take only a few minutes, and afterward it still wasn’t quite time for Hayley to clock out.
“Do you want to grab something to eat?” he asked, though he had no earthly idea why. He should get something for himself and go home, deal with that tension he had been pondering earlier.
She looked back and forth, clearly edgy. “In town?”
“Yes,” he returned, “in town.”
“Oh. I don’t... I guess so.”
“Calm down,” he said. “I’m not asking you to Beaches. Let’s just stop by the Crab Shanty.”
She looked visibly relieved, and again he couldn’t quantify why that annoyed him.
He knew they shouldn’t be seen together in town. He had a feeling she also liked the casual nature of the restaurant. It was much more likely to look like a boss and employee grabbing something to eat than it was to look like a date.
They walked from where they had parked a few streets over, and paused at the crosswalk. They waited for one car to crawl by, clearly not interested in heeding the law that said pedestrians had the right-of-way. Then Jonathan charged ahead of her across the street and up to the faded yellow building. A small line was already forming outside the order window, and he noticed that Hayley took pains to stand slightly behind him.
When it was their turn to order, he decided he wasn’t having any of her missish circumspection. They shouldn’t be seen together as anything more than a boss and an assistant.
But right now, hell if he cared. “Two orders of fish and chips, the halibut. Two beers and a Diet Coke.”
He pulled his wallet out and paid before Hayley could protest, then he grabbed the plastic number from the window, and the two of them walked over to a picnic table positioned outside the ramshackle building. There was no indoor seating, which could be a little bracing on windy days, and there weren’t very many days that didn’t have wind on the Oregon coast.
Jonathan set the number on the wooden table, then sat down heavily, looking up at the blue-and-white-striped umbrella wiggling in the breeze.
“Two beers?”
“One of them is for you,” he said, his words verging on a growl.
“I’m not going to drink a beer.” She looked sideways. “At least not here.”
“Yeah, right out here on Main Street in front of God and everybody? You’re a lot braver in my bedroom.”
He was goading her, but he didn’t much care. He was... Well dammit, it pissed him off. To see how ashamed she was to be with him. How desperate she was to hide it. Even if he understood it, it was like a branding iron straight to the gut.
“You can’t say that so loud,” she hissed, leaning forward, grabbing the plastic number and pulling it to her chest. “What if people heard you?”
“I thought you were reinventing yourself, Hayley Thompson.”
“Not for the benefit of...the town. It’s about me.”
“It’s going to be about you not getting dinner if you keep hiding our number.” He snatched the plastic triangle from her hands.
She let out a heavy sigh and leaned back, crossing her arms. “Well, the extra beer is for you. Put it in your pocket.”
“You can put it in your own pocket. Drink it back at your place.”
“No, thanks.”
“Don’t you want to tick that box on your list? We ticked off some pretty interesting ones last night.”
Her face turned scarlet. “You’re being obnoxious, Jonathan.”
“I’ve been obnoxious from day one. You just found it easy to ignore when I had my hand in your pants.”
Her mouth dropped open, then she snapped it shut again. Their conversation was cut off when their food was placed in front of them.
She dragged the white cardboard box toward her and opened it, removing the container of coleslaw and setting it to the side before grabbing a french fry and biting into it fiercely. Her annoyance was clearly telegraphed by the ferocity with which she ate each bite of food. And the determination that went into her looking at anything and everything around them except for him.
“Enjoying the view?” he asked after a moment.
“The ocean is very pretty,” she snapped.
“And you don’t see it every day?”
“I never tire of the majesty of nature.”
His lips twitched, in spite of his irritation. “Of course not.”
The wind whipped up, blowing a strand of dark hair into Hayley’s face. Reflexively, he reached across the table and pushed it out of her eyes. She jerked back, her lips going slack, her expression shocked.
“You’re my boss,” she said, her voice low. “As far as everyone is concerned.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m your lover. As far as I’m concerned.”
“Stop.”
“I thought you wanted new experiences? I thought you were tired of hiding? And here you are, hiding.”
“I don’t want to...perform,” she said. “My new experiences are for me. Not for everyone else’s consumption. That’s why I’m leaving. So I can...do things without an audience.”
“You want your dirty secrets, is that it? You want me to be your dirty secret.”
“It’s five o’clock,” she said, her tone stiff. “I’m going to go home now.”
She collected her food, and left the beer, standing up in a huff and taking off down the street in the opposite direction from where they had parked.
“Where are you going?”
“Home,” she said sharply.
He gathered up the rest of the food and stomped after her. “You parked the other way.”
“I’ll get it in the morning.”
“Then you better leave your house early. Unless this is you tendering your resignation.”
“I’m not quitting,” she said, the color heightening in her face. “I’m just... I’m irritated with you.”
She turned away from him, continuing to walk quickly down the street. He took two strides and caught up with her. “I see that.” He kept pace with her, but she seemed bound and determined not to look at him. “Would you care to share why?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“So you’re insisting that you’re my employee, and that you want to be treated like my employee in public. But that clearly excludes when you decide to run off having a temper tantrum.”
She whirled around then, stopping in her tracks. “Why are you acting like this? You’ve been...much more careful than this up till now.” She sniffed. “Out of deference to my innocence?”
“What innocence, baby? Because I took that.” He smiled, knowing he was getting to her. That he was making her feel as bad as he did. “Pretty damn thoroughly.”
“I can’t do this with you. Not here.” She paused at the street corner and looked both ways before hurrying across the two-lane road. He followed suit. She walked down the sidewalk, passed the coffeehouse, which was closing up for the day, then rounded the side of the brick building and headed toward the back.
“Is this where you live?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she returned, sounding almost comically stubborn. Except he didn’t feel like much was funny about this situation.
“Here in the alley?” he asked, waving his hand around the mostly vacant space.
“Yes. In the Dumpster with the mice. It’s not so bad. I shredded up a bunch of newspaper and made a little bed.”
“I suspect this is the real reason you’ve been spending the night at my place, then.”
She scowled. “If you want to fight with me, come upstairs.”
He didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted to grab her, pull her into his arms and kiss her. He wanted to stop talking. Wanted to act logical instead of being wounded by something he knew he should want to avoid.
It didn’t benefit him to have anyone in town know what he was doing with Hayley. He should want to hide it as badly as she did.
But the idea that she was enjoying his body, enjoying slumming it with him in the sheets, and was damned ashamed of him in the streets burned like hell.
But he followed her through the back door to a little hallway that contained two other doors. She unlocked one of them and held it open for him. Then she gestured to the narrow staircase. “Come on.”
“Who’s the boss around here?”
“I’m off the clock,” she said.
He shrugged, then walked up the stairs and into an open-plan living room with exposed beams and brick. It was a much bigger space than he had expected it to be, though it was also mostly empty. As if she had only half committed to living there.
But then, he supposed, her plan was to travel the world.
“Nice place,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Cassie gave me a deal.”
“Nice of her.”
“Some people are nice, Jonathan.”
“Meaning I’m not?” he asked.
She nodded in response, her mouth firmly sealed, her chin jutting out stubbornly.
“Right. Because I bought you fish and french fries and beer. And I give you really great orgasms. I’m a monster.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing,” she said, suddenly looking much less stubborn and a little more wobbly. And that made him feel something close to guilty. “What’s the point in blurring the lines while we walk through town? We both know this isn’t a relationship. It’s...it’s boxes being ticked on a list.”
“Sure. But why does it matter if people in town know you’re doing that?”
“You know why it matters. Don’t play like you don’t understand. You do. I know you do. You know who I am, and you know that I feel like I’m under a microscope. I shared all of that with you. Don’t act surprised by it now.”
“Well,” he said, opting for honesty even though he knew it was a damned bad idea. “Maybe I don’t like being your dirty secret.”
“It’s not about you. Any guy that I was... Anyone that I was...doing this with. It would be a secret. It has to be.”
“Why?”
“Because!” she exploded. “Because everyone will be...disappointed.”
“Honey,” he said, “I don’t think people spend half as much time thinking about you as you think they do.”
“No,” she said. “They do. You know Ace. He’s the pastor’s son. He ran away from home, he got married, he got divorced. Then he came back and opened a bar. My parents...they’re great. They really are. But they had a lot of backlash over that. People saying that the Bible itself says if you train up a child the way he should go, he’s not going to depart from it. Well, he departed from it, at least as far as a lot of the congregants were concerned. People actually left the church.” She sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. “I wanted to do better than that for them. It was important. For me to be...the good one.”
Caring about what people thought was a strange concept. Appearances had never mattered to Jonathan. For him, it had always been about actions. What the hell did Rebecca care if he had been good? All she cared about was being taken care of. He couldn’t imagine being bound by rules like that.
For the first time, he wondered if there wasn’t some kind of freedom in no one having a single good expectation of you.
“But you don’t like being the good one. At least, not by these standards.”
Her eyes glittered with tears now. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just... I don’t know. I’m afraid. Afraid of what people will think. Afraid of what my parents will think. Afraid of them being disappointed. And hurt. They’ve always put a lot of stock in me being what Ace wasn’t. They love Ace, don’t get me wrong. It’s just...”
“He made things hard for them.”
Hayley nodded, looking miserable. “Yes. He did. And I don’t want to do that. Only...only, I was the good one and he still ended up with the kind of life I want.”
“Is that all?” Jonathan asked. “Or are you afraid of who you might be if you don’t have all those rules to follow?”
A flash of fear showed in her eyes, and he felt a little guilty about putting it there. Not guilty enough to take it back. Not guilty enough to stay away from her. Not guilty enough to keep his hands to himself. He reached out, cupping her cheek, then wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her toward him. “Does it scare you? Who you might be if no one told you what to do? I don’t care about the rules, Hayley. You can be whoever you want with me. Say whatever you want. Drink whatever you want. Do whatever you want.”
“I don’t know,” she said, wiggling against him, trying to pull away. “I don’t know what I want.”
“I think you do. I just think you wish you wanted something else.” He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “I think you like having rules because it keeps you from going after what scares you.”
He ignored the strange reverberation those words set off inside him. The chain reaction that seemed to burst all the way down his spine.
Recognition.
Truth.
Yeah, he ignored all that, and he dipped his head, claiming her mouth with his own.
Suddenly, it seemed imperative that he have her here. In her apartment. That he wreck this place with his desire for her. That he have her on every surface, against every wall, so that whenever she walked in, whenever she looked around, he was what she thought of. So that she couldn’t escape this. So that she couldn’t escape him.
“You think you know me now?” she asked, her eyes squinting with challenge. Clearly, she wasn’t going to back down without a fight. And that was one of the things he liked about her. For all that she was an innocent church secretary, she had spirit. She had the kind of steel backbone that he admired, that he respected. The kind of strength that could get you through anything. But there was a softness to her as well, and that was something more foreign to him. Something he had never been exposed to, had never really been allowed to have.
“Yeah,” he said, tightening his hold and drawing her against his body. “I know you. I know what you look like naked. I know every inch of your skin. How it feels, how it tastes. I know you better than anybody does, baby. You can tell yourself that’s not true. You can say that this, what we have, is the crazy thing. That it’s a break from your real life. That it’s some detour you don’t want anyone in town to know you’re taking. But I know the truth. And I think somewhere deep down you know it, too. This isn’t the break. All that other stuff...prim, proper church girl. That’s what isn’t real.” He cupped her face, smoothing his thumbs over her cheeks. “You’re fire, honey, and together we are an explosion.”
He kissed her then, proving his point. She tasted like anger, like need, and he was of a mind to consume both. Whatever was on offer. Whatever she would give him.
He was beyond himself. He had never wanted a woman like this before. He had never wanted anything quite like this before. Not money, not security, not his damned house on the hill.
All that want, all that need, paled in comparison to what he felt for Hayley Thompson. The innocent little miss who should have bored him to tears by now, had him aching, panting and begging for more.
He was so hard he was in physical pain.
And when she finally capitulated, when she gave herself over to the kiss, soft fingertips skimming his shoulders, down his back, all the way to his ass, he groaned in appreciation.
There was something extra dirty about Hayley exploring his body. About her wanting him the way she did, because she had never wanted another man like she wanted him. By her own admission. And she had never had a man the way she’d had him, which was an admission she didn’t have to make.
He gripped her hips, then slipped his hands down her thighs, grabbing them and pulling her up, urging her legs around his waist. Then he propelled them both across the living room, down onto the couch. He covered her, pressing his hardness against the soft, sweet apex of her thighs. She gasped as he rolled his hips forward.
“Not so ashamed of this now, are you?” He growled, pressing a kiss to her neck, then to her collarbone, then to the edge of her T-shirt.
“I’m not ashamed,” she said, gasping for air.
“You could’ve fooled me, princess.”
“It’s not about you.” She sifted her fingers through his hair. “I’m not ashamed of you.”
“Not ashamed of your dirty, wrong-side-of-the-tracks boyfriend?”
Her eyes flashed with hurt and then fascination. “I’ve never thought of you that way. I never... Boyfriend?”
Something burned hot in his chest. “Lover. Whatever.”
“I’m not ashamed of you,” she reiterated. “Nothing about you. You’re so beautiful. If anything, you ought to be ashamed of me. I’m not pretty. Not like you. And I don’t even know what I’m doing. I just know what I want. I want you. And I’m afraid for anybody to know the truth. I’m so scared. The only time I’m not scared is when you’re holding me.”
He didn’t want to talk anymore. He consumed her mouth, tasting her deeply, ramping up the arousal between them with each sweet stroke of his tongue across hers. With each deep taste of the sweet flavor that could only ever be Hayley.
He gripped the hem of her top, yanking it over her head, making quick work of her bra. Exposing small, perfect breasts to his inspection. She was pale. All over. Ivory skin, coral-pink nipples. He loved the look of her. Loved the feel of her. Loved so many things about her that it was tempting to just go ahead and say he loved her.
That thought swam thick and dizzy in his head. He could barely grab hold of it, didn’t want to. So he shoved it to the side. He wasn’t going to claim that. Hell no.
He didn’t love people. He loved things.
He could love her tits, and he could love her skin, could love the way it felt to slide inside her, slick and tight. But he sure as hell couldn’t love her.
He bent his head, taking one hardened nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, relishing the horse sound of pleasure on her lips as he did so. Then he kissed his way down her stomach, to the edge of her pants, pulling them down her thighs, leaving her bare and open.
He pressed his hand between her legs, slicked his thumb over her, teased her entrance with one finger. She began to whimper, rolling her hips under him, arching them to meet him, and he watched. Watched as she took one finger inside, then another.
He damn well watched himself corrupt her, and he let himself enjoy it. Because he was sick, because he was broken, but at least it wasn’t a surprise.
Everyone in his life was familiar with it.
His father had tried to beat it out of him. His mother had run from it.
Only Rebecca had ever stayed, and it was partly because she didn’t know any better.
Hayley didn’t know any better, either, come to that. Not really. Not when it came to men. Not when it came to sex. She was blinded by what he could make her body feel, so she had an easy enough time ignoring the rest. But that wouldn’t last forever.
Fair enough, since they wouldn’t last forever, anyway. They both knew it. So there was no point in worrying about it. Not really.
Instead, he would embrace this, embrace the rush. Embrace the hollowed out feeling in his gut that bordered on sickness. The tension in his body that verged on pain. The need that rendered him hard as iron and hot as fire.
“Come for me,” he commanded, his voice hoarse. All other words, all other thoughts were lost to him. All he could do was watch her writhing beneath his touch, so hot, so wet for him, arching her hips and taking his fingers in deeper.
“Not yet,” she gasped, emitting little broken sounds.
“Yes,” he said. “You will. You’re going to come for me now, Hayley, because I told you to. Your body is mine. You’re mine.” He slid his thumb over the delicate bundle of nerves there.
And then he felt her shatter beneath his touch. Felt her internal muscles pulse around his knuckles.
He reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet and found a condom quickly. He tore it open, then wrenched free his belt buckle and took down the zipper. He pushed his jeans partway down his hips, rolled the condom on his hard length and thrust inside her, all the way to the hilt. She was wet and ready for him, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from embarrassing himself, to keep it from being over before it had begun.
She gasped as he filled her, and then grabbed his ass when he retreated. Her fingernails dug into his skin, and he relished the pain this petite little thing could inflict on him. Of course, it was nothing compared to the pain he felt from his arousal. From the great, burning need inside him.
No, nothing compared to that. Nothing at all.
He adjusted their positions, dragging her sideways on the couch, bringing her hips to the edge of the cushion, going down on his knees to the hardwood floor.
He knelt there, gripping her hips and pulling her tightly against him, urging her to wrap her legs around him. The floor bit into his knees, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was having her, taking her, claiming her. He gripped her tightly, his blunt fingertips digging into her flesh.
He wondered if he would leave a mark. He hoped he might.
Hoped that she would see for days to come where he had held her. Even if she wouldn’t hold his hand in public, she would remember when he’d held her hips in private, when he’d driven himself deep inside her, clinging to her like she might be the source of all life.
Yeah, she would remember that. She would remember this.
He watched as a deep red flush spread over her skin, covering her breasts, creeping up her neck. She was on the verge of another orgasm. He loved that. Another thing he was allowed to love.
Loved watching her lose control. Loved watching her so close to giving it up for him again, completely. Utterly. He was going to ruin her for any other man. That was his vow, there and then, on the floor of her apartment, with a ragged splinter digging into his knee through the fabric of his jeans. She was never going to fuck anyone else without thinking of him. Without wanting him. Without wishing it were him.
She would go to Paris, and some guy would do her with a view of the Eiffel tower in the background. And she would wish she were here, counting the familiar beams on her ceiling.
And when she came home for a visit and she passed him on the street, she would shiver with a longing that she would never quite get rid of.
So many people in his life had left him. As far as he’d known, they had done it without a backward glance. But Hayley would never forget him. He would make sure of it. Damn sure.
His own arousal ratcheted up to impossible proportions. He was made entirely of his need for her. Of his need for release. And he forgot what he was trying to do. Forgot that this was about her. That this was about making her tremble, making her shake. Because he was trembling. He was shaking.
He was afraid he might be the one who was indelibly marked by all this.
He was the one who wouldn’t be able to forget. The one who would never be with anyone else without thinking of her. No matter how skilled the woman was who might come after her, it would never be the same as the sweet, genuine urging of Hayley’s hips against his. It would never be quite like the tight, wet clasp of her body.
He had been entirely reshaped, remade, to fit inside her, and no one else would do.
That thought ignited in his stomach, overtook him completely, lit him on fire.
When he came, it was with her name on his lips, with a strange satisfaction washing through him that left him only hungrier in the end, emptier. Because this was ending, and he knew it.
She wasn’t going to work for him forever. She wasn’t going to stay in Copper Ridge. She might hold on to him in secret, but in public, she would never touch him.
And as time passed, she would let go of him by inches, walking off to the life of freedom she was so desperate for.
Walking off like everyone else.
Right now, she was looking up at him, a mixture of wonder and deep emotion visible in her blue eyes. She reached up, stroking his face. Some of his hair had been tugged from the leather strap, and she brushed the strands out of his eyes.
It was weird how that hit him. How it touched him. After all the overtly sexual ways she’d put her hands on him, why that sweet gesture impacted him low and deep.
“Stay with me,” she said, her voice soft. “The night. In my bed.”
That hit even harder.
He had never slept with her. He didn’t sleep with women. But that was all about to change. He was going to sleep with her because he wanted to. Because he didn’t want to release his hold on her for one moment, not while he still had her.
“Okay,” he said.
Then, still buried deep inside her, he picked her up from the couch, brought them both to a standing position and started walking toward the door at the back of the room. “Bedroom is this way?”
“How did you know?”
“Important things, I know. Where the bedroom is.” He kissed her lips. “How to make you scream my name. That I know.”
“Care to make me scream it a few more times?”
“The neighbors might hear.”
It was a joke, but he could still see her hesitation. “That’s okay,” she said slowly.
And even though he was reasonably confident that was a lie, he carried her into her bedroom and lay down on the bed with her.
It didn’t matter if it was a lie. Because they had all night to live in it. And that was good enough for him.