Chapter Fourteen
Alan’s head popped back, his feet went out from under him, and down he went on the grass, blood gushing from his upper lip and Katrina shrieking at his side.
I clapped a hand over my mouth as the crowd did a collective chorus of gasps and cries, and Mayor Dean leaped in out of nowhere to work crowd control and hold a hand up in front of Nick.
“Go home, man,” Dean said.
“That’s what I was doing,” Nick said, his lip curling.
“I know,” Dean said, nodding. “Just go.”
“He hit me!” Alan yelled, blood dripping from his mouth as he sat up, Katrina kneeling beside him. “He’s a fraud and he threatened me! You all heard it!”
Several of the people watching waved a hand at him and walked away, disgusted with his behavior. And even Dean picked him up and muttered for him to shut up.
“Lanie, you okay?” Dean asked me.
I nodded and went through the motions of cleaning myself up from the cake fiasco, shaking from Nick’s words, from his coming to my rescue. No one had ever done that before.
Nick stood like a statue on fire, anger radiating off him. When the crowd was gone, and it was just him and me, he finally met my eyes.
We both heard the things Alan had said, and that wasn’t good. Even if Alan was a blowhard and no one believed him, the digging would start. Something needed to happen.
Something already was.
My gaze fell to his hand, and I reached for it. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine,” he said, pulling it back.
“Nick—”
“I’m done with this today,” Nick said. “With this place and this town and—I’m going back to the house.”
“Wait for me,” I said, my mind reeling. “Let me—”
“Take your time,” he said, holding up a hand half-heartedly. “A few minutes by myself walking home will do me good.”
I watched him walk off, slinging cake from his hands as he did and flexing the fingers he’d hit Alan with. He was pissed, or upset, or—just tired. I could understand that. I was too. I was exhausted from this game. From always having to be on and pretending.
I cleaned myself up and started walking home, just as the first drops fell from the sky. Oh, the drama that could have been saved if that would have just come around ten minutes earlier.
By the time I reached Aunt Ruby’s front porch, it was a full white-out, and I was clean of all things cake-related. I didn’t care how soaked I was. All I could think about and see over and over, was Nick hauling Alan off me. Defending me with his words, defending his wife, churning inside me so deeply I had to wrap my arms around myself to contain it. All because of this place. This house. Because of me.
I looked up at the sky, at the raindrops coming from what looked like infinity, and felt the heat behind my eyes join the trouble in my chest.
“Why?” I asked softly, blinking against the rain. “Why are you making all of this so hard?” A sob shook me as the warm rain mixed with my hot tears. “What did I ever do but try to make you happy?”
No epiphanies came. No intuition. Aunt Ruby left me high and dry. Here’s your house, child, but only if you jump through fifty different hoops and cartwheel down the street every day. But hey, the wooden spools and the carnival glass is my treat.
I left my shoes on the porch, and walked in, noting that Nick had left the front door unlocked for me. I peeled off my shorts in the living room, not even caring that he was there somewhere. I was too tired to care. Too exhausted to play the charade right now. And too annoyed to be modest. I yanked my wet T-shirt over my head as I topped the stairs and buried my face in it, dropping it when I heard the bathroom door.
Nick in a towel.
Of course he was.
His expression looked as beat up as I felt, but his eyes took me in in my tiny but plain white undies and bra, soaked to probably see-through. One look at my face, however, and Nick’s demeanor changed.
He reached for me immediately, pulling me into his arms, and the warmth of his skin against mine took my breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his mouth against my hair. “I shouldn’t have left you there.”
I shook my head, unable—or unwilling—to form words while my face was against his chest. One hand came up under my wet hair and the other trailed patterns down my back.
“You did nothing wrong,” I said, my voice a whisper against his wet skin. “I’m just—”
I had no idea what I was. The feel of his hands moving on my body again made my head all foggy, and the ratio of underwear to towel was calling to me. My fingernails dragged themselves up his back of their own accord. I couldn’t help myself. He was—he was—oh God, he felt amazing.
His response was even better, splaying both hands down my back to my ass, squeezing me against him and then moving up to my head and cradling it as he pressed his lips to my hair, my forehead, down over my eyes.
“Lanie,” he whispered against my cheek. “Tell me what you need, baby.”
Everything inside and out turned hot and liquid at that sentence.
“You,” I breathed, dragging my lips along his jaw.
Nick pulled my face back to meet my gaze, his eyes heavy with need, with desire, with places we didn’t go.
“I’m yours.”
His mouth landed on mine with a hunger we hadn’t tapped into yet as he backed me into the wall. Last night was about tasting, exploring. Now it was—it was just on. Like a fucking freight train with no brakes, kind of on. It was everything we said we shouldn’t do, diving into each other, pushing every boundary. I didn’t care. I wanted him. I wanted this man like I’d never wanted anyone in my life. I wanted more. I wanted all of him.
One flick of his fingers and my bra was gone, replaced by his hands, caressing my breasts and rolling my nipples between his fingers. I groaned as his kisses traveled down to meet them, sucking, licking, his mouth making love to my breasts.
“God, you taste so fucking sweet.”
“Come here,” I gasped, pulling him back up. I tugged at his towel and it dropped at our feet and in less than a second he was in my hands, huge and hard.
A guttural roar shook his body at my touch, sending every ounce of blood in my body to one hot burning place. He slammed a hand against the wall as if to hold himself up. “Fuck, Lanie, what you do to me.”
“I need you,” I begged, stroking him against me.
“You have no idea,” he said against my neck, his hands traveling me again as if they might not get another chance.
Then I left the ground. I wrapped my legs around him as he lifted me effortlessly, not caring where we were going. He could have taken me to the roof for all I cared. I just wanted this. All of it. When he sat down on his bed, pulling my legs tighter around him, I moaned into his mouth, moving against him.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of my hips as I moved, guiding me; one thin little strip of panties was all that kept him from pushing inside me.
I was about to go off the fucking rails. Shaking with need, every nerve ending in my body reaching for this man who was driving me to the brink of insanity. My fingers twisted in his wet hair, pulling him impossibly tighter, kissing him with all I had as we moved against each other in the tease from hell.
I pulled back and held his face in my hands.
“Please.”
It barely held sound.
It didn’t need to.
In the time it took to blink, Nick wrapped an arm around me and had me on my back, his eyes boring into mine with something—something that made my skin tingle. Something beyond the dance our bodies were doing. Something I couldn’t look away from if I tried, until he did. And that was only because he curled two fingers into my panties and was sliding them down, then standing at the edge of the bed with the world’s most glorious hard-on.
“God, you’re beautiful, lying there,” he said, almost to himself, as if it wasn’t meant to be out loud. Which hit my heart and brought prickles to my skin.
His fingers ran up my calf as he crawled up my body. “Goose bumps.”
The trail of flames his fingers left behind made my toes curl under.
“You do that to me,” I whispered, my breaths shallow and fast as he dropped light kisses on his way up and I reached for him. I needed to feel him on me, in me, over me—like now.
His eyes met mine as if no one had ever told him that before, and that was inconceivable. He was breathtaking. He was maddening.
He was mine.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as that thought landed hard. As his mouth covered mine and a hand cupped my face as the other one lifted my leg. He was mine. Nick was mine as he touched me, making me arch into him, mine as he poised himself to join me. His ass was in my hands, and I was ready to pull him inside.
When the doorbell rang.
* * *
Really?
Ralph howled.
Let them go away.
That’s what his eyes were saying as the same thought played in my head. Potentially the hottest sex I’d ever had was about to unfold, and a visitor was the last thing I needed. Maybe it was the doorbell going out. Or Aunt Ruby trying to be funny.
It rang again. Ralph set up a barking frenzy like it was the second coming. Damn it, it was a person.
“Expecting someone?” he asked.
“Not ever, for the rest of my life,” I said, pulling his face back down to mine.
Our lips had just touched when it went off again. This time in a cute chopsticks pattern. Which froze his progression. The deepening of the line above his nose told me volumes. Namely that we weren’t letting whoever it was go away.
“Hold on,” Nick said, rolling off of me, and then rolling back. “Don’t move. Don’t change a thing. Please.” He kissed me. “I’ll be right back.”
He got up and grabbed a pair of jeans from a chair and pulled them on commando. Somehow that was even hotter than the sight of him naked. Maybe because I could see myself sliding my hands down those jeans to take them off in a few minutes.
I heard his quick footsteps on the stairs and smiled as I thought of him turning someone away so he could come back up there and ravage his wife.
His wife.
That kept wrapping around me like a warm—
Female laughter broke my thoughts, and I sat up. I heard the rumble of Nick’s voice and then the female voice again. No more barking. I scrambled off the bed in a panic. Who the hell? Carmen? No, it didn’t sound like her. The only other woman I could imagine just dropping by would be—ugh, Katrina. But she wouldn’t be laughing with him right now. Not after he just socked the shit out of her husband for mauling me.
Still, he wasn’t coming right back, so he knew her.
I ran down the short hall to my room and snatched my white robe off the back of my door. The one I stole last year from a fancy hotel and then had to pay $80 for, but hardly ever wore. It seemed like an appropriate time.
Wrapping it around myself, feeling kind of pleased with the thought that Nick would know I was naked underneath all the fluff, I finger-combed out my wet hair and sauntered down the stairs.
And stopped midway.
A stunning brunette woman was hugging Nick around his shirtless torso, her head thrown back in that effortless hair-tossing way that some women have, looking up at him adoringly.
My breath froze in my throat, and my fingertips went numb. I didn’t know her, but he did. I didn’t know her, but I’d seen her before. In the pictures on his phone.
Tara.
Random thoughts pinged through my brain, with no logical progression or connection.
Tara was here. In our house. In my house. Funny how it just became my house again. He told her where we live. She has sex hair. The bitch has sex hair. And better boobs than me. Did she tell anyone? She’s the one that always got under his skin. Under his skin.
And fuck if that wasn’t the thing that lodged in my throat and threatened to take me down in a chokehold. This was the woman he couldn’t forget, the love of his life, the mother of his child, the one that he could never quite shake, that he kept coming back to. She looked like a million bucks in tailored capris and a blingy fitted T-shirt that most definitely was not purchased at Target. With skin that most definitely had a more expensive care regimen than Noxzema pads and Oil of Olay.
She was flawless. And wrapped around him like a tumor. A hot, sexy tumor.
Dark, perfectly lined eyes drifted my way, and I suddenly wished for a large pair of tweezers to pluck me right out of the picture.
“Hi!” Tara said, letting go of Nick and walking toward me with one hand trailing behind along his abs. Her face was smiling, but that move was on purpose. He’s mine, it said. Interesting that I was thinking that very thing just moments earlier. She held a hand out at the bottom of the stairs, which propelled my feet to keep moving that direction. “I’m Tara McKane.”
McKane.
Another good zinger on her part. Throwing out those possessive vibes. Staking her territory.
“Lanie—McKane,” I said, tempted half a second in to go with Barrett and then spun it back, adding a chuckle for bonding.
“Wow, that sounds weird,” she said, laughing, turning back to Nick. I looked at him for the first time since I entered the room, and the pure what-the-fuckery in his expression kicked me in the gut. I saw the under the skin thing. Right there. Because if he were really over his ex-wife, he would have stopped her at the door and said he was busy. Servicing his new wife. Or hey, how about he would have never told her where to find him in the first place.
“Not really,” Nick said, his tone flat as he locked eyes with me in a look I couldn’t read. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
What was he talking about? Oh yeah. McKane. Were we still there? Hadn’t it been like a week?
Ralph licked her fingers and pushed at her hand, and she looked down, scratching at his head and cooing. “Hey, big boy, what’s your name?”
Ralph melted. As probably most men did.
“That’s Ralph,” I said.
“Hi, Ralphy,” she said. No. Ralph. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” Tara looked up and shook my hand genuinely. “Nick had great things to say about you last weekend. He’s very fond of you.”
Number three…ding ding ding!
Fond.
Generic like, as in I’m fond of chicken fried steak. The girl was good. She was charmingly putting me in my place and making me feel smaller and more insignificant by the second, and in my own house.
“Well,” I said with the only smile I could find in my now numb face. “The fondness is mutual. He’s a great roommate.”
Probably not the most slamming cut I could have come up with, but the oxygen was still trapped in my head from five minutes ago when he was sucking on my tits and about to fuck me into oblivion. So wittiness was a bit foggy.
“So, did I miss something about your coming here?” I asked. “I’ve been crazy busy lately so I might have.”
Hint.
Aunt Ruby would have said something snarky about unexpected guests and diarrhea, but I was slightly more tactful.
“No,” Nick said, shaking his head free of the kicked-in-the-nuts look. “I had no idea. Tara, why are you here?”
Tara smiled back at Nick as if they shared a secret. “I had a couple of days free and thought it would be nice to come chat a little.” She tilted her head in a way that said they had intimate private talks. “Maybe finish our last conversation?” She gave a quick inhale and pasted on a smile for me. “And come meet the woman that’s helping out my baby girl.”
I just smiled back. Our last conversation.
Was it anything like ours?
I couldn’t think through the slamming my heart was doing. I had to get out of their line of vision.
“Who wants coffee?” I managed to push out as I walked past both of them into the kitchen, taking my first deep breath since Nick pulled me into his arms—literally minutes ago.
Minutes.
Tell me what you need, baby.
The coffee pot landed a little hard on the countertop.
Don’t cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry.
“In the middle of the day?” Tara asked, chuckling as she walked in behind me.
“I wasn’t suggesting spiking it,” I said. Okay, dial back the snippy. I grinned to soften it. “I can drink coffee any time.”
“She can,” Nick said, following her in, pulling a T-shirt over his head that he must have had tucked in a secret hiding place reserved for when crazy ex-wives come to call. “Never seen anyone as—fond—of coffee as Lanie.”
My eyes shot up to meet his on the word. He was giving me something. A new definition for fond to match my coffee addiction. Okay, that was sweet, but still, grow some damn balls, dude. Problem with the kid? Of course the ex comes into play. You are always parents. You are always connected. But this?
No.
“Great house,” Tara said, perching on a stool.
I’ll bet. “Thanks,” I said. “I grew up here.”
“That’s what Nick said.” She rested her elbows on the bar and looked around. “So much life and character here.”
“That it has,” I said. “Along with broken plumbing and finicky air conditioning.”
“And Ralph!” Tara said, rubbing his head when he laid it against her leg.
Traitor, I sent to him telepathically. Just in case. Aunt Ruby’s house and all.
“Ralph came with me,” I said, letting my gaze drift back to Nick. “And he’ll go with me when this is over.”
It was my own zinger, and I’m the one who felt the stab as I watched his eyes. I had to give it to him. This woman was by far possibly the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, and Nick wasn’t looking at her at all. He was leaning against the far counter, arms folded over his chest, staring deep burning holes through me. Well, hell, why not? Wet hair and rained/cried/kissed off makeup, bulky robe—what on earth was there not to feast your eyes upon?
“And when is it over again?” she asked.
Her expression was open and innocent, but I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.
“We have a little less than two months to go,” I said. “Then everybody gets what they want.”
I didn’t look at him that time. I couldn’t bear to look at him and see that confirmed.
Tara just nodded.
“So I saw a sign for a festival on the highway,” she said. “Along with probably twenty more in town.” She laughed. “Small town charm.”
I wanted to guffaw.
“Something like that,” I said quietly.
“Can we go?” she asked. “It sounds fun.”
I did look at Nick then, hoping like hell he’d catch my subliminal message, but he was already shaking his head. Thank God.
“We just got back from there, actually,” he said. “I’m beat.”
“So tomorrow, then?” she asked. “Do y’all work tomorrow?”
My jaw dropped. Or in my head it did. Did she just—?
“Are you staying?” Nick asked, the lines above his nose deepening.
“Well, I’d love to,” she said with a brilliant smile. “I brought a little bag just in case, but if you don’t have room, I can grab a hotel.”
There were no words.
My mouth opened and closed like a guppy, and the only thing that saved me was the ringing of my phone. I didn’t even look to see who it was because it didn’t matter. I would have answered a call from the devil himself to remove myself from this conversation.