by Zoe Dawson
“This isn’t helping my hard-on.”
I tried to hold onto my composure.
“I bet,” I said. “You need to let me up. I have to help you, Boone.”
He shook his head and smiled again. He closed his eyes like he was fighting a dizzy spell and muttered about the room spinning.
I tried to slip away and he simply pulled me back like I was nothing but a feather. “Uh, uh,” he said.
I set my hands against his chest, but it was like pushing against concrete. “Boone, please. I need to help you. Let me go.”
But he didn’t hear me.
“I see you in my dreams,” he whispered unsteadily, absently, more like he was talking out loud then he was talking to me. “Why are you in my dreams, Verity?”
“Boone. We don’t have time for this. I have to get some fluids into you and cool you off.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
With him pinning me down, holding me like I was a lifeline, I could pretty much confirm that.
I tried to slip away again, but he tightened his hold—and my patience snapped.
“Dammit, Boone….I need…”
“I need, too.” And he kissed me, just dropped on me like a sensual juggernaut and pressed his Boone Swoon mouth over mine.
I saw it coming—coming like freight train, heavy, fast and unstoppable. If I’d had an ounce of sense, I would have shut him down, but no, I let the wreck happen, the whole thing in swift, heated rush—his mouth hot and wet, his desire for me overwhelming any common sense I might have possessed. He wanted me, and I wanted him—again.
I swore in my head, but still let his arms close around me, allowed his hands to slide all over me and have his Boone way with me. He had good strong hands and kind of fast. He was molding me to him, pulling me further underneath him.
I opened my mouth to his, pushed my fingers up into his hair, and kissed him for all I was worth. Because he wouldn’t remember—again. He was heaven to kiss. Absolute heaven. Nothing in my imagination had ever come close to the bone-deep thrill of actually having his mouth on me, his tongue driving me to distraction and beyond. He was so intensely male, more than my fantasies had ever conjured, the taste of him, the feel of his skin along his jaw, the roughness of it, that uneven beginnings of a beard.
I trailed my hand down his throat to his chest, his hard muscles. I moaned, an inadvertent sound, touching him, and wishing I dared to touch him even more. I’d seen him naked like this before and he’d been totally out of it. Just like now.
There were times when I had watched him when he wasn’t aware of it, like at the party that night. I had looked and lusted, and wanted him so badly it was painful.
He was just heartbreakingly beautiful. There were no other words for him. I never got Boone mixed up with Braxton or Booker. Never. Even when all three of them were together, taking over the halls of the school with their swagger and their bad boy vibe. I knew Boone. There was something inherently him that set him apart from his look-alike brothers.
He wasn’t cocky like Braxton or confident like Booker. He was all rugged angles and planes, with a lost quality that spoke to me without words. I recognized it every time I saw him.
But back then Boone scared me a little, too. I knew he was my downfall. He was what temptation looked like and breathed like, in a hard-muscled, shaggy-haired, blue-eyed devil kind of a way.
When girls looked at him they couldn’t help wanting to get physical with him, and I was no exception. You just wanted to crawl all over him and take him down, and then just take him. He had a raw presence, all of it sculpted into layers of muscle and sinew—the power of long legs, corded arms, broad shoulders, and a back designed by God and perfected by pumping iron. All of them, all of the Outlaws, had acted so tough in school, cementing the reputation their ancestor had earned for the family.
I understood that. I knew all about bullies and how they acted. The Outlaws didn’t bully, they just intimidated to keep their own bullies at bay. Three identical brothers who had each other’s backs, and it was freaking impressive and drove you crazy hot.
Yes, I was born and raised to resist temptation, but Boone Outlaw was my fall from grace. And I had fallen so hard. I never thought I would ever be this close to him again. And I tried so desperately to fuse the warring sides of me. The side with expectations and illusions about who I was, and the real me that had human appetites and needs. The bold, unapologetic part of me that wanted to join with Boone again. Even though he was out of his head, the man knew how to kiss.
He melted my bones.
He broke the kiss and wobbled on his forearms and I saw my opening. I pushed at him and he toppled.
I scrambled off the bed just as he swiped out his arm to capture me.
“Verity,” he said, lying there looking at me with those hot blue eyes, that clever, tempting mouth. He reached out his arm, his hand stretching out towards me.
“No, Boone,” I said and turned away before I lost my resolve and curled against him. I went to his fridge and loaded up on water. In the bathroom, I set the water down near the tub for easy access. Back in his room, I discovered he had thrown off the covers and was thrashing. I ran into the bathroom and pulled open the medicine chest. Took out the bottle of medicine, and turned on the tap in the tub. I had to get that fever down.
I ran back into his bedroom and ducked a couple of arms, finally snagging one of his wrists. Moving a six foot two wall of naked muscled hunk was no easy feat. But I cajoled and pushed and pulled him. Dragging him up, I helped him to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet next to the almost full tub. I slipped out of my jeans and pulled my t-shirt over my head.
“Step in,” I said as I help him stand, lift in one leg and then the other, and then sink down into the water. He started to shiver, but I knew from experience that he had to get cooled off. The water was cool, but not unbearable. I didn’t care. By now I was really concerned about him.
I climbed in next to him and leaned against the side of the tub near the tap, then pulled Boone’s prone body against me. He had to bend his knees slightly because he was so tall. I couldn’t think about the fact that he was completely naked. I was the only one there to help him. I grabbed a washcloth and dipped it in the water, then wet his hair and swiped the cloth over his face and neck.
He shivered uncontrollably now and started to thrash, sounding as if he didn’t know where he was. I soothed him with my voice and hands. When he quieted, I reached for a bottle of water and the pills. “Open your mouth,” I ordered. He obeyed.
I put the pills in and lifted the bottle to his lips. “Swallow, sugar.”
He complied as I tipped the bottle. He grabbed it and drained the rest of it. I gave him another one, and he drank that too. I was feeling much better. He’d stopped thrashing and I cradled him against me as I sponged water over his neck. I took advantage of him and swiped my fingers over that silky spot behind his ear where his hair curled.
Pushing all that hair off his forehead, I sent the washcloth over his face and it rasped over the beginning of dark stubble. With his hair slicked back off his face, he was even more heartbreakingly handsome.
He shivered in my arms, and, there was nothing so vulnerable as a man with a fever. All that strength, all that power, laid low by the heat addling his brain. We floated and I sponged, and as soon as the water got too warm, I turned on the tap and cooled it off again.
He drifted in and out of lucidity and in and out of sleep.
I should have been cold, but his hot body warmed me.
I tried to keep my thoughts neutral. But it was just too hard. He had asked me out and I hadn’t really given him an answer. It fit with Boone’s character. I had accused him of something terrible, but instead of avoiding me or going ballistic, he wanted to show me his soul. Didn’t he know I could hurt him? Didn’t he care that he was giving me the power to make everything ten times worse?
And I wanted to leave Suttontowne. I was going to leave Suttontowne
. Getting involved with Boone was a disaster in the making, but how could I deny him that one request after thinking so ill of him for so long? I felt like Elizabeth Bennett just discovering for the first time how wonderful, how charming, and how vulnerable Mr. Darcy really was.
His voice rasped out, sounding hoarse and congested. “Why are we swimming?” he asked, looking up at me, his blue eyes still glassy.
“We’re not swimming, sugar. You have a fever and I’m trying to bring it down.”
“Oh,” he said, looking confused. “I like when you call me sugar, Verity.”
I swiped the washcloth over his face again, trying to keep the frayed strings of my heart out of Boone’s clever fingers.
“That hurts my skin,” he said, looking up at me again and sounding like a little boy.
It was true. A fever made the skin very sensitive. “Oh, I’m sorry.” I set the washcloth down and used my hand to scoop up water and smooth it over him.
He sighed, “That’s better. I like that.” He frowned. “My dad used to take us swimming. It was a lot of fun, but then he left. Do you think it’s because he didn’t care for us?”
I tried to will away the growing tightness in my chest, tried to will away the misery that settled around my heart. “I’m sure he loved you. Sometimes parents just can’t be there for their children.” I bit my lip against the pain of that statement, struggling for control as tears burned the backs of my eyes. But my voice was still treacherously unsteady when I spoke. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m sure.”
“I’m not sure,” he said, meeting my eyes, but his were distant, as if he was floating more in a dream. I wondered how much he would remember of this conversation.
“I feel really sorry for Henry, but he’s lucky, too. He’s so little and his dad died. From what I could tell from what Henry said, his dad spent a lot of time with him. That’s the really crazy thing. My dad did, too.” The muscles in his throat worked and he took a breath. “He taught Booker how to play the piano, and he took us places,” he said his tone bitter.
“Why do you say he’s lucky if his dad died?”
“At least Henry knew that his dad loved him. If I ever have a kid, I will make sure he knows how much I care, and I will never abandon him.”
His words hit me like a meteor bulleting out of a blue, blue sky. I tried to stop the tears and the hard, sharp pain those words caused. Oh, God. I could barely breathe around my guilt and my aching heart. My tears dripped onto him, but he didn’t notice.
Already I had realized that Boone definitely wasn’t the bastard I’d believed him to be. He was a jerk sometimes, but that’s because I was being such a bitch to him. I had thought I had cause for my anger, but now I was wondering if I had needed to blame Boone to assuage my own conscience. Make my preacher girl ethics fit nicely into my preacher girl boxes.
He rubbed at his temple and shifted. I was worried that his headache was bothering him and his fever was spiking, but I couldn’t give him any more medicine for another three hours. I tightened my arms around him, his skin so hot against my skin, his muscles so solid.
“When he left, I cried really hard. I was only six, so I guess that’s okay because you’re little, and you haven’t yet built up those walls.”
“Walls?”
“The ones you have to build to protect yourself. When you grow up and become a man, you have to man up. Guys aren’t supposed cry. You know, unless they stub their toe or get something in their eye.”
Criminy, did he have to be so damn cute? I brushed at my eyes, gaining control of myself. I’d had so much practice in pushing thoughts, fears, regrets and agony away for many months. My voice tight, I said. “I don’t care if men cry. That doesn’t bother me.” My cell chimed, but I ignored it.
“You don’t think that’s weak?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think that’s weak at all. I think that’s human. I’d be worried if a guy didn’t cry at the appropriate time. I would think that was…off.” I’d just recently seen a man cry, and it was a humbling experience. The memory of that day was burned in my head, but I pushed it back into the box I didn’t want to keep open too long.
“How about if we cry at sappy movies?” he asked, so sincere, as if my answer was really important to him.
I couldn’t help it. I smiled at him and he smiled back at me. “I think that’s very sweet.”
He made a face and rolled his eyes. “Really. And of course that’s what guys want to be known as, sweet.”
I slicked some moisture away from his eye with my thumb and he reached up and captured my hand, his palm against the back and his thumb massaging my palm. I got momentarily distracted by his touch and the soft look in his eyes. “Do you cry at sappy movies?”
“Ummm, taking the fifth,” he mumbled, giving me a variation of that Outlaw grin, just an upturn of one side of his mouth. It was just as sexy.
His thumb continued rubbing against my palm, then moved down my wrist, all his fingers now in play.
“I’m a girl, so I get to cry whenever I want,” I said softly. I’d shed a lot of tears this past year.
He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a good girl perk. Another one is being able to throw like a girl,” he said. “Then you don’t get ribbed for it.”
“Why, were you ribbed for throwing like a girl?”
He stopped rubbing and huffed out. “What? No. I was just making an observation. I throw like a man. Although, if I had to throw right now, I’d probably throw like a girl.”
I laughed and there went that Outlaw grin again.
“Wow, I didn’t know having a fever and a fucking headache could be so much fun.”
“What other things do you like about women, Boone?” I totally knew this wasn’t fair. This fever had loosened up his tongue. At least, I thought it had. For all I knew, Boone would be this open, this straightforward, even without a fever burning up his brain.
He scrunched up his face, his eyes going wary. “Is this a trick question? You know I’m delirious. Right?”
“It’s not a trick question.”
“Where to start. Girls are so soft. I love that, and when they touch you, it feels so good. They smell good, even if they do leave their unmentionables all over the bathroom, so a guy can’t pee without looking at bras and panties.”
“I would think guys would like that.”
“We do. We just have to huff about it. Makes us feel better,” he said. He closed his eyes and his voice softened and my heart skipped a beat. “Then it’s the complexity. Sometimes you think what you said was, like, easy and straightforward and totally logical. But, then a woman will look at you and bam you realize you’re pissing her off.”
My heart melted, just dissolved into a gooey pool in my chest. “And, that makes you think, ‘What the hell did I say?’ But then you get caught up in how her eyes look all cinnamony and stormy. Then, even though you’re a guy, you want to talk to her and either make her more pissed off so you can absorb all that energy she’s generating, or you want to just kiss her mouth really hard, because she’s turning you on without even trying.”
This man had charm in spades. It made me want to take him up on his offer of a date, because now I wanted to see what Boone was like when I wasn’t arguing with him or he wasn’t delirious. I had a feeling it was a bad idea, but I was compelled and intrigued and a little lost in him right now. Losing my resolve, losing my mind, and maybe a tiny piece of my heart.
“But I think the thing I like best about women is they make stuff beautiful.”
“Like what?”
“Like Christmas,” he said gruffly. “My mom went all out and made the house look great, even though we were really poor. She would also bake cakes we liked for our birthday. She always made three separate cakes, and each one would always be something special to one of us. She’d snuggle up and read to us. She would paint things and hang curtains, and make us stuff. It was all beautiful.”
My heart swelled with each word he said. “She sounds
wonderful.”
“She is,” he said with a smile. It faded and his voice dropped in pitch. “I went to rehab for her. It was hurting her something terrible to see me wasted all the time. She would fret. The thing is, she understood why.”
My heart froze. Rehab? “When?” I said sharply.
“Right after the graduation party.”
Oh shit! I closed my eyes. This was why I hadn’t been able to find him and his brothers had stonewalled me. He’d been in rehab and they didn’t want anyone to know, didn’t want Boone to have that stigma on top of what he already had to deal with. I felt sick with the guilt. I shouldn’t ask him. It was so personal, so intimate. But I couldn’t resist. I wanted to know. I’d hungered for information about Boone all through high school. I wanted to know what drove him, why he always looked so lost. “Why, Boone?”
He shifted and looked away, like he didn’t want to say, and I didn’t pressure him. I shouldn’t have asked. We still barely knew each other, and why would he trust me with that information?
He nestled his head into the hollow of my throat and my arms tightened, cuddling him. “I’m not proud of who I was in high school,” he said.
“Who is?”
“You should be,” he said against my throat. “You smell really good, Verity,” he whispered. “You were something else. Always so organized. Always so smart.”
“You were smart, too, Boone.”
“Yeah, but I never applied myself. I cruised. I was lucky to graduate,” he said, his voice full of regrets. Then he looked up at me. “Do you really want to know, darlin’? I guess you can’t think any worse of me anyway.”
I was galvanized. The secrets of Boone Outlaw, ready to be told, and all I had to say was yes.
He’d dropped my hand a little while ago when he’d slipped out of it, now he reached up and laced his fingers with mine. Looking down at our joined hands, he said, “When I was fourteen, I tried to apply for a paper route. It was a simple job. I really wanted to earn some extra money to help my ma.”