by Lori Wilde
Her pulse, which had started to settle down a little, kicked up into a fresh gallop.
The barest hint of a grin tipped the corners of his mouth. She had the most insane urge to ask him to join her in the shower. This was nonsense, but she couldn’t shake the thought of the two of them in her shower, steamy water sluicing down their naked bodies, her head tossed back, his mouth nibbling her throat, his hand—
Stop it!
Her body flushed hot all over. She had never had a particularly strong sex drive, which was one of the reasons she’d been satisfied without lovers to meet her needs. A vibrator did the trick.
Until now.
Feeling self-conscious, she clumped up the stairs to her bedroom, determined to tamp down the onslaught of hormones surging through her bloodstream, but her will deserted her. Aching, demanding need pushed low into her belly, building pressure and heat.
Why was she reacting this way? Why now? Why this man? She didn’t want to feel this way.
Oh, you liar!
No man had ever ignited her the way he did with nothing more than a sultry look.
For years, she’d secretly felt a little superior to women who fell willy-nilly into love with first one man and then another. She had seen loving too easily as a weakness, a character flaw, while she smugly clung to her virtue. Now, she’d been infected with it too, consumed by an overwhelming physical need to merge with Dade Vega. It worried her to realize that this man could quickly become an obsession. Payback. Karma.
Cold shower. She needed a cold shower. A cold shower would douse the problem. No hot and steamy water for her.
She pulled Shot Through the Heart’s letter from her pocket, opened it carefully, and spread it out on the wide window ledge in her bedroom to dry. Afterward, she stripped off her wet dress and left it lying on the bathroom floor. She turned on the water as cold as she could stand it and stepped under the spray.
Teeth chattering, she soaped up and tried to analyze what it was about him that intrigued her beyond the initial slam-dunk of attraction. Was it more than the novelty of her feelings? She was a twenty-nine-year-old virgin who’d clung for so long to an outmoded belief in one true love for everyone that her belief had created a crisis of faith. So now that it had happened, shouldn’t she be over the moon?
Except now that it was finally happening, she was even more muddled and confused and uncertain than ever. Things weren’t solid and crystal clear the way she’d imagined they would be. Brakes were needed here. A cautious eye to counter the sizzling desire.
He was a loner. A drifter. A biker. He was decorated with tattoos. He spelled trouble, but at the same time she felt oddly safe with him. Protected. Was it beyond foolish to trust her instincts? So what was he? Dark knight or knight in shining armor?
Gak! She was romanticizing him. She was as hopeless as the lovelorn who wrote letters to Cupid.
She toweled herself dry. Got dressed in dark green walking shorts, a white peasant blouse, and white Keds. She had a pair of the iconic sneakers in every color because they were the only store-bought shoes she could wear in comfort with her AFO.
On the door of her closet hung the shoes she’d bought but could never walk in—black thigh-high boots, a pair of mules, espadrilles, wedges, sling backs, Mary Janes. She’d collected them for years, one pair every Christmas, since she was sixteen. A gift to herself.
Sighing, she closed the closet door.
After pulling her wet hair into a ponytail, she went back downstairs to voices in the kitchen. Dade had entered Pearl’s inner sanctum and was still alive to tell the tale?
“Her favorite food is pizza,” Pearl was saying. “Pepperoni with black olives.”
They were talking about her! Natalie paused outside the kitchen with her hand on the swinging door.
“But she won’t ever eat it,” Pearl went on. “She never spoils herself. Never indulges.” The way her cook said it made self-discipline sound like a fault, not something she took great pride in.
“Why do you suppose that is?” Dade’s low voice rumbled. The sound of it sent goose bumps spreading up Natalie’s forearms.
“She’s scared to death that if she lets down her guard for one little second that everything will fall to pieces and she won’t be able to put it back together again. That if she eats just one little slice of pizza, she won’t be able to stop, so she won’t risk it.”
“Control freak, huh?” Dade chuckled.
“It’s understandable though.” Pearl’s voice softened. “She’s had it rough.”
“How so?” he asked.
Natalie’s cheeks burned. No way was she going to stand here and listen to them gossip about her.
“Ahem.” Natalie noisily cleared her throat as she pushed into the kitchen.
Dade sat at the small kitchen table looking totally at ease, his long legs stretched out in front of him, the bright morning sun falling across the blue floral tablecloth. He was eating toast smeared with grape jelly. He caught her gaze, and one wolfish eyebrow arched upward.
“If you’re ready,” she said primly, “I can show you that room now.”
He polished off the last bite of toast, washed it down with a swallow of tomato juice, dusted his fingers against a white paper napkin imprinted with Cupid’s Rest B&B in pink lettering, and got to his feet. “Thanks for the breakfast, Pearl.”
“You’re welcome.” Pearl beamed.
Natalie couldn’t believe her cook liked him. Ornery Pearl got along with very few people. “This way, Mr. Vega.”
Without waiting for him, she turned for the back door. His footsteps pattered behind her. Each step escalated the restless jumpiness, coiling her muscles tight as springs. She already regretted agreeing to rent him the room.
She led him to the carriage house, opened the door to Red’s room, and stepped inside.
Dade came in after her. His broad shoulders seemed to fill the entire room.
Natalie took a deep breath and faced him. “This is it. If you can leave for a couple of hours I’ll send the housemaid over to clean up.”
“I can do it. Just give me some cleaning supplies.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not how I do things.”
He gave her a wicked half grin that knocked her off kilter. “Stickler for the rules, huh?”
“There’s a proper way to do things, and having guests clean their own rooms is not proper.”
“I’m a long-term boarder,” he said. “Not a guest.”
“You can clean your own room after this. I still have to go through Red’s things.” She picked up the cardboard box, stood stiffly with her back to the window, Dade blocking the exit with his linebacker shoulders.
The expression on his face was enigmatic, but the gleam in his eyes was pure sexual heat. “Everything by the book.”
“I have a business to run. It has to be that way.”
“Miss Prim,” he teased.
“I suppose you pride yourself on being a rebel.”
“Snap judgment about me based on the motorcycle?”
“It’s not just the motorcycle.”
“No?” He took a step toward her.
Her body tightened. She struggled not to let him see how much he affected her. “You came up to the house the wrong way. A rebel comes to the back door.”
“Faulty GPS directions, remember.”
“That’s an excuse.”
His fiendish smile told her she’d nailed him. “Maybe I came to the back door as a surprise attack, not an act of rebellion.”
“Why would you want to attack me?”
“Not you personally,” he amended. “It’s a life strategy.”
“For what?”
“Dealing with the world. Life is a battlefield. Every encounter is an opportunity to win or lose.”
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“Life is harsh. If you don’t have a strategy for dealing with it, you’ll end up dead.”
“There’s just one prob
lem with that philosophy.” She toyed with the cord on the window shade.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll end up dead anyway and in the process turn many people into enemies.”
“Many people are enemies to begin with.”
She shook her head, clutched the box tighter to her chest. “That’s so sad and reductive.”
“In what way?”
“Limiting life to a single strategy.”
“You’ve got a strategy too.”
“I do not.”
“You might not think about it consciously, but you’ve got a method for making it through the day. We all do.”
“Yeah? So what’s my strategy?”
His dark eyes burned. “This is just a guess since I don’t know you, but from what I can tell, you think life is a rule book. If you follow the rules and don’t step outside your comfort zone, you won’t get hurt, but because of that, you also never really live.”
It unnerved her how accurately he’d summed up her character. It made her angry too. “How very psychological of you,” she retorted dryly.
“I’ve seen a shrink.”
“Oh.” That startled her.
“I had a head injury.” He patted his temple. “All better now.”
“And your shrink encouraged this battlefield metaphor.”
He shrugged. “No, but there’s nothing he could do about it. I am who I am.”
“You don’t think people can change?”
“No,” he said adamantly. “I do not.”
She shook her head. “And you think that I have lived a limited life.”
“I could teach you a few things.” His expression was wickedly sexy, his voice seductive.
She gulped at the idea of all the things he could teach her. “Just because I’m from a small town doesn’t mean I’m an ignorant hick.”
“I never said that.” He stepped closer.
Luckily, the bed was between them, or maybe not so luckily. There they stood, just the two of them, a bed in the middle.
Dade was staring at the bed, the same as Natalie was. Were similar irrational images running through his head as were spilling through hers?
He surprised her by sinking down on the mattress.
Her gaze fixed on the breadth of his thighs. So powerful. She pulled a thin stream of air in through clenched teeth.
He bounced on the mattress. The box springs squeaked.
Natalie’s throat convulsed as a dozen downright dirty images filled her head. She imagined him stripped bare and lying in the middle of the mattress with a big, hard erection. Getting hard just for her.
Immediately, her face burned crimson hot.
“Comfortable.” He nodded and leaned back, bracing himself with his palms splayed over the covers.
Her heart was running a dead-heat sprint, rushing blindly down a track that promised nothing but trouble, but as much as she resisted, she couldn’t change the visions playing out like a movie—Dade pulling her down on the mattress beside him, stripping off her clothes, letting them drop to the floor, his hot mouth capturing hers.
And his hands!
Oh, his big masculine hands touching her in places and ways that she’d never been touched. She pictured her own hands skating over the rugged masculine angles of his body, deriving pleasure from inducing his needy groans. She imagined what he would taste like. Salty and slick like a raw oyster? Smoky, torrid, and honeyed like barbecue? Or maybe rich, hot, and sugary-sweet like fig-chili balsam?
She wanted so badly to find out.
What was she thinking! She never fantasized like this. Not so graphically, so heedlessly.
This man was a total stranger. He had dark secrets. Rebellious, back-door secrets. She could feel it in the way his gaze caressed her body. Feel it deep in her bones. He had an agenda, but she had no idea what it was.
Unfortunately, she wanted Dade Vega. Wanted him more than she wanted to take another breath of air. Undeniable fact. It did no good to lie to herself. For the first time in her life, she literally burned for a man. Grew wet just thinking about him. Her body was in tumult. Riotous.
He smiled at her. Darkly. Mysteriously. Dangerously. As if he knew every single erotic thought passing through her head.
Dear God, she was in so much trouble! How would she survive having this man sleeping under her roof?
If he’s The One, there’s nothing to fear. And if he wasn’t? What if she was just going batty with sexual need? Hey, well then maybe he’s the one to dispense with your virginity. Great. Thanks for that thought. Now she was even more scared of what she might do. Or not do. How could she want something so much and be so afraid of it at the same time?
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?” he asked.
“I can’t rent out Red’s room. It doesn’t feel right. He could return at any moment.”
“Are you sure that’s the real reason?”
“Absolutely,” she lied.
“What if he never comes back? How long are you going to hold on to the room?”
“That’s really none of your business, is it?”
He stood up on her side of the bed.
She stepped back, bumped into the wall. Dammit. Her knees were jelly. If he came any closer, they’d liquefy right out from underneath her.
“I don’t think that’s the reason at all.” He lowered his head. “I think I scare you.”
Determined not to be intimidated, Natalie squared her shoulders, used the cardboard box as a shield. “You do not scare me, Mr. Vega. Not in the least.”
“That comfort zone thing. I push you out of it.”
She held her breath. “You certainly think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
He laughed, backed up.
Relieved, she exhaled.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet, counted off ten one-hundred-dollar bills. “Don’t worry, darlin’, you have nothing to fear from me. You just keep your distance and I’ll keep mine.”
Dade prowled restlessly at the window, watching Natalie shuffle up the limestone path toward the house. She stopped once and cast a backward glance over her shoulder. When her eyes met his, she quickly looked away and quickened her pace. Peering into her soft sky blue eyes was like sinking into summer.
His pulse skittered.
Hell’s bells, he might have pushed her out of her comfort zone, but she’d done the same damn thing to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so caught off guard.
He followed her with his gaze until she disappeared inside. What he saw was a small-town girl with a lot of responsibility and a big heart. She shouldn’t have been the sort of woman to grab him by the short hairs and make him pay attention, but inexplicably, he was mesmerized.
Dade was frightened.
Frightened because she made him feel things he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. Nice things, and Dade didn’t trust nice. He was also frightened because Red was missing. His buddy had just up and walked away from his possessions. Disappeared. Nice as this town might seem on the surface, he suspected a darker undercurrent ran through it. What in the hell had Red gotten himself mixed up in?
Natalie had accused him of being a rebel, but Red was the real rebel. He was the one who saw rules as a challenge just aching to be broken. Which was why Dade was having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that Red had chosen to settle down in Cupid, Texas, of all places. Why he’d even chosen to settle down at all. In that regard, he and Red were molded from the same clay. They’d both agreed a long time ago that neither of them was cut out for marriage or children. They were both too screwed up.
Red’s rebelliousness had gotten him into a lot of trouble in the military, but it had also saved Dade’s hide on more than one occasion.
Dade stared out the window, but he no longer saw Natalie’s quaint bed-and-breakfast. In its place was the old run-down farmhouse in Durant, Oklahoma, where he’d first met Red.
He’d been belted into the back of the social worker’s gray Chevy Cavalier, scowling at the washed-out-looking woman in a baggy floral dress who’d come to the car, a false smile pasted on her weathered face. Behind her, he’d seen a clutch of kids—all boys—in the dirt yard bare of a single blade of grass.
“Well, well,” the foster mother asked. “Who do we have here?”
“This is Dade, he’s a really good boy. Right, Dade?” The social worker swiveled her head to give him a please-go-with-me-on-this expression.
He’d folded his arms over his chest, deepened the scowl, and said, “Bite me.”
“It’s like that is it?” Sighing, the foster mother opened the car door and motioned for him to get out. “Just once couldn’t one of them be civil?”
“He’s had it rough,” the social worker muttered.
“Haven’t they all?”
“Yes, but his story is sadder than most,” the social worker said in a muted voice and launched into his history about how his heroin addict mother had died of an overdose when Dade was four, leaving him to be raised by his drug-dealing father and his string of junkie whores.
Dade had tuned the women out, climbed from the car, and shifted his attention back to the boys peering at him with a combination of interest, distrust, and hostility. He’d caught the eye of the tallest boy, a stocky redhead with freckles sprinkled over his nose.
Red grinned and gave him the finger.
Unable to help himself, Dade grinned back. Best welcome he’d ever had.
It wasn’t a good home. It wasn’t a bad one. There was food. Not tasty, but plenty of it. There was a roof over his head and a routine. For most of his life, he’d had neither. Dade was adjusting, getting by, a few fistfights, but carving out a solid niche, until one night, two years later, the foster father came for him.
The man had a bulldog face—smashed in and jowly—and he smelled like whiskey, beef jerky, and motor oil. His name was Tank and he moved like one, heavy and lumbering, fully planting one foot before he moved the other when he walked. He worked for Jiffy Lube, ate corn nuts by the fistfuls, and perpetually carried black grime beneath his ragged fingernails. One hot summer night, he rousted Dade from his bed by slapping a dirty palm over his mouth.