by Molly McLain
Sure, she was attracted to Tony, but who was she kidding? Neither of them wanted anything serious and the one night deal wasn’t exactly her style either. She’d proven that to herself three years ago.
Thankfully, Tony seemed to understand, albeit with mock disappointment, and he hadn’t given her an ounce of grief when she insisted on driving him home. Strictly as friends, of course.
“Hey, I hear congratulations are in order,” he said as they rounded the front of Maddie and Dan’s house, making their way toward the street where they’d both parked. “You’re now the proud owner of the house I grew up in.”
Carissa pulled up short. “You’re kidding me.”
Tony shook his head, smiled and grabbed her hand, tugging her along again. “Nope. My mom lost the place about a few years ago. Couldn’t afford to keep up on the payments after Dad died. The bank tried to rent it out for a while, but I guess that didn’t work out either.”
And that was the very reason she’d been reluctant to buy a foreclosure. The thought of profiting from someone else’s misfortune, especially in such a close-knit community, made her sick to her stomach.
“I am so sorry,” she said, truly meaning it and wondering why she wasn’t made privy to this information sooner. She’d known Tony since she moved to town a few years back. Surely someone would have mentioned his family’s connection to the house by now.
“Aw, don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours. Mom moved in with my aunt over in Hastings and now I can’t get the two of ‘em out of the bingo hall. Safe to say she’s a lot happier than she’s been in a long time.”
“That makes me feel only slightly better.”
“I didn’t bring it up to make you feel bad,” he paused to chuckle. “I just thought you’d like to know a little history about where you’re putting down roots.”
Now she felt like a real thief. “I’m not moving into the house, Tony, I’m just flipping it.”
“No way.” The wide-eyed look he gave her was laced with something more than surprise, but he looked away before she could decipher it. Crap.
She bit her lower lip, thankful for the moment of silence as they passed through the shadow of a big oak tree and eased back into the dim glow of the streetlights. Attempting to appease her discomfort and guilt, she explained, “I’d like to buy something outside of town someday. Preferably with a little land so I can plant a garden and a ton of flowers. Flipping this house is just a means of having more money down the road.”
Tony squeezed her hand. “A green thumb, huh? You strike me as a city girl, not the country bumpkin’ type. You’re from Lincoln, right?” She nodded, relieved he didn’t seem to hold a grudge or even pass judgment on what she was doing to his childhood home. “How did you ever end up here?”
“I came to visit Maddie one weekend after she moved in with Dan and realized I liked it so much I didn’t want to leave.” Of course, the abbreviated explanation made the decision to permanently change her address seem so much simpler than it really was. In reality, many factors had contributed. Most of which Carissa preferred not to think about, much less share.
He grinned again. “Yeah, this place can have that effect on a person. I thought about moving over by my mom a few times, but this is home, you know? All my friends are here and I’ve got a hell of a job. Can’t ask for more than that.”
Carissa gave a quick, reluctant smile. “Hudson Contracting, right?”
“Yep. Been with Josh for six years now. Since the beginning,” he said proudly. “Even helped run the company for a while when he was overseas.”
Oh, yes, she was aware. When Josh shipped out, he’d left his beloved business in the hands of his most trusted employees. Reed and Dan had helped too, doing all they could to ensure Josh’s life’s investment remained intact and successful in his absence. She’d moved to town a few months after and had been impressed with their loyalty.
“So what’s it like working with your ex?” Tony shot her a conniving grin. “Fletcher has a hard enough time keeping his nose out from where it doesn’t belong on any given job; I can only imagine how uptight he must be with you taking on a reno.”
Carissa shrugged. “Reed’s fine. But we’ve only just started. Come August I'll probably have a different opinion of him." And that was just because Reed was the county building inspector, not her ex-boyfriend. Surprisingly, she and Reed had a decent friendship independent of their working relationship.
When they’d split last summer, it had been on amicable terms and they’d remained close. She, more than others, knew what a perfectionist he could be and how that impacted the way he worked. He did everything by the book and he wouldn’t allow her any exceptions just because they shared a few memories.
“I gotta tell ya, you and Fletcher came as a complete surprise to a lot of people.”
Yeah, her too. Still, she was curious. “Why do you say that?” she asked as they slowed near the line-up of cars and trucks crowding the sides of the street.
“He’s never been the settling down type, long as I’ve known him. For him to get serious about a woman, even for a short while, came completely out of left field. Of course, when there was an amazing girl like you involved,” Tony paused to elbow her in the side and wink, “it was a little easier to understand. Took a while though.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around herself as the wind kicked up, making her shiver.
“You cold? I’ve got a sweatshirt in my truck I could grab.”
She hesitated, but ultimately the trembling won out. “Sure.”
They arrived at his vehicle and she waited patiently while he dug his keys from his pocket, unlocked the doors and reached into the backseat. When he emerged with a gray hoodie with a red Hudson Contracting logo emblazoned across the chest, she grimaced.
Oh, the irony.
She should have told him she’d changed her mind, but at the risk of looking like an indecisive fool, she let him bunch up the fleece and help her into it.
Then he tucked his keys into her palm and moved in close.
“There you go, gorgeous. Happy now?” Still holding her hand, his thumb stroked over her knuckles while his free hand came up to smooth her hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered at her jaw. “You are an amazing girl, Carissa.”
“Tony...”
“Shh, I know.” He put a finger to her lips and smiled. “If you ever change your mind about going on a real date with me...”
She reached up and lifted his fingers from her face, lowering them so that both of their hands hung loosely between them. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
With that, he sighed and wrapped her in a friendly hug. “For the record, I’d do the right thing by Reed if you reconsidered. Make sure he was cool with us and everything.”
“That’s such an archaic rule.”
“Maybe so, but it’s the proper thing to do and it’s the way our circle of friends has operated since...cripes, since high school. Guy code and all that shit.” He straightened up from the embrace and then leaned in again to kiss her cheek. “See, I can be a gentleman. Much as it’s killing me.”
She laughed out loud and squirmed against him as he took a playful nip at her ear. “Tony!”
“Sorry! I couldn’t resist—”
“Then let me help.”
Both she and Tony jumped at the deep growl that came out of nowhere, and she barely had time to process that they weren’t alone when a large arm snaked around her waist and yanked her backward.
Time reduced to slow motion, and she tried to search Tony’s face for answers, but his expression was just as pinched and confused as she felt.
Glancing down, she saw her sandals intermingled with a pair of big, broken in boots that connected to long, lean legs covered in a pair of dark-washed jeans. Her gaze slid up to where her dress caught high on her thighs, the thin material pinned between her rear end and the lap of the brick wall behind her.
Slowly, her senses began to recalibrate and her no
se picked up on the first clue—a fresh, spicy scent that was painfully familiar.
Oh no.
Her eyes continued to journey upward and when they landed on the thick, tattooed arm cinched possessively around her middle, her stomach twisted into a tight, repentant knot.
This was not happening.
***
Josh watched Tony’s face morph into a million different shades of pissed off and it felt damn good to know the control had shifted back to him. He’d deny accusations of being a control freak, but it was no secret that things tended to work out better when he was in charge.
Loosening his grip on Carissa, but still holding her close, he kept his focus trained on Tony. So maybe he felt a little like a dick for how he was handling this. He hadn’t planned on going all friggin’ caveman about the situation, but something ugly and possessive took over the moment he saw Carissa in his friend’s arms and his suspicions were confirmed.
Leaning in and around, he pecked at the corner of Carissa’s mouth. “Nice sweatshirt, babe. You take it from my place last night?”
Panic flashed in her amber eyes and he felt her sharp intake of breath. Surprisingly, she didn’t move.
Tony did however, his hands fisting at his sides. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
To that, Josh gave a cocky chuckle. “Wish I was, man, believe me. Not exactly how I wanted this thing between Carissa and I to come out, but...” He went to tangle his fingers with hers to add effect to the ruse and encountered Tony’s keys tucked in her hand.
“Come on, baby girl, you’re killing me,” he muttered, the words not a part of his act. He gave his head a shake and tossed the keys back to his friend. Catching them against his chest, Tony snarled.
“You could’ve just told me,” his foreman growled at Carissa. “Christ.”
“I...I...this isn’t...” she stammered, her shocked paralysis beginning to wear off.
“Save it.” Tony cut her off with a hand in the air. Then he shot a hard glare toward Josh. “You know this is messed up, man. What’s Fletcher think, huh?”
Josh ignored the question, mostly because he didn’t want to think about it. “What’s messed up is you trying to make moves on a new woman when you haven’t taken care of business with the last one.”
Tony’s face turned roughly the same shade crimson as his truck. “Don’t you dare go there.”
“Too late.”
“Screw you.”
“I was just giving him a r-ride home,” Carissa stuttered. “And, Tony, this isn’t what you think. Really.”
“Don’t worry, Car. I’m plenty capable of taking care of myself, regardless of what Hudson here thinks.” His tone was so bitter, he might as well have spat on Josh’s boots. “And whatever the hell is going on with you two? I want no part in it.” With that, he climbed into his truck and tore off, throwing gravel in his wake.
Carissa reacted immediately with a ferocity Josh hadn’t expected. She stomped at his feet, which actually hurt thanks to those spiky shoes she was wearing, and she dug her short, but deadly fingernails into his arm until he had no choice but to let her go.
Even then, she spun and gave him a hard shove. Despite the ten inches and close to a hundred pounds he had on her, she still sent him staggering backward.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled, her eyes flashing unadulterated anger.
“You don’t want to get involved with Tony right now.”
“Like you have a clue what I want?”
Yeah, he had a pretty good idea. “Trust me, Car, it’s for the best. You’ll thank me some day.”
“For making Tony think I slept with you?” Her voice began to rise, but the question ended on a shameful whisper.
He couldn’t help the smirk that played on his lips. “Ah, but you did sleep with me, babe.”
She blinked and threw her hands in the air. “Not last night, I didn’t!”
“Last night, three years ago...does it really matter?”
“What?”
He lifted a shoulder and in a bored, lint-picking tone, replied, "We had sex, Carissa. You’re no longer fair game to my friends. Tony needed to know, simple as that.”
She balled her fists against her thighs and her copper eyes blazed with fiery emotion. For a second, he thought she might charge at him. "So this Neanderthal stunt wasn't about my well-being after all, but rather that stupid man-code bullshit?”
In a roundabout way, yes, though his initial intentions were sincere. His decision to put a stop to Tony’s endeavors was made with both Tony's and Carissa's best interest in mind, but at some point along the way, that goal changed. He suspected it might have been when he spotted Tony moving in for the kill, in a manner far too reminiscent of his own efforts with Carissa when they’d met three years earlier.
Since attempting to explain himself wasn't likely to ease her rage, he shrugged again and let her think what she wanted. Her assumption was, after all, at least partially true and, in the end, all that mattered was the distance his intervention put between her and Tony’s personal drama.
“Unbelievable,” she said, driving both of her hands back into her dark hair. Then she let out a bitter, unexpected grunt. "Where was all this honesty with Reed, huh?”
He grimaced. “It was kinda hard to give Fletcher a head's up about me and you when I was halfway around the world.”
“And when you came home?”
He cocked his head to the side and shot her a half-lidded glare, because...really? No thanks to her, Reed had gone all gaga and googly-eyed by the time his double deployment ended. Though it hadn't sat well in Josh's gut—and still didn't, for that matter—he’d elected to keep the solitary night he’d spent with Carissa to himself. It had gone against every ounce of his better judgment—and a vow he’d made to Fletcher more than a decade before.
But he hadn’t been entirely alone in that decision. He and Carissa decided together, for the sake of all involved, that their indiscretion should be kept just that—discreet. In fact, he seemed to recall a moonlit conversation much like this, when she’d damn near begged him to keep his mouth shut, for fear the dirty truth would jeopardize her relationship with his best friend.
“Let's not forget your part in that decision, sweetheart,” he reminded her, and even in the shadows, he saw her cheeks flush a darker, raspberry pink.
“You wanted to humiliate me. To make me out as a flagrant whore.”
Josh gave a humorless laugh. Did she really believe that? “That’s not true and you know it.”
“Oh, so I must have imagined that part of our conversation. When you accused me of hopping from your bed to Reed’s.”
He counted to ten and did his damnedest to keep calm, but a guy could only withstand so many allegations before he broke.
“Do you think,” he began, his jaw set and his voice low and deliberate, “it was easy for me to come home and see my best friend all over the last woman I’d been with?”
She narrowed her eyes, her spite egging him on.
“Or better yet, to shake his hand and pretend I didn’t know how fucking beautiful his new girlfriend looked when she came?”
She gasped as he expected she would and took an unsteady step backward. He followed, because she wasn’t going to bait him and think she could slink away like some innocent little kitten.
“You weren’t the only one who risked repercussion for what we did, Carissa. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t make a habit of lying to anyone, especially my friends.” He’d been there, done that and almost lost his best friend in the process.
“Then why didn't you just come clean?” she countered. “If you're such a noble, upstanding guy, why didn’t you just say 'screw her' and have it out with Reed like a man?”
Sweet Jesus, this woman was going to be the death of him.
“Because I'm a man, I chose to respect you over my own integrity and a friendship I've had since fucking kindergarten!” Didn’t she get it? Didn’t she know w
hat he stood to lose?
Surprise and maybe a bit of humility flashed across her face. Her nostrils continued to flare though, and he was pretty sure if her eyes had been nail guns, he would have resembled a pin cushion stuck to the side of the vehicle behind him.
“Whether you believe it or not, I did what I did tonight with you in mind once again. Go ahead and judge my decisions, but don't you dare accuse me of thinking only of myself.”
She made a partly disgruntled, partly uncertain sound and, propping her hands on her curvy hips, she shifted her weight to one long, slender leg. The motion caused the short hem of her gauzy dress to ride up, exposing an almost indecent amount of shapely, bare thigh.
His cock twitched and he mentally scolded himself for being such a goddamn slave to his libido. Here was a woman who was severely pissed at him—and him her, more and more with every passing moment—and yet there he stood, considering what it might be like to walk over and run his hand up the inside of that creamy leg and make her come for him one more time.
Masochistically, his let his gaze slide to her waist and then upward still, to where her breasts jutted forward in all her pissed off glory. Even the bulky sweatshirt couldn’t disguise the full swell of that luscious flesh.
He craned his head from side to side until his neck gave way to a gratifying snap, and then slowly he made his way to her face, reveling, in spite of himself, in the delicate line of her jaw and the way her pouty, pink lips parted under his watch.
When their eyes finally met, she sucked in and held her breath. He did too.
Was it possible she felt the same, lingering pull of desire and crazy sexual chemistry he did?
For several long beats, they simply stared at each other. He waited for another sign, but she allowed him nothing.
Which was just as well, because he’d be a damn fool to consider going down that road with her again.
“Look, Carissa, I’m sorry—”
“You know where you can stick your fucking apology.”
He opened his mouth to rebuff her interruption, but she held up a warning finger and took two steps forward, putting them so close, he could feel her hot breath seeping through his shirt and searing his skin.