by Eve Gaddy
“He might. You don’t know him,” she said, but her body relaxed into the curve of his arm.
“Delilah, look at me.” He waited until she did, then said deliberately, “You’re safe here. If you’re so worried about this guy, we can get a restraining order.”
“Say that again,” she whispered, her eyes locked on his.
“We’ll get a restraining order.”
She shook her head. “The first part.”
All he could do was try to reassure her. “You’re safe here, Delilah. I promise.”
She was still gazing at him, her eyes dark and big in her face. The fear had faded from her eyes and in its place was—desire. No, wrong. He had to be wrong. He was projecting what he felt onto her—to what he saw in her eyes.
On the way home tonight, once he’d had time to think of something beyond his mother, he’d realized how close he’d come to making a huge mistake. Because if he’d kissed her, he’d have made love to her. And once he did that…he wouldn’t be able to have her and then forget her as he’d done with the other women since Janine. No, Delilah would be—she already was—unforgettable. And the pure hell of it was, he didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to resist her.
“If you keep looking at me that way—”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him. And he was lost. Because, God help him, he kissed her back.
Her lips were soft, and unbelievably tempting. She tasted sweet. And packed a punch stronger than any whiskey he’d ever had. Her tongue slid over his lips, into his mouth. Thrust, withdrew, repeated the motion, in a slow, sexy pace.
Just a taste, he thought. One taste. A man could only resist so much. Her tongue swept his mouth and he deepened the kiss. He met her tongue with his and pulled back, luring hers to come after his. Not thinking, but feeling. How right she felt in his arms, how good it felt to hold her, kiss her. How much he wanted her, wanted more.
She moaned, threw the blanket off, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed closer to him, her soft unfettered breasts nestled against his chest.
He realized she wore only the T-shirt she slept in. His mind clouded and he didn’t think at all as he leaned back and she followed, until he lay stretched out on the couch with Delilah on top of him. Every inch of that delicious little body touching his. He went from aroused to as hard as granite in the space of seconds when she raised herself up and straddled him, pressing her hips against his.
He knew what she wore beneath that shirt. A tiny pair of pink thong panties. Or maybe red. Or one of the bikinis, lacy wisps of nothing, that she’d bought at the store. He’d seen them often enough in his bathroom when she washed them out. And had fantasized about taking them off her, and what would happen afterward.
He put his hands on her hips and groaned when he felt the soft, bare skin of her bottom. This had to stop. This wasn’t just a taste. In about thirty-seven seconds he was going to strip those panties off and plunge inside her, make love to her like he’d dreamed of doing since he’d met her.
Desperate for control, he turned his head. “Delilah, wait.”
“Why?” she whispered with a slow revolution of her hips as she bent to touch her lips to his. To slip her tongue inside his mouth and drive him halfway over the edge.
He closed his eyes. He was having a really hard time remembering why making love to Delilah was such a bad idea.
“Don’t talk. Don’t think.” She leaned down again, her mouth so close to his, he felt her soft, warm breath flutter across his lips. “Kiss me,” she said huskily, “and we’ll both forget.”
And there was the answer. She wanted to forget. She was scared and vulnerable, and she would regret making love with him in the morning, if not before that. Too bad he regretted what he had to do right now. Because Cam didn’t take advantage of vulnerable women. When he took a woman to bed it was because she damn sure wanted to be there, not because she was trying to exorcise a bad experience.
“Delilah—” He groaned as she kissed him again. Cupped her cheeks to get her attention. “If we don’t stop, we’re going to make love. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
She stared at him, her eyes dazed and confused. He saw awareness dawn slowly as a flush spread from her face to her chest. “I—I don’t—Oh, God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” She rolled off him, scrambled to her feet. With one last whispered, “I’m sorry,” she fled the room.
He put his arm over his eyes and swore, long and viciously. Cursed himself for being so stupidly noble. He thought of what she’d looked like just before he’d made her realize what was happening. What she clearly didn’t want to happen or she wouldn’t have run out.
Her image was burned in his mind. Her swollen lips, slumberous eyes. That alluring, sweet little body. Damn it, why did he have to have a conscience? Why couldn’t he have just taken what she offered with no thought of the consequences?
DELILAH PRESSED HER HANDS to her flaming cheeks, her back against the closed bedroom door. What was the matter with her? How could she have done that? She’d thrown herself at Cam. If he hadn’t stopped her, hadn’t given her a moment to think, she’d have made love to him. And she wasn’t free to do it.
Unable to even consider going to bed, she paced the room. It didn’t matter if Cam made her feel wanted. If he made her feel safe. It didn’t matter that she’d fallen in love with him. If she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted a man. She wasn’t free and she wasn’t likely to be free. Ever.
She rubbed her temples. The episode at the hospital had really shaken her. She’d tried to tell herself she’d overreacted and Avery had simply written her off, as he would a bad investment. But she knew he hadn’t. Knew in her heart that Avery Freeman wasn’t through with her. Would never be through with her. Not until he had her back in his power. Or dead.
Delilah didn’t want to think about Avery, ever again. She wanted a new life, right here in Aransas City. But that life was never going to include being with Cam. That life would never include being able to tell him she’d fallen in love with him.
He’d kissed her like a fantasy come to life. It had felt wonderful. And right. How could anything that felt so right be so wrong?
THE NEXT DAY, Cam and Delilah avoided each other by mutual, if silent, agreement. He went off before lunch, leaving her and Martha in charge. Delilah could only hope that by the time he came back she’d have thought of a way to deal with what had happened. Maybe pretending nothing had was the best solution.
Fat chance. She couldn’t look at him without remembering what it felt like to be in his arms.
Later that afternoon after the lunch crowd had cleared out, Delilah went to work on the orders. The forms were on Cam’s computer, in his office. Problem was, she didn’t know enough about his customer base to be sure what to order. And she couldn’t locate the previous orders, which should have been on the computer, but weren’t.
She thought about asking Martha for help, but then remembered Martha’s confession that she was computer-phobic and how much it irritated Cam if she tried to mess with the computer. She invariably deleted files she shouldn’t and after she crashed his computer, Cam had forbidden her to touch it. The only computer he would let Martha near was the one in the cash register, and she admitted it had taken him three months to teach her to work that one. Computers and Martha obviously didn’t mix. If they had, he’d have had Martha doing payroll long before he gave it over to Delilah.
Cam opened the door, stopping short when he saw her at the desk. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Sorry. Do you want me to leave?” She didn’t have to look at him. Just the sound of his voice triggered memories of the night before.
“No, of course not.” He came in and shut the door. “What are you doing?”
All right. If he could pretend, so could she. She scrolled down the screen. “I thought I’d try to fill out the liquor order, but all I could find were the forms, not the past orders. I’m not sure how much
of what to ask for.”
He crossed the room to the file cabinet standing in the corner, opened a drawer and pulled out a manila folder. “I keep the last couple of orders in here. I print out a paper copy in case they get the delivery wrong. The rest of them should be on the computer.”
She looked at the screen. “They should be, but I couldn’t find them there. What do you file them under?”
He came to the desk and leaned over, taking the mouse from her. “I can’t remember the name. I have to look.”
“Under something original like ‘orders’?” she asked.
He slanted her a dirty look. “Paperwork isn’t my favorite thing to do. Besides, I don’t really need to look at the paperwork, I know what stock I’m running low on. Ordinarily I’m the one who does this.”
His head was close to hers. She gave up all pretense of looking at the screen and watched his profile instead. He found what he was searching for a few minutes later, pointing the mouse and clicking open the file labeled Miscellaneous. “There they are. Perfectly logical.”
Delilah tilted her head to study him. “Logical? Miscellaneous could mean anything. Why didn’t you just put it under liquor orders?”
“Too much trouble.” He shrugged. “Like Cat says, I need a secretary. Want to apply for the job?”
“I already have one. Don’t I?”
Their gazes locked. His eyes darkened to charcoal gray. Cam leaned closer to her as she shifted closer to him. He drew back abruptly. “I’ve got…something to take care of.” He turned on his heel and left the room.
They couldn’t avoid each other forever. Come closing time they’d be alone again. But it didn’t matter. Nothing could happen. She couldn’t make that mistake again.
Cam didn’t seem to have a problem putting her out of his mind. He hardly spoke to her all evening. Until her run-in with the pervert.
Delilah didn’t always work the bar tables, but that evening the cocktail waitress had gone home sick, so Delilah split the bar customers with Martha. She didn’t pay much attention the first three times the guy tried to pick her up. You couldn’t be a waitress for several years and not know how to discourage overenthusiastic patrons. But this guy wouldn’t give up and he wouldn’t leave either. The longer the evening went on, the drunker he got. And the more obnoxious.
So obnoxious she actually mentioned it to Martha. Martha glanced at him and shrugged. “He’s not a regular. Why don’t you tell Cam about it? He’ll take care of him.”
Right. She glanced over at him, at the busty blonde who’d been hanging all over him all night long. Like hell she’d tell him. She’d handle it herself.
Since the busboy hadn’t shown either, the waitresses had to clear the tables as well. She was busing the table next to the would-be Romeo when she felt a hard pinch on her butt. Startled, she turned around to stare at the man incredulously. That hadn’t been a flirtatious pat, which she didn’t like but could deal with. No, that had felt more like an assault than a simple getting out of line.
Grinning at her, he said something that topped every one of his increasingly crude come-ons.
Fed up, she dumped a glass of ice water on his head. “Hands off.”
He jumped up with a roar of anger, grabbing her arm. Before she could do more than jerk out of his grasp, Cam was beside them. “You’re out of here,” Cam told him, twisting the man’s arm behind his back.
“What the hell do you mean, I’m out? That bitch dumped water on me! I didn’t do anything!”
“Tell it to the cops,” Cam advised him. The man sputtered, cursing her and Cam, but Cam marched him outside so quickly Delilah didn’t think most of the remaining customers even knew anything had happened. Except for the blonde Cam had left. She didn’t look too happy.
A short time later Cam came back in. His jaw was clenched hard and his eyes were sharp and angry. He had an incipient bruise on his cheekbone, she realized guiltily. “Delilah, my office.”
She followed him in there, wishing she’d handled things differently. “I’m sorry,” she said when he shut the door. “I don’t usually react like that but he surprised me.”
“He won’t be back.” He shoved a hand through his hair and she noticed blood.
“You’re hurt, let me see.” She grabbed his hand. “You’re bleeding.”
He glanced at his hand, then pulled it away and rubbed it on his jeans. “Not me. Him. I had Martha call the cops. I wasn’t letting him get away with what he did to you. Or drive, either. I let go of him when they got here and he pasted me one. My stupidity for letting him go.”
“So you hit him back.”
He shot her an exasperated glance. “What did you want me to do, kiss him?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause a mess.”
He brushed her apology aside. “You need to find a better way to handle guys like that in the future.” His eyes flashed and she could see he was barely hanging on to his temper.
Until then, she’d been feeling guilty for blowing it but that comment sparked her own temper. “Most men don’t assault the waitress,” she returned hotly. “It’s not like I stuck my butt out there asking for him to pinch the hell out of it. He did that with absolutely zero encouragement from me.”
Cam didn’t look sympathetic, he still looked angry. “I didn’t say you encouraged him. I said you needed to handle it differently. Next time, call me if you have a problem.” He didn’t wait for an answer but left the office.
She kicked the chair and swore when it hurt her foot. Knowing he was right only made her mood worse.
Martha came up to her later that evening, ready to gossip. “What’s up with Cam?”
“You mean him and the bimbo?” The blonde was still there, still hanging on every word Cam spoke to her. It shouldn’t bother her that he’d spent the evening—when he hadn’t been yelling at her or getting rid of perverts—flirting with the woman until Delilah was nauseated.
Martha snorted a laugh. “That one’s been after him for weeks. I thought after you came he’d seen the light, but I guess not.”
“Seen the light?”
“About those women and how worthless they are.” She picked up four setups and poured out four waters. “The stories I could tell you.” She shook her head in disgust. “I wonder about women nowadays, I really do.”
“He doesn’t seem to think she’s worthless,” Delilah said glumly, watching her put her hand on Cam’s arm and stroke it possessively, her long red nails gleaming even from this distance. It didn’t help one bit knowing she had no right to be jealous. No right at all.
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Martha said, eyeing the two critically. “Cam’s just passing the time.”
“He looks like he’s having a hell of a good time while he’s at it.”
Martha cut her a sly glance. “Honey, it’s you he’s interested in. And I’d say that goes both ways.”
“Martha, it’s not like that. Cam’s just—” She made the mistake of looking at him again, and couldn’t help wincing when the woman laughed and leaned forward, giving him a bird’s-eye view of a spectacular cleavage. “We’re friends, nothing more,” she said flatly.
Martha picked up her tray to take it to her table. “Uh-huh. Then why does he look at you every time he thinks you’re not looking and why do you look at him every time you think he’s not looking?” She arched an eyebrow and, when Delilah didn’t answer, continued, “And then there was that little scene earlier, when Cam threw out that drunk.”
Delilah shrugged and picked up her own tray. “I can’t imagine he’s never had to throw out a drunk before.”
Martha nodded. “Sure he has. A man was bothering Rachel not too long ago and Cam gave him the boot.” She paused and added, “But all he did was toss that guy out on his can. And sweetie, there was murder in his eyes when he got rid of the one who put his hands on you. He sure didn’t look that way when it was Rachel.”
Martha didn’t wait for an answer, but took her tr
ay and sailed off.
Cam had been upset. Maybe he had yelled at her to hide his true feelings. It was a nice theory, Delilah admitted. One she held on to right up until the moment Cameron left the bar with the blonde, leaving her and Martha to close up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EVERYTHING WAS DARK when Cam came home that night. He didn’t bother to turn on a light in the kitchen. He knew what he wanted and where it was. He went to the cabinet, opened it, pulled out the whiskey bottle and grabbed a glass. Then he walked into the living room, sat on the couch, flipped on the television, muted it, and poured a stiff two fingers of whiskey into the glass.
Face it, he thought as he downed the liquid and it burned its way to his belly. You’re screwed. You can’t make it with a woman you don’t want, and you sure as hell can’t make it with the woman you want.
He knew Delilah wanted him. He could see it in her eyes, he could hear it in her voice. He’d felt it when she’d kissed him, when they had come so close to making love. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Yet the fact remained that she’d run like hell. Each and every time they’d come close, she had run.
He knew why he kept backing off, but why did she? He scrubbed a hand over his face. Because she didn’t trust him. Because she’d just escaped an abusive relationship and simply wasn’t ready to trust a man again. Last night had been about comfort and forgetting. That was all.
Tonight had been about sex. He’d wanted sex without strings, without emotion clouding his mind, without meaning. Because emotion meant pain and he’d had enough of that to last him a lifetime. He’d gone home with Isabel fully intending to take her to bed. She knew the score as well as he did and she wouldn’t have expected anything more than a one-night stand.
Had he ended the evening having steamy, meaningless sex in a very hot blonde’s arms, and finally, finally getting some relief from the ever-present ache he’d lived with night and day since Delilah had come to town? No, of course not. That would have been too easy. Instead, he’d left the woman barely fifteen minutes after he’d arrived at her place. He’d hardly even kissed her, for crying out loud. His heart wasn’t in it. Neither was anything else. He spent the next hour driving around and walking on the beach until he’d been sure Delilah would be asleep.