Miss October

by Madison Hayes

  “I’m Bolt,” he announced, turning his head to smile at her. “Bolt Hardin.”

  “Bolt,” she blurted before she could stop herself. “Your name is Bolt?”

  “Short for Bolton,” he explained. “My grandmother’s maiden name.”

  Were…those eyes gold? Truly gold. Oh my god. Not brown, not yellowish brown, not brown with gold flecks. Gold. Realizing that she’d be staring if she gave those eyes one more second of her goggle-eyed attention, Tavia jerked her head in a nod.

  “Do you have a name?” he prompted her. “Or should I just continue calling you lady?”

  “Yes.” She turned the key in the ignition. “I have two names, actually. My real name and the name I write under.” She eased the car out onto the road.

  “You’re a writer?” Reaching backward, he pulled the seatbelt over his shoulder and stretched it across his hips.

  She tried not to stare into his lap as she rubbed her lips together. “Mm-hmm. My real name’s Octavia Smith—”

  “Octavia! Who saddled you with a name like that?”

  “—and I write under the name of Octavia October.”

  “October,” he murmured. “Never heard of you. So, Miss October, what do you write?”

  “Romance.”

  He yawned as he stretched in the soft, calfskin seat. “That explains why I’ve never heard of you. So, are you going to make me call you Miss October or do you have something else I can use besides Octavia?”

  “You could call me Tavia if you want to.”

  “Sounds good,” he said with a nod. “What does your husband do for a living, Tavia?”

  “Why would you assume I have a husband?”

  “Why would you assume I was assuming anything? Maybe I’m just fishing to find out if you’re married.”

  She scowled through the windshield at the road ahead.

  “So I take it you’re not married,” he said into the silence. “Divorced?”

  “Why do you insist on assuming this must be or must have been my husband’s car?”

  “This is a man’s car,” he stated, rolling his shoulders. “So I’m a male chauvinist pig. So shoot me.”

  “If I had a gun, I would,” she growled back at him. “This is my car,” she informed him. “I’m not married and I never have been.”

  He shifted in his seat as he rumbled out a deep murmuring laugh. “So you do pretty well, then—writing?” He glanced around the Hummer’s interior.

  She gave him a curt nod. “I do okay. And what do you do for a living, Mr. Male Chauvinist Pig?”

  He chuckled—a deep, rich sound of pleasure. “I work on cars.”

  “You work on cars?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  She flicked her gaze at him. “Maybe because your own car is presently broken down on the side of the road?”

  “Oh that?” He shrugged the wide, sloping line of his shoulders. “I just bought the Charger. It needs some work. I have to order some parts before I can fix it.”

  Tavia pursed her lips. No car. No money for parts. The guy had no potential whatsoever. But, oh my god, was he hot! The air conditioner was on, circulating the air inside the car, filling her nose with the intoxicating scent of hot, golden-eyed male. She resisted the urge to take a deep breath and fill her lungs with the warm, sun-bronzed aroma of the man sitting beside her.

  Tavia broke the silence several miles later. “Are you a marine or something?”

  “Me? No. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering where you got that scar.”

  With the tip of one rough, calloused finger, he stroked the corner of his mouth. “This one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Car accident.”

  Right. “What about the one on your arm? Was that an accident too?” she put to him snidely.

  “Nope. That one I got in a fight.”

  She shot a mean grin at him. “Looks like you lost.”

  He shook his head. “I won.” The grin he returned was positively evil. “If you think this is bad, you should have seen the other guy.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He lived.”

  Despite herself, a snort of laughter escaped Tavia’s lips. “No, I mean what did he do to make you so mad?”

  Bolt shrugged. “I wasn’t mad. He threw the first punch.”

  “Oh. Then what did you do to make him mad?”

  His mouth settled into a wicked smile. “Stole his date.”

  Tavia flicked her gaze to the right. “You stole the man’s date?”

  “I can be a bit of an asshole when it comes to something I want. I fight dirty,” he translated. His eyes crinkled at the corners as an expression of pleased reminiscence fell over his face. “She was hot. She was wearing these spiked heels with…ankle straps. You know the kind I mean? I’ve always had a thing for those shoes with ankle straps.”

  Tavia’s eyes widened as she realized his gaze had drifted over her black capris, down her calves, to her plain brown loafers. She jerked her chin. “Yeah, I know the kind you mean,” she answered.

  Jeez. The guy was checking out her feet. Tavia shook her head. But she couldn’t help the smile that crept into the corners of her mouth.

  Chapter Two

  The sun was low on the horizon when Tavia pulled up the long, winding driveway that led to her mountain home. The large, flat space in front of her house was packed with an army of cars and trucks that had been blocking her garage doors for the past week. She was surprised when her passenger had the car door open before she’d pulled the key out of the ignition. Tavia watched as his long legs took him quickly across the concrete in front of her home.

  Four men were struggling to raise a long wall on the new addition to her house. Bolt strode toward them. Joining a thick, burly man at the corner, Bolt stooped, caught the top of the wall with one large hand then heaved upward. With Bolt’s help, the wooden framework of two-by-fours angled upward then settled onto the bolts spearing up through the sill plate. Someone shouted and he reached for a hammer lying on the plywood floor in front of him. The worker next to Bolt offered him a handful of nails. Shoving three of them into his mouth, he tacked the walls together at the corner.

  When Tavia realized her mouth was hanging open, she pressed her lips together. For a complete loser with no potential, the man seemed incredibly…capable.

  He turned and smiled at her as she joined him at the corner of the new construction.

  Tavia gave him a grudging smile. “Don’t you dare chew on those,” she growled. “I don’t want my new addition put together with bent nails.”

  He lifted his chin in answer then spat the remaining nails onto his palm and shoved them into his back pocket—the one that was still intact. His eyes focused behind her as he let out a long wolf whistle. “Is that your appointment?” he murmured with a supercilious grin. “Your all-night appointment?”

  Tavia scowled at him then turned to watch Alex step out of his yellow convertible. The tall, lanky blond wore a dark blazer and gray slacks. His long froth of yellow hair was loose and hung all the way down to the middle of his back. Turning a cold shoulder on Bolt, Tavia left the cocky bastard behind her as she hurried across the concrete drive to greet Alex.

  “Tavia!” Alex started a smile that faltered a bit as he stared over her left shoulder.

  “I’m Bolt,” she heard a deep voice announce from behind her. Then Bolt’s long, tanned arm was between her and Alex as he gripped the smaller man’s hand. Alex winced and Tavia actually heard the bones in his hand crunching inside the mallet of Bolt’s fist. “Bolt Hardin,” he introduced himself. In his free hand, Bolt hefted the heavy, claw-head hammer he’d picked up moments earlier.

  Alex grimaced a smile up at him. “I’m Alex,” he offered when a stunned Tavia failed to introduce him. “Bolt,” Alex repeated vaguely, his eyes switching from Tavia to the hunk of sculpted steel standing at her side.

  Tavia gritted her teeth. “He’s just a hitchhike
r I picked up this afternoon.” When she threw her elbow into Bolt’s ironclad side, she almost chipped a piece of bone off her joint.

  “A hitchhiker?” Alex frowned up at the man beside her.

  “I helped Tavia change a flat,” Bolt said easily, all smooth, unruffled confidence. He reached back and shoved the hammer’s wooden grip to hook through the ragged hole in his back pocket. “She offered me a ride to Albuquerque in return,” he reminded her in a cutting voice.

  “Which I’ll be doing at the very earliest possible opportunity,” Tavia countered through clenched teeth.

  “I’ll be spending the night,” Bolt translated with a lazy smile.

  Alex’s eyes widened as Bolt nodded down at him.

  “So, what’s for dinner?” Bolt asked as he locked his hands behind his head and stretched. His rugged mouth curved into a hard grin and his eyes glinted with a predatory gleam as he regarded Alex like some huge tawny mountain lion eyeing a fluffy yellow house cat.

  Tavia just stared at Bolt. God he was magnificent. In a horrible way, of course. Magnificently awful. Mouthwateringly, magnificently awful. “I think Maria’s planning on steaks,” she answered through flattened lips as she stepped away from the men and led the way to the front door.

  Leaving Alex standing in her living room, Tavia hurried Bolt down the hall, glancing at the watch on her wrist. “I’ll ask Maria to put on an extra steak. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. This is my room,” she told him as she breezed through a set of double doors that opened out into the wide hall. “You can take one of the rooms at the end of the hall. Help yourself,” she threw over her shoulder as she kicked off her loafers and hurried across the thick, cream-colored carpet into the tiled bathroom.

  She almost screamed when he appeared in the mirror beside her. “Jesus, Bolt!”

  “I need a shower,” he told her.

  “There’s a bathroom in every bedroom,” she told him with exasperation. “Take your pick.”

  He propped his shoulder against the bathroom doorjamb. “You got anything I can put on afterwards? These jeans are a bit…”

  “Not unless you’re willing to wear pink sweatpants.”

  “Hey,” he drawled. “I look good in pink.”

  Pushing past him, Tavia yanked open a drawer and dragged out the first pair of sweats she found. They were gray.

  He shook the sweatpants out and held them up against his legs then adjusted them lower. “Hmm,” he murmured. His deep-toned drawl sounded outrageously seductive within the walls of her bedroom. “They’re either going to be low on the hips or short in the ankles. Do you have a preference?”

  Despite her annoyance, Tavia snorted back a sharp bark of laughter.

  He grinned back at her, his golden gaze full of mischief. “So what is it? Hips or ankles?”

  “I’ll leave that for you to decide,” she told him. “Now get out of here, will you?”

  But her guest was staring into the long expanse of her walk-in closet. “Jesus! How many pairs of shoes do you have?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Fifty. Eighty, maybe. Would you get out of here so I can have a shower?”

  “Yeah?” he said, as though he hadn’t heard her. “Do you happen to have a pair with those…straps around the ankles?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Why?”

  “I just like them. They’re sexy.”

  “Okay. If I can find a black pair, I’ll wear them. Okay?”

  He stood solidly in the middle of the room. “They don’t have to be black.”

  “If I can find a pair, I’ll wear them,” she almost shouted. “Now would you please get out of here?”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise!” Flattening her hands on his chest, Tavia gave him a shove.

  The big man didn’t budge. Instead his arms moved quickly to cage her there against his damp, male-scented T-shirt. “Don’t,” he said in a sharp, quiet voice. “Don’t touch. Unless you mean business.”

  With a rough jerk, he had her tight against his hard frame. The man might have been made of iron for all the give there was to him. She could feel every bulging plane of his muscle-stacked chest as it pressed against hers. His large, flat palms slid down her back, molding her body against his, slipping over her backside where his hands clamped around the full, round globes of her bottom. “Do you know what I mean by business?” he rasped out in a growl. Although his voice was deep, the words were cut with an unexpected edge of urgency that took Tavia by surprise.

  His hips moved and she felt the long, angled ridge of his erection scrape across the soft fullness of her belly. Staring up into the molten, gold heat of his eyes, Tavia swallowed hard. “I know what you mean,” she forced out on a stutter. “But you and I have no business, Bolton. Your room is down the hall,” she reminded him.

  * * * * *

  “Cabernet or merlot?” Alex offered a little later as Tavia joined the two men in the dining room. She’d taken a shower and had slipped into a long, swishy blue dress that buttoned down the front. Her hair was still wet but it looked good that way—a tangled mass of wet curls.

  Her emotions were in a bit of a tangle as well. She had a date with Alex. She’d been looking forward to this date for several days. And now that she had him there in her dining room, all she could think about was the man she’d picked up on the side of the road a few hours earlier. What was up with that? She should have been repulsed by a guy who grabbed her ass and ground his hard-on into her belly.

  She should have been.

  She wasn’t.

  There was something so…primitive and male about the way he’d staked his claim on her, following her into her bedroom and snaring her in his arms while her date dallied in the living room, his hands in his pockets. The guy was all male with a keen predatory streak that set him apart from the more civilized breeds she was used to.

  She tried not to stare at Bolt. He looked good wet too. His gold-brown hair was clumped together in thick spikes, adding a splash of wild animal to an already outrageously masculine appearance. He’d opted for low on the hips. The sweatpants. And those sweatpants were slung so far south she could see where his pubic hair climbed out of his groin to join the hair that swirled beneath the dent of his bellybutton.

  “Merlot,” Tavia answered.

  “Bolt?”

  “I’ll have a beer if there’s one to be had.”

  “There’s a case of Miller in the fridge,” Tavia told him. “Ask Maria in the kitchen.” With a small wave of her hand, she indicated a swinging door leading out of the dining room.

  As Alex poured the red wine into the crystal glasses set out on the table, Bolt disappeared through the door to the kitchen. Tavia smiled tensely at Alex while Bolt’s deep murmuring bass rumbled from the kitchen. Her cook responded in her Spanish accent. Picking up a wineglass, Tavia emptied it in a few swallows then reached for the dark bottle and refilled the glass.

  When Bolt sauntered back into the dining room, brown bottle in hand, Tavia took her seat at the rectangular table. She sat where she always sat, facing the windows, plunk in the middle of the table’s long side. Normally this assured her lots of light as well as room to spread out with whatever she was reading—or writing—at the time.

  After a brief instant of hesitation, Alex took the seat on her right, placing himself at the head of the table. She assumed Bolt would then take the seat on her left, at the other end of the table. She was surprised when he took the seat opposite her. Briefly. Then she realized that he’d be incredibly hard for her to ignore, seated directly in front of her. If he’d sat on her left, her attention would have been divided between the two men.

  The evening was shaping up like a game of X’s and O’s. Appropriately, the Irish linen tablecloth was divided into a square pattern of white openwork. Tavia considered the men who shared her table.

  The two men were certainly a contrast. Alex in his pricey Italian blazer and crisp pressed slacks. Bolt in nothing but a pair of
low-slung sweatpants, his bare chest glowing with a splash of sun-bronzed hair, his bulging arms wrapped in a wiry network of veins. When it came to sex appeal, it was no contest. Before today, she’d thought Alex was one of the sexiest men alive. Bolt put him in his place. And that place was somewhere far, far below the predatory breed that sat across from her.

  He was talking to her, she realized. “I found your laundry room in the hall,” he was saying. “Threw my clothes in. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” she murmured.

  When Maria put a salad in front of her broad-shouldered guest, Bolt looked up to thank her. Oh man. That smile of his really melted a lot of the hard edges on his exterior. Tavia had to tear her eyes from the gleaming white that parted his sexy lips. With her fingers wrapped tightly around the stem of her wineglass, she swigged down several more gulps of wine. The merlot was smooth. It went down easy.

  Tavia had a feeling that the wine was the only thing that would go down easy tonight. Without having said anything, the two men were emitting so much static toward one another, you could almost see the tension crackling in the air.

  Not surprisingly, the first volley came from Alex. No doubt the attractive blond felt a mite threatened.

  When Bolt asked Alex whom he favored in Sunday’s game, Alex smiled. It wasn’t a very nice smile either. “England,” he answered. When Bolt hesitated, Alex followed those words with a very patronizing, “I’m sorry. You were probably talking about American football, weren’t you?”

  Bolt shrugged. “Yeah,” he shot back in an easy drawl. “I’d forgotten about the rugby game this weekend. But I think the All Blacks look good this year.”

  Touché. The guy followed international sport.

  After that, the men settled down and behaved themselves for a while as they compared the Colts and the Patriots—American football. Both men wanted to see the Colts in the Super Bowl so the conversation was amicable and proceeded in an orderly manner. Which meant Tavia didn’t have to referee.

  Alex’s next question was a loaded one, fired point blank just after Maria set the steaks out. “So, Bolt,” he asked, slipping a glance in Tavia’s direction, “where do you think the market is headed next?”