by Elsa Jade
***
Could her sisters be any less subtle?
Brandy gritted her teeth as they threaded around the big shifter male—did Rita deliberately grind the rubber tip of one of her crutches into his foot?—and made their escape.
Oh, how she longed to join them. But she’d made her bed three years ago and now she had to lie in it.
Er, but not with Mac this time. Even though he was as enticing as ever. The wayward tousle of his finger-length black hair made him look like a naughty boy who needed a scolding and/or a hug. But his body—the solid muscle sheathed in a soft gray cotton T-shirt and worn-out denim—was all man.
Except he wasn’t a man, was he? And that was the problem.
“Okay then,” he drawled into her awkward silence as he backed away. “I guess you’re probably waiting for someone—”
“Wait.” The word jumped out of her mouth like there were a bunch more words waiting impatiently behind it.
Except there weren’t.
He stared at her. “For?”
She frowned. “Four what?” Four legs? Four orgasms? Or had it been five…
“That’s what I asked. Wait for what?”
“Oh.” She nibbled at her bottom lip, the lemon juice burning. She’d been lying in wait for him; why hadn’t she come up with a smooth, sultry, pick-up line? A bit of discreet questioning when she got to town had confirmed he wasn’t seeing anyone, so at least she didn’t have to feel bad about that. “I thought we could have a drink.”
He frowned back at her. “Wasn’t that what you were doing with your sisters?”
“Right! Yes.” She squinted at her drink as if maybe she’d left all the rest of her words in that half-empty martini glass. Maybe the words were at the bottom. She drained the glass. “But now I need another one.”
“Oooh-kay.”
When he glanced over his shoulder toward the bar, she let out a long, soundless gasp at the cheap heat of the bottom-shelf alcohol.
He took a step toward an open spot. “Another one of those?”
“God no,” she sputtered.
He lifted one dark eyebrow in that cute, semi-confused guy way that had made her heart flutter.
God yes. It wasn’t even the booze talking. At least not much. He’d been cute when he’d pull off the side of the road to ask her if she was okay.
She’d been very okay. Newly graduated, newly employed, ready to make a new start in the big city, on her own. Sidetracking for a brief visit with Aunt Tilda had seemed like the least she could do for the woman who’d basically raised her and her sisters.
It wasn’t so much the least she could do before changing her life, as the last thing she’d do.
She’d done Mac with all the enthusiasm of a co-ed who’d roomed for four long, frustrating years with her watchful sisters. Not that they were prudes, but the Wick girls knew the risks of getting too close to anyone outside their circle. With her shiny new accounting degree in hand and a shiny brass nameplate awaiting her in a shiny New York skyscraper, Brandy had calculated the risks and while they weren’t zero, her sexual experience was a big zero, and that seemed the greater shame.
So Mac’s crooked smile and large hands had gotten her where she wanted to go…and totally sidetracked her in the process.
Now it was time to get back on track.
“What do you want?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. Oh, she couldn’t tell him any of it. He’d never—
“To drink?” he finished.
Right. To drink. Getting drunk would make this so much easier. Not her being drunk. He needed to be drunk. But willingly. “Want to split a pitcher?”
He tilted his head. “Of margaritas? Or Long Island ice teas? Or are those your sisters’ drinks?”
She restrained a wince. “Rita doesn’t like to be reminded that our mother named us after everything she drank the night of our conception. And Gin doesn’t even like Long Islands.”
Those lips she remembered so well—half hidden now behind a scruff of beard—quirked. “I’m guessing she goes more for the absinthe.”
Brandy laughed. “Makes the heart grow fonder.”
The tentative curve of his mouth flattened, and her heartbeat followed. Why had she accidentally reminded him of their one-day stand?
Oh man, if he only knew about the real reminder…
He’d never find out, she told herself firmly. That was why she was here, after all.
While he went to the bar, she toyed nervously with the flower in her hair. The hot, loud confines of the roadhouse seemed to press down on the back of her neck, and when she swiveled restlessly on her chair, she caught Mac staring at her from where he waited for their drinks.
Despite being caught, his dark stare didn’t waver.
He was different, somehow. He still looked like the boy picking up hitchhikers that she’d jumped into bed with, but now… He had more edges and yet also seemed more worn. Like the mesa that towered over the town, its stony spires exposed to the brutal elements of storms and sun that only made it more striking.
Her fists curled with the phantom sensation of his dark hair. She’d run her fingers through that shaggy blackness over and over, delighted by the thick, heavy texture. He was even shaggier now, with that scruff of beard that would be rough and tingly on her skin wherever he touched her—
Whoa! He was not touching her again. That was not the plan.
Her breaths were coming too fast, as if she couldn’t get enough oxygen, and the grumbles and cheers of the sports-ball-watching males grated on her like way too many beards all over her…
Ooh, she shouldn’t be thinking about any hairy parts against her lady parts. She had entirely too much hair in her life as it was.
And yet somehow, not quite enough. It had been sooooo long since she’d indulged in her own desires, no wonder she was turned on. Dangerously, distractingly so.
She gulped another painful breath, startled as Mac plunked a glass of something on the table in front of her. He was close enough that inward huff of air was flavored with him. A barely remembered scent that caught her in the deepest primitive part of her brain: fresh wood, cool air, a hint of deeper musk that made her heart skitter sideways.
His animal.
This was exactly where she wanted him, and yet everything in her told her to run. If it had been only her, she would’ve.
Instead, she took another breath, slower and steadier this time, and lifted her gaze without lifting her head, looking at him through her lashes. “It’s so hot in here. Shall we go out to the gazebo where it’s quieter?”
From this distance, she couldn’t miss the wary flare of his nostrils. Did his animal sense the trap? The boy from three years ago hadn’t hesitated when she’d leaned in to give him a bold thank-you kiss for picking her up.
But even though his eyes narrowed, his pupils dilated—an unmistakable sign of his desire.
He stepped back, and for another stuttering heartbeat, she thought he was going to leave… But then he gestured toward the door.
She grabbed her drink—she’d take all the flammable courage she could get—and stood.
He grabbed her elbow when she wavered a little.
“Oops. I guess these weren’t the right shoes for a roadhouse.” She angled one heel outward, as if checking her ankle.
He followed her downward glance, and she felt his gaze like a hot touch over the curve of her bare leg to the four-inch red heel. Honestly, these shoes weren’t right for any place in the Four Corners region.
The little gold moon charm on the anklet glinted in the jukebox’s neon light, and when Mac raised his eyes back to hers, there was an even brighter gleam there. “Gypsy pours a mean drink.”
Brandy couldn’t hold back a snort. “I think she does everything mean.”
His crooked smile flicked out again. “I think you’re not wrong.”
But she was. So, so wrong.
And yet she couldn’t change course. Not if she wanted to ha
ve the future she’d always dreamed of.
Chapter 3
As they stepped out onto the front porch that rambled the full length of the roadhouse, a breeze across the high desert plateau tugged at Brandy’s skirt like little fingers demanding attention. She slicked her hands down her thighs to hold the fabric in place. As much as she needed Mac’s attention, she didn’t want to flash all of Angels Rest. The wind held the lingering heat of the desert rocks, but it was edged with the descending chill of the vast, dark sky above, and she shivered.
Mac stopped. “Maybe it’s too cold out here for that dress. For you.”
“No,” she said quickly. “It feels good.”
“Still, let me grab a coat for you.” Without waiting for an answer, he strode down the porch steps and across the gravel parking lot.
She watched him go. She might not be telling him the truth, but she couldn’t lie to herself: No man in Manhattan filled out a suit the way worn denim fit Mac.
Sighing wistfully into the cocktail glass, she took a sip of the drink he’d ordered for her. The sweet vermouth and simple sugar lightened the brandy to a rosy hue—a classic Metropolitan, although a bit heavy on the bitters. Was he teasing her with the choice?
In the row of well-used pickups, his was one of the most used. Brandy recognized it, but it had more dings, more smudges, and a decal that hadn’t been there before.
“Sunday Landscaping?” She jerked her chin at the truck when he returned with a denim jacket slung over his shoulder.
His jaw tightened for just a second as his gaze dropped. “Yeah. I run an excavation crew for the Domingo family. Not as fancy as an office in New York City, but it’s honest work and pays the bills.”
She looked down too and couldn’t help but see the difference between his work boots and her impractical heels. “I didn’t mean…” She bit the inside of her cheek. She wasn’t here to reassure him about his choices.
She was here to fix her own mistakes.
He didn’t seem inclined to let her finish anyway. “I don’t want you to break that pretty ankle.” For a moment, she thought he was going to send her back inside, but then he held out his arm. “Here. Balance on me.”
He draped the jacket, still warm from being shut up in the cab of the truck, around her shoulders. The whiff of musk was stronger in the denim, and she imagined him sweaty from a day’s work, heading home as the sun went down, but stopping off at Gypsy’s to unwind.
What kind of home did he go to now? Still that basement apartment, dim and quiet? Or…oh no, did he maybe have a girlfriend? Certainly he wouldn’t be drinking with her if that were the case.
God, she was running as hot and cold as the indecisive breeze. And she couldn’t change her mind anyway.
Very deliberately, she threaded her hand through the crook of his elbow.
The bare skin of his forearm was warm under her palm, almost hot, and so hard, the corded muscles flexing to steady her. She shivered again at the memory of aaaall his hot, hard body pressed against hers.
“I forgot how bright the stars are out here,” she said, desperate to think of something—anything!—else.
He nodded as he guided her around the corner of the building. Out back, the scrubby lawn sloped down away from the roadhouse. “That hasn’t changed.”
There was an edge to his voice that would’ve given her pause. Except if she paused for even a second, her cute, come-get-me heels would sink into the earth, like quicksand. Did he mean that she had changed? Did he suspect something?
It didn’t matter if he was suspicious. Nothing was going to stop her from what she needed to do, not Rita’s disapproving tsking, not Gin with the wordless smirks. Definitely not Mac, despite all his rugged muscles and wary animal stares.
She tottered along beside him down the shallow hill. In the last fading light of sunset, the creek at the bottom glimmered with the purples of unknowable secrets. Where did the water come from in this high, dry land? Where did it go? Not that the secrets mattered; it had its course, just as she did.
The gazebo wasn’t one of the pretty white fancy ones that graced the central parks of the upscale neighborhoods where she’d aimed her sights back in the day. This one was cobbled together out of what looked like leftover lumber from the roadhouse, still rough with snags that were only partly buffed by many years of drunken visitors. Still, the boards gave her a more solid surface to stand on as Mac handed her up the three steps to the interior. From that slight elevation, they had a better view of the creek and the wild desert beyond.
“Sort of surprising that this place needs landscaping,” she mused. “It seems like it doesn’t want anything, as if it’s always been exactly like this.”
“That’s an illusion,” he said, his voice still holding that edge that wasn’t quite anger. “Fire, floods, the weight of snow all winter. Even the wild places get roughed up and need some tender, loving care.”
She turned, leaning her hip against the rail that ringed the gazebo. “And the work you do is about making things perfect, not leaving them to chance. Kind of like my work.” Like their first encounter had been just chance.
And this time was very much planned.
He shrugged, his gaze shuttling from the star-speckled horizon back to her. The lights from the roadhouse barely reached this far, but there was a shine in his eyes that wasn’t any artificial light at all.
“Why do I feel that this was meant to be?” he murmured.
Though every nerve in her body suggested she pull the denim jacket tight around her—the only shield she had—instead, she shrugged off the protective layer and faced him. She perched her butt on the rail and leaned outward a bit, just enough so the starlight could touch the skin of her revealed cleavage. Not enough light for a man to see much, of course, but a shifter was more than a man.
Sure enough, his gaze tracked her from her breasts to her hips angled toward him.
When his jaw clenched, she could almost feel his teeth closing gently at her throat.
His lashes dropped halfway, hiding the glitter in his eyes. “Did you not want it?”
Oh yeah, she’d wanted it. She just hadn’t expected as much as she got. She blinked. “Want what?”
“Did you not want that drink?”
She glanced sidelong at the cocktail she’d abandoned on the rail. In the shadows, the rosy hue of the drink looked darker. Like blood.
Swallowing hard, she admitted, “I guess I really just wanted to get you alone.”
His eyes flared open, as if he hadn’t expected her honesty. Boy, he had no idea…
“I thought about you after you left,” he said. The sharp edge to his voice finally seemed to crack away, exposing a new facet.
Too much honesty. But she owed him something, maybe. “I thought about you too. You were so nice to me.”
He exhaled a hard gust of air. “Nice.”
Her lips twitched. “In a very manly way.”
He didn’t return the smile. “You were a virgin, weren’t you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Did it matter?”
“Did you see it stopping me?” he countered.
“Not much.” With another swallow, she reached out one finger to trace a short line down the center of his chest. The hard bulge of his pecs on either side heaved a little at the touch, not quite a shiver, but not quite not. “You were everything a girl could want.”
Just more than she’d planned.
He took a half step closer, pressing her closed knuckles against his sternum. “And what do you want now? Seems a little late for round two.”
She torqued her lips to one side in wry agreement. “I, uh, got a little busy.”
“You came to the right place for not busy.”
“I think there’s a lot more to Angels Rest than meets the eye,” she murmured.
When he tucked his chin, brow furrowing as if summoning up a question she didn’t want to answer, she opened her clenched fingers just far enough to tangle in the soft cotton o
f his T-shirt and dragged him the rest of the half step toward her.
His knees wedged between hers, and then she definitely didn’t need his jacket as the heat of his big body enveloped her.
Though only their knees touched, the contact sent a tiny earthquake up through her thighs to the low point of her belly. She wanted to clamp her legs tight. And she wanted to open them wider. All her muscles seemed to soften, tilting her toward him, and the bodice of her sundress felt too restrictive, as if her suddenly sensitized breasts were trying to bust through the open neckline to get to him.
It wasn’t fair that he could confuse her so much so easily even though he’d barely touched her. He’d already upended her life once; she couldn’t let him do it again.
Not when it wasn’t just her life at stake.
When she didn’t move, didn’t speak, he straightened, those big shoulders still looming over her but making a space that let the night air whisper between them. “If you’re having second thoughts about round two—”
“No!” She jolted forward off the rail which put her squarely between the wide stance of his boots. “I’m just…”
Her cute, impractical heels almost negated the difference in their height, but she was achingly aware of how much he outweighed her. The bulk of his torso was double hers, and the circumference of his biceps was probably greater than most of the runty trees on Mesa Diablo. Every part of him was threatening to overwhelm her need to stay focused.
Instead of just focusing on her need…
It had been so long since she gave herself up to the simple desires of her body. Maybe, just once more, she could indulge in this pleasure. Surely a shapeshifter would approve of these animal urges.
She took a slow, deep breath, letting the cool night air and the simmering heat of his body swirl inside her, braiding together with her determination. With the inhalation, her breasts brushed his chest, and hidden behind the pink roses, her nipples puckered with wanting.
Mac stared down at her, his lips barely parted on a rasping breath that sounded almost like a growl, as if he were dragging her scent over his tongue. His obvious hunger stoked her own, and the steady, insistent pulse between her legs quickened.