“Go.”
“Night’s not over, sweetheart.” One muscular, long arm reached out, the dark hair patterning his forearm, and his big hand caught her wrist.
“Are you insane? It’s over. And it wasn’t that great, FYI” She hadn’t meant to say that, really she hadn’t. That was crass, too. He just seemed to bring out the worst in her.
“Then I guess I’ll have to give you something more to grade me on.” The words seemed squeezed out between gritted teeth and his eyes were chips of granite.
She struggled with him as he yanked the robe from her hands and tossed it away, using his size and weight to push her backwards onto the bed. He pinned her hands at her sides, lowering his head to her drenched apex. For a moment she nearly gave in, let him tongue her to orgasm, but she rejected the need. They weren’t keeping a balance sheet.
“Red.”
His movements ceased as if by magic, his head lifting, eyes narrowing on her own. “Did you just use your safe word? With me?”
“You need to go.”
She lay sprawled as he moved off of her and then the bed, mouth set and jaw clenching. He dressed without comment, never looking once in her direction as she inched her legs closed and felt furtively for her robe. She didn’t think he’d be sexual with her again, but he was most certainly pissed. She wasn’t physically afraid of him, but men like Dean Chambray didn’t take kindly to being rejected. Especially when he was the one to do the loving and leaving, make that the fucking and leaving. He’d want the last word.
“Keep the condoms and the lube, sweetheart. Wouldn’t hurt to get in a little more practice.”
Okay, then. There it was. She’d poked the bear in his big, fat ego, and Dean was just a man, after all. Sad. The comment irked her, though, and annoyingly made her wonder what he’d had in mind for the rest of the night’s activities. She let the condoms lie, scattered as they were, but snatched up the lube, following him as he worked the locks free and exited her home. Her steps faltered when she realized she hadn’t reset the alarm once they were inside. There was that paradox again—feeling both protected and anxious. She shook it off.
The well-lit shared driveway, compliments of her paranoid neighbor, gave her a clear view of his fine ass and oh-so-controlled gait. No massive erection to impede his grace this time—just affronted male. Amy wound up like the pitcher she’d been on the softball team in juvie and let fly. The bottle sailed through the air to smack the windshield of macho man’s big black truck dead center, the plastic cap likely popping open, because the liquid sprayed out to scent the night. And to coat the glass and hood.
Amy turned on one bare heel and ran like all the furies of hell were on her tail to make it safely inside her house and throw all the locks, managing to punch in the security code with a trembling finger. She huddled behind the door, breathless at her actions, struggling against impending hysterical laughter. She heard no sound for a really long time, the anticipation nearly killing her, then thought she heard male voices. Listening hard—was that a scuffle? Just as she screwed up the courage to open the door, she heard one slam, and caught the grinding of a starter. He was leaving. She hit the lights and headed for her room, using the glowing square of illumination cast from beyond her bedroom door as her guide.
Hurling herself face down on the mattress, Amy laughed until she cried, the tears flowing with surprising ease, a luxury she rarely allowed herself. They cleansed her somehow, coupled as they were with mirth. It wasn’t her birthday any more, the hour well past midnight, but it was one to remember, anyhow. She decided she didn’t feel badly used, having shaken up a misogynist womanizer who had a little too much faith in his prowess. And if that something deep inside of her ached and whimpered, well, it was nothing more than she deserved. Secretly hoping for something special was always doomed for failure and disappointment. On that thought she crashed, the events of the night too much for her overloaded system.
****
Dean stood on the neighbor’s side of the drive, scowling at the oily residue on his truck, unwillingly smelling strawberries. This was bullshit. The whole evening had been off. He was still unsettled, in fact so unsettled, he was thinking about breaking into a certain blonde’s home and spending the rest of the night, or day, or week, or month, as long as it took, to discuss the anointing of his truck, to satisfy his burgeoning need for her, and incidentally, make her take it back. Not that great? It had been sensational, all of it.
She’d screamed her release. The woman loved blowing him. He had scented her arousal. It was an amazing blow job, none better, and he just had to open his big mouth and fuck it up. Nice afterglow. And she’d used a safe word! What the fuck? He was standing outside a woman’s house, his truck lubed, second guessing his sexual performance, having met and kissed a birthday girl and witnessed her amazing submission along with a hundred other people. Dean shook his head. Time to chalk this one up to experience and head home. He was a serious, dangerous businessman with a secret that could get him killed, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted, not even by a precocious, unpredictable, beautiful, blonde Amazon.
“What are you doing standing out here?” The voice belonged to a thin, bespectacled man wearing a jacket over pajamas, clutching a cell phone. Dean recognized the type. Powerless, so he tried to lord it over others with petty enforcement of so-called rules.
“I was just leaving.” Better he let it go and not give little Hitler here any reason to call the cops. Dean had lots of contacts in the department but his street cred would take a hit if they responded to a call and saw—and smelled—the lube. Amy so deserved an ass paddling for that.
“Well, see that you do, and if Mizz Copeland is going to entertain this late she’d better watch where people park and ensure they don’t hang around. This is a nice neighborhood.”
Dean traversed the distance between him and the other man, grabbing the phone and tossing it onto the lawn. He hauled the prick up by the collar and shook him. “Watch your mouth, got me?” When the man’s bravado leaked out like air from a pricked balloon and he nodded, Dean shook him again. “You give Miss Copeland any trouble, I’ll finish it. Got it?”
He released the asshole, shoving him backwards. Little Hitler’s arms flailed to catch his balance. He hustled away around the corner and Dean swung up into his truck. Knowing the wipers would just smear the lube, he turned them on anyway, plying the wiper fluid switch until it cleared enough of a path for him to see through. He drove home immersed in the smell of fruit, wishing he’d put the stuff to better use.
As he parked, a shape flowed out of the shadows, punctuated by the glowing coal of a cigarette. Olsen. The only man in his crew who smoked. Maybe he was grabbing a cigarette outside in deference to Dean’s recent threat to make him paint the fucking walls in his unit because of what his habit was doing to them.
The man sniffed. “You hit somethin’?” It was surprising he could smell anything past the nicotine.
“Other way around.” Dean left Olsen to puzzle that one out and climbed the steps to his condo, noting with satisfaction the turn that made the property more easily defensible, creating a bottleneck, a choke point, should people want to hit him at home. He had an exit through the bottom level, too, one that few knew about. The rest of his crew lived in the complex, making for additional resources, should he require them. The day would come when he’d put this life behind him, but it was a vague date in the future and he had work to do first. It all came down to one important coup.
Getting himself a beer from his enormous fridge, he pulled his boots off and leaned back on the couch, feet up on the coffee table. He looked around his home, decorated by some firm Randy had chosen, and compared it to the little place he’d just left. He wondered, if he had decorated, chosen his own furniture, colors, if it would reflect his personality. It was presently a wickedly expensive, if tasteful, high-end way station, a place to sleep and hole up. He never cooked here, rarely had people over, and his bedroom featured a big comfor
table bed and a place to store his clothes. An altogether sad commentary on a home, and a marked contrast to his childhood one, at least physically. Neither nurtured his soul.
Marsha Chambray had no time for her son, pawning him off on her mother soon after she pushed him out, unable to spare the time from her pursuit of the drug of her choice. He had a few vague memories of a nice, old gramma, holding him on her lap and reading to him in a broken mixture of English and French, cooking him rich and tasty meals. Kissing him goodnight and making him say his prayers. But she died and his mother came for him, the new family allowance monies the impetus of her newfound maternal drive. She could expand her horizons with the extra cash. As her looks faded, assaulted by the bottle or two of vodka she drank like water every day, supplementing her income with whoring also dried up.
Dean scrambled up on his own from around age four, rejected and rebuffed by the person he needed the most, and he understood it inhibited his emotional expression and made him insistently independent. Once he attended school, he no longer needed her for anything, getting his fix from a constant turnover of strangers and a few regulars.
All the horror stories of Catholic schools aside, Dean had no doubt charity saved him. He got touched a lot, in a good way, the teachers ruffling his hair, some of the women giving him little squeezes, finding him lunches and snacks. Unlike other little boys, he didn’t pretend to eschew the attention, soaking it up instead, his size and willingness to use his fists shutting the traps of any kids who remarked on his possible sexual orientation. His quick brain garnered him further consideration, particularly in math and the sciences. It was a wonder his brain developed, considering how much his mother drank, Dean being the exception to that rule about fetal alcohol effects. He supposed he should be grateful she never left the neighborhood because that ensured the consistency of his schooling.
It also meant everyone knew Marsha Chambray’s son, fathered by some nameless drifter. The kid who was on the street at all hours, time when some stuff that went down could be attributed to him. Dean lucked out there, too, with the local beat cop taking him in hand, showing him the way. Officer Duncan, unknowingly, was the role model Dean emulated, the profession he decided on the first time the cop caught him acting out and treated him fairly. It wasn’t enough to keep him from running errands for the local crime lord, but enough to keep him out of the limelight and line of fire. The money paid their rent and fed him. His mother never seemed to notice she wasn’t evicted, and drank her meals, pilfering his hard-earned cash.
That emotional inhibition contributed to his inability to form relationships, too, although it didn’t impair his sexual competence. Without the emotional attachment, he could focus his attention on the physicality. Honed sexual skills, coupled with his appearance—he was well aware he was handsome and took good care of his body—meant women were always available, like a never ending supply. It wasn’t something he wore like a badge of honor, but he needed the release, one of the few he allowed himself.
Checking his watch, he noted how long he’d been lost in reminiscing. Lots to do in the morning, particularly with an asshole trying to weasel his way into the business. Dean would be a wealthy man in his own right if he cleared his plate of everything but the legitimate side of things, but that wasn’t his call. He had a superior to answer to, however vague and tenuous their connection, and there were expectations to be met. He drained the bottle and chucked it into the bin. His housekeeper would be by tomorrow and he made a mental note to leave her a list of things to pick up, then headed to bed, deciding to shower in the morning. And it wasn’t because he wanted to savor the scent of Amy still lingering on his skin.
****
The room didn’t seem any different at four o’clock. By rights he should be deep in sleep, regenerating, alone in this big, empty bed. Instead he was staring into the dark, senses alert and assimilating any changes in his space as the clock ticked ahead, approaching the time he normally got up. His nose was still full of strawberries, but he could faintly smell Amy. Just a hint of woman and something with grassy overtones. Finally, he got up and hit the shower, scrubbing hard and long, toweling off to fall back into bed and seek that elusive sleep. Nothing doing, so he allowed himself to think about her, resigned to a sleepless night.
He’d had tall, curvy blondes before, being an equal opportunity kind of guy. Hair color, height, and body shape really didn’t matter to him. If the woman appealed, he set his terms, and they either went along or they didn’t. What was it Randy said so crudely, if accurately? They put out and then he put them out. For sure, some of them entertained the idea they would change him, domesticate him. An occasional romp between the sheets, that meant nothing more to him than an intense sexual release, was hardly the basis for what some women anticipated. Those he moved on immediately. The ones who took what he gave them and didn’t cling were sometimes invited back for an encore. Dean knew that made him a shit in the eyes of most women, but at least he was honest. He didn’t prevaricate. It was all he had to give so they shouldn’t expect anything more.
Closing his eyes against what that self-examination led to, he stifled a groan. Good old mom. Say a big thank you to her for your troubles, ladies. Even now, he couldn’t shake her, not as an adult, extremely successful by any number of other standards. She wasn’t lucid most of the time now anyhow, sparing him to a large extent, but once in awhile the care facility would call and request that he come to visit. And he’d go like a good boy, only to be fucked up for days afterward, yet unable to refuse the summons.
Amy seemed different. He’d been told no before, albeit not in recent memory, and it wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t chase. So why had he pursued her? Cudgeling his brain didn’t formulate an answer so he looked at it from a different perspective. If she wasn’t significantly different physically than one or two other women he’d had, there had to be something else. He doubted he would have been able to change her mind if it hadn’t been for that scene at Grand Masters—he’d capitalized on it—shamelessly.
Dean jackknifed up in his lonely bed, squinting into the darkness. Fuck. She was like him. Something as yet indefinable, but very much a part of who he was, recognized something quite similar in her—uncompromising and defined. She probably had some kind of history that precluded building a relationship. He wondered if she felt it, too, and supposed she did, and might be taking a cautious look. Women were better at the nuances than men. Dean had studied enough psychology to know it.
That mystery solved, he decided to leave it to percolate. It would take some consideration before he acted on it, or not. The section of his brain tasked with puzzling out mysteries and solving quandaries relaxed, and he felt the darkness swallow him up. His last thought was that his brief encounter with his Amazon had been great.
Chapter Three
The faint ringing of her cell pulled Amy from a deep sleep. Struggling upright, she pushed at the hem of her robe, now rucked up around her waist, a lump of the material uncomfortable under one hip. She squinted at the clock. Seven-oh-five. Not fair. The phone began to ring again, and she realized it must be in her purse which was … maybe in the living room. The memory of last night descended like the proverbial ton of bricks and she grimaced. Oh, boy. Not even in her checkered past had she committed such a sheer number of faux pas in a single evening. That would be Sandra calling, holding on until seven before she punched in Amy’s number. Well, at least Amy wasn’t hung over. She also wasn’t ready to talk to Sandra yet.
Staggering into the bathroom, she sank down on the toilet, her nether regions tender and aching dully. The usual morning routine seemed to take a long time. She fumbled the tap on from a sitting position and pushed a face cloth under the stream of hot water pouring into the sink. Squeezing it out one-handed she scrubbed it over her face and neck, daubing beneath her eyes. She winced at the black residue on the pink cloth. Obviously makeup removal hadn’t been on the list last night. Standing to wash her hands, she took a cautious look in th
e mirror. Aside from a classic case of bed head, the familiar face reflected back didn’t shout out any revelations, belying the churning inside her chest. Shit. Where were the easy answers when one needed them?
Stripping off the robe, Amy dropped it into the hamper, followed by the washcloth and towel. There was another towel draped over the edge of the hamper and she stared at it, willing it to fall inside so she didn’t have to think about the body it had touched. She wandered, nude, back into the bedroom and pulled the pristine white sheets from the bed, rolling the cases off the oversize pillows. She really needed to get the correct size the next time she went shopping—and she was thinking inane thoughts to avoid the issue front and center in her head. The linens filled the hamper to bursting and had the added advantage to pulling that towel down inside with them. Only then did she locate her purse and dig through the contents to find her phone.
“Are you okay? I’ve been calling since seven!”
“I’m fine, Sandra. No harm, no foul. Did the deed, the usual.”
Silence. Had she given it away? She thought she’d taken enough time to compose herself… Amy held her breath.
“I’m coming over. We’ll go for breakfast. Ten minutes.”
“I need to shower first. Make it half an hour.”
“Ten. I’m not leaving you alone to think and mess your head up.”
“Okay.” No point in arguing with an expert. Amy ended the call and took as hot a shower as she could stand.
She could still smell him, and scent triggered people as much, or more, than visual cues. Hence, the laundry pile. What had she been thinking? This felt pretty awful, the morning after syndrome, but awful in a different way. Usually she just felt used. Today she remembered the sexual vampire analogy and involuntarily touched the hollow of her throat, right where he’d—moving on. Had to. She hurriedly rinsed her hair and the residue of soap from her body, resolutely not thinking. She was wrapped in a bath sheet, her hair wound up in a smaller towel, when the door bell rang.
Forever (Eternity #1) Page 5