by Jill Monroe
“My keys.” Hayden stooped to grab them, closing her fingers tightly around the beauty that was her apartment, mailbox and car keys.
Her throat tightened. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this tiny bit of normalcy. Something concrete and solid and not full of mystery. For the first time since waking up with a strange man in a strange place and driving a strange car, she felt as if all of this might just work out. They’d find their phones and her car and learn just what the heck had happened to them last night.
With a relieved sigh she reached up, wrapped her fingers behind Tony’s neck, stood up on tiptoe and kissed him quick on his closed lips before he had a chance to respond.
“C’mon. There’s a little boutique over there, I’m going to buy you some jeans.”
“Wow. That’s not what I was expecting.”
She threw him a faux haughty smirk. “I know how to treat a man.”
Feeling light and carefree, she raced toward the boutique, daring him to follow.
The mannequins posed behind the glass display windows were dressed in everything from Endeavor T-shirts and trendy skirts to expensive leather jackets. Muted music lilted in the store and the glaring sounds of machines and haze of cigarette smoke faded as they entered.
Although small, the boutique didn’t waste its real estate on clothing sporting prices with anything less than three digits—in front of the decimal. On her budget, she usually shopped at thrift stores and purchased her jeans at the feed supply store, but tonight she was going to get one of the designer pair with the rhinestones on the pockets that the girls wore on campus.
Hayden grabbed one in what she hoped was her size. Then she plucked a white knit blouse off the rack. It was fitted with sleeves that ended right at the elbow. She’d be stuck with the cami, though—no bras or panties in sight. The attendant looked up long enough to direct Hayden to a tiny dressing room in the corner, then returned to texting on her phone.
She grabbed a pair of jeans she thought would fit Tony nicely. With a quick tug, Hayden pulled the curtain closed and quickly shucked her shorts to slip on the soft, very expensive denim. She twisted to check for fit—nice and snug—and then sat to make sure she could still breathe if she sat down. So far, so good. Now for the final test. The mirror inside the dressing room was just a halfsie, but a full-length mirror was affixed to a wall outside the dressing room. Hayden ducked out of the change room and went over to the mirror. She turned so she could spy her backside. “Wow, expensive jeans really do make your butt look—”
“Amazing,” Tony said, and she met his gaze in the mirror. So he liked the shape of her ass. Great, because she liked the shape of his everything. Where was Darcy with that drink tray so she could fan herself? “I’m just going to, uh, try on a new shirt,” she managed to stammer.
She fled into the safety of the dressing room. Took two deep breaths, and then gave her reflection a rueful grin. These jeans were trouble for sure.
She reached for the hem of her shirt and tugged the T-shirt up and over her head, but it got caught. “Ouch.”
“You okay in there?” Tony asked.
Hayden tugged again on the material and another sharp pain ran along her scalp. She tried to lower her T-shirt, but the action only brought more pain. She was stuck. “There’s something caught in my hair, and I can’t see how to get it out,” she whispered.
“Do you want me to come in and help?”
Her smile widened at his hopeful tone.
“Yes, but be discreet about it,” she whispered back.
Tony pushed away the privacy curtain and joined her, then pulled the curtain back into place. Shielding them. He stood beside her, big and handsome, and the dressing room suddenly shrank. “Don’t worry, the woman at the register is too busy playing Candy Crush Saga to notice what we’re doing.”
She felt his fingers gently probe her scalp. Ugh, she could imagine how stupid she looked. Cami and T-shirt almost over her head, her stomach bare. The new jeans the only bright spot.
“Okay, your hair and part of the strap of your cami have tangled around the cuts of the key. Let me just...” With a few careful tugs and pulls, she was free and the tension in her scalp eased. “I’ll help you with the shirt,” he told her and whisked the material the rest of the way off her body.
And like that she was topless. With a soft gasp she turned her back to him, only to realize she now faced the mirror. She quickly covered her breasts.
His wide-eyed gaze met hers in the reflective glass. “I’m sorry, Hayden. I forgot...” His words trailed off as she licked her dry lips. His eyes narrowed and she felt him stiffen behind her.
Her blood pounded in her veins and she found it hard to breathe. Naked desire and hunger waged in the darkness of his eyes. He wanted her, and the knowledge of that want made her knees shaky. Naked thrills shot through her body and pooled in her stomach. He wanted her and she wanted him. It was as simple as that.
She swallowed and slowly lowered her hands.
His quick intake of breath at her actions excited her. Electrified her. All the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. She watched in the mirror as his gaze lowered and settled on her bare breasts. Her nipples hardened under the intensity of his eyes.
Of course the lighting in the room just had to be fluorescent. Ugh. But Tony didn’t seem to mind the way the light played along the curves of her skin and the darkness of her nipples.
“Touch me,” she urged.
Her eyes fell closed as he cupped her breasts.
“No, Hayden, watch me stroke your skin.” His voice was low and hoarse and a whole new set of thrills coursed along her nerve endings.
She lifted her gaze and met his in the mirror. Hayden followed his fingers as they circled her nipples and drew them tight and achy and needy.
“You have beautiful breasts,” he whispered against her temple, and she watched and felt him lick the shell of her ear. How could something that was fairly tame make her whole body tremble?
“You like this, don’t you? Knowing only a thin layer of fabric separates us from being caught? It excites you.”
It hadn’t until he’d mentioned it. Probably would never again, but something about now...this moment...
“I want you to watch as I make you come,” he whispered, his breath a caress against her sensitized skin.
She nodded, wanting that, too. Needing it. Hayden had never ached for anything more.
His right hand trailed lower and splayed against her stomach. “Follow my fingers with your eyes. Don’t look away.” His hand drifted to the waistband of her jeans, and moisture pooled between her legs. She was ready. So ready.
“How are those jeans working out?” the attendant called.
Now? She chose right then to suddenly begin caring about her job?
“You have to answer her,” Tony said, desire lacing his words.
She took a calming breath that hopefully made her voice sound normal. “Nice,” she finally managed to get out between gritted teeth. The corner of Tony’s mouth curved in a satisfied smile. She turned in his arms, breaking the erotic connection.
“Proud of yourself, are you?” she asked him.
He kissed the tip of her nose, a surprisingly intimate and calming gesture. “I would be if my cock wasn’t about to explode. You sure know how to pick your moments,” he told her on a groan. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest.
“I picked the moment? You were the one who came in here,” she reminded him, the aching desire settling down to a banked wanting.
“Who invited whom?” he protested, and she giggled against the muscled hardness of his body.
After a moment, she left his embrace and stooped to pick up her cami. Tony made a noise as she settled the material over her breasts then covered up further with the shirt from the rack.
And all the time he stood watching her.
“I grabbed a pair of jeans for you,” she said, nodding toward the neatly
folded denim on the bench inside the dressing room. “Why don’t you try them on so we can get out of here,” she teased.
“Maybe the woman who left a mound of lost and found clothes piled high shouldn’t be giving orders,” he teased right back.
Her smile instantly vanished. How many times had she been left to clean up after someone who should have known better? She’d worked many waitressing and catering jobs to put her through school, and one thing she’d learned was that a lot of rich people didn’t have the manners to match their money. And now she was one of them. “Oh, no. I’ll be right back.”
But Tony shook his head. “No worries, I took care of it. I also gave him a—”
“You don’t have to say it. You gave him a Benjamin.”
He winked again and she tried to stealthily escape from the dressing room. She tried not to imagine him stripping off his shorts, but she got all hot and tingly, anyway.
A few moments later Tony emerged, appearing more like the Anthony Garcia in the picture on the winners wall. Jeans, a casual cotton button-down and rolled-up sleeves. How could he make such simple clothing look so effortlessly sexy? She couldn’t even kid herself—the man would make overalls hot. And that was damn near impossible.
“If your keys were here, maybe your car is, too.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Probably because she’d been too distracted with thoughts of kissing Tony. Thoughts of Tony in ass-hugging jeans. And thoughts of Tony’s hands on her body.
After paying for their clothes, they raced back to Tony’s car and did a slow, lane-by-lane inspection of the parking lot, searching for her car.
“Nothing.” Her shoulders drooped after they rounded onto the last lane.
He gave her hand a light squeeze. “Your car being here was a long shot anyway.”
Hayden raised a brow. “Oh?”
“What are we, an hour, an hour and a half away from Texas? In that picture we were obviously together, so what are the chances we would have driven two cars here?”
Her clunker wasn’t much good for anything other than getting her to work and to school, and it certainly wasn’t up to a cross-border road trip. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have wanted to take my car all this way.”
“So we try to figure out what club we were at and go from there.”
“Guess we have a new plan.” Five minutes later they were back on the highway. “Goodbye, Endeavor. Thanks for all the cash.”
“I wonder why we stopped there anyway.”
“Probably my idea. Along with never having been to Oklahoma, I’ve never been to a casino, either. My grandparents frowned on gambling so it never really interested me, but ever since that movie came out about those engineering and math students at MIT making big bucks at blackjack my friends have egged me on.”
“You think we were counting cards last night?”
Hayden shook her head. “Believe me, when you have as many student loans as I do, it was something I researched. But the casinos are too good at spotting it now. Too many safety measures. Last night was just a lot of luck, I’m sure.”
“Seems to be the story of my life since last night.”
“You’re forgetting the skunk,” she reminded him.
“Since I don’t remember the incident, I guess it doesn’t count.”
“Just like the se—” Whoa. Had she almost brought up the sex they must have enjoyed last night? Her hands fisted at her sides. Maybe he hadn’t noticed.
“The what? Were you about to mention the sex?”
She folded her arms against her chest. “Never mind. I thought we agreed to put off talking about that subject.”
“True, but that was before you flashed me in the dressing room. Besides, if a woman wants to talk sex, it’s my duty as a gentleman to indulge her. It’s the right thing to do.”
Tiny shivers erupted and feathered down her back. Oh, she could imagine Tony indulging her all right. And all the clues pointed to one long evening of his doing just that. She’d never been to Oklahoma—boom, road trip. Casino on her bucket list—crossed off. Ladybug car? Heck, she hadn’t thought of that little interest since she was ten, and yet, he’d made it happen last night. All clues pointed to Tony spoiling her between the sheets, too. Slow, unhurried kisses. Soft, full-body strokes. Dependable orgasms.
She cleared her throat. “So before we spotted this car, you were telling me how you went from juvie to filmmaker.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Had he noticed the rapidness of her breathing? The way her skin must be flushed? The tenseness of her muscles?
“Had I gotten as far as the Transitional Center?” he finally asked.
“You mentioned it, but I’m still not clear on what it is.”
“Basically a last chance. Twelve guys, all of us in high school, lived at the center. It was kind of like a dorm, I’d imagine. I shared a bedroom with another boy. There was a communal bathroom down the hall and a kitchen by the director’s housing area. We all had to take a night cooking dinner. First home where I had to do chores, too,” he told her with a laugh, thinking of the memory with obvious fondness. “We’d go to school during the day. No getting out of that. And at night, we’d work or learn a trade. They kept us so busy we couldn’t get into trouble. Grade checks, attendance checks, room checks, if there was a way to track us, it was done.”
“And that’s where you learned to fix cars,” she filled in for him. “Did you want to be a mechanic?”
“Yeah, I liked the work. No surprises with cars. They run or they don’t. You figure out what’s broken and you get the part and you make the car work again. People aren’t like that.”
Was he talking about his mother? Other guys at the center? Or maybe himself? “So how did you get into film?”
“The center received a lot of donations. From churches and scout groups, that kind of thing. One night, it was my turn to sort through the boxes. I tried to trade my shift with everyone. No takers. It had been raining for three days straight. I know no one wants to hear people from Southern California whine about rain, but we’d been stuck inside and I was itching to patrol scrap yards for car parts. The last thing I wanted to do was be stuck inside going through shirts and pants and stuff for the kitchen.
“But in one of the boxes I found a video camera. I tinkered around with it for a bit and got it to work. After that, I filmed everything—what happened at school, at work and in the center. It didn’t matter if it was interesting or not.
“My senior year of high school I signed up for an AV class, and the teacher let me use the editing equipment after school. The teacher showed the film I put together that year for the senior banquet.”
She couldn’t help but smile hearing the pride and gratification in his words, and she realized it was the first time he must have felt those things. Although all her family was gone now, she’d always known they were behind her 100 percent. They’d shared in the delight of her accomplishments and encouraged her when she felt down or stumbled in her quest to go to college and become an engineer. Behind Tony’s playful smile and teasing attitude loomed a lot of pain.
“I had caught the film bug, and I knew the story I wanted to tell first,” he said, his fingers once again drumming on the steering wheel. “I wanted to make a documentary about kids growing up on the street. Like me. I was lucky. If I hadn’t caught some big breaks, I’d be in jail right now. Or worse. Still, it was a lot of sleeping in my car and scrounging up money so I could rent some studio time to cut and edit my film. I had to learn everything at the library—distribution networks, how to get involved in film festivals and streaming sites.”
“How many documentaries have you made now?”
“Seven, but I also return to the subjects from my first film to get an update on how they’re doing. And this is the first time I’ve ever left California—usually I stick to where I grew up.”
“And look what happened. You lost your memory and almost lost your car.”
He g
ifted her with a flirty sideways glance. “Hasn’t been all bad.”
How did he do it? Just a few words and one heated gaze and he had her heartbeat ramped up and cheeks feeling hot.
“Thank you for sharing your story, Tony. With most guys you have to pry personal details out of them with a crowbar and fire-retardant tongs.”
“We already covered this—you should date better men.”
Enough with the sexy banter. It was time to play her cards. “Are you volunteering?”
5
“THOUGHT I VOLUNTEERED last night.”
Checkmate. Okay she was mixing up her metaphors, but whoa, his statement floored her. Because somewhere in her mind a thought taunted her—although he didn’t have any memory of last night, he did regret waking up with her this morning. Some tiny prickling doubt had warned her that he’d ditch her quick—just as soon as they knew the truth.
He’d dashed all her self-doubts and assumptions with one sentence. Talk about laying your cards on the table. Now that was the correct metaphor. A tingly excited warmth settled in the small of her back.
He rubbed at his chin. There’d been no razor in the cabin and she spotted the beginnings of his delightful dark stubble.
“This is crazy for me, too,” he said. “I’ve never done a one-night stand, and I doubt I would have started last night. Not my bag. I think I met you last night and there was no way in hell I wanted to say goodbye. Today, all this time on the road with you, hasn’t changed that.”
The breath whooshed out of her body. Up until a few moments ago, Hayden would have been able to write this whole disastrous weekend off as an adventure. In the future she’d be able to recall it as a pleasant memory of a couple of nights with a hot guy she’d met. But now she would never be able to do that. Tony had just made it all real.
She had to be real in return. She owed him that. She fidgeted with her hands for a moment, then shook off her nerves. “Well, if you’re still volunteering, I’d like that.”
He glanced her way and flashed her a sexy smile that she felt all the way to her toes. Hayden smiled back, and even though she knew it had to be all kinds of goofy, she just didn’t care. She had a date with a hot guy.