by Brenda Novak
“I never thought we could stick to a truce,” she said, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. “But I think this is going to work out just fine.”
“Beats the hell out of finding pincher bugs in my locker,” he responded. Then, just because she was molded so perfectly to his body and he couldn’t resist, he traced the curve of her ear with the tip of his tongue very subtly, so no one could see.
She shivered and melted into him and he began to think about how badly he wanted another chance to have Rebecca in his bed….
He slipped his thumb under her blouse to lightly graze the soft skin at her waist. “You feel good, Beck.”
“I could feel better,” she said, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Is that an invitation?” he asked.
“What do you think?”
“It sounded like an invitation to me.”
She nearly leveled him with a temptress’s smile. “Didn’t we start something a year ago that we never finished?”
Josh blinked at her. “You didn’t want to finish.”
“Can’t a girl change her mind?”
His first impulse was to take Rebecca by the arm and steer her out of the Honky Tonk and straight to the old Suburban he was driving until the insurance check arrived and his new Escalade SUV was ready. She might have torched his Excursion, but now she was setting other things on fire—things he liked hot. Only he hadn’t decided whether it was wise to take whatever was going on between them to the next level. He was supposed to be getting her out of his system, not allowing her to inflame his deepest desires. And there was Mary. He might have tried to break off their relationship, but she hadn’t really accepted it.
“I don’t know. The night’s young,” he said, stalling. If I have half a brain, I’ll run out of here as fast as my legs can carry me.
She tilted her head back to look up at him and he caught a faint whiff of spearmint and alcohol on her breath. Liking the scent, he bent closer, giving her a brief kiss. The tavern was dark and smoky, the music loud, creating the illusion of privacy. Still, nothing in Dundee went unnoticed. He just couldn’t make himself pull away. Every dream, every fantasy he’d ever had centered on Rebecca.
“That’s no answer,” she said.
He tightened his embrace. “What exactly do you have in mind? Your sudden departure last time wasn’t particularly enjoyable. I’d like to know a little earlier if you’re going to bail out on me.”
“That depends,” she said.
“On what?”
“On how things go.”
Nothing about Rebecca was ever easy. Even when she propositioned him, he couldn’t tie her down. But he had to admit that her unpredictable nature was part of her allure.
Of course, that same trait could bring even a strong man to his knees….
“What about Delaney?” he asked, although his conscience was screaming, “What about Mary?”
Rebecca arched her brows, her expression world-wise and slightly cynical, yet feminine in the extreme. God, there was something about this woman he craved.
“She can’t come with us,” she said.
“You’re going to leave her here?”
“She’s nine months pregnant, due in a week. She’ll be more than happy to go home early.”
“Are you going to tell her you’re leaving with me?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
Another sexy smile. “No. That’ll be our little secret.”
Her voice had turned husky. Josh felt his groin tighten as he tried to read what was going on behind her eyes. Was she setting him up? It wasn’t like Rebecca to be this nice, this…open. At least to him. If he took her home, would she make love with him tonight, then spit in his face tomorrow?
Chances were she would. But tomorrow suddenly seemed very far away.
“So?” she asked. “What do you say?”
What did he say? Getting together with Rebecca after someone as steady as Mary would be like trading the safety of the bunny hill for the steep depths of the hardest ski run on the mountain. With Rebecca, he’d go careening down the slopes, gathering speed until he was flying through uncharted territory with only a vague idea of the obstacles and pitfalls he might encounter. Life would be anything but safe or secure. But it would be exciting. And somehow he knew, for better or for worse, that this was the woman he could love for the rest of his life.
He’d never been a big fan of the bunny hill, anyway.
Taking a deep, decisive breath, he brushed a quick kiss across her forehead. “I have to do something,” he said. “Send Delaney home, and meet me outside in fifteen minutes.”
Then he called Mary, insisted her mother let him talk to her when she tried to say Mary wasn’t home, and broke the news as gently as he could. On his way out, he told his brother to get a hotel. After what happened a year ago, he wasn’t about to risk another interruption. Not tonight. Tonight Rebecca was his.
* * *
REBECCA ANGLED HER HEAD to better receive Josh’s kiss and buried her hands in his hair, which was thick and had just enough curl to give it body. He smelled of the leather coat he’d been wearing, and some sort of aftershave. Taken together with the feel of his bare chest against her naked breasts, the sensation was overwhelming. She could scarcely breathe for the desire that threatened to consume her.
This was nothing like it had been with Buddy. Nothing at all, she thought dimly. Thank God she hadn’t settled…. She wouldn’t have wanted to miss something like this.
It occurred to her that Josh was the reason she hadn’t settled, but she didn’t want to give him too much credit, not when he’d interfered in her life just to hurt her.
He rolled her beneath him on the bed, covering her with his big body even though he still had on his pants and she her skirt, and angled his hips so that she could feel the delicious pressure of him. She wrapped her legs around him to draw him closer, feminine satisfaction heightening her pleasure when he groaned and deepened his kiss.
“You kiss so well,” he said, running his tongue lightly over her bottom lip and tugging it gently into his mouth.
She could’ve said the same to him, but she was too busy reveling in his solid weight anchoring her to the mattress. If he did other things half as well as he kissed, she had a lot to look forward to. The next few minutes would finally put an end to the curiosity and yearning she’d experienced for so long.
“Do you like this?” he asked, gently suckling one breast, then holding it so he could witness her nipple’s response in the light from the hall. She watched him, strangely captivated by the eroticism of what he was doing.
“Do you?” he prompted.
She let her lips curve into a smile and nodded.
“Then say it. I want to hear you say it,” he said, gazing at her with half-lidded eyes that made him look lazy and relaxed even though she could feel the tautness of his body.
“I like it,” she muttered, her breath ragged.
“You want more?”
“Um-hum.”
“Tell me what else you’d like.”
“You want to hear me talk dirty?”
“No, I want to hear you say you want me,” he said. “That it wouldn’t be the same with anyone else. That no one else will do.”
Rebecca felt far more comfortable with the purely physical. The physical she could close off when she needed to; it didn’t threaten her. But he was asking her to combine the sharing of pleasure with something far more personal, and she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t bare her soul for Josh Hill. She had certain defenses against him she refused to tear down, even now, and precisely because she did want him, and only him, inside her, meant she could never say what he insisted on hearing.
“I wouldn’t have let you bring me home if I didn’t want to be here,” she said, skirting the issue.
He leaned up on his elbows, a frown on his face. “That’s the best you can do?” he asked, sliding one hand beneath her skirt. “Come on, Becky. I want to h
ear you say my name. I want to be sure you know it’s me who’s making you writhe and cry out.”
When she said nothing, his hand stopped its gradual ascent on her thigh. “Beck?”
“Josh, let’s…let’s not play games,” she said hoarsely. “It’s not as though we have any illusions about each other, right?”
He pulled his hand away. “What illusions are you talking about?”
“That anything will ever come of this. I mean, we’ve been enemies too long for that.”
His eyes grew watchful in a different way. “So what are we now?”
Rebecca paused. She could tell this was suddenly veering off-course, but she couldn’t figure out how to steer it back without giving too much of herself away. Was he hoping for some type of confession that would finally cede him the victory of the battle that had waged between them since they were kids? Because she could never give him that. She’d held a grudge against Josh Hill for twenty-four years, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away now. It was her talisman, her protection from the devastating charm he used to conquer everyone else, her only insurance that he would never find her wanting as her father always had. “For the moment we’re lovers, I guess,” she said.
“For the moment.”
A foreboding note had entered his voice. It made Rebecca a little uncomfortable. “Yeah.”
“And in the morning?”
“Look, let’s not talk, okay? That’ll ruin everything. Tonight is tonight, and tomorrow is tomorrow.” She reached for the zipper of his jeans, eager to get back to what she’d been enjoying so much, but he pushed her hand away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why’d you bring me here if this isn’t want you want?”
“It is what I want.”
“Then what’s wrong? What are you waiting for? I want the same thing.”
He shook his head. “You’re not ready,” he said, rolling off the bed.
Rebecca couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. What the heck did he mean, not ready? She’d never been more ready in her life!
“What are you talking about?” she cried, sitting up and pulling the sheet over her breasts to cover herself. In the face of his sudden rejection, she felt newly vulnerable. “Is this some sort of revenge for the Excursion?”
“No.”
“Are you getting back at me for walking out on you a year ago?”
“No.”
“Then what? You want me as badly as I want you. You can’t hide it, you know.”
“I’m not trying to hide it,” he said. “I’ve already admitted as much.”
“Then why aren’t you making love to me?”
“Because I want it to mean something, okay? I can sleep with anyone, but it’s just another screw unless…unless you care.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not. I won’t touch you again until you can look me in the eye and tell me I’m the only man you want. And that you’d trade anything to have me.”
Rebecca clenched the sheet with both hands. “Are you crazy?”
Cupping her chin, he angled her face up until they were nearly nose to nose. Rebecca thought he might kiss her again—hoped he would. Everything he’d said had to be an unkind joke. How like Josh to do this, to taunt her this way….
“Maybe I am crazy,” he said, “but nothing’s going to happen between us until you find the guts to take the same risk I’m willing to take. I go, you go. We jump together.”
“I don’t understand this,” she protested.
He bent and picked up her bra and blouse from where he’d tossed them on the floor and handed them back to her. “Then I’ll make it easy. If you can’t care about me, I don’t want anything to do with you. Now get dressed, and I’ll drive you home.”
* * *
OF ALL THE dirty rotten things Josh had done, Rebecca thought this one was the worst. If you can’t care about me… As if he cared about her! As if he wasn’t practically engaged to Mary Thornton! As if he’d ever want more from her than a quick tumble!
Except that he could’ve had his tumble, and he hadn’t taken it.
Not that she cared. She didn’t really want him anyway.
A pang in her chest told her she’d like nothing more, but she ignored it and continued to stare out the car window as he drove her home, wondering where she’d gone wrong. At the Honky Tonk, she’d had him eating out of her hand. She’d known he’d ask her to dance, and he did. She’d known he’d take her home, and he did. When they’d reached his place, events had taken an even better turn. So how had he ended up in charge?
She couldn’t say exactly. It was somewhere between the time he removed her blouse and the time he started asking her to tell him things she couldn’t say. Which meant she’d denied him first, right? But somehow that didn’t matter. Any way she looked at it, he’d won this little skirmish. No doubt about it.
Damn him! She’d never been able to best him. Not really.
He pulled to the side of the road in front of Granny Hatfield’s and let her out without saying a word. After she slammed his door, he drove off, and a minute later she was watching his taillights disappear around the corner.
“Jerk!” she muttered, cutting across the wide front lawn to let herself in.
Booker was sleeping under a quilt on the couch, the television on, as she tried to slip through the living room. Before she could escape to her room, however, he stirred and called her name.
“Beck? That you?”
She hesitated at the foot of the stairs, afraid he might guess where she’d been. He seemed to have a sixth sense where she and Josh were concerned.
“Beck?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“The Honky Tonk,” she said, having to invest some real effort in making her voice sound happy enough.
“After I brought Granny home, I went by the Honky Tonk.”
Rebecca’s heart dropped to her knees. “Oh. Was Delaney still there?”
“No, but Bobby was. He said you went home with Josh.”
“Josh left a few minutes before I did.”
“Yeah, well, nice try. But it didn’t fool anybody.” He flipped off the television and rose up on one elbow. “So was it everything you thought it’d be?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone’s blaming you for why he broke up with Mary. I was hoping you’d at least get something out of it.”
Chills suddenly cascaded through Rebecca’s entire body. “Josh broke up with Mary?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“When did he do that?”
“Tonight, I guess. Just before closing she came to the Honky Tonk looking for him. And she was mad as hell.” Yawning, he rolled over. “I guess he didn’t mention it.”
“No,” she said. “He didn’t.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“HOW’D IT GO last night?”
Rebecca blinked and sat up, wondering how she’d managed to answer the telephone in her sleep. “Delaney?”
“Your powers of perception are improving.”
“What time is it?”
“Eight.”
“Eight?” Rebecca shoved a hand through her hair and grimaced at her bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror above her dresser. “You woke me up at eight on a Saturday morning?”
“You have to work today.”
“Not until eleven.”
“Okay, I couldn’t wait any longer to hear how things went with you and Josh last night.”
Rebecca could have waited until much later to fill Delaney in. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That bad, huh?”
That good. Almost. “He’s not…realistic,” she said, knowing her complaint sounded weak. But it was difficult to come up with anything worse. Josh had been loving and attentive and sexy as hell. Everything had been perfect until he’d suddenly changed direction.
> “Really?” Delaney was obviously not convinced. “I’ve gotten to know him a little bit through Conner and this whole resort business, and he seems pretty realistic to me. He seems nice, too. I was actually hoping you two could find some common ground for once.”
“He’s not what he seems. It’s an act,” Rebecca said, even though she knew it wasn’t true.
“Right.” Delaney chuckled. “So, did you two—”
Rebecca cut her off before she could get any more specific. “No.”
“Sure seemed like things were drifting that direction when you were plastered to him on the dance floor last night.”
Plastered to him on the dance floor? Rebecca rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. How many other people saw it that way? “I wasn’t exactly plastered to him,” she said.
“Any closer and you would’ve been inside his clothes.”
Cursing her own stupidity, Rebecca flopped back onto her pillows. “That’s probably what Mary heard when she arrived, then.”
“How do you know Mary arrived?”
“Booker told me she came to the Honky Tonk around midnight, looking for Josh.”
“Uh-oh. Did she ever find him?”
“Not while I was with him.”
“Thank God for small favors. I don’t know exactly what their situation is, but I know she feels pretty possessive. How long were you at his place?”
Not long enough. Rebecca pulled her covers over her head to shut out the light, wishing she could close off the memory of Josh and what had happened just as easily. “About half an hour.”
“That’s it? What went wrong? You’re really making me curious, you know that?”
Letting her breath go in a long sigh, Rebecca turned onto her side. “We realized we’re not compatible.”
“After what you two have been through, that came as a surprise?”
“There is one interesting thing,” she said, ignoring the sarcasm.
“What’s that?”
“Apparently he broke up with Mary last night.”
“He did? When?”
“According to a very reliable source, he must’ve done it before we went to his place.”
“Oh.” Delaney seemed to think this over. “Good. That was decent of him.”