by Tessa Bailey
“No.” Her voice shook. “No.”
“That’s why you slipped Golden Boy’s key into your purse right in front of me with all the subtlety of a high school marching band. You expected me, wanted me, to stop you. How am I doing?”
She felt sweat beading her forehead. Legs shaking beneath her, she didn’t have the ability to do anything but tell the truth. “I-I kept thinking you’d follow me. Stop me from going inside. When you didn’t…I pictured you anyway. Touching me.”
“Goddamn right you did,” Reed growled, cupping her mound and squeezing. “You thought I’d let someone else touch this? Not a fucking chance.”
Cool air washed over her bottom as he lifted her skirt over her hips, leaving her backside completely exposed to him, save her cotton thong. She’d never behaved so provocatively in private, let alone in a public place. As the restaurant didn’t open until dinnertime, they were alone in the empty lounge area, but people would be arriving soon to prepare for the evening. The encompassing heat turning her limbs to liquid battled with her ingrained sense of propriety. “Reed, someone might see us. Please…”
“I wouldn’t allow anyone to look at you like this.” His deeply aroused voice sent a shiver racing up her back. Very slowly, he nudged aside the material of her panties and sank his thumb inside her, pressing firmly against her front inner wall. She gasped at the unexpected pressure, her thighs tightening around his hand reflexively. “No, no. Keep them open. Let me find your spot. I’ll be the first to touch it, won’t I?” He gave a low groan as he rotated his thumb. “I bet in college you barely ever let anyone under those too-short skirts. Dying for a man, weren’t you?”
His thumb brushed over some hidden part of her and with a throaty cry, she nearly toppled from the ladder, but caught herself on the wooden beam at the last second. “Reed. I’m…I’m going to fall.”
“No. You will not fall. You will stay right there until I’m finished.” His thumb found the sensitive area again and smoothed over it, once, twice, as if coaxing it to life. Then he began to stroke it rapidly with the pad of his thumb. Julie couldn’t form a single thought as the orgasm came hurtling through her system, blasting her with such blissful heat she became unaware of anything but the place Reed made contact with her body. Her head fell forward as she rambled unintelligently, eyes blind as the area between her legs contracted and released over and over again. She felt his teeth sink into the flesh of her ass, then his tongue lick over the spot to soothe the sting.
A door slammed somewhere out in the main dining room. Before Julie could process the sound or what it meant, Reed pulled her off the ladder and tucked her against his chest protectively.
His mouth brushed over her ear. “Think you can stand, baby?”
The teasing hint in his voice stirred her temper. She’d just experienced an exceptionally intense climax. With someone she had no business making time with. Didn’t even like. And he had the nerve to make jokes. She squirmed out of his embrace and smoothed her dress down over her legs hastily. “Oh, I think I can just about manage. If I swoon, there are smelling salts in my purse.”
“A few more minutes on that ladder and they might have been necessary.”
“Didn’t your mama ever teach you arrogance is a sin?”
“You love the way I sin.”
Julie opened her mouth to respond when Christine breezed into the room and came to an almost comical halt, flushing a deeper red than her hair. “Oh. Uh…I just came to see if I could help with the dickorating. I-I mean…decorating. Oh, God. Am I interrupting something?”
Without breaking eye contact with Reed, Julie answered brightly. “You’re not interrupting, sweetheart. Mr. Lawson here was just about to take himself off.” When Reed’s jaw flexed in irritation, Julie smiled, let her gaze drop for a split second to his jeans. She had the sudden urge to put him in his place, throw him off-kilter like he’d so effortlessly done to her. “I’m guessing he needs to go stroke his ego in private for a while,” she whispered for his ears alone.
He shook his head once, slowly. “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”
Feeling bold, Julie shrugged with indifference. “Yet I appear to be winning. Two to nothing.”
“Not for long.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
Reed leaned in so close, his breath fanned across her lips. “Oh, don’t worry, pixie. When this week is over, I’ll have seen every inch of you.”
With a nod in Christine’s direction, he turned and left.
Chapter Seven
Reed sat alone in the corner of Spago, animated conversation and scraping silverware creating a noisy void around him as he watched Julie flit about the room, practically sprinkling pixie dust everywhere she went. She hadn’t sat down once in the last two hours, nor had she stopped to eat her plate of duck confit salad that still sat untouched at her table. As if salad were a meal. Being in law enforcement, he observed people for a living and he had to admit, he’d never watched someone quite as interesting as Julie. He’d concluded during the earlier cocktail reception that she must possess a built-in mechanism for homing in on guests who were having a less-than-perfect time. Within seconds, she’d have them dazzled with some amusing anecdote, introducing them to another guest with whom they magically seemed to have something in common.
She signaled waiters to refill drinks, straightened tablecloths, and gushed over everyone’s outfit, whether or not it was warranted. She listened to boring stories from Colton’s grandparents with nothing short of captivated interest on her pretty face. She lowered the music. She turned it back up.
Yet she refused to sit the hell down and eat something. For the life of him, Reed could not understand why he cared that she was likely starving. Or that those silver high heels were surely doing a number on her feet. Or if her face was going to crack from all that smiling. It shouldn’t make a damn speck of difference to him. Only something continued to bother him about that phone call with her mother he’d overheard this afternoon. The one that had filled her big blue eyes up with tears and made her go pale. Not everyone can be that perfect, she’d said. How much more perfect could one get? Oh, he knew what lay underneath the bright, shiny surface. He could hardly stand waiting to glimpse it again. But this on-the-surface Julie? He couldn’t find one single imperfection. Not one flaw that hinted at the vulnerable girl beneath. Obviously, she felt the need to keep up the illusion of perfection around the clock. He suspected there was more to the reason than simply a desire to decorate and make folks happy.
Damn it if he wasn’t impatient to find out the reason. So he could tell her it didn’t preclude her from sitting down and letting everyone else fend for themselves for ten goddamn minutes while she ate a plate of fancy lettuce.
Without a single glance in his direction, she slid into the booth behind him where an older couple sat eating braised short ribs. Reed didn’t recognize them but he suspected they were related to the bride. He sighed as she launched into another excited greeting wherein he already knew she wouldn’t pause for breath once.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, is that you eating over here all alone, bless your hearts? I’ve been looking high and low trying to find you two. Just how big are those grandbabies now? Strapping young men is what they are. I’ll tell y’all a secret, they look just like you, Mr. Wilcox, and doesn’t that just spell trouble for the young ladies in their class? You best keep an eye on him tonight, Mrs. Wilcox. He’s got the look of a smooth operator if I ever laid eyes on one. A plain old fox in a henhouse. Let’s get you a refill on that champagne.”
By the end of her speech, Reed was massaging his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. How did she do it? Her bubbly energy was inhuman. She’d done her part by decorating the whole damn place, which even Reed had to admit looked pretty damn spiffy. Now she had to go around making sure everyone felt warm and cuddly, too?
Reed slid out of the booth and crossed the room to lean against the bar next to Brock, who sipped his beer pensively as he watched Rega
n on the other side of the room.
“Seems I might have to make an effort with that one,” he said sourly.
“Welcome to my world.”
“Blondie causing you trouble?”
Reed grunted as he tipped back the beer the bartender placed in front of him. “I wouldn’t call it trouble, so much as an ulcer.”
Brock laughed. “Sounds promising.”
“I guess we’ll see,” Reed responded, grimacing as he heard himself repeat Julie’s earlier words. He didn’t like their ring of uncertainty. It had been a long time since he’d been uncertain of anything. Perhaps it bothered him even more at that very moment, surrounded as he was by some of the only people in the world who knew so much about that uncertain period of his life. When, as a kid, he hadn’t known where his next meal would come from. Whether or not he’d make it through to next week. If his father would come up with the rent money gambling, or they’d once again be forced into a shelter until he hit another “lucky” streak.
Brock nudged him with an elbow, dragging him from his dark reverie. He jerked his chin toward a corner of the lounge where large poster boards had been set up, cluttered with pictures of Kady and Colton, encompassing their lives from birth to the present. Staring up at them was Sophie, Colton’s little sister and thus, their surrogate sister, looking lonely and out of place in workout pants and an oversize T-shirt. Nodding in unspoken agreement, he and Brock made their way toward Sophie, coming up on either side.
She jumped at their sudden appearance, and tugged self-consciously at her shirt. “Oh boy. You guys aren’t going to give me a noogie, are you?”
Brock smiled and tapped her on the nose. “Rest assured. I’m on my best behavior. I can’t speak to Reed’s intentions, mind you.”
He felt a smile threaten when Sophie quirked a censorious eyebrow at him. He’d always had a soft spot for the shy, slightly pudgy girl who’d shadowed them during those hot summers in Manchester all those years ago. She’d lost the pudge sometime since he’d last seen her, but the shy had stuck around. Like her brother and Brock, she’d never judged him or made him feel like he didn’t belong with the well-raised children. Even though he probably hadn’t belonged, despite their assurances. “I ought to noogie you, Miss Sophie. I thought we had a deal. You don’t tell anyone about that issue of Penthouse and we let you come swimming at the lake on Tuesdays.”
Her face broke into a pretty smile. “Haven’t you heard of a statute of limitations?”
“Look at you, talking real fancy now,” Brock drawled. “Besides, I thought it was a Hustler.”
“Does it honestly make a difference?” Sophie asked.
“Yes,” the men replied emphatically.
Sophie said something else, but Reed became distracted by a picture pinned to the poster board. Front and center stood Kady, wearing a crown in front of a mechanical bull. In the background, looking fresh and innocent, Julie smiled brightly at the camera. Posing in jean shorts and cowboy boots. Long legs dangling on either side of the damn mechanical bull. Without a second thought, Reed reached up and snagged the picture off the board, stuffing it into his jacket pocket. If the sexy photo made him hard, he’d be damned before he left it around to have the same effect on someone else. He felt a prickle move over his neck and turned to find Julie watching him through narrowed eyes, obviously having witnessed his thievery.
He winked at her.
…
Julie steadied a tipsy Mr. Wilcox on his feet and waved him out the door. “Now you get back to your room safe, understand? No getting fresh with Mrs. Wilcox in any dark stairwells. There are cameras everywhere now, you know. Eyes in the sky. It’s not just the good Lord you have to worry about judging you anymore. These resort folks will call the police faster than you can spit. They don’t realize we grow our men friskier in the South, do they, Mrs. Wilcox? No ma’am, they don’t. There you go, one foot in front of the other. You’ve got the agility of a cougar. Not that kind of cougar, Mrs. Wilcox. Now who’s getting fresh?”
The jolly couple disappeared at the end of the hallway, marking the last guests to leave. As soon as they left her field of vision, Julie slumped back against the wall, already reaching down to slip off her high heels. She gave in to the urge to sit right down on the carpeted floor and she ran her thumb up the arch of her foot, moaning at the sheer pleasure.
“Careful, pixie. You keep making those sounds, I might have to join you on that floor.”
Julie jolted to her feet as Reed strode through the double doors of the kitchen holding a tray of covered dishes. She hadn’t seen him in half an hour and had assumed he left. Had been simultaneously glad and disappointed when she didn’t see him reclaim his seat in the darkest corner of the restaurant. Glad, because the heat of his constant regard made it difficult to concentrate. On anything. Disappointed, because the heat felt so darn good. It wrapped itself around her, sliding up and down her thighs, belly, and breasts like a living, breathing thing. Throughout the night, she’d found herself positioning herself where he could see her, lest she lose the heady buzz of his attention for one second. At one point, she’d found herself wishing the room was empty, save herself and Reed, so she could join him where he sat in the dark, straddle his lap and…dance for him. Put those secret lessons she’d been taking to good use in a way he’d probably never see coming. Let him look at her up close while she moved. Feel his penetrating stare trace a path up her writhing midsection. She wanted to open his shirt and look at his tattoos while she performed for him. Since starting the classes, she’d had fantasies about dancing for a man, but he’d never had an identity before. Now, in her mind’s eye, Reed looked up at her in awe, lust a living thing on his face.
When Julie realized she hadn’t spoken once since Reed’s entrance, she shook herself from her fevered thoughts, ignoring the look of amusement on Reed’s face. “What are you carrying?”
“Your dinner.”
“Pardon?” She slipped her heels back on. “I already ate dinner.” Hadn’t she?
“No. You didn’t. Believe me.” He kicked out a chair with his foot, indicating that she should sit. “How can you eat when you never stop talking?”
Julie shoved the chair back under the table. “As opposed to you, who wouldn’t say two words if somebody was on fire.”
“I’m talking to you right now.”
“It must be my lucky day.”
“All right, fine. You leave me no choice but to play hardball.” He kicked the chair out once more. “Back home, when someone goes to the trouble of making you a meal, what is the polite thing to do?”
She gasped.
Reed shook his head. “Where are your manners, pixie?”
Julie sat with a scowl. “Probably poisoned it,” she grumbled.
He set the tray down on the table in front of her and lifted lids off three dishes, aromatic steam curling from braised short ribs, honey-glazed salmon, and a side of julienned carrots. Julie’s head spun as hunger assailed her, her stomach growling as if it suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She watched as Reed grabbed the fork and took one bite from each plate, raising an eyebrow at her as he chewed. “If it’s poisoned, we’re both doomed.”
“You can’t kill the devil.”
He smirked. “Eat.”
When she took the first bite of perfectly cooked meat, her eyes closed and she stopped caring that Reed sat across from her, watching her every move. The food simply tasted too good on her tongue. Before she could get too full, she set the fork down and leaned back in her chair. “No more. If eat too much, I fall asleep, and I still have to clean this place up.
His face transformed with disbelief. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Sneaking one last carrot off the plate, she shook her head. “No, I really do fall asleep. Right where I stand. Ever since I was a kid.”
“I mean, you’ve got to be joking about cleaning this damn place.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s after midnight and you’re read
y to fall on your ass.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a way with words?”
He sighed loudly. Julie watched in curiosity as a battle took place on his face. As if he wanted to wash his hands of the whole situation, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. How odd. “No.”
She straightened. “No?”
“Someone else is going to clean this shit up. And it ain’t you.” Reed took her hand and pulled Julie to her feet. “Come on. We’re going for a walk. I’m tired of being cooped up indoors.”
“Why do you have to drag me along with you?”
“If I leave you here, you’ll clean,” he explained, then came to a stop, glancing down at her feet. “You bring some decent sneakers along, or just those medieval torture devices disguised as shoes?”
Chapter Eight
Julie followed Reed on the dark path leading up the side of the mountain. He’d brought a flashlight with him, but so far it had proved unnecessary¸ the full moon providing more than enough illumination to see where they walked through the trees. He’d run this path that very morning and had memorized it easily. He knew exactly where he wanted to take her. Did she know what his intentions were? He’d made no secret about wanting her. The possibility that she’d come with him in the middle of the night, hoping for the same outcome, heated his blood.
He cast a look over his shoulder, sighing inwardly when he glimpsed her expression. Too bad she looked scared half to death. She might want him, but the situation clearly made her more than a little nervous. Hell, he obviously made her a little nervous. Not a good thing. And entirely his fault. He’d never been one to hold back in the bedroom, physically or verbally, but he’d laid it on extra thick with Julie, playing a game of “shock the snooty rich girl.” To show her that he was nothing like the old-money, loafer-wearing pretty boys he suspected she usually dated.
Now it had backfired. After all the ways he’d provoked and taunted her, she’d placed her trust in him and gone out with him into the woods, the expectation being that they would finally slake this insane attraction between them. Only now it didn’t feel right. He didn’t want her nervous or questioning her judgment. He wanted her to feel…confident in him. Instead, she appeared seconds from turning tail and booking it back to the resort. It bothered him. A lot more than it should.