He gripped underneath my knee, guiding my leg up and around his waist, still rocking, working with perfect pressure. I dug my nails into his ass. He moaned into my mouth.
His cock rubbed against me harder, faster. Fucking. Fucking without penetration. I writhed beneath him, curled around him, mindless, boneless, wanting, needing this, him, us. Oh, my fucking God, how I wanted us. He thrust against me, releasing my mouth, blowing heavy breaths into my ear.
Grinding our bodies together, he rasped, “Come with me, babylove. Let go.” He reached down and slipped a finger under my panties, between my folds, opening, entering me, driving me insane. “Let go for me.”
My heart burst, my body exploded, my insides spasmed around his finger as he drove it deeper. “Oh God. Shit. Shit. Shit.” I moaned, arching against the sweet agony.
“Fucking hell,” Tango rasped into my neck, thrusting one more time before shuddering and spurting semen between us, hot and thick. He moaned and collapsed, his full weight on top of my limp and sated body. Wet lips pressed against my collarbone, and he rolled off me with a deep sigh.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. My head floated above us, somewhere between a billowy cloud and heaven, I think.
“You are so goddamn beautiful.” Tango sat up, scooped lake water with his cupped hand, then poured it over my stomach. He did it again, this time wiping away the sticky mess.
I watched his eyes widen, then soften, as he inspected my breasts, my stomach, my thighs. He splashed me with another handful of water and massaged it into my skin, the tips of his fingers skimming the top of my panties, sending shivers through me.
“We should get out of the sun before you burn,” he mumbled, pushing to his feet.
I accepted the hand he offered and sighed as he pulled me up and coiled his strong arms around me. Resting his chin on my head, he whispered, “Have you danced today?”
I shook my head no against his bare chest, and locked my arms around his waist. Tango swayed, I followed, and I danced with the only man I would ever love. The one man I could not have.
This would be our last dance.
“HOW MANY PARTIES did your friends throw up here, anyway?” Slade asked, before popping the last bite of her sandwich between her lips.
“I think the real question is, how many of the guys lost their virginity up here?” Twenty-five that I knew of, from my graduating class alone. Or so they’d claimed.
The pink in her cheeks darkened. Damn, that was cute.
“And your parents never found out?”
“The guys were terrified of Mom. Cleaned up after themselves. Usually left the place in better shape than they found it.”
“I’m glad I finally get to experience the legendary Rossi shag-shack.” She paused, her eyebrows scrunching and her head tilting in that adorable way that never failed to make my insides soften. “Why didn’t you ever sneak me up here?”
I set my half-eaten bologna and cheese back on my plate. “Do you really have to ask?”
“I’m asking, aren’t I?”
Not sure why her question irritated me, but it did. Arms crossed, I leaned my hip against the counter. “You weren’t a conquest. You weren’t a challenge. You were mine already. What we had, who you were, meant more to me than getting laid.”
“Oh,” she said, picking at a potato chip.
“I wanted to do things right with you. I did do things right with you, didn’t I? I mean, until that night.” And there we were again, back on the last subject I’d wanted to bring up. “Fuck. I didn’t want to go there again. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s hard not to reminisce.” She offered a reassuring smile. “Tell me about New York.”
That was why I loved her. She’d sensed my unease and changed the subject.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, claiming her hand and leading her to the living room.
“You said you didn’t like who you were there. Why?”
I dropped my ass to the couch. In a perfect world, I would shield Slade from ever seeing that side of me, from ever knowing the truth about what I’d done in the name of honor, loyalty, and self-preservation. I wouldn’t lie, though. Shit was shit. You could sugar-coat all you wanted, but eventually, the stench would seep through the pretty package and expose the ugliness inside. I wanted honesty from her, so I had to be truthful in return. “I hurt people. A lot of people.”
“What do you mean?” Slade pulled her hand from my grip, faking interest in her fingernails.
“You remember Tito?”
“Your cousin? How could I forget? I dreaded his visits.” She rolled her eyes. “The two of you were always getting into trouble.”
“He worked for a childhood friend of my father, Luciano Voltolini. Voltolini runs underground fights, among other things. I was so angry after I left Whisper Springs. I needed an outlet. Tito hooked me up, I started fighting, and I won. Every fucking time. And it felt good. Too good.” I swallowed, pausing to get my emotions under check. “Long story short, I got cocky.”
“You? Cocky?” She faked a gasp. “I don’t believe it.”
Shit. I wanted to kiss that playful smirk clean off her face. “One night, Luciano asked me to throw a fight, said there was good money in it. I agreed, not that I had a choice. When the bell rang, and the shithead threw a dirty punch, I saw red. Everything after that was a blur. I nearly butchered the guy. Luciano could’ve killed me. Had I not been my father’s son, he would’ve. Instead, he let me work off the money I’d cost him. Aside from fighting, I did things for him. Unpleasant things. I never let him down again. It took four years, but I paid my debt, and then some.”
I searched her eyes for a reaction. She stared through me, unblinking, chewing the corner of her thumbnail.
“Say something,” I whispered.
“I don’t know what to say. I mean, are you talking about the mafia? Like organized crime?”
I nodded.
“You did all that, and still graduated?”
“Had no choice.” Couldn’t let Pops down any more than I could disappoint Luciano again.
“And he let you walk away?” Slade fell into the cushions next to me.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Tango. What the hell were you thinking? You could be dead right now. Or in prison. I can’t believe you were so stupid. Why would you get involved with criminals?”
To feel. To hurt. To forget. Self-imposed punishment, perhaps. “We’ve talked about me long enough. It’s your turn.”
She stiffened. “There’s nothing to say. My life is painfully uneventful.”
Why did her confession thrill me? “Uneventful suits me just fine.”
“What about girls?” she blurted, blue eyes fixated on my mine. “Did you date? Fall in love? How many hearts did you break?”
The only girls I talked to, besides Voltolini’s daughter, were the whores on his payroll. Much like fighting, my sessions with them served only as an outlet. A form of therapy, I supposed.
“There were women. Nothing serious.”
“Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “I had no right to ask.”
“What about you? Any asses I have to kick?”
“Afraid not,” she mumbled, dropping her head.
Lie. No way in hell Slade hadn’t had men beating down her door. “You haven’t dated?”
She cleared her throat, picked at a loose thread on her shorts, and sighed. “I’ve had my hands full.”
Thank fuck. I couldn’t stand the thought of sharing a town with any man who’d touched her. I’d have to add murder to my list of crimes. Hell, if I discovered who Rocky’s dad was, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Which reminded me. “What happened with Rocky’s father?”
Slade shifted in her seat. She turned her head to the left, and her gaze followed suit. “It’s getting late. Shouldn’t we head home?”
“No. We’ve got all night.”
She rose to her feet. “I would like to go home.”
“No.” I gawked at her back side, appreciating the way her ass filled out those shorts before she turned around.
“No?” Arms crossed, she glared me down. “Tango. Take me home. Now.”
I pushed off the sofa, meeting her toe to toe. “We’re not going anywhere. Not yet.”
“Fine. You stay. I’ll go.” She stormed to the kitchen counter.
As fast as she grabbed the car keys, I trapped her wrist in my fist. “What are you going to do? You can’t even drive.”
“I can drive. I just choose not to,” she reminded me.
I wrenched the keys from her fingers. Not easily. She fought me every step of the way. I resorted to tickling to get her to release the damned key ring. When I won, which I always did, I stormed outside onto the deck and tossed the keys. They landed with a satisfying splash in the dark water.
“Oh my God. Why would you do that?” she screamed, slapping my back. “How in the hell are we gonna get home?”
Hot damn, Slade was gorgeous when she was angry. I turned and grabbed her shoulders, holding her at arms’ length. It took all my willpower not to kiss her again. “Now you’re stuck with me, and we’re going to talk.”
“Fine.” She tried wiggling free.
I held her steady. Fuck, I wanted those lips.
Murderous eyes met mine. “You want the dirty details? How’s this for dirty? You left. I was broken. I fucked the one person who was there for me. Then I learned he had a girlfriend and he disappeared, too. Pretty sure you can figure out the rest.”
Ouch. Releasing her, I stepped back and scrubbed my hands over my face. I had betrayed her. Rocky’s father had betrayed her. That would explain why she refused to date. “I’m sorry. Fuck. That’s messed up.”
Slade backed away, bumping into the counter. “You’re sorry. I know. You’ve said it over and over. If you’re sorry, stop asking me about it. I don’t want to think about that night. I don’t want to talk about Rocky’s dad. Can you please let it go?”
“Okay.” I threw my palms up in surrender. “No more questions.”
“Well, I have a question. How are we supposed to get home now?”
Tango shrugged his shoulders. “Guess we’re having a sleepover.”
“No!” I shouted. “Absolutely not.” I could not, would not, spend the night alone with Tango. “No. No. No.”
I slipped my shorts off once again and headed for the door.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting the damned keys.” I’d swim all night if need be.
“It’s too dark now. You’ll never find them.” He had the nerve to laugh at me.
“The water is shallow. I can find them. Where’s your flashlight?”
“Slade. The keys are not going anywhere. We’ll get them in the morning.”
“Ooh!” I stomped my foot like an errant child. “I want to hurt you right now.”
“Is the idea of spending the night with me that terrifying?”
“Yes. No. I mean...” Oh crap. What did I mean? The longer I was alone with him, the weaker my defenses. Why did he have to be so desirable? I rubbed the pain in my temples. “I don’t know. This was supposed to be a day trip. I don’t have clean clothes, no toothbrush, hair—”
Tango clamped a hand over my mouth. “Shh. You’ll be fine. He turned me toward the front door. ”See?”
My duffel bag sat next to his shiny suitcase. “What’s this?” I already knew the answer. I’d been duped. The bastard had planned ahead.
“I knew you wouldn’t come if I told you it’d be overnight.”
“You lied to me.”
“No. You asked if it would be a day trip. I didn’t answer. I kissed you instead, remember?”
My insides heated to a nuclear level. “Screw you and your damn lips. Not fair, Tango. When did you have time to pack my stuff?”
“You’re a deep sleeper. I snuck in this morning.”
“I locked the doors.” I had never been more frustrated in my life.
His crooked, prideful grin grated my every nerve ending. “I have a spare key to your house, you know, in case of an emergency.”
That was the last straw. I snagged my shorts off the floor, tugged them back on and wiggled my feet into my flip-flops. I could not spend another second in the same space with that impossible man.
I shoved past him, giving the dickhead a hard bump with my shoulder, and stormed through the front door into the darkening forest. I’d head for the main road. I could get there in about thirty minutes, I figured. I was a fast walker. Someone would drive by eventually, and I could catch a ride back to town.
Okay, even I, the small-town hick, knew that wasn’t smart, but I needed to be away from him. And it was either head toward the main highway, or into the woods. I wasn’t properly equipped to handle any sort of mountain animal I might bump into, say a wolf, a bear, or Bigfoot, so highway it was.
I made it to the end of the gravel driveway before I heard footsteps behind me. My damn heart thumped faster, and not from adrenaline.
“Slade.” My name rumbled like thunder behind me.
I marched forward, determined to hold my own, straining my eyes to safely place my steps between potholes and tangles of wildflowers and overgrown grass.
“For fuck’s sake, stop.”
I hadn’t a nice word to speak. I sealed my lips.
The crunch of heavy feet drew closer. I hurried my pace. The toe of his shoe caught the back of my flip-flop, holding it in place while I propelled forward, landing with a crack on my right knee and the palms of my hands.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” He was kneeling at my side before I had time to register any pain.
I plopped onto my butt, defeated.
“Let me see.” Tango grabbed my hands for a thorough inspection. He brushed off the dirt and dropped a soft kiss on each palm.
The sting of my injuries was nothing compared to the burn of his skin on mine. I looked down at my knee. Blood welled into a misshapen semi-circle before forming a warm trail down my leg. That didn’t bother me so much. When I noticed my shoe was broken, I fought, with zero success, to stop the quiver of my lip.
With one hand, he smoothed hair off my face. With the other, he cupped my chin and brushed his thumb over my mouth. “Shit, babylove. How bad does it hurt?”
“Don’t call me that. And it doesn’t hurt.” It did hurt. A loud sob broke loose. “You broke my shoe.”
He fell back on his ass and draped his arms over his knees. “Seriously? You’re crying over a damn piece of rubber?”
I picked up my mangled shoe, my Robart flip-flop, blue with flying pigs, and waved it in his face. “It’s my favorite pair.”
“Those aren’t even shoes.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“They’re important to me. And you...” I whacked him in the shoulder. “You broke into my house, tricked me into spending the night with you, broke the no touching, no kissing rule, and now you’ve killed my favorite pair of shoes.”
I mopped the annoying moisture off my face with the hem of my shirt and pushed to my feet. I could not afford to give this man another drop of my soul, yet it kept leaking through my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.
“I won’t apologize.” He looked up at me, head cocked to the side. “I want you in my life. You’re forcing me to fight dirty.”
I turned on my heel, kicked off my other shoe, and headed back toward the cabin. “Why did you have to come home?”
“What did you say?” he asked, voice deep, dark, and if I wasn’t mistaken, sad.
I marched forward, barefoot, wishing I didn’t want him to follow me, pretending I was strong enough to survive the evening unscathed. I didn’t make it far before I stepped on a sharp stone. “Ouch. Shit.”
I limped onward, cussing under my breath.
Tango grabbed my elbow. “Get on my back.”
“I’m fine,” I whispered, yanking my arm free.
“Jesus, Slade. Stop being
so damn stubborn and let me help you,” he shouted, stepping in front of me.
The sky had darkened enough that I could no longer see the ground. I’d never make it back on my own, not without slicing my feet to shreds. “Fine. Fine.”
He turned around. I gripped his shoulders, hopped up, and snaked my arms around his neck.
“There. Not so bad, right?” he said with a grunt.
Not bad? It was terrible, because it was awesome. I felt like a kid again. I wanted to be this close to him for the rest of my life. Letting go was going to kill me.
The woman was killing me. She was hot, then cold, happy, then pissed. Soft and molten against me, then icy hard.
“Hold still.” I clamped my hand over her thigh.
“It hurts, it hurts.” She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked a sharp breath through her teeth. “And it’s cold.”
I emptied the contents of the peroxide bottle over her knee, let it bubble for a few seconds, then wiped her leg clean. There wasn’t one bandage large enough to cover the laceration, so I dug through the multiple sizes in the box and patched her up the best I could.
“Why are those shoes special to you?”
“What?” she asked, sucking air between her teeth.
“You said they were special.” I positioned the last bandage over her wound.
“They were the last gift my mom gave me, before she died. It was the first time she’d ordered anything online. She’d been pretty proud of herself.”
“I see.” Great. I did feel like an ass. “I am sorry about breaking them.”
“She tried, you know.”
“Tried what?” I asked. It gutted me, the way her eyes glazed every time she spoke of her mother. I ached to hold her, to comfort and kiss and chase away the sadness. I knew, deep down, I should be suffering the same loss, but when I thought of my mom, there was nothing but anger.
“After Rocky was born, she tried to stay sober. She loved him and was ecstatic to be a grandma, even if...” Slade’s face reddened, her gaze dropped to the floor.
“Even if what?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “Anyway, her sobriety only lasted a month. I found her passed out in that shitty hotel on Eagle Point Drive. At least the man she’d hooked up with was decent enough to call me.”
Truck Stop Tango Page 11