Josie knew the story. Everyone in town knew the story. Carter’s mother and father had never married because on the eve of their wedding, she’d caught him with her best friend—the woman who’d been her maid of honor. And Carter’s father had flitted in and out of his life but never settled, never stuck around when Carter needed him. Eventually, he’d been killed in another town, in a drunken brawl that he’d probably started. And according to everyone in town, Carter was just like him. She resented her mother for putting that on him.
Those words cut to the quick, hitting her harder more than Josie wanted to admit. But it was there, hanging between them. She’d never tell Deborah that she wasn’t her real mother. She was. In every way that could matter, she was, except for one. “If he’s just like his daddy… does that make me just like my biological parents? A terrified teenager and the soldier who raped her? What story is my blood telling?”
Deborah frowned. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just an expression and I shouldn’t have said it… No, it isn’t just biology. The way you’re raised has a lot to do with it.”
“If that’s the case, then there’s no issue. Because Carter was never around his father, was he? You can’t have it both ways, Mom.”
Deborah rose. “I think I’ll walk home. Clearly this conversation is not going the way I intended… and I don’t doubt that you’ve made other plans about where you’re spending your evening. I trust you’ll be discreet, Josephine. I don’t need to tell you how the congregation would respond to the news that the pastor’s daughter is cavorting with such a man.”
“Do you even see me?” Josie asked.
“You’re being melodramatic, Josephine. It’s my fault for slapping such a name on you! Of course, I see you! What on earth kind of question is that?” Deborah demanded as she gathered her purse.
A valid one. For so many years she’d wondered if they adopted her because they really wanted her or if adopting a poor, unfortunate orphan from a war-torn country was just part of their overall package, like the mission trips to Haiti or feeding the homeless. She didn’t feel like their daughter as much as she felt like a public work, an act of charity committed for the world to see.
If she said that, if she spoke those hateful words out loud, there’d be no taking them back. “Never mind. I’ll be in church this Sunday. But I’m still not coming back to the choir. Daddy will just have to accept that.”
Deborah nodded. “And Carter Hayes?”
“Some things are just my business and mine alone.” Josie’s tone was stiff, and the words firmer than she’d intended them to be. It wasn’t her mother who’d hurt her feelings. It was all her own doubts and fears creeping in, making her question her place in the world, making her question whether or not she really belonged there… or if she deserved the life they’d given her.
Deborah’s answering sigh echoed throughout the room. “Your father doesn’t know about this. I don’t intend to tell him… It isn’t just that I don’t approve of Carter. Certainly, he’s made choices that are questionable, but many people have. You’re my baby, Josie. They only one I’ll ever have. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”
“I’m a big girl. I can handle it.” Josie watched Deborah leave, the tension still high between them. When the door closed, she exhaled loudly. “I hope.”
A glance at the clock showed her she didn’t have much time. She’d told Carter she’d be there at seven even though her heart wasn’t really in it anymore. She felt hollowed out and miserable after the confrontation with her mother. Guilty. Her choices were letting them down, reflecting poorly on them. It was ridiculous.
Going up stairs, she changed quickly. There would be no naughty dress and killer hills. She donned a pair of frayed jeans and a UK sweatshirt. If that wasn’t hot enough for him then he could just go to hell, she thought angrily. It wasn’t even him she was pissed at.
“Get it together, Josie,” she whispered softly. “Do not fuck this up. Right now he’s the only form of stress relief you have… and God, is he good at it.” Even as she said it, she felt like a horrible person. She was using him. She could see there was so much more to Carter Hayes than the fact that he had an amazing body and a mad set of skills to go with it.
In spite of his reputation, in spite of his admitted sleeping around, he was a good person. He didn’t lie or cheat. He didn’t say anything he didn’t mean and he never made a promise he didn’t keep. Of course, that was easy enough to do when he simply avoided making promises altogether. Still, there was something to be said for that. He had his own sense of honor, his own code, and he followed it to the letter. Meanwhile, she was a huge hypocrite, pretending to be the good Christian girl her parents raised and slipping around with him at night.
Ignoring her attack of conscience, Josie grabbed her phone and keys and headed out the door. Some temptations were too great to resist. She’d make peace with her hypocrisy at some point. Until, then she just planned to keep herself distracted.
6
It was a quarter after. She’d stood him up. In his whole life, that had never happened. Not even once. It wasn’t a feeling he cared for at all, not one bit.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Clicking the button on the remote, he turned the television off. He had no interest in the game and he sure as hell wasn’t going to sit around all night moping over the fact that she wasn’t there.
Crossing the wide plank floors to his bedroom, he opened the closet door and retrieved a clean shirt. He’d go to the bar, have a few beers, and he wouldn’t give that pint-sized pain in the ass a second thought.
The knock on the door stopped him cold. Shirt on, unbuttoned and hanging loose, he glanced at the clock beside the bed. She was almost half an hour late.
Pissed, he walked back into the living room and jerked the door open. She stood there wearing a sweatshirt that looked like it could have housed her three times over and the oldest, rattiest pair of jeans he’d ever seen. She still looked hot. Certainly hot enough to take the wind out of his sails.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.
She shrugged. “I was having a few doubts myself.”
Carter stepped back and allowed her inside. Somehow, he didn’t think the evening was going to end the way he’d imagined. It felt shockingly like one of those we-need-to-talk moments that he always avoided.
“Well, I know it isn’t because you didn’t enjoy yourself last night… you did. Several times as a matter of fact.”
“Can we skip the play by play?” she asked as she moved toward the couch. She sat down on the arm, crossed her arms over her chest and looked utterly miserable.
Yes. It was definitely not going to go well. “Why don’t you tell me whatever it is that’s got you looking like a whipped pup? Guessing with women only ever causes trouble.”
“My mom stopped by after work. Apparently Doris called her this afternoon with her suspicions about your real reasons for stopping in the library.”
Fuck. It had been an impulse. He didn’t exactly regret his actions, but he did hate that they’d made problems for her. “I take it Mommy doesn’t approve?”
“She has concerns… well founded ones. I can’t do this with you, Carter, if you don’t take me seriously.”
He shook his head. “I do take you seriously!”
“Then listen to me! When I tell you we can’t be open about this thing between us… It’s not just me that it affects. My parents, the church, my job at the library. Carter, I’m hanging by a thread there! Doris is looking for whatever reason she can find to get rid of me… and if she does, you know what happens? I have to move back into my parents’ house! I can’t do that, Carter. I can’t give up the little bit of freedom I’ve managed to carve out for myself!”
She was shouting by the time she finished. Overwrought, as his grandmother would have said. “I was just having a little fun today, Josie. I didn’t mean for it to go so wrong for you… you can’t keep living your life for o
ther people.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I wouldn’t have a life at all if it wasn’t for these people. I won’t embarrass them by dragging my name, the name they gave me, through the mud.”
He didn’t want to let her go. Eventually, yes. When he’d managed to get her out of his system, when the intense craving for her had passed and he could think again. But not yet. Not now. “What do you want from me, Josie? Just tell me.”
A shrug and then a bitter laugh was her response. Finally, after a long pause, she spoke. “We both know we’re not going anywhere with this… You’re not the kind of guy who settles down. But I’m so tired of being the good girl for everybody… of not having anything for myself.”
“Then don’t be,” he replied evenly. “Be whatever and whoever you want to be.”
“I can’t. I couldn’t stand it if I disappointed them that way!”
It pissed him off that he would be the instrument of disappointment; that her being with him was in some way a failure. “So you’re just going to live a lonely, miserable and disappointing life for yourself, then? Cause that makes perfect fucking sense!”
“Dammit, Carter. I didn’t come here to fight with you!”
“Then what did you come here for?” he demanded.
“To feel the way I did last night.”
“I guess that means I’m your dirty little secret.” He uttered the words without heat, without any inflection at all, even though they stung his pride like being sliced by a thousand razors.
“If you don’t want me on these terms, I can go,” she replied. Her tone was equally devoid of inflection. It wasn’t what either one of them wanted.
“Just so you know,” he said, “I hate this fucking town and what it does to people. The expectations. The gossip. The miserable fucking people who sit back in their tidy little houses and judge everyone else… I hate it.”
She’d never voiced those thoughts. Like so many things that ran through her mind, it just created feelings of guilt and shame. Her life could be so much worse. But no one would ever let her forget that. “So do I. But I don’t have anywhere else to go.” Admitting it made her feel weak and breathless, as fearful as if an angry, pitch-fork wielding mob was outside the door. “I don’t want this to end yet. I know it will eventually, but not yet, Carter. Can’t we just enjoy it for now?”
“You want a hot, steamy, secret affair… I’ll give you one,” he vowed.
Carter didn’t waste another second. He moved toward her, grabbing her ponytail and tugging her head back. He kissed the side of her neck, his teeth scraping over her skin with just enough force, just enough of a bite to make her moan and shiver. His mouth roamed over her. Lips, teeth, tongue.
He didn’t mark her skin but the urge to do so was there. A part of him wanted to mark her, to show the world that she was his. Instead, he grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and jerked it upward and over her head, tossing it aside until he could close one hand on the soft mound of her breast. Through her bra, he could feel the hard peak of her nipple.
Josie’s head fell back against him and a soft cry escaped her. Lips parted, eyes closed, her cheeks flushed with passion. That was how he wanted her. He tugged her head back just a bit further, his hand fisted in her hair. She was in charge of some things, he thought, but not everything.
“Carter,” she gasped, clutching at his hand.
“You want this to be a secret… how quiet can you be, Josie?” he whispered against her ear. “When I’m touching you this way, tasting you…Or when I’m inside you?”
“Carter, please,” she murmured, her hand covering his, pressing his palm against her breast. “I can’t think when you’re doing that.”
“Then don’t, baby. Just feel… Feel all the ways I can make you burn.”
He was relentless. His hands roamed over her freely, touching her everywhere as he continued to kiss her neck, her shoulders. Nipping at her earlobes with his teeth, he savored the startled cry that escaped her and the shiver that followed.
Carter let go of her hair, but her head stayed back, resting against his shoulder, arching of her own accord to give him free access. His hand skimmed along the indentation of her spine, down to the waist band of her jeans, sliding beneath them. His fingers traced the lacy pattern of her thong, brushing lightly over her skin as she clung to him.
“Tell me you want me, Josie,” he commanded.
“I do. Oh God, I do,” she sobbed. “You’re killing me, Carter.”
Carter pulled back and hauled her up from the arm of the couch until she was perched on the back of it. With one hand, he unsnapped and unzipped her jeans. Within seconds, he had them tugged down her legs, pulling them and her sneakers off in one swift movement. She wore only a lacy bra and an equally lacy thong.
“Why do I always wind up naked first?” she asked.
“Cause you’re little and easier to strip,” Carter replied. He wasn’t taking her to his bed. She wanted hot and steamy and he was going to give it to her. She wanted it to feel like a tawdry affair, well he would provide all that she asked for and more.
He grasped the elastic band of her thong, but rather than sliding it over her hips, he twisted it around his fingers, tugging, until the whole thing simply snapped. Tossing the scrap of fabric aside, he pressed her back, her body balanced on the cushions of the sofa, her head tilted back and her legs locked around his waist. He unzipped his own pants, dug a condom from his wallet and rolled it on quickly.
Sinking into her, feeling the heat of her closing around him, he gripped her hips tighter. His fingers dug into the soft flesh there as she closed around him like a fist. He bit back a groan as he surged into her. Christ almighty, nothing had ever felt that good.
Pumping his hips, thrusting into her again and again as she sobbed beneath him, Carter knew he wasn’t going to let her go. Not for a good long time.
He felt her thighs tense, the muscles drawing so taut they quivered. Her breathing changed and a flush crept over her pale skin. She was hovering right there on the edge, ready to come for him.
“You’re mine, Josie. For as long as I want you,” he vowed.
He felt the shudder ripple through her as her body clenched around him. The low, keening cry as she shivered beneath him was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. Carter stopped holding back, stopped trying to keep his own need in check. He drove into her again—deeper, harder—drawing out her pleasure even as he gave into his own.
Josie couldn’t breathe. Somehow they’d migrated from the back of the couch and were laying cuddled together on it, covered with a chenille blanket that was a decidedly feminine touch in his otherwise masculine abode. It was best not to think about where that blanket had come from. It would only piss her off. Being jealous with him was a waste of time and energy. Every woman in town had either wanted him, had him, or planned to try.
Carter had pulled her tighter, pressing her face against his chest until she couldn’t even draw breath. Managing to turn her head, Josie pushed against him until he mumbled in his sleep. Even then, barely conscious, his hand cupped her breast and squeezed gently.
She rolled her eyes. “Carter, wake up!”
He grumbled again, but made no move to let her up. Finally, out of desperation, Josie reached over and grabbed his chest hair, giving it a hard tug.
“Ow!” he shouted, eyes flying open. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Because I need to pee and you sleep like the damn dead. Let me up!”
Carter murmured under his breath, something that was undoubtedly a string of curse words. But he did manage to roll to a sitting position allowing her to climb over top of him and off the couch.
After attending to nature’s call, Josie stood there in front of the sink washing her hands and taking in her reflection. She looked like a wild woman. Her hair was a mess, her makeup smeared. She had beard burn on her cheeks and chin. But she looked alive, like something had finally just lit up inside her. For the l
ongest time, she’d just been going through the motions. Clean the house. Go to work. Come home. Go to church. Do, as always, what everyone says because it would appear ungrateful not to. Somehow or other, her life had become nothing more than an expression of gratitude to her parents. The realization weighed heavily on her. But for now, it appeared things were changing dramatically.
She didn’t know if it was Carter. Maybe it was just rebellion, maybe it was the thrill of having a secret that no one knew for sure, even if a few did suspect. Or maybe it was just hot, amazing sex that left her knees weak. Whatever it was, it felt good. She felt good. And she didn’t want to give that up.
Leaving the bathroom, she saw that he’d moved from the couch to the bed. “I should go,” she said lamely. It wasn’t what she wanted. If she were to do what she wanted, she’d crawl into that bed with him, snuggle against his chest while he held her and rubbed her back until they both fell asleep. And of course, in the morning, they’d have more amazing, mind blowing sex.
“You can stay,” he said.
He didn’t tell her he wanted her to. He didn’t ask her to. Instead, he left it totally in her court. She wanted him to demand it, she realized. Some perverse part of her wanted him to be the one putting his pride on the line instead of hers.
“We both have to work tomorrow,” she protested. “And if anyone saw me— yeah. That’s not a good idea.”
Grabbing her discarded clothes in the living room, Josie dressed quickly. Her panties were a lost cause. Between the pair he’d stolen from her and the pair he’d destroyed, the man was playing hell on her lingerie budget. As Josie slipped her sneakers back on, he emerged from the bedroom wearing just a pair of jeans, only partially fastened. He wore nothing beneath them. Her eyes followed the line of hair that bisected his perfectly defined abs only to disappear behind denim that looked so damn good on him it made her want to cry.
Carter (Bourbon & Blood Book 3) Page 5