She couldn’t allow herself to follow that line of thought. That way lay only heartbreak. He wanted her only for sex, bought and paid for. She couldn’t allow herself to forget that and fall for him. She vowed in that moment that she would keep her heart encased in armor, that she wouldn’t let herself care for this sweet, sexy man who looked at her like she was something precious even though to him she was only a brief distraction.
Chapter Eight
When he’d left the house, Blake had burned for Amanda. He’d wanted to sink inside her more than he wanted his next breath. The same could be said for him a few hours later, but the want had gotten deeper, more potent. Upon getting to know Amanda a bit better, he wanted to make her smile, to make her laugh. And to make her scream his name while she came for him—that hadn’t changed—but he couldn’t lie to himself and say that he was only here to get his rocks off. Not now. This had become something more.
It couldn’t last, and he knew that. That wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying each and every moment he had with her. He’d originally offered to get to know Amanda with only her comfort in mind. He’d thought that the waiting would kill him. As it turned out, though…he wanted the wait. He wanted to just enjoy being with Amanda for a while before he made love to her and then had to let her go.
“What are you thinking, Blake?” He’d climbed into the truck after helping Amanda into the cab, but now he sat with the keys in his hands, making no attempt start the engine as he stared at the fragile beauty beside him.
“You’re beautiful. You know that, right?”
A sweet, tempting smile flitted across her lips. “Thank you.”
“I think I’d like to kiss you now. Is that okay?”
Amanda blushed, but her eyes dropped to Blake’s lips, making him think that she wanted the kiss as much as he did, before she nodded.
Kissing Amanda was heaven. Her lips were soft and full. The way she moved them beneath his told him that she didn’t have a lot of experience with men at all. The lack of experience only made the kiss sweeter. This side of her, for now at least, was his and his alone. He groaned at the thought and gently probed with his tongue, seeking entrance to her mouth.
When she shuddered and opened for him, he thought he might lose his mind. She pressed a hand tentatively to his chest, like she wanted to touch him, to deepen the embrace, but didn’t have the experience to know how to proceed. He threaded his hands gently through her hair. It was as silky as he’d imagined it would be.
Eventually, Amanda pulled back and drew in a shaky breath. “That was…wow.”
Blake couldn’t agree more, but he didn’t say so. It was, he was fairly sure, her first real kiss. So why was he the one who felt like something life altering had just taken place?
“Let’s get you home, Amanda.”
******
If Blake had realized who was standing in the driveway, he never would have pulled into it. He was fairly sure that he was about to give in to the urge to punch a man of god right in his righteous nose.
“Get away from her, you devil bastard!”
Amanda cracked her window and said in a voice that was shaking with anger, “Daddy, please…”
“Shut up. Don’t even speak to me until you’re done acting like a whore.”
Blake saw red. “I’m going to have to leave, Amanda. If we leave this truck, I’m not sure—”
A rock bounced off the hood of his truck, followed by a brick that had lined the flower bed.
“Get away from her, you filthy sinner. Give me back my daughter so that I can purge the demons from her immortal soul!”
“My god, he’s lost it…”
Blake had been trying to let Amanda make a decision so that she could feel like she had some control over the situation, but he had to put the truck in reverse and get out of this driveway before he put it in drive and ran over an asshole minister instead.
Amanda’s phone rang, and she listened for a second before thanking someone shakily and hanging up. He pulled out of her drive and started toward the main road through town with no specific destination in mind.
“Aimee called the police, but she said she’s going to give him a warning, a chance to calm down and leave before they show up. I’m so sorry Blake. I honestly didn’t think he cared enough to react this way.”
Blake couldn’t believe she was apologizing for that bastard’s actions. With a father like that it was no wonder she’d gone to such lengths to hurt him, or that she had self-esteem so low that she’d decided it was perfectly okay to sell herself to the highest bidder. He quit the train of thought before he decided to go back and run her father over after all.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for, sweetheart. I can understand that he’s upset given what he probably thinks happened tonight, but he had no right to act that way towards you. None at all.”
“I don’t know…what I did really humiliated him.”
“That shouldn’t be the most important thing on his mind in this scenario. You should be…never mind. Just tell me what I can do to make the rest of this day easier for you. You have to be exhausted.”
He took her hand, hoping to comfort her with the simple touch.
“Well, I can’t go home, and I really can’t afford a hotel…not until I cash your check anyway. Would you mind too terribly if we went back to your place? If you don’t want me in the house, I could sleep in the barn or something.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Amanda. You’re welcome in the house. And I don’t want you to feel pressured to do anything you don’t want to tonight. I have plenty of spare bedrooms, and you can have your pick of them.”
“Thank you, Blake. I appreciate this, so much.”
******
He’d barely closed and locked the front door behind them when Amanda launched herself at him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his as their lips met. All the passion he’d restrained earlier came rushing back to him. They were in his house, alone. Lust and possessive affection crowded all logic from his mind.
He growled low in his throat and deepened the kiss before sweeping Amanda off her feet to carry her to the couch. She immediately straddled him once they were seated, and he could feel the heat of her core against him. It nearly drove him mad with wanting.
He kissed her again, deep and slow, a kiss of complete possession, before he trailed his lips to Amanda’s neck. She shuddered in reaction to his touch. He smiled. She was so damn responsive. He reached to cup her breast through the material of her shirt. Her nipple was hardened with lust and she started instinctively moving her hips, searching for the fulfillment her body craved. It was almost enough to make him cum on the spot.
He wanted her, more than he’d wanted anyone ever before. Some remnant of sense reminded him that this was her first time, and he was about to take her on his couch like some randy teenager only minutes after her father had berated her. He slowed the kisses, but Amanda would have none of it. Finally, he had to ease her off him and stand, though pushing her away was going against his every instinct.
She looked up at him, her lips swollen from his kisses and her eyes heavy with lust, and he said words that he was pretty sure he would regret when he went to bed horny and alone later. Hell, he was cursing himself for fifteen kinds of fool and the words hadn’t even left his mouth yet.
“I want you, Amanda, but not like this.” Yep. He felt just as much like an idiot as he’d thought he would. More even. She just looked at him, her expression confused and slightly hurt.
“I want your first time to be perfect, special. I don’t want it to be after a crappy, stressful day. We have plenty of time. Let’s just take it slow, take a little more time to get to know each other.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay, Blake.”
She started to fall apart then. Not an explosive meltdown, but silent tears that made him feel like he’d move mountains to keep them from falling down her face. He knew then that he’d mad
e the right decision in taking things slow. She’d been using what was between them to distract herself from pain, not to savor and enjoy her first time with a man.
He silently held his arms out and she came to him. Nothing had ever felt so right as holding her while she cried. He was in trouble, in deep. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to fight it.
Chapter Nine
Today was the day. After two, long weeks, the day that she would be giving herself to Blake was here. Finally, she would get everything she’d ever wanted…and she would lose one of the only things that mattered. After today, he would walk away from her. She couldn’t even have the satisfaction of working up a good break-up mad over it. Not when she’d known from the start that the only thing between them was lust…lust and money.
She still hadn’t cashed the check. Sometimes, when she wanted to keep Blake for her own more than anything, she would take it out and look at it. She needed to look at it to remind herself. To remind herself that he only wanted her for sex, and to remind herself that she was on her way to a better life. Somehow, it was hollow comfort.
Today was going to be perfect. She’d gotten a new dress that morning, along with a note from Blake saying that he would pick her up at six. Dread and desire chased each other through her body as she went to answer the door.
She was so nervous on the ride to the river that she could hardly breathe, but Blake managed to put her at ease the way he always did. She was going to miss that, his easy-going kindness. She wondered if he’d picked the site of their first date on purpose or if it had just been happenstance that led him to choose a picnic by the river for their last date.
“What’s on your mind, darlin’?”
That you’re never going to look at me again that way after tonight… “Nothing, Blake.”
Amanda forced a sunny smile to her face. She didn’t want to spend their last hours together mourning the end. There would be plenty of time for that later. The meal went at a leisurely pace that somehow flew by all too quickly.
They talked and ate, stole an occasional kiss beneath the warm afternoon sun that dappled the ground around them where it shone through the canopy of trees overhead. It was perfect, amazing…it was all the romance she’d dreamed of accompanying her first time since she’d become a young woman, all rolled into one afternoon.
The sexual tension between them could only become so tight before it snapped though, and eventually their kisses and touches became hotter, more searching and desperate as they hurtled toward the night’s inevitable conclusion.
“This is the last time you put your hands on my baby, Blake Daniels!”
Amanda gasped at the sound of her father’s voice. They’d been so wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t even heard his approach. Then he sucker-punched Blake. Blake stood, murder in his eyes. He looked at her, though, and his eyes softened. She knew then that he would hold back, that he wouldn’t hurt her father when he would hurt her in doing so.
He was able to quickly subdue her father, who cursed and screamed at him even though Blake had promised to let him go as soon as he calmed down and gave him his word that they could talk things out peacefully.
“Daddy, please…just tell him you’ll calm down,” Amanda pleaded.
“I won’t. I won’t until he swears to never again touch my little girl. Please, Amanda…you’re all I have left.” The heartache in his eyes tore Amanda up more than his rage ever had. She felt tears start to stream down her face.
She knew then that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t have sex just to spite the man who’d loved her for all of her life and was only guilty of a single mistake. She couldn’t sleep with the man she’d started falling in love with for money just to have him leave her after he’d taken a piece of her soul.
“Okay, Daddy…okay.” With shaking hands, she reached into her purse and pulled out the check, tore it in two, and placed it in the picnic basket.
“I’m sorry, Blake. I didn’t mean to lead you on, but…I just can’t.”
She turned to run away from the picnic site then, stopping to call Aimee to pick her up only after she’d reached the main road. Had there been pain in Blake’s eyes, or had her own yearning made her imagine it?
Chapter Ten
Blake had never felt lower than when he’d restrained Amanda’s father. If he had a daughter who’d sold herself the way Amanda had, he’d have probably reacted in a pretty similar way, minus all the religious lines. Then when Amanda had torn the check in two and left him…he’d pictured her tearing up that check repeatedly over the last several days. In his daydreams, though, she’d torn it up because she’d decided to be with him just because she wanted to. Whatever she’d needed the money for, he would provide it…he just wanted her to realize the same thing he had: they were meant for each other.
There was a connection with Amanda that he’d never felt with anyone before. It blew his mind to think that she couldn’t feel how badly he wanted her to stay with him always.
She’d thrown herself back into the church with a fervor, as though if she attended enough services and bible studies, she could erase the sin she’d almost committed with him. Damn, he almost wished she had already committed it. No, though…this was better. This way he could find a way to make her want him without having to pay for her affection, for her time and trust. She was ignoring his calls though.
Amanda was going to have to hear him out, whether she liked it or not. Then if she wanted to walk away from him, at least he’d laid his cards on the table and she’d made an informed decision. He cornered her at the side of the church.
“I’m really in a hurry, Blake.” Christ. She wouldn’t even meet his eyes.
“I just want you to listen to me, Amanda. Two minutes, please. That’s all I’m asking for here. Just two minutes.”
The tension was radiating from her in waves. “Fine. Two minutes.”
“Thank you. I know that things didn’t start right between us. I should have handled things differently. I should have asked you to dinner the first time I realized how attracted to you I was…I didn’t though. I was afraid of getting hurt again after Sophie, I think. Then you made that announcement, and…I wanted you, but more than that, I didn’t want anyone else to have you. So I made the bid, even knowing that you deserved more than that, that you deserved commitment and romance.”
She hadn’t stopped him yet, and she was making eye contact now. He took a deep breath and continued, “Then we spent time together, and I realized that you’re every bit as smart and fun and passionate as you are beautiful, and I just…there is no one better for me than you. I want to be with you, really be with you. Not for a night, or for a week. I want you for as long as you’ll have me, Amanda.”
He stopped when he saw the tears that swam into her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks. “Just leave me alone, Blake.”
He would give her anything, yet she asked for the only thing he wanted to deny her. He couldn’t keep the heartbreak from his voice. “Okay, darlin’. If that’s what you really want.”
She hurried inside and left him wondering where the hell he was supposed to go from here, how he was supposed to move past this.
“So you really didn’t…you and Amanda were never…together?” He hadn’t even heard her father come up behind him.
“No, we weren’t. I could tell she wasn’t ready, and then…then she didn’t want me anymore.”
The man who’d been so angry at him just smiled a weary, sad smile. “I thought I needed to protect her from you; it looks to me like it might have been the other way around. I think I owe you an apology, son. Thank you for treating my daughter like the precious gift she is instead of taking advantage of her.”
“You don’t have to thank me, and I’m sorry that I didn’t look at things from your point of view from the beginning. I would have wanted to protect her too, if I were you and…I’d do it the same way again. I just wish…”
He didn’t finish the
sentence. He didn’t know how to. He turned and strode toward the church parking lot, though he wasn’t sure just where in the hell he was supposed to go from here.
Chapter Eleven
It had been five days since Blake had come and torn her carefully reconstructed world apart. She’d tried to throw herself back into the role of preacher’s daughter, the one that she’d filled the vast majority of her life with. She’d been able to, even though the routine seemed bleaker than before, like all the color had leached from her life when she’d walked away from Blake. Still, though…she could see herself becoming content in the role eventually.
That was before he’d come back to her and tried to convince her that he cared for her. She didn’t know if it was true or if he was just trying to get her into bed after he’d been lusting for so long…now she wasn’t sure it mattered either way. She just wanted him, any way that she could have him.
It was these thoughts that led her to his door five long, lonely days after he’d claimed to care for her. She rang the doorbell and waited for him to answer it.
When he opened the door, he stared at her as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. He was unshaven, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes that made Amanda wonder if he’d been sleeping well lately. He reached out to touch her cheek, his eyes filled with wonder. She opened her mouth before she lost her nerve.
“I’ve decided that I want to have sex with you. I want more than that, but I won’t ask for anything in return. I want you, money or no money. I just—”
Her words were cut off when he kissed her, hard. “Thank God.”
Then he picked her up and carried her past the couch to his bedroom. As soon as he’d laid her on the bed, his large frame covered hers and he kissed her. There was none of the repressed passion he’d shown her before. This was pure, unbridled lust.
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