Make It Hurt (Texas Bounty)

by Jackie Ashenden

  And God help her, that made him even more compelling.

  Yeah, he’d taken her breath away and it was still gone, and now the bastard wanted to talk about the past. Which was the last thing on earth she wanted to do.

  She’d come here primed and ready to take off her clothes, to enjoy some hot, sweaty, sexy times before grabbing her skip and getting out. That was all.

  But now he was changing things, bringing up subjects she didn’t want to think about. At all.

  You knew that’s what he wanted.

  Yes, but she’d been counting on him being too desperate to get her into bed to bother with stupid, pointless things like talking. Obviously, she’d been wrong.

  She swallowed, trying not to let show her sudden uprush of what surely couldn’t be fear. God, this was all such ancient history. She’d put it behind her, why couldn’t he?

  Putting one hand on his chest while keeping the other over his fly, she leaned in, pressing delicately against him. “You want to talk now? Really?” Gently, she squeezed him. “Are you sure about that?”

  There was a dark, fierce anger in his eyes and it hit her once again, more forcefully this time, that he wasn’t the handsome, easygoing young laborer she’d once dared herself to kiss; the gentle guy who’d soothed the wildness of all those intense new feelings that had burst into life inside her the moment she’d touched him.

  This man wasn’t gentle or easygoing and he sure as hell didn’t give a shit about her feelings. “I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”

  “But you’re hard.”

  “So? I don’t let my cock make my decisions for me.” He paused. “At least, not these days.”

  She could feel her flush deepen, remembering how she’d begged him to touch her, to take her. How badly she’d wanted him and how terrible his resistance had felt at the time. She’d been so lonely. She’d only wanted to feel close to someone….

  You forced him into it and then you hung him out to dry.

  Nora pushed the thought away. No, she hadn’t forced him. She’d made the first move, sure, but he’d wanted her, he really had. And as far as her father went, she’d been young and scared and stupid. Surely he’d understand that, right?

  She removed her hand and took a breath, stepping away. Then, rethinking her “no beer” stance, she reached for the bottle. Might as well, if he was going to drag this out. She was probably going to need it.

  “Fine, your call.” She tipped the bottle up and took a long sip, the cold liquid feeling good against her dry throat. “Talk away.”

  Smith took another drag on his beer, his gaze on hers, looking at her as if he’d never seen her before in his entire life.

  A tense silence fell that he made no move to break.

  Dammit, if he wanted to talk, he should say something, not stand there staring at her. Irritated and trying not to take any notice of the sudden, cold feeling in her gut, she turned away and walked over to the huge kitchen windows that looked out over the rolling lawns and trees of his property. She could see the lake sparkling not far off. There must be a fantastic view from the front of the house if this was what she could see from the kitchen.

  An echo of the gut punch she’d felt when she first walked through his front door hit her again, softer this time but no less intense.

  She remembered the house they’d talked about together, no matter the lie she’d told him. The house they’d both planned for him. Where he was going to live and raise his kids and have a good life. A life she’d always secretly dreamed she’d be a part of.

  Come on, like you’d ever be part of anything like that.

  Nora’s fingers clenched tight around the bottle. No, she wasn’t going to give in to that kind of thinking. Not anymore. Anyway, whatever had happened to that dream and whatever she thought about Smith, she couldn’t help but be impressed that he’d done what he’d said he would. That the dream was now a reality.

  Unlike your own dreams.

  “So, uh, you built this yourself?” she asked, drowning out the voice in her head.

  “Parts of it I did. Had a builder for the rest.”

  She wasn’t surprised he’d done some of it himself. He’d always been the kind of guy who preferred that to paying someone to do it for him. “How long have you been in here?”

  “The builder finished a couple of months ago, so not long.”

  “It’s…” Beautiful. Perfect. Everything we thought it would be. “Nice.” No, she didn’t feel like she’d missed out on something. No, she wasn’t disappointed that this wasn’t hers to share with him. She’d long since put aside those kinds of feelings.

  “Nice?” He gave a low laugh, the rough velvet in the sound like a caress down her spine. “Yeah, nice is one word for it.”

  Nora lifted her beer and took another long sip, thinking about the shitty one-bedroom apartment she lived in. “Damn sight nicer than my place.” She stared out the window, at the lake sparkling in the distance. “How did you get the money for all this? I mean, it must have been expensive….” She trailed off, realizing suddenly that perhaps that wasn’t the best question. He was the president of an outlaw motorcycle club, after all. Any money he earned was going to be via some illegal means.

  “I won’t have my goddamn kid throwing herself away on filth like him. He’s trash, Nora. Always was and he always will be, and the sooner you realize that, the better.” Her father, looking at her from behind his desk, so cold and remote. “We’ll be meeting with his boss tomorrow and when we do, I don’t want to hear a word out of you. Not one single word. Not if you know what’s good for you, understand?”

  She shivered, realizing that as she looked around she was pricing everything, seeing the expense in the polished wood and gleaming steel, in the expanses of plate glass and the glitter of tiles. Measuring everything up just like her father used to do, to see if it was worthy.

  The way he used to do to you, right?

  “Yeah,” Smith said from behind her, his slow, sexy drawl sounding even more pronounced. “It was fucking expensive. So what are you thinking? That all this comes from drugs and guns and whores?”

  She hated how he seemed to read her thoughts without even looking at her face. “That’s…not what I was thinking.” The lie was so obvious, it was embarrassing.

  Smith gave another of those low, rough laughs. “Sure it was. You’re looking around my house wondering how a lowlife like me could afford all this shit. And then you remembered what I do. What I am. Guns and drugs and whores, like I said.”

  She stared through the glass at the rolling lawn outside, green and lush even at the height of a Texas summer. “Well, was it?” She couldn’t think for the life of her why it was important she know that. But then, if she was honest, maybe she did. Because whether she liked it or not, this house had been part of her dream too and it contained a piece of her, and the thought that it had been gotten with bad money was…shitty.

  “What’s it to you?” The question sounded casual, but she didn’t think it was. “After all, it’s not your house.”

  Gotcha.

  She took a silent breath, trying to figure out what to say. The truth would reveal a whole lot of things she didn’t want to reveal, not even to herself. Yet, as he’d already proved, he’d be able to tell if she was lying. Dammit.

  Turning around suddenly, Nora gave him a tight smile. “Why don’t you show me around?” A graceless and obvious change of subject, but hey, she’d take it. “I’d like to see the rest of it.”

  He turned to face her, leaning his hip against the counter. He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his posture loose and easy, and she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from the powerful length of his forearms, from the black ink on his skin.

  She hadn’t fully paid attention to the tattoos she’d half noticed back in the bar the day before, but she saw them now. On both of his arms were intricate, tribal-looking bands of curved lines and squares and triangles, and what looked like the petals of flowers. T
hey were beautiful. He definitely hadn’t had them when they’d been together.

  “What’s the matter?” He lifted one dark brow. “Don’t like talking to me?”

  She shrugged. “Hey, you were the one who wanted me to come here. Might as well show me the place, right?”

  He didn’t move for a long moment. The expression on his face was unreadable, but from the way he narrowed his eyes, he was clearly weighing something up. “Well, I was considering having a little chat about how you dumped me in the shit back in Houston, but…I guess that can wait.” Finally, he pushed himself away from the counter. “Come on, I’ll show you the downstairs area first.”

  Smith’s house was beautiful, she had to admit. Everything they’d talked about together was there: the huge plate-glass windows, the warm, polished wood floors, the plain white walls, the natural, stone fireplace, the huge living area scattered with comfortable-looking couches and chairs covered in rich, cinnamon-colored leather. She’d always imagined paintings and sculptures on the walls and on shelves, but there weren’t any in this house. And, strangely, it didn’t make it seem impersonal or sterile, like she’d always imagined a house without art to be, but more a plain backdrop to set off the view of the lake and the trees beyond the windows. In fact, the whole place gave off a comfortable, lived-in vibe that she couldn’t help warming to.

  Smith may not have had art or sculptures in his house, but there were little things scattered about that made this place undeniably his. A couple of photos propped up against a shelf, one of a Harley, the other of a group of men in vests and beards, holding beers and grinning like maniacs. A tin of screws and bolts sat on a windowsill, a wrench beside it. On the low coffee table that looked like it had been carved whole out of the trunk of a tree, was a stack of bike magazines. A huge stereo was arranged with obvious care against the wall on a long, low console table. From the lack of buttons and the featureless black-slab quality of the electronics, it was clearly very expensive.

  As she’d thought back in the kitchen, the view from the living room was spectacular.

  Skirting one of the couches, she wandered over to the windows again, trying to ignore Smith at her back, watching her intently. “Nice view,” she managed, a strange thickness in her throat.

  “Get a great sunset from here, that’s for sure.”

  Another silence, even heavier this time.

  She swallowed. This was ridiculous. “And upstairs?”

  “A couple of bedrooms, including mine. Another bathroom too.” A pause. “You wanna see them?”

  “I guess I’ll see them eventually, right?” She turned from the view, back to face him. “Now’s a good time.”

  His intense dark gaze didn’t flicker from hers, not even for a moment. “Talk to me, Nora.”

  It sounded like an order, sending a bolt of weird electricity down her spine, stiffening it. “Talk about what?” she snapped. “The house you built with guns and drugs and whores? The stunt you pulled back in that bar, holding Brook over my head to get me to fuck you? Sure, let’s talk about all those things right now.”

  He stood in the middle of the room, tall and dark and immovable, the high, vaulted ceiling soaring above them, and folded his arms. “Oh, no, you don’t get to be angry about that, no fucking way.” His gaze settled on her, hot and dark and implacable. “No more distractions. Let’s talk about what happened eight years ago instead.”

  Nora wanted to look away. Wanted to look anywhere but at him. But he was standing there, all six foot four of muscled male hotness, blocking her escape. Not that she could walk out anyway, since she had a horrible feeling he’d just reach out and stop her.

  The only thing she could do was confront him head-on, the way she should have done from the beginning. Pretend it didn’t matter, that it didn’t hurt. Pretend the way she’d been pretending for years.

  Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she looked straight back at him. “All right. So talk. You’re obviously still really mad, so why don’t you get whatever it is off your chest?”

  He said nothing, staring at her, and she had no idea at all what was going on in his head. But there was something flickering in his eyes and she couldn’t tell whether it was anger or desire or a mixture of the two, only that it was hot, intense. Burning.

  “You know what’s funny, Nora?” he said after a long moment, his gravel-and-velvet voice a low rumble in the silence. “The fact that you’re getting all angry and self-righteous about this house, about Dust, about what I want from you in return, and yet you didn’t have a fucking problem with treating me like shit all those years ago.”

  She’d spent a long time ignoring what she’d done to him, ignoring all the lies she’d told herself. Telling herself the past was over and done with, that she couldn’t repair the damage she’d caused so what was the point of even thinking about it? It had happened. She couldn’t change the behavior of the scared, needy little girl she’d once been. All she could do was try to be different now, so that’s what she’d tried to do. Be independent. Be strong. Take no crap. Think for herself and not give a rat’s ass what anyone else thought.

  And gradually, she’d managed to convince herself that she’d gotten over it. That she was fine, that it didn’t hurt anymore. That the past was dead and gone.

  But of course it wasn’t.

  Pain blossomed in her chest, his words a bullet ripping through all the defenses she’d carefully built for herself over the years, the walls of denial and justifications she’d surrounded herself with.

  Her past wasn’t dead and gone. It was right here, staring at her with those intense black eyes. Confronting her in ways she’d never imagined.

  She swallowed, feeling small and vulnerable, and completely unlike herself. She was supposed to be cocky and confident, a smartass. She wasn’t supposed to be angry and defensive and shrill.

  Yet eight years of protecting herself was a habit that she couldn’t easily get out of.

  “I already said I was sorry,” she said belligerently and lifted her chin. “What more do you want me to say?”

  Chapter 6

  Nope, that fucking awful excuse for an apology had sounded like shit ten minutes ago and it still sounded like shit now. And if she thought that was the end of it, thought she could keep distracting him by playing off his pride in his house, making him show it off like a proud little boy to his mommy, she was wrong.

  Smith prowled closer to her, watching her tense as he got nearer. But she held her ground and didn’t flinch away from his gaze. Evening sun was streaming through the windows, gilding her beautiful hair, glowing on her golden skin. But her cheeks were pale and there was an unexpected darkness in her brown eyes.

  Beneath his anger, came the faintest twinge of sympathy, the need to take her in his arms and soothe her, comfort her the way he once had. But he forced it away.

  The anger inside him wouldn’t be denied. An anger that hadn’t faded but turned in on itself, fermenting over the years like bourbon in a cask and yet, unlike bourbon, it hadn’t gotten more mellow with age, it had only gotten stronger and more raw.

  Even now she was denying him, just like she denied him that day in her father’s office. He’d stood there waiting for her to back him up, to tell her old man the truth, that he hadn’t forced her or seduced her or any of the shit Sutcliffe kept spouting. But she didn’t. She just put her head down and stared at the floor instead.

  Remind you of anyone? She’s not the first to leave you high and dry.

  There had been his drunken prick of a father, sure, and that night in the emergency room. But, shit, that had been years earlier.

  He’d broken his arm after getting into a fight at school, because apparently having an alcoholic for a dad was funny and kids liked to tease him, pick on him about it. He always tried to ignore them, tried to be good and not hit them back, because his dad didn’t like it when he got into trouble. But that day he forgot and they pushed him too far, and so he retaliated and got his arm br
oken for his trouble.

  His father had been pissed, had hated the attention it drew onto their family and onto his own failings. “Fucking useless waste of space,” he spat at Smith. “If you can’t keep out of trouble, you can damn well suffer. I’m not spending my hard-earned cash on you.”

  Then he’d turned around and left him in the ER with his arm still broken.

  He’d been only ten.

  “You’re sorry, huh?” He stopped not far away from her, shoving thoughts of his father right the hell away since that sorry incident had nothing to do with this. “That’s all I get? After what you did?”

  Her jaw was stubborn, her expression angry and defensive. “After ‘what I did’? I didn’t do anything. Stop making me feel like I killed your firstborn or something.”

  His anger twisted, cutting him like razor wire. “Yeah, nothing is exactly what you did. After that summer we had together, after I poured out my fucking heart to you, when the shit hit the fan, you fucking dumped me straight into it.”

  Angry heat flared in her eyes, golden sparks leaping high. “Okay, so I didn’t speak up. I didn’t tell Dad the truth and yes, I should have. But Christ Almighty, Smith. I was eighteen years old. I was a kid. And Dad told me if I said a word, I’d—” She stopped all of a sudden, biting her lip.

  “What?” he demanded, not taking his eyes off her face. “He told you what?”

  Her throat moved, her gaze flicking away then back again. “That…I wouldn’t be his daughter anymore.”

  A cold shock moved through him, though he did his best to ignore it. Because of course Don Sutcliffe would have manipulated Nora to get her to do what he wanted, that’s what guys like him did. But he’d thought she was stronger than that. That he would mean more to her. Shit, even just one word from her, just one fucking word.

  You stupid fuck. Like she would have gone against her dad for you.

  He ignored that thought too, taking another step toward her. “So that’s your excuse for ruining my goddamn life? You wanted to stay your daddy’s favorite little girl so you threw me to the fucking wolves?”