Man in Black

by Melissa Shirley

  “Why? Am I overdressed? Not dressed well enough? Do I need a suit and tie?”

  She bit her lip. “No, smart guy, I just don’t see you pushing a shopping cart, and I think the clean-up on aisle five atmosphere might be a bit too much for your delicate constitution.”

  “Delicate?” One corner of his mouth tilted up. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that about me before.”

  “I call them like I see them.”

  “Oh, come on. I think I can handle a grocery store. That’s the place where they sell all the food you have to cook yourself, right?” He reached out to take her hand in his.

  One touch. Just the one.

  As he slipped his hand over hers, she clamped her feet harder into her shoes to stop herself from throwing him back onto the car and climbing on top.

  “Yep.” The word came out in a strangled gasp.

  “Give me the tour then? Wow me with your domesticity and your vast supermarket knowledge.”

  She wavered. Okay. So she didn’t really want to walk all the way across town to the store then all the way back to her apartment. Of course, every minute she spent with this guy had her fantasy file filling up. She needed to forget the food, run home, and lock herself in before she humiliated herself by begging him to take her to bed. But the ride. . .

  “Come on. I’ll take notes. You can quiz me later.” He stepped even closer. “As a matter of fact, I’ve always excelled when it comes to oral exams.”

  If he kept talking like that, and looking like that, and smelling like that, they wouldn’t make it out of the diner parking lot. “Forget it, pretty boy. I’ll walk. It’s safer.” Turning on her heel, she made it about six inches before he grabbed her arm.

  “Sorry. That was out of line. I apologize. I’ll behave. You have my word.” He crossed his heart with his finger.

  Had her feet not ached and her calves not groaned in protest at the two steps she’d taken, she would have told him to go stuff himself. At least, that’s what she told herself. Instead, she nodded. “Okay. Come with me, and I’ll show you how the peasants live. But no funny business.”

  “I’ll be so good, you might even mistake me for an altar boy.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think anyone would ever mistake you for an altar boy.” Before she could second-guess her willpower, she climbed in the car and fastened her seatbelt.

  Sitting next to him in a Camaro that vibrated underneath her, smelled of his cologne, and provided just enough glow from the dash that she could make out his every feature had her itching to touch him. She longed to run her hand over the stubble growing on his cheek. Her fingers curled into her palm. No touching.

  He drove, sneaking glances at her as she stared at him. “For someone who seems to have a minimum number of words she’s required to use during a day, you’re pretty quiet.”

  “Is that your not so subtle way of saying I talk too much?”

  “Not at all.” But his grin suggested otherwise.

  She shrugged. “Just remember, you asked for it.” She cracked her knuckles one hand at a time then turned to face him. “So tell me, naughty boy. What was all that about with Mrs. Winterbottom today? She seemed to think you might pose a threat to the peaceful quiet of our little town.” And my personal safety.

  He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. The line of his mouth compressed, and for a second, Ryhan thought she might have crossed some imaginary line of nosiness. “It’s an old story. Not worth talking about.”

  “See? That’s why you think I talk too much.” She twisted back toward the windshield, hoping she hadn’t just upset him.

  “Why’s that?” He took his eyes off the road and met her gaze.

  “Because if someone asks me something I don’t want to answer, I go into a long, wordy spiel so they forget what they really wanted to know.” Her fingers continued tingling, and she rubbed her hands down the front of her thighs. “Go ahead. Ask me an uncomfortable question.”

  “I don’t know you well enough to know what would make you try to squirm out of an answer.”

  She frowned. And that pretty well summed up why she couldn’t just fall into bed with him. They didn’t know each other. “True.”

  “I’d like to fix that. I’d like to get to know you.”

  Well, that would certainly solve one impediment to the golden-paved road to afterglow.

  She cleared her throat. Men just didn’t say things like that to her. Propositions? Yes. Bawdy jokes? Almost always. Sweet words? Never. It threw her off. “Um, so, tell me. Doesn’t your. . .girlfriend mind you being away?”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend.” She cocked one eyebrow waiting for him to elaborate. “I had one, but we broke up.”

  “How come?” Now they were getting to the heart of things. When he remained perfectly still and barely breathing, Ryhan smiled. “Come on. You’ve seen my sex video. You know my secrets. Tell me yours.”

  He nodded but stared straight ahead. “She was beautiful and smart, smarter than anyone I’ve ever met. And she was cool in the beginning. Watched the games with me. Let me watch Sports Center. It was better than hanging out with the guys because well. . .I wasn’t having sex with any of them after Sports Center.”

  “So, why’d it end?” No smart, reasonable man would leave a girl who could tolerate sport news programming.

  “Something changed. I don’t know. She went from being the coolest girl I knew to a jealous, crazy stalker. If I went to the gym, she drove past fifteen times. If I went to a game, she called me every ten minutes. It started out little, but by the end, she was having tantrums if I so much as left the house to take out the trash.” He didn’t glance over or take his eyes off the road for even a second.

  “You lived with her?” Somehow, he just didn’t seem the type.

  “Yeah. We were together for a few years. She moved in, and a little while later, it all went sour. I got tired of hearing her cry over things that only happened in her imagination.” He shrugged. “She’s married now to some investment banker who works a nine to five and has no life outside of her.”

  “Did you love her?”

  The air in the car stopped moving as she waited for an answer, and he seemed to consider his words before he spoke. “Yeah, for a while. But after all that, she’s the reason there’s no one else.”

  “Because you still love her?”

  He grinned. “No. Because women as a species are unpredictable and kind of crazy.”

  “That’s a pretty broad generalization.”

  With a quick glance over at her, he shrugged. “Maybe, but I know a few women, and I haven’t seen much evidence to contradict it.”

  It wasn’t like Ryhan could deny it. She’d seen her fair share of crazy women. Which brought up another interesting point. “What was her name?”

  “Renee. Does that make a difference?” His forehead wrinkled with the question.

  Ryhan nodded. “I have a name theory.”

  “A name theory?”

  “I haven’t exactly been gathering actual data or anything, but I go off of things I know. . .like I never met a Jennifer who could pick a man. And I’ve never met a Courtney who could handle her liquor. Stuff like that.” Oh Lord. Next she would be telling him she named all her stuffed animals.

  “And in all your world travels, this theory rings true?”

  He hadn’t bothered to hide the disbelief, and she rolled her eyes. “Hey, pretty boy. Don’t judge. There were nine Jennifers in my graduating class. Seven of them are still single. Six of them dated the same guy.” She didn’t say the theory was infallible.

  “You’re still single.”

  “Nice of you to remind me.” He was only the hundredth person in this town who’d made a big deal out of her marital status.

  “What does that say about the Ryhans of the world?”

  “I don’t know any other girls named Ryhan.”

  He pulled the car into a space in front of the market, killed the engine,
and turned to face her. His fingertip trailed over her cheekbone. “How come you’re single?”

  “I never found the right guy.” It was true enough, but not the entire reason. She wasn’t ready for a real relationship. Maybe that was why she kept picking guys like Rick—one-night stands that lasted for a few months before going cold. Not that she had time for an in-depth analysis while Jesse was stroking her face.

  Her lips trembled as his thumb brushed across her mouth. She closed her eyes and remembered the hard planes of his body when she’d fallen on top of him, the soft, feathers of his kiss before they’d turned hard, passionate and demanding, the way her body had heated from her center outward.

  “Jesse.” Her voice squeaked, and her breath stuttered while her hands shook. She wanted more than his touch on her mouth. Melting, as she gazed into his eyes, seemed a very real possibility since her limbs had already begun to go liquid.

  Did it matter that the word around town was that Jesse Megalos epitomized the classic love ’em and leave ’em stereotype: bad ass car, face worthy of a good swoon, one-night rodeos with women on a global front? How bad—and by bad she meant awesome—would it be to become a notch on his bedpost? With Jesse, she wouldn’t be able to fall back on drunkenness as an excuse like she had with Rick. Still, she didn’t pull away. “Jess, we should go in and, you know, shop.” She managed a weak protest that even to her own ears sounded half-hearted. She would have been content to stay in the car for as long as he kept looking at her with those hooded eyes full of desire and promise.

  Disappointment flashed across his face before he blinked it away and dropped his hand. Her skin went cold where he’d been so lightly caressing it.

  “Okay.” He opened his door and stepped out. After a long, slow, deep breath, she met him at the front of the car.

  “Ready for the grand tour?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I feel like I should prepare you somehow.” She walked close enough to touch him, but twisted her hands together, wishing she had one of those Chinese finger trap things. The last thing she wanted to do was slide her hand along the curve of his jeans or curl her fingers into the short hairs at the nape of his neck. Forget the Chinese thing. A pair of handcuffs or a straitjacket would probably be more necessary. She shook out her hands in front of her while they walked. “Or maybe you’d prefer the surprise of gourds and tomatoes sharing space with Ho Hos and pork rinds.” She licked her lips, trying not to drool over the way his shirt narrowed into his jeans and—

  “It’s a dieter’s conundrum.”

  “Surprise me.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and smiled that dangerous smile of his—the one that made her girl parts stand up and take notice. “Lead the way.” With a twinkle in his eye, he added, “I like the view from back here.”

  She stumbled forward, and he reached out to steady her, circling her waist and drawing her against his chest. For a sliver of a moment, she ignored the sensation clawing inside her belly, until her mind conjured images of his body pinning hers against the hood of his car, kissing her until she went molten.

  She was single.

  He was single.

  Why not? She turned, slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down for the kiss she craved.

  His hand moved up her back to rest between her shoulder blades as his lips stroked hers. Her mind exploded and conscious thought faded. He walked her backward, away from the store windows until her shoulders touched against the passenger door of a minivan. He angled his body into hers.

  A soft “ahem” followed by a much louder, “excuse me” brought them crashing back to reality.

  Jesse took a step back, his arms falling to his sides. It took Ryhan a bit longer to react, to catch a breath, to float back down from heaven to the streets of Rangers End. Her tunnel vision almost allowed her to ignore the woman holding an armful of groceries and tapping her foot in a rapid drumbeat along the concrete.

  “Jesse? Jesse Megalos?” The woman dropped her bag of groceries, a few oranges rolling under her van. She threw her arms around his neck, rocking from side to side as she pushed him back. He wobbled, putting a hand out to brace himself against the van.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh my God!” The woman’s squeal pierced the air and the ears of anyone within a fifty-foot radius. A dog somewhere in the distance barked in response. She leaned away long enough to look him up and down then drew him back in and the process began again. “I heard you were in town, but I thought you’d probably get the hell out as quickly as you could. Like before. You know. After everything that happened.”

  Jesse’s gaze dropped, and Ryhan shot him a reassuring wink as soon as he looked up.

  The woman held him by the shoulders and moved in a bit closer. “You don’t remember me, do you? I mean, it was only the one night, and I look a little different now, and then you never called. Why didn’t you call?” She stepped back, crossed her arms and waited, the foot tapping again, much quicker. “I waited for my phone to ring, and you know what? It never did. Do you have any idea what that does to a girl’s confidence?”

  She was a good eighteen inches shorter than Jesse and probably thirty or forty pounds heavier with a baby growing in her belly.

  “Oh, um, I-I-I got grounded. Wasn’t allowed to use the phone.”

  Ryhan rolled her eyes and mouthed the word lame.

  The woman puffed out her chest, drawing attention to the breasts barely contained by her lime green tube top. “Oh, never mind. It’s so good to see you, but the kids are waiting for dinner.” After reaching up—way up—to pat his cheek, she gathered her groceries, gave Ryhan a little wave, and walked around to the driver seat. “We’ll have to get together before you run out of town again.”

  “Sure. Looking forward to it.” Jesse, wide eyed and open mouthed, turned to watch the van zoom away. “Who the hell was that?”

  Ryhan stepped across the sidewalk into the grocery store. “You don’t remember Shay Radley?” She shook her head and picked up a small plastic basket for her purchases. “Rah-Rah girl from way back?”

  Jesse chuckled. “Her pom-poms have grown.”

  “Eight kids in ten years will do that. She had the first one her senior year. Pregnant at the prom. Graduated with the baby in her arms—the happy ending of her own after school special.”

  Jesse stopped in the middle of the aisle, a look of alarm coupled with heavy breathing told Ryhan exactly what he thought.

  She laughed and hauled him forward. “Don’t worry, tall and dark. The little girl is a blond, just like her daddy—you remember Matt Summerland? He’s probably the guy you helped her make jealous. Anyway, they got married right after graduation.”

  He blew out a sigh as she added a loaf of bread and a jar of jelly to her basket.

  “How did I not know you in school?”

  “Oh, like the legendary Jesse Megalos would have ever noticed little old me, with my Pippi Longstocking braids and Bob the Builder overalls.” She studied a can of green beans before putting it back on the shelf and picking up a bottle of ketchup. “Seriously, you were gone before I ever moved to town, but your folklore lingered on.”

  “Folklore?”

  She nodded and stooped to pick up a bag of cookies from a low shelf. When she straightened, he moved close enough to nudge her with his shoulder as she continued. “Not to mention the heartbreak and quiet sobbing during history class.” Her heart worked its way around her chest in hard thumps and hammering beats.

  “You’re making that up.”

  “No.” She would have elaborated, but he brushed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear, and she lost her train of thought. His touch heated her skin, and she tilted her head into his palm. “What are you doing to me?”

  “Living up to the legend?” He took the basket from her hand and set it on the floor at her feet, then tugged her down the aisle and out the front door. “Come on.”

  “That’s my supper back there.” She
threw a thumb back toward the market.

  “I’ve got supper under control.”

  “It’s my breakfast too.”

  He grinned and opened the door to his car. With a wide sweep of his arm, he gestured for her to get in. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

  Unable to resist temptation when it looked like him, she almost dove into the car. As she lingered somewhere between hyperventilation and her third deep breath, he slid in beside her. She turned to him. “Jess. . .” At the desire flaming behind his eyes, she nearly rethought her words. With a shake of her head, she plunged forward. “I don’t want to be another broken heart you add to your list. I’m not built for one-night stands or casual flings. Even with Rick, I didn’t just jump into bed with him.”

  His gaze roamed over her face, stopping at her mouth. “Say it again.”

  She licked her lips and a small groan escaped his throat. “It won’t work?”

  “Not that. Definitely not that. Call me Jess again.”

  “Jess.” She couldn’t speak louder than a whisper. The air around her crackled, and her brain fogged over. He leaned in at the same time she did, and he kissed each corner of her mouth then moved to the center as his tongue traced a trail over her lips. The touch was brief, and her stomach growling brought a smile through the kiss.

  “Let’s get you some food.”

  Jesse pulled the car into his mother’s circular driveway, shut it off, then came around to open Ryhan’s door.

  She clutched the seatbelt with both hands as though it was a lifeline. If she let go, she would be swept away by a wave of bad behavior. “Why are we here?”

  “Because the only diner in town is closed, I hijacked your shopping trip, and my mother keeps a well-stocked pantry.” It made perfect sense to him.

  She yanked the seat belt tighter against her chest. “A well-stocked pantry? You brought me here because your mother keeps a well-stocked pantry?”

  He nodded, not sure where he’d gone wrong, but something flashed in her eyes that had warning flags waving in his mind. “Mm-hmm.”