Man in Black

by Melissa Shirley

  “Sure, you did. And there’s nothing ulterior going on in your head, right? No rolling around in ten-thousand thread count bed sheets? Or hot soapy showers with the slutty girl from YouTube?”

  He would have smiled at her colorful choice of words, but somehow, it just didn’t feel like a smile kind of moment. “Of course not.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t. . .I don’t. . .what the hell is the problem here?” He glared down at her while she continued to squeeze the seatbelt.

  “The problem, pretty boy, is I’m not your next easy lay.” Her voice came out sharp, laced with a poison only women could summon so quickly. “I learned my lesson about guys like you and Rick.”

  “Don’t lump me into a category with that tool.” Seriously? She was comparing him to that guy? What the hell?

  “Why not? You brought me to your house—”

  “Where my mother is asleep upstairs in a room just down the hall from mine.” His mother had ears like a hawk. He couldn’t tiptoe through the house without her knowing.

  “Oh, you’re more like Rick every minute.”

  That did it. Something inside him snapped, and there was no point in holding back. “And you get crazier with every word that comes out of that pretty face. I brought you here for steak and maybe some dessert.” Okay. So maybe he’d hoped she would want to stay, but he hadn’t been banking on it. It wasn’t like he’d been plotting how to lure her to the pool house or anything like that. Not that he was about to admit anyway.

  “Oh yeah. I know what dessert means.”

  “In this house, it means double chocolate cake.”

  “Yeah. Maybe smeared all over my body so you can lick it off.”

  He ignored the fantasy rolling through his head and concentrated on how one minute they’d been just fine and the next, she’d turned into a raving lunatic. “You’re insane.” He stepped back. “Seriously. Seek help.” He was at the point of not caring how bad things went from this moment on.

  “Wow. Careful there, pretty boy. Your charm is fading.” She turned her gaze away and pointed it out the windshield.

  “You’re comparing me to a guy who, either with or without your permission, videotaped you having sex with him and then put it online for all the world to see. I brought you here to eat.” He crossed his arms and squared his shoulders. He’d learned a thing or two about dealing with his adversaries, and she’d suddenly become one. “I wouldn’t sleep with you now if you were the last chick on the planet and my balls were as blue as the ocean on a sunny day.” That wasn’t something he’d ever thought he would say. To any woman. Ever. Well, maybe Renee.

  “Just take me home, please.”

  “Gladly.” He slammed the door shut and stalked around the front of the car.

  Before they reached the end of the driveway, she reached out to touch his arm. “Jesse?”

  He breathed in deep and waited for a car to pass. She’d said enough. He’d said enough. Nothing more mattered.

  “Jess?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know where all that came from.”

  He couldn’t look at her, but he didn’t push the gas either.

  “I don’t think you’re like Rick, and you’ve never been anything but nice to me.”

  He tapped his thumbs against the top of the steering wheel, and the sound that squeaked from her throat tore at him. She was about to cry again.

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m an idiot. I overreact and my mind doesn’t quite work when I’m. . .okay, I’ll just say it. . .when I’m being crazy. Please forgive me.” She gave his biceps a squeeze. “Please.” He didn’t look at her, but she kept going anyway. “I trusted Rick too much, went too far. And as pretty as you are, as good as you smell, and as wonderful as you kiss, I won’t be swayed by a ham and cheese on rye.” She breathed deep through her nose as though summoning some kind of courage. “F. Y. I.” Words tumbled from this chick like a vomiting dictionary. “Seriously.”

  His resolve to stay angry, to hang on to the evil words she’d said, weakened, and he backed the car up the driveway. This time, she slipped out of the car before he had the chance to help her.

  “We had our first fight.”

  He smiled. “I guess we did.” With any other woman, he would have made some sort of make-up sex joke—well, half joke—but it felt awkward now with Ryhan.

  “Since make-up sex is out of the question, how about that steak?” She slipped her fingers into his hand and walked beside him up the mortared stone steps. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d stop being so cute. Maybe don’t shower tomorrow or something.” She smacked his chest with a soft palm. “Yeah. And maybe wear a pair of sweats and a big hoodie to hide all that.” She groaned as she waved her hands in a wax-on/wax-off motion in front of him. “I mean, dressing like you do and looking so. . .” She paused, shuffling from foot to foot. “. . .like you do, it’s distracting and”—she nodded quickly—“okay, I’ll just say it. It’s a big turn-on, which is gonna be a bigger deterrent to the no hanky-panky agreement.”

  His lips twitched as he fought a grin. “I don’t remember agreeing to no hanky-panky.”

  “Oh, well, you did. Trust me. There will be no hanky. And definitely no panky. No.” Her lips puckered on the O, and just that fast, his hard-on returned and strained against his jeans. “Not with you.”

  “I find that kind of insulting.” He dropped his hand from the doorknob and stared at her.

  “Well. . .” She sighed. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Somewhat.”

  She turned, bounded down the steps and made it halfway to the street before Jesse realized she’d walked away. For such a tiny thing, her legs covered a lot of ground in a short matter of time. At the sidewalk, he grabbed her elbow. “Hey. Throwing down the toys and running away is my move. You gotta be original, sweetheart.”

  “Jess—”

  “What about supper?”

  “I have a box of gingersnaps at home. It’ll be fine.” She spun away, and he moved to stand in front of her.

  “Let me take you home then.”

  “No!” She shut her eyes and lowered her head before turning her gaze back to him. “While my head is completely on board with not throwing you down on the lawn and having my wicked way with you, my hormones haven’t quite gotten with the program. I don’t blame them. I mean, look at you. You’re a chick magnet. You’re Magnet Man or something. It’s your superhero power.”

  “Trust me, that’s not my superhero power.” He’d laced the words with enough suggestion that her skin turned a lovely shade of rose he would have never expected from someone with her own YouTube pervert following. He cupped her cheeks and smoothed his fingers over her silky skin. “We don’t have to sleep together.”

  “Jesse, I’m not stupid or naïve. I know we don’t have to. I want to, but”—she looked everywhere but at him—“I’m too old to be a notch on your bedpost, and you’re too excited about getting the hell out of here for it to mean more.” She ran her fingers through her hair and clasped them at the back of her skull.

  “And you want more?”

  “Well, I don’t want less.” She twisted her lips in a way that drew his eye. “I think I deserve it. Video notwithstanding.”

  “I’m not relationship material.” He’d been half tempted to lie, to promise her the forever she wanted. But at the last moment, something way beyond the depths of her eyes stopped him and truth came tumbling out.

  “Gee, that isn’t exactly a rocket science kind of equation. It’s more second grade math.”

  The way her mind worked, the sparkle in her personality, the sway of those hips. . .he hadn’t even sent her on her way yet and already, his mental legs were kicking his own ass. “Second grade?”

  “Yep.” She sighed and leaned against the brick wall at the side of the door. “You know great body, killer smile, dress to impress kinds of guys don’t suffer many lonely nights. When you have the whole buffet in front of you, why woul
d you settle for some TV dinner?”

  “And you’re the TV dinner in this messy little metaphor?”

  “Yeah.” Her face pinched. “Not quite the hungry man meal, but better than a Lunchable.”

  “Huh?” He’d followed so closely, and now she lost him.

  “Never mind.”

  “Basically, you’re saying I’m a slut?” That hurt more than he cared to mention, but not enough to inspire a denial of the truth.

  “I wouldn’t use such a crude word, but yeah.” She blew out a long breath. “My point is I don’t want to be the thing you do to pass the time until you can catch the next flight out. Can’t we do the friend thing?”

  How had this suddenly turned so serious?

  He waited with his hands buried in his pockets while she continued. “I finally have all the pieces back, and they fit now, and you’re the kind of guy who strolls in saying all the right stuff to turn my head. Then you’ll shatter the whole thing.”

  She didn’t know him well enough to say anything of the sort. He’d had long term relationships, could teach a class if he wanted. Just because Renee had turned psycho woman in the middle of a really good thing and he’d had to call off their engagement to save his soul, didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of doing something long term. Especially if Ryhan was the incentive. Still, she was right. He was leaving town as quick as he could get the deal done. “Okay. You win.”

  “Thank you.” She nodded twice, a frown drawing her face. “I’ll just be going. . .home to eat my gingersnaps. . .and wish I had peanut butter.”

  “Let me take you home. I’ll keep both hands on the wheel.” He held them out in front of him then clenched them into fists. “Ten and two.”

  She chuckled and took a step closer. “Oh, you poor, simple man, you.” She traced the valley in the center of his chest with her fingers, stopping just above his belly button. “It’s not your hands that are the problem.”

  He withheld a gulp, and in a move he’d practiced a thousand times, he swallowed the distance between them and slid his palms down her arms to capture her hands. He wound them around his neck, then feathered his lips over hers. A groan rumbled deep in his chest. Every part of his body responded to her lips, her hands tangling into his hair, the soft moans simpering in her throat. This woman attacked with every single one of her square inches.

  After what could only be classified as the most sensual kiss of his life, she pulled away, resting her forehead against his chest. “I might be sending mixed messages.”

  “A couple.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how to stop.”

  He didn’t bother to bite back the grin. Instead, with the gentle pressure of his fingertip, he lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I don’t want you to stop.”

  Her eyelids fluttered shut, and after one deep breath, and a couple quick blinks, she smiled. “You’re Twinkies, and I’m on a diet.” She stepped back. “Maybe you’ll decide to stay?”

  If he said yes, or even that he would seriously consider it, he had a chance—chance again?—with her. But that would be wrong. He’d be reduced to the same species as Rick. There was no way he was staying in Rangers End. “No. As soon as I finish up here, I’m going back to Boston.” She wiggled, trying to get away, but he held on. “If things work out, you could come with me.”

  “I can’t leave here. This is the only home I’ve ever known.”

  “Why can’t we just live in this moment?” He didn’t want to let her go. “You feel right, and we fit together.” She shook her head and opened her mouth. “Ryhan, I won’t be the guy who breaks you. I promise.”

  “So what you’re saying is we can hang out for now, and we can figure out the rest when you finish your business?”

  Business? He shook his head, trying to clear his lust-filled brain. His mother’s emergency. His father’s devious plot. His own somewhat shady ideas on how to win his company back. Hardly business worthy of ignoring the woman trying to shimmy her way out of his arms. “Do you have a better plan?”

  She blew out a choppy breath, stepped back, and crossed her arms. “It’s not that simple, Jesse. When guys sleep with girls, it is about their”—she half-shrugged and pointed just below his belt—“but when girls do it, it’s different for us. Most of us anyway. Despite what you might think about me, you know. . .video and all. . .I want the fairytale and the white horse, the guy who sticks around. And I know it’s not really fair to put all of that on you, but if you hop back in that cute little sports car and head to the airport and my heart gets broken, I will. . .Well, you heard what I plan to do with Rick, right?”

  She made a scissor motion with her fingers.

  As much as it pained him to say it, he would take what he could get if it meant she left her hedge clippers at home. “We can just be friends.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Good. Because we both know if I kiss you one more time, we’ll be rolling around on your mom’s lawn giving her maid one of those naughty shows like on late-night cable TV.”

  He didn’t fight the grin or the urge to touch her. “You have an awful sense of modesty, sweetheart.”

  “Then call me a liar.”

  With a hint of mischief, he shook his head. “No. I think we should go all in and test your theory.”

  She almost pulled away but held her hands up in surrender. “No way. I don’t want your mom blaming me because the gardener has to spend all day tomorrow sweeping your ass print off the lawn.”

  “My ass print?” Intriguing. Enough so that he needed to adjust his jeans.

  With a shrug of one shoulder, she grinned her dare. “I like the top.”

  Before he had the chance to stop it, a slow moan and an “oh my God” escaped his throat. This time, he took control of the kiss—teased his tongue in and out of her mouth, ran his hand down her throat, rested it on the swell of her breast, pulled her hips in line with his. She slipped her hands under the hem of his t-shirt and lit his skin on fire with the pad of her fingers and her nails raking across his back. She dipped lower, into the waistband of his jeans, and cupped one cheek, kneading his flesh in her palm. Every thought and ounce of blood he owned shot straight below his belt.

  For all the control he asserted with the kiss, she had his body under her power. With one hand on his ass and the other on his chest, she walked them backward, off the pavement to the grass, her lips still melded to his. Taking a fistful of his shirt, she bent her knees, lowering them toward the earth. His heart hammered, and his breath rasped as the kiss deepened even more. As she straddled his body, her hands stilled and the kiss lost its blinding intensity.

  She pulled away and closed her eyes. “You have to stop this.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I know, but I’m all talk. You’re more than I can say no to.”

  He flopped onto his back and ran a hand over his face. “Okay. Stop.” The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for the coronary his mother would have when one of her servant/spies ratted him out. And he didn’t want to be the guy who made Ryhan the talk of the town. Again.

  “It would save so much time if people just listened to me from the start.”

  He sat up as she clamored to the side, scooting a good twelve inches from him. “So, what now?”

  She crossed her legs, punched an elbow into her knee and rested her hand on her fist. “Now, I should go home and eat my box of gingersnaps and cold shower my way into a good night’s sleep.” She pulled a few blades of grass and tossed them down next to her. “What about you?”

  “I’m thinking cold shower. Maybe a sandwich. I’m flexible.”

  “Oh, Lord.” She scrambled off the ground. “I have to go.”

  “What did I do now?”

  “Nothing. It’s my own dirty mind. You say things like you’re flexible, and I know it was an innocent statement meaning that you’re quite happy to either shower or eat. I mean, that’s just another guy-ism, but my mind takes your ‘I’m flexible’ and turn
s it into a naughty mind movie in my head. You know, you, a shower, and some weird ass contortionist bending stuff. Hot bending stuff. So, I need to leave, or, you know. . .gardener, an explanation for ass prints, and a town firing squad with me being measured for the pine box.”

  “When did we move to the Old West?” But, recent events in consideration, he couldn’t exactly deny her predictions.

  “Shut up and go inside.” Her smile and the flush of her cheeks turned him on almost as much as the kiss. For all his assertions about going either way with the shower or the sandwich, it would take an ice bath to soften his hard-on.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Go-o-o.” She grimaced and took off down the drive. Again.

  6

  A seven a.m. phone call from Lucia woke Ryhan from the best Jesse dream so far. He’d been half-dressed, lying on her bed, wearing a come hither smile and a pair of unbuttoned jeans while he munched a sandwich.

  “Hello, Ryhan. It’s Lucia.” As though she needed introduction, as though her voice at ninety-four didn’t sound as though it belonged on a phone-sex line, Mrs. Gilden announced her name at the beginning of every call.

  “Good morning, Lucia.” She pushed away her frustration at the interruption.

  “I need my rugs shaken out today. Now, if you can fit me into your schedule.”

  The poles of the red flags in her mind bent with the strange wind in Lucia’s request. Ryhan scrolled through the schedule of her day she kept on a mental Post-it. “I suppose I can put off walking little Juju, you know, Marybeth Singler’s dog. But I won’t be able to stay long.”

  Lucia scoffed into the receiver of the phone. “Leave Juju to me. You just get dressed and come by.” Before hanging up, she added, “And wear something fetching.”

  “Fetching?”

  “Enticing. I have guests coming, and I don’t want them to see you in those overalls.”

  Ryhan shook her head and chuckled as the line went dead in her hand. “Um, okay.”

  After a quick shower and a quicker scan of her wardrobe—jeans, one slightly inappropriate skirt left over from her days dating Rick, and her job hunting clothes—she settled on a pair of linen khakis and a white V-neck t-shirt. Not fetching, but slightly better than her coveralls, and not doused in gasoline or transmission fluid.