Bound to the Bachelor

by Sarah Mayberry

  It wasn’t until she was within a few feet of the car that she saw that the front left tire was flat. Then she registered the shattered glass beneath her feet and across the driver’s and passenger seats of her car. Someone had broken into her car. Which meant the flat tire was deliberate, not an accident.

  She glanced over her shoulder, adrenaline pumping into her belly as she waited for Darren to come at her again. It was almost dark, but she could see well enough to discern she was alone. Her cold fingers curled around her phone in her purse and she pulled it out. She’d saved the direct number for the sheriff’s office and she pressed her back to the car, warily scanning the lot, as she waited for the call to connect.

  “Marietta Sheriff’s Department. How may I help you?” a chirpy voice said.

  Lily explained her situation and within seconds Toby was on the line, his deep voice reassuring as he told her he’d have a car there in under five minutes before instructing her to walk back to the main street where there was more traffic and greater safety. Lily nodded before she realized he couldn’t see her, quickly confirming his instructions verbally before ending the call. She was about to follow his instructions when she saw that her right front tire was flat, too. She did a quick circuit of her car.

  All four tires had been slashed.

  Anger ignited in her chest as she thought about how much it was going to cost to repair all the damage. Probably more than her crappy little car was worth. Her gut churning, she walked back to Main Street and stood with her arms wrapped around herself, waiting for the patrol car. When they arrived, she followed them back to her car and watched as they examined it by flashlight.

  “Is this yours?” one of the officers asked, pulled a plain white envelope from the space between the driver’s seat and the handbrake.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  She watched as the officer slipped on a pair of latex gloves and opened the envelope, extracting three sheets of dense writing on letterhead from the same legal firm who had notified her of her bequest. It took her a moment to understand what she was looking at – paperwork to sign over her rights to the money.

  The threat was clear – either she gave up her inheritance, or Darren was going to continue to harass her.

  A heavy weight settled over her. She’d allowed herself to believe Darren had retreated with his tail between his legs after Beau’s intervention, but that was clearly not the case. He was determined to have his way.

  Viciously, violently determined.

  It was time to get her own lawyer. Among other things.

  *

  “Tell me exactly what the letter said,” Beau said the moment he entered Heath and Andie’s state-of-the-art kitchen an hour later.

  Lily was seated at the island counter, a huge glass of red wine in her hand, and she shot Andie an accusing look.

  “You blabbed,” she said.

  “I totally did, and I’m not apologizing for it,” Andie said.

  This was the first time Beau had seen Lily since Sunday, and he ate her up with his eyes, his gaze skimming the outline of her thighs in slim black cords before dipping into the shadowy cleavage revealed by her teal sweater.

  She looked gorgeous, scared, and weary in equal measures and he had to repress the urge to take her in his arms. What had happened between them didn’t entitle him to embrace her when the mood took him. If anything, it did the opposite.

  “Andie said there was a letter,” he said, not looking away from her face. “What did it say?”

  “It was a contract, essentially saying I agreed to give up the bequest.”

  He sat beside her at the counter, listening as she detailed what Toby had said, what the patrol officers had done and how Andie had come back into town to pick her up and bring her home.

  He opened his mouth to ask why she hadn’t called him – then closed it again without saying a word. Of course she hadn’t called him. He was nothing to her. Which was pretty damned inconvenient, since he was feeling an overwhelming desire to tear Marietta apart with his bare hands right now in order to hunt Darren Pascoe down and pull him limb from limb.

  After he’d listened to everything she had to say, he sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen – I’m going to pull a few favors and find out where this little cockroach is holed up. The sheriff might not have had any luck, but I’ve got options he doesn’t have. Then Heath and I, and a few of my guys, are going to go have a little chat with him.”

  Lily’s forehead pleated into a frown. “Is that legal?”

  “It’s a conversation. Of course it’s legal,” he said smoothly.

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Lily said.

  Her hands were so white-knuckle-tight around the wine glass it was a wonder it hadn’t snapped in half. He reached out and eased her fingers from the bowl of the glass one by one.

  “Let me worry about that,” he said, setting the glass on the counter in front of her.

  Her dark eyes remained worried as she studied him.

  “Why don’t we eat and think about something else for a little while,” Andie said.

  Heath was already setting out four bowls, something Beau noted with satisfaction. If his friend hadn’t made the gesture, he’d totally been about to invite himself to stay for dinner.

  “We can eat by the fire,” Andie said, handing him an empty wine glass and the bottle of red and shooing him in the direction of the living room.

  He waited until Lily had collected her wine before leading the way, leaving Andie and Heath to do their thing in the kitchen.

  “You don’t need to do this,” Lily said in a low voice the moment they were alone. “I’m seeing a lawyer first thing tomorrow to get started on a restraining order. And Toby seems pretty confident he’s going to catch him. I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

  “Why would I feel obligated?” He sat on the sofa nearest the fire, leaning forward to pour wine into his glass and top hers up.

  “You know why. Don’t be coy.”

  He laughed. “No one has ever accused me of being coy before.”

  “Enjoy it,” she said. “And stop dodging the issue.”

  “I want to do it,” he said.

  She sank onto the arm of the opposite sofa. “Why?”

  “I help my friends,” he said simply.

  She blinked, as though what he’d said surprised her. “So we’re friends now?”

  “What would you call it?”

  She chewed her answer over for a second. “Okay, I guess we could be friends.”

  She seemed troubled by her own words, which made two of them. His feelings toward her weren’t even close to being friendly. Not by a long shot.

  Heath and Andie entered then, each carrying two steaming bowls of chili. Heath did a second run to ferry the salad and bread to the coffee table, and the conversation became general as they talked about Heath’s latest project, the camping trip Beau had planned for spring, and town gossip.

  “I ran into Molly today,” Andie said as she grabbed a second piece of bread to mop up the remains of her chili.

  “Please tell me you didn’t tell her about Darren,” Lily said, her spoon frozen halfway between bowl and mouth.

  “Of course not. I’m not stupid,” Andie said mildly.

  “Sorry, I just know she’ll insist on giving me the money back if she finds out, and then I’ll have to wrestle her into submission again and I really don’t feel up to it right now.” She rubbed a finger against her temple and Beau wondered if she had a headache.

  “It’s in the vault, never to see the light of day,” Andie promised.

  His sister disappeared into the kitchen with the dirty dishes only to return five minutes later with a bottle of Cointreau and a box of chocolates.

  “Sorry. This will have to pass for dessert,” she said, sliding shot glasses across the table toward each of them.

  “Fine by me,” Beau said, leaning f
orward to snag himself something with a caramel center.

  When he sat back, Lily was watching him, a fact she quickly tried to cover by leaning forward and selecting her own chocolate. He allowed himself a long look down her top while she was doing so, remembering the way she’d moaned when he’d bitten her nipples and soothed them with his tongue.

  He wanted to make her moan like that again. He wanted to make her so wet and needy she begged him to put her out of her misery.

  “Beau. Did you take a hit to the head today or something?”

  He pulled his gaze from Lily’s cleavage only to realize that Heath was waiting for him to slide his shot glass forward so he could fill it with Cointreau. Judging from the frustrated expression on his friend’s face, he’d been doing so for some time.

  “Sorry. Thinking about a work thing,” he lied.

  Heath’s single cocked eyebrow called bullshit on the excuse, but Heath didn’t say anything as he filled Beau’s glass with amber liquid.

  A call came through from work a few minutes later, and he excused himself to go into Heath’s study where he could talk in privacy. It took him twenty minutes to solve the problem and when he returned to the living room Lily was sitting on the floor in front of the fire, a cushion propped behind her as she leaned against the couch. There was no sign of Heath or Andie.

  “Don’t tell me the party is over already?” he asked.

  “Andie said to tell you she’d call you. Heath said not to let the door hit you on your ass on the way out.”

  He grinned and grabbed his shot glass before joining her on the rug, his back resting against the opposite couch.

  “So I guess it’s down to the two of us,” he said.

  Her face was unreadable as she looked at him. After a short moment, she turned and gazed into fire. Her cheeks were flatteringly pink, and he admired the red highlights the flames found in her dark hair.

  “So, how do you see this working?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “The whole you-getting-me-into-bed again thing. What’s your plan?”

  Trust Lily to be one step ahead of him. “I didn’t really have a plan, per se. I was thinking of winging it.”

  “Ah, improvisation. The sign of a true pro.” Her eyes glittered as she knocked back what remained of her Cointreau and set her empty glass on the table. “I guess that means you didn’t have a cunning solution for the fact it would be really creepy for us to go at it in your sister’s house. Especially right here on the rug in front of the fire.”

  He glanced first at the rug then the fire before looking toward the doorway leading to the bedrooms. She had a point. A very good one. Heath or Andie could walk in at any second.

  “My place is only ten minutes away,” he said.

  Lily stood, dusting her hands on the seat of her pants, her expression expectant. “Let’s go.”

  He laughed, delighted by her honesty. “That easy, huh?”

  “Don’t you read the back of the toilet door?”

  He frowned. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?” She looked confused.

  “Make jokes against yourself like that.”

  “It was just a joke.”

  “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.

  “I know that.”

  “You sure?”

  “You think I’d have survived in this town if I didn’t know who I was and what I was worth?” Her shoulders were back, her chin high.

  Not an ounce of shame in her, he realized.

  He stood, dusting his own butt off. “Good.”

  She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “You going to put me out of my misery or not?”

  “What do you think?”

  He closed the distance between them, hauling her into his arms as his mouth found hers. She tasted of chocolate and orange liquor and hot woman, and all he could think about was getting her naked. He slid a hand down her back to her ass, squeezing it firmly before gripping her thigh, encouraging her to lift her leg and hook it around his hips. The moment she did so, he took advantage of the better access to grind his erection against her mons, reveling in the small, needy sound she made as he hit a sweet spot. Her hands slipped beneath his shirt, warm against his skin, her fingers digging into his flesh with each thrust of his hips against hers.

  “Beau,” she said, twisting her head to the side to break their kiss. He was gratified to see she was already breathless. “We’re getting dangerously close to creepy fireside sex, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  He let her go reluctantly, forcing himself to step away from her warmth and softness. Neither of them said a word as they bundled up in their coats and scarves. Moving quietly, they left the house, easing the door shut behind them.

  “I feel like a teenager,” Lily said.

  It was a perfect description for the way Beau felt – out of control, a little overwhelmed, a lot obsessed. His car was cold, and he turned the heating to high as he drove down Heath and Andie’s long driveway.

  “Is it weird for you that they’re married now?” Lily asked, glancing across at him. She was holding her hands in front of one of the vents, warming them. “Heath being your best friend and everything.”

  “It was at first,” he admitted. “But they’re good together. I can’t really imagine it any other way now.”

  Lily nodded, her gaze returning to the view out the windshield.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  It had never occurred to him before, but going from having single Andie across the hall in the same apartment block to Andie being married and living outside of town must have been a big adjustment for Lily, too.

  “I’m happy for them. Like you said, they’re good together. It was hard not having her across the hallway, though, for the first few months.”

  She didn’t look at him, but he could hear the loneliness in her voice. He frowned as he turned onto his street. He’d never conceived of Lily Taylor feeling lonely. She always seemed so confident and self-possessed, he’d just assumed she took everything in her stride.

  “So this is the infamous Bennett wolf lair,” she said as he pulled up in front of his cabin.

  It took everything he had not to reward her goading with a smile. “Infamous is a strong word.”

  “What would you prefer?”

  “I don’t know. Legendary? Mythical?”

  “I bet you would,” she said as she got out of his SUV.

  He led the way to the front door, opening it and standing back so she could enter. The place was pretty simple – open plan living area at one end of the house, bedrooms and bathrooms at the other, and he watched as she glanced around, checking out his personal space. Her gaze ran over his black leather sofas and his utilitarian pine coffee table before switching to the kitchen, where his espresso coffee machine took pride of place on the counter.

  “You’re going to knock all this down soon, and start again?” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Good decision. Make sure the bulldozer runs over that couch while you’re at it.”

  He barked out a laugh. “No, please, tell me what you really think.”

  “I think I want to know where the bedroom is.” She shot him a heavy-lidded look, and the smile faded from his lips.

  Any minute now, he was going to have her naked again.

  “This way,” he pointed toward the other end of the house, and Lily shed her coat as she walked toward the hallway, leaving it draped over the back of an armchair as she sashayed past. His gaze glued to her ass, he followed her, his cock growing harder by the minute. Lily was busy surveying his bedroom when he entered the room. She threw him an assessing look, then walked to the chair he kept in the corner for laying out his clothes for the next day or dumping things once he’d taken them off. Tonight, it was empty, and she lifted it and brought it to the foot of the bed. Then she crossed to his bedside table and flicked the lamp on.

&nbs
p; He was still trying to work out what was going on when she turned the overhead light off.

  “Sit,” she said, indicating the chair with a dip of her head.

  He narrowed his eyes as she pulled her phone from her pocket and started scrolling through screens looking for something. After a few seconds she glanced up at him.

  “You need a second invitation?” One eyebrow arched high over challenging dark eyes.

  Wordless, he crossed to the chair and sat.

  Chapter Ten

  ‡

  Beau watched as Lily allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. Then she turned and set her phone on the chest of drawers next to the door. She tapped the screen, and music started playing. It only took a couple of notes for him to recognize Nine Inch Nails’‘Closer’.

  Lily walked until she was standing in front of him, just out of reach. She widened her stance slightly more than usual, then dropped her head back and ran a hand up the side of her body, gliding over the side of her breast, up her chest, her neck and finally into her hair. It could have been mundane, but the way she did it, the look in her eyes when she lifted her head again, the way her hips undulated in time to the music… this was going to kill him. In the best possible way.

  Eyes locked with his, Lily smoothed her hands down her thighs before sliding them back up again, hips bucking as her hands covered her mons. She surprised him then by crossing her legs and spinning on her toes, a perfectly executed move that left her ass at perfect eye level. She bent forward, wiggling her hips, and all he could think about was how good this would look if she was naked, and how much he wanted her to be that way.

  The heavy bass beat of the music vibrated around them as she straightened, scooping her sweater up over her torso and whipping it over her head in one smooth motion. She spun back around, and he had to grip the sides of the chair as he took in the creamy fullness of her breasts barely contained by black lace embroidered with bold red flowers.