by K. Bromberg
Grant angles his head to the side and stares at me, almost as if he’s asking if he can trust me when he damn well knows he can.
“About a month back, she woke up in the middle of the night to a man standing over her bed.” The fuck?
“What?”
“Yeah. Guy stood there, scared the shit out of her, and then took off without doing a thing.” He shrugs in obvious frustration. “Rare for Sunnyville. Masked intruder. No forced entry—”
“Which means he had a key or she left the door open.”
“She didn’t leave it open. She’s a stickler for the dogs under her care and is always afraid one might bolt.”
“Did the dogs bark to alert her?”
“Nope. That’s one of the many odd things. The dogs didn’t bark. The guy didn’t say a damn word. Didn’t threaten her...he stood there and stared at her before taking off out the back door.”
“Any leads?”
“She gets a lot of odd calls because of the business name but none that pan out. She had a guy she met online...nothing serious, but after a few dates he wanted more and she didn’t.” Is it bad I love hearing this? “The guy sent some weird shit to her so he’s my bet. That and the fact he’s disappeared off the face of the earth…”
“Huh.” It’s all I say as I replay his words.
“Yeah. She feels like she led him on. Unintentionally, mind you—but you and I both know how someone who’s not all there is challenged with rejection—”
“Shit goes downhill fast.”
“Pretty much. She feels she brought this on herself...or at least that’s the story she’s giving me to hide the fact that it scared the shit out of her.”
“It’s always hard for the tough girls to admit they’re vulnerable,” I murmur, thinking about her reaction in self-defense class. The constant jokes. The need to redirect away from her discomfort. Then to our conversation yesterday. The way she jumped when she saw me on her patio. Her refusal to tell me why.
“Always. It seems you might know her pretty well.” I smile, because fuck if I’m going to hide it. Grant throws his hands up and laughs. “I don’t want to know.”
“Smart man.”
A text alerts on Grant’s phone, and he glances at it for a second. “Shit, I’ve got to go.”
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I say and point to the groceries around us.
He laughs and reaches out to shake my hand. “We do. We need to actually make plans next time.”
“It’s a plan.” Grant takes a few steps away and turns back, and I smile. “Don’t worry, Malone. The warning has already been heard and yes, I’ll look out for anything strange at her house.”
His smile is quick. “Thanks, Rez. She’s family.”
“And the second warning was just given,” I say through a laugh that matches his. He turns around and disappears at the end of the aisle.
I stare at the cereal in front of me but the boxes of Crispix and Frosted Flakes blur together as I think about what Grant just said.
How so many things make sense now.
Desi’s jumpiness.
The distance she prefers to keep.
She has good reason to be fearful and guarded.
But not on my watch. Fuck. No.
Chapter Thirteen
Desi
My strangled cry makes the dogs yelp when I catch the shadowy figure hulking in my back door.
“Need a hand with those?”
“Jesus, Reznor. Don’t you ever knock?” I snap at him as I lean against the counter, hand against my heart. I tell my body to stop shaking as the dogs greet him with wags and licks, when I want to greet him with a knee to the crotch for scaring me so bad.
Maybe not.
Maybe I want to greet him with licks too.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
“Oh, sorry. I’ll get it one of these days,” he says and flashes me that grin of his that says he’s in no way sorry. Of course, it does funny things to my insides even while giving me heart palpitations. And when he lifts his fist and does his knock on the side of the door—knock-knock, knock-knock-knock—I just shake my head.
“Please. Make yourself at home,” I say, turning my back to him and looking at the mess I have strewn all over the floor.
His footsteps behind me are followed by a long low whistle. “Now that looks like a project if I’ve ever seen one.”
“IKEA is the devil,” I mutter. I stare at the screws and wood and instructions—in Swedish—and whoever forgot to put the English ones in the box is probably laughing at me over a beer right now. “How a woman goes from spending her nights out on the town to putting together furniture is beyond me.”
But it’s not beyond me. I know the truth. I’m the one looking at every random stranger I meet on the sidewalk in town wondering if he’s the person who was in my house. I’m the woman who can’t even sit and have a latte at the Coffee House without wondering about the people around me.
He stifles a laugh, pulling me from my thoughts as he walks past me and squats down to inspect the million parts. “Should I even ask what this is supposed to be?”
“Fuck if I know,” I mutter. Sitting on the floor, I’m immediately surrounded by fur-babies wanting my attention. After they settle and I’m nowhere closer to understanding what the hell to do, I pick up the instructions again to pretend I’m handy...when I’m most definitely not. “It’s a wall unit.” I wave to the bare wall on the opposite end of my grooming room. “It’s a new house for my supplies and products I sell.”
“Hmpf.” He takes the directions from me without asking as he lowers his knees onto the floor and thumbs through each page slowly. “Where’s your Allen wrench and Phillips head?”
“Phillips head?”
“The screwdriver that looks like it has a plus sign on the end.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s right here.” I lift it up and he takes it from me. “Wait. What are—”
“Shh. Just let me work on it.”
“I can handle it myself, thank you.”
His eyes flash up to mine and his hands pause midway through lifting a melamine board. “Looks that way.”
“I’m serious. I’m perfectly capable and like to do stuff like this.”
“By all means then,” he says and reaches toward me with the tools and wooden dowels in his hand. His eyes meet mine and challenge me to show him just that.
So I do. I take the tools and the dowels and then spend the next few minutes attempting to understand what I don’t understand, my frustration only heightened knowing he’s sitting there with Kiki, the Yorkie, sitting in his lap, both of them watching me.
I last a while before I’m challenged to make the drawers. It’s when I stare at the diagram and the screws that all look the same in front of me, that he takes the instructions from me and says, “Let me,” and I acquiesce.
And without another word other than being asked to hand him this or hold that, he begins to assemble the damn thing. Piece by painstaking piece.
His brow is etched in frustration as he picks up parts only to set them back down next to the twenty other parts that are almost identical save for one tiny notch you can’t see unless you turn it a quarter to the right while holding it at a forty-five-degree angle.
But I like watching him work. I sit in silence and study him. His concentration. The way he picks up the beer I brought him by the neck and takes a swig of it while surveying the progress. The quick glances he gives me followed by the soft smile before he looks back at the cabinet. There’s something very comforting about having him here when I’m used to being alone. When I usually prefer to be alone.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
He gives me another one of those glances but this time his hands still and he angles his head to the side for a beat before speaking. “I’m antsy,” he says, his confession surprising me while he returns to building. “I’m used to being on call twenty-four/seven. Waiting for that alert to go off
, to grab my ‘go pack’ and head off to someone else’s nightmare to try and fix it.” He grabs a screw and I love watching his hands as he uses them. “Now I have nothing to do. The quiet is hard for me at times. I asked for a break, and I got it...but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss my guys and the job in general.”
“That has to be a hard adjustment.”
He nods. “It is. And I also know that if I don’t help, you’ll have another excuse why you can’t show up to class on Thursday.”
My shoulders sag as irritation flames. “I should have known.” I reach my hand out to try and get the tools back. I don’t need this shit. “Reznor—”
“You need to be in class. Right? You paid, so why aren’t you showing up?” He pulls the screwdriver out of my reach and stares at me. “I’ve seen your instructor and he’s pretty kick ass...it wouldn’t be him you’re trying to avoid now, would it?”
Screw this. I reach for the screwdriver again and he pulls it back. “Give it to me!” I demand.
“Not until you give me an answer.” His smile taunts me. “Why aren’t you showing up to class?”
“Because I don’t like you.” I narrow my eyes and try to use my frustration to sell the lie, because my problem is it’s quite the contrary.
“Ehh,” he says like a buzzer sound. “Try again.”
“You’re being childish.”
“And you’re not telling the truth.”
I grit my teeth because what does he want me to tell him? That I think about him way too much when I’m not a woman who pines for a man? That I find myself wanting to walk next door to talk to him on the odd occasion that I see him outside? Odd occasion? Who am I fooling? I hear any noise from outside and I go to see if it’s him. That I turned down a very viable hot night out with a guy because he wasn’t him?
This is why I can’t do this. Why I can’t do him. I let my irritation with myself push me toward anger.
“Give me the screwdriver,” I ask as I lunge at him, only to find myself flush against his chest, and his lips on mine.
I don’t know who made the move, who I can blame later, but the kiss is instant and savage and laced with hunger and anger and every ounce of desperation I’ve felt over the past few days.
I take from him as much as he does from me. It’s full of heat just as quickly as I realize I’m kissing him when I told myself I can’t have him—that I can’t set myself up for the devastation that comes with a guy like him. I push against his chest and tear my mouth from his.
I’m up on my feet in an instant, the word “Shit” a pant on my lips as I move as far away from him as I can in a space—my space—that seems completely consumed by him.
“Mind telling me why you’re so mad at me?” His voice is right behind me—close, too close—and it’s not enough that I smell his shampoo and soap and his taste is still on my tongue. He’s owning my thoughts.
“Because I like you,” I grit out. His laugh in response makes me clench my teeth tighter.
“I thought that would be a good thing, but I think I’m missing the whole estrogen-infused part of this conversation.”
I hear his sarcasm and latch on to it, using it to fuel my anger when it’s not his fault in the first place. “I don’t want to like you.”
His sigh is the only sound that accompanies the staccato of my heartbeat whooshing through my ears. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
I whirl around and face him. His hips are leaning against my counter, his arms are folded across his chest, my dogs are sitting at his feet, and even though there is sarcasm tingeing every single word he says, there is patience in his eyes when I don’t want there to be.
“Because this is how it happens for me, Reznor.” I throw my hands up. “I start out not liking someone even though I think they’re hot. Then I start to like them. I sleep with them a few times. I’m having fun. I’m not thinking about church bells—God, no. But then they say they want more. I say I don’t want more. And in the blink of an eye, all the great sex we had turns awkward because regardless of what anyone says, monogamy is hard for people when it’s casual. They expect to have to work for it. Working for it makes them feel like they deserve more out of it than incredible orgasms. And by then I’m exhausted, the fights become real, and every sign of affection is second-guessed to the point of mind-fucking it...and if I’m going to be fucking something, I sure as hell want some pleasure out of it.” I suck in a huge breath when I finish rambling, only to find Reznor staring at me—eyes wide, brow narrowed, teeth sinking into his bottom lip to fight a smile.
“Jesus.” He coughs the word out through a laugh. “And they say I’m the one who needs to go to therapy.”
I should be offended, but I’m already on the defensive enough that his comment hits deaf ears. “You and me both, buddy,” I mutter, wondering why I’m so heated about this. Why I’m fighting this.
It’s because you really like him.
“Why?” he asks.
“Why what?”
“Just why? Why is this your position, and if it’s your position, then why does it feel like you’re digging your heels in to prove to yourself that it’s valid?”
Everything about him right now calls to me. His patience. His calm demeanor when I just went off on him. The dark shadow the light casts over his face when I don’t want to notice how gorgeous his eyes are or how sexy his lips look surrounded by the stubble he’s let grow.
“Because nothing good ever lasts, that’s why.”
Chapter Fourteen
Reznor
Her words are soft but resolute when she says them, but the defeated look in her eyes betrays the conviction and defiance of her posture.
“I dis…” I disagree, I want to add but know she’ll push back harder the other way to prove her point.
What is it, Desi, that makes you push me away when clearly you want me to stay?
At first I thought it had to do with the prowler—that she was closing herself off from men to protect herself and the vulnerability he’d made her feel—but it’s so much more than that.
“Maybe you haven’t found anything good enough that you’re willing to work to make it last,” I finally say.
Her eyes soften briefly—the door opening to reveal her thoughts—but as she realizes she was about to let me in, she turns her back to me and looks out the window. She stares at the silhouette of the hills beyond. They’re dark against the setting sun’s bright colors lighting up the sky. Pretty, but the woman standing with her hands on her hips and her head held high is much more attractive to me.
Attractive when I wasn’t coming to Sunnyville to complicate my life, but damn it to hell, I like her kind of complication.
“Maybe I don’t look at things that way,” she explains. “Maybe I know I’m not the marrying kind and so why lead someone into thinking I am when in the end, they’re just going to be pissed?”
“Why would they be pissed?” I ask but her back remains to me.
“Because it doesn’t matter if you tell someone there will not be anything else, they still hope for more.”
More. That damn word defines so much and not enough, and fuck if I’m not suddenly curious what more could be with a woman like Desi.
A woman like Desi?
How about, just Desi.
“Okay.” I say the word, draw it out, and try to buy myself some time to figure out what the fuck is going on in my head. The same what the fuck that has me thinking about Desi more than I should when I know it goes well beyond being attracted to the hard to get vibe she gives off.
“I’m selfish with my time. I’m stubborn in my ways—hardheaded—and will fight you on it just to say I can. I love having fun. I love having great sex. But I also love my alone time and space too.”
Music to my fucking ears.
I chuckle. Not because I’m making fun of her—which is what she must think given the expression on her face when she whirls around at the sound of it—but rather because I get
it. I get her.
“You sound like me.”
She stares at me, trying to figure out if she should believe me or not and for a split second, I think she does. But then I see the doubt creep in as her expression changes. “How? What do you mean?”
“I mean I have a job that requires me to be selfish. Every call could be my last. That doesn’t exactly make me the stable, marrying kind either. I have to be able to breach a house and not worry that I could be leaving kids behind. That causes hesitation. That’s a split second that could cost my team or me our lives…” I take a step toward her, hear her breath hitch when I reach out and tuck a loose piece of hair behind her ear. She shakes her head to avoid my touch. She’s flustered. Cheeks are flushed. Pulse is racing in that spot beneath the angle of her jaw.
I want her right now.
“This can’t happen,” she murmurs, her chin lifting a smidge so her eyes can meet mine.
“I didn’t ask for it to.”
My fingers itch to touch her.
“But you were going to,” she says.
My lips want to taste her.
“Reading my mind now, are you?”
My dick—it’s already ten steps ahead of this conversation.
She takes a step back and I bite back my sigh of frustration. “This can’t happen,” she repeats. “The sex was too good. You’re too...too everything, and it’s a bad move.”
Too everything? And that’s a bad thing...why?
“Why?” If I’m going to be rejected, I might as well make her work for it since we both know she wants me as much as I want her right now.
“Because we’ll ruin it. I’ll get anxious and push you away. You’re heading back to your real life at some point, so why should we do this?”
“Do what? Have sex you said was too good?”
“Yes. The first time.”
“That’s a good sign. Typically sex is never good the first time. It’s usually miscommunication and worrying about whether the other person was satisfied. It’s about learning the curves and the buttons and just what to do. You always want a second chance to show her you’re much better than that...so if you think it was too good the first time, hell, Desi, just hold tight, sweetheart, because that means the second time is going to be mind-blowing.” My smile is slow and deliberate when she looks my way. “One time with you is definitely not enough for me.”