by Tessa Bailey
Will lobs me the ball. Southpaw bounds toward me, his nails clicking on the ground, tongue lolling out. If it weren’t impossible, I would swear his expression says, let’s see what you got, lady. So I fake him out. He turns in a circle, yips and returns with a look of utter outrage.
“Sorry, couldn’t help it, big guy.” After a quick, contrite scratch of his head with my free hand, I toss the slobber sphere up, up—and it bounces off a beat-up Buick, setting off the car alarm. Southpaw still makes the catch, trotting back toward me and a laughing Will looking all smug, as if to say, what now, humans?
“I think that’s our cue to leave.” Will’s arm snakes around my waist, tugging me toward the tavern, his breath warm in my ear. “We’ll work on your throw, baby.”
A traitorous pulse starts thrumming between my legs. “I was just testing his versatility. He passed.”
“Sure.” Will holds open the door to the tavern, leaving only enough room for me to squeeze past, Southpaw at my heels. My breasts rub along Will’s chest, setting off the jerking flex of his jaw. “Stay close to me in this place.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re not giving me much of a choice.”
His smile is the furthest thing from repentant as he takes a firm hold of my hand, leading me deeper into the loud, rowdy establishment. On the way to an open spot at the bar, I give fate the side eye. I’m definitely not looking for a man. But leave it to fate to throw one into my path who digs my attitude and stun gun, when nothing can come from it. Not even a fun, guilt-free diversion.
Will slides out a wobbly stool—the only one available—and tests its sturdiness. Or at least, that’s what I think he’s doing, until I see his eyes. Directed at the men around us, they’re full of dark warning. He passes on some kind of caveman don’t even fucking think about approaching her signal to each of them, one by one, and I’ve never been more aware of getting wet in my entire life. It’s like someone pressed a warm washcloth to the juncture of my thighs and rubbed side to side. By the time he slaps the split leather seat, indicating I should climb on, I’m flushed head to toe.
As soon as I’m seated, legs crossed, Southpaw takes up residence between me and the closest male customer. Will and I reach down to pet him at the same time and our hands collide. We share an intimate look over my shoulder and I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead, he pushes aside my hair, leans in and breathes against the back of my neck. The warm washcloth feeling intensifies, my most intimate muscles squeezing hard. Harder than ever.
“I wondered if it was a fluke. Southpaw being protective over you earlier in the hallway.” His thumb traces up my nape slowly, all five of his fingers burying in my hair. Tugging gently. “Not a fluke, though. He likes you.”
Your dog is a bad judge of character. “He’s protective, huh?” He tugs my hair again and it turns my voice to a rasp. “Like father, like son.”
His low, rumbling laugh breaks goosebumps out down my arms. “Yeah. It’s unusual on both counts.”
“Is it?”
Another tug, this time a touch harder. Enough to bring my head back, our gazes colliding. “Yeah.”
“Apparently you both like to mark your territory, too,” I say, turning in my seat to face him. His hand drops from my hair and no longer having it there, I can’t deny a kick of disappointment.
As if me making the accusation out loud allows him to drop pretense, his eyes go hard and rake over me. At the end of their journey, his head drops, that skilled kisser’s mouth pressing to my ear. “Those legs could start a fucking riot, woman. A man who doesn’t lay claim to them…and all the sweetness you’ve got attached…isn’t worth a damn minute of your time.”
His smoky drawl has turned my nipples to certified spikes. “Are we going to have an actual conversation or spend the whole night…gorging?”
“What are you doing in Texas?”
I’m so startled by his abrupt question that it takes me a beat to realize throwing me off was his intention. At least partly. His wide, powerful body is still exuding a monster dose of lust. We’re practically nose to nose, both of us breathing heavy, and I get the distinct impression he’s scrutinizing every blink, every lick of my lips. I’m finally meeting the millionaire hedge fund manager. Unofficially, of course.
I have a story all ready to go about visiting a friend on the east coast. About wanting to see the country along the way. But when I open my mouth, guilt catches me off guard and I find myself sticking much closer to the truth than I intended.
“I needed to get out of Los Angeles for a while.” Taking a sip of my freshly delivered beer, I choose every word carefully. “I make decent money at my job, but there’s some…danger involved. It was making me claustrophobic. Scared, too, I guess.” His thumb strokes my neck, like he can’t help but comfort me even though his narrowed eyes are zeroed in on me, weighing, analyzing. “Anyway, my friend in New York invited me to visit and I jumped at the chance. Figured I’d see the good old US of A while she gets the couch ready for me.”
“New York.”
Making my expression fathomless, I nod. “Yeah. Never been to the Big Apple. I’m excited.”
Quietly, he reaches past me to retrieve his beer, taking a deep pull, before setting the half-empty glass back on the bar. “Tell me about this dangerous job in Los Angeles.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why did you mention it, then? You had to know I’d bite.”
The conversation is moving too fast, so I uncross and recross my legs, drawing molten eyes toward the action. “Aw, you don’t bite too hard, I hope.”
“The hardest. And you’ll love it.” He tips my chin up with two big fingers. “Let’s hear about the job.”
I wasn’t lying when I said my job was dangerous. And it’s the craziest thing, but I want to tell Will about the den. How I’ve wanted to escape it for a long time, but the money was too good. Too needed. It’s all true. And I’ve had no one to confide my fears and frustrations in. Even before Nicky went on his trip to New York, I never spoke to him about my job, lest he worry. What’s the harm in talking to Will about my job, when it has no bearing on my mission? “I…”
His fingers are still lifting my chin. “Teresa.”
“A gambling parlor. An illegal one.” Weight topples from my shoulders. “I’m a hostess of sorts. Trading money for chips, watching for collusion and reporting it to the boss. Soothing damaged egos with free drinks. Managing the books. Sometimes I deal if we’re short-handed.”
A series of beats pass. “That’s not what I was expecting.” Distaste twists his mouth, his fingers dropping from my chin. “I don’t like it.”
His tone tells me he’s just made the understatement of the year. Having him on my side is…nice, though. I graduated with my accounting degree around the same time my parents passed, so I’ve been carrying this burden alone. The burden of knowing I ended up in an illegal profession, despite my father’s efforts to give us all a clean life. Despite the fact that I yearn for something different.
I refuse to let Nicky fall into the same trap I’ve fallen into.
Girls who make deals with gangsters don’t end up in film school.
Noticing Will’s scrutiny, I default back to a flirtatious smile. “Blah. I don’t like my job neither.” With another sip of beer, I keep going, hearing catcalls and shuffling chips in my head. “New York for a while just seemed like a good idea.”
“How long are you planning to stay there?”
I shrug. “Not sure. Long enough to figure out what’s next.” Not liking the weight of the lies on my tongue, I straighten my spine, letting him see what his attention has done to my body. My breasts. “What about you? Are you headed east, too?”
Will’s muscles tighten, his hands seeming to move on their own as they settle on my thighs, kneading. “No.” His unreadable gaze lifts to mine. “I’m going in the opposite direction.”
CHAPTER SIX
Will
Three things aren’t sitting rig
ht about Teresa’s story.
One, she isn’t being completely truthful with me. And after the lies that just came to light about my youth—coupled with the fact that she might be headline bait—that should make me want to walk away. I don’t put up with lies anymore. Yet here I am, my palms chafing the hem of her skirt up and back along smooth thighs, growling at the way her lips part on uneven breaths. Here I am wanting to get her beneath me in the dark, wrists pinned over her head so I can dominate the full truth out of her.
There’s an instinct growling deep in my belly, reminding me of what clicked into place back in the hallway outside her room. During that kiss I can’t for the life of me stop thinking about. She doesn’t seem to hold any part of herself back when we’re touching. If I drove my cock deep between her legs and threatened to withhold her pleasure unless she revealed herself, would she thrash around and claw me until finally coming clean? Would she pout and moan and try to fuck herself on me from below with little writhes of her sweet ass?
What’s your real last name, baby? Tell me and I’ll bang you so long and hard, you’ll forget the answer. Good girl. Doesn’t that feel so good? Grab the headboard. Good. Now, why are you here? Tell the man who’s got your pussy so full you can’t think straight. I’ll take care of everything. You’ll have nothing to be scared of.
Goddamn. It’s an addictive possibility…and one I’m surprised to be considering. I’m an aggressive man, but this level of intensity is exerted only in the boardroom. I’ve never had a connection with a woman that would make me push this hard if I thought she was lying to me. Especially now, after discovering my upbringing was founded on one massive fabrication, I would cut my losses and walk away from someone I suspected of being deceitful. But my gut is telling me there’s too much to gain here, headline bait or not.
There’s…her. The woman looking back at me like she can’t decide whether she’d like me to fuck her or fuck off. She’s got me by the balls, this one. She had me the second I walked into my room and she flipped her hair back.
Second thing not sitting right about Teresa’s story? She wasn’t lying about her job being stressful. Unsafe. I heard the anxiety in her voice, witnessed the strain. It made me want to fly to her hometown and knock heads together. Whether she’s here to screw me or not, there’s no way she’s going back there. Period. But if she’s really from Los Angeles, how is she connected to my competitors in New York?
Lastly and most troubling, Teresa is going east. Southpaw and I are on our way west. My reaction to this is split. Panic over her slipping away on one side. On the other, I’m hopeful. If she really means to move on in the opposite direction, there’s a chance this meeting is just one sexy coincidence.
“When are you leaving Dallas?” I ask her.
“Tomorrow morning.” Her fingers lazily toy with one of my shirt buttons, as if she didn’t just slap us with a deadline. “So, what’s your story? What are you guys doing in Dallas, besides destroying innocent tennis balls?”
“Exploring.” I take a doggy snack out of my pocket and drop it into Southpaw’s waiting mouth, unable to stop my grin when he licks his snout, begging me with desperate eyes for another. Maybe it’s the dark atmosphere or the fact that Teresa just let herself be vulnerable in front of me a moment ago, but I find myself ripping off a Band-Aid. One I’ve never ripped off in front of another person. “The first few years of his life…I didn’t necessarily take him for granted, but I worked long hours, so he saw more of the dog walker than me. I’m trying to make up for it now.”
She runs assessing eyes over my faded jeans and lack of a shave. “You pay someone to walk your dog?”
“Used to.” I pick up my beer and take a swig, watching her features for any form of recognition. “I pay a lot of people.”
“Do you.” Her fingers travel south to one of my lower buttons. An invitation for my hands to move higher up her thighs? I’m powerless not to take it. Setting my beer back down, I grip her mid-thigh until she gasps, then circle my thumbs on that soft inner flesh and watch her cleavage shudder, her complexion transforming to burnished rose gold. “What d-do you pay them for?”
“Working at my company.”
“Are you being purposely mysterious?”
I lean in and capture her mouth in a hard kiss. “Are you?”
She breathes heavy a moment. “It’s called flirting. And if you don’t want to tell me about your profession, star sign and idea of a perfect date, that’s fine by me. We’re both moving on tomorrow, anyway.”
“You’d just get on a bus and go?” Can’t help it, I hook my hands beneath her knees and yank her to the edge of the seat so I can feel her pussy against me. Have her mouth near mine. “You’d leave, just like that?”
“I’m sorry…” Her voice is a scrap of nothing. “Was there another option?”
Maybe, just maybe, she’s the real deal. My job—hell, my life—has turned me into a paranoid motherfucker who assumes the worst in everyone. It’s possible, isn’t it? With her delicious breath pelting my mouth and her hot cunt pulsing against the fly of my jeans, I want like hell for that to be true. “I’ve got a hedge fund in New York. A large one. I’m usually in a suit and tie. And I hate it.”
That last part wasn’t meant to slip out, but it seems to be the bit that makes her smile. “That’s too bad. I love a well-dressed man.”
Jealousy crackles in my belly. “You love a man dressed exactly like me, baby. And nothing else. How does that sound?”
“Tricky.” She hits me with a guileless look. “What if you decide to wear socks with sandals?”
It’s unbelievable. I go from wanting to pile-drive every man in the place, to having the insane urge to laugh. No one has ever made me feel like I’m swinging from vine to vine before, each better than the last. “You’re something special, woman, you know that?”
The rhetorical question was intended to be a compliment, but it makes the corners of her mouth dip, creates an almost imperceptible distance in her gaze. She stops playing with the buttons of my shirt, opting to mess with her hair instead. I’m about to request she put her hands back on me where they belong, when she asks, “So, we kind of got off the subject.” Her expression warms as she looks down at the dog. “You don’t take Southpaw for granted anymore?”
“No. I don’t.” Sharpness prods my jugular, remembering what led to the change. That one fucked-up day full of life-changing news. “Little over a month ago, I’d just found out something. A family secret that had been kept from me.” Again, I’m surprised that I continue to confess to Teresa, especially when I should have my damn guard up, but I can’t seem to help it when her attention soothes me. “Southpaw had an appointment the same day with the vet. My assistant was scheduled to take him, but I needed to get out of the office and clear my head. So I took him instead.”
I sense Teresa holding her breath, but I can’t seem to recount all the ugly details yet—at least not out loud. But I hold her attention for a long beat and watch moisture pool in her eyes.
“Did you ever have a moment where everything feels bigger than whatever bullshit you’re hung up on?”
She blinks at the ceiling and comes back to me with dry eyes. “No. Sometimes I think I’m chasing that moment, though.” Her soft laugh is halting. “And looking for it in all the wrong places.”
My fingers find her chin, lifting her face to bathe it in the dull bar lights. “You saying I’m one of those wrong places?”
“Maybe I’m a wrong place for you,” she whispers, so low I can barely hear her. “Have you considered that?”
“Yeah. And I can’t quite buy it.”
The bartender appears to our left, throwing his meaty forearms on the bar. “You folks ready for another round?”
Teresa takes her chin away and faces the man, her hands restless at her waist. “Yeah. Sure.” He starts to walk away, but she stops him. “Oh! Any way we could get a bowl of water for the dog?”
Oh, now she’s done it.
&nbs
p; This woman isn’t getting away just yet.
Oblivious to the fact that she just sealed her immediate fate, she turns back to me, tucking some stray hair behind one ear. “So the thing that was more important than your bullshit…it was Southpaw?”
I’ve never put into words what I’m doing on this trip, apart from a bare bones explanation on the Instagram account where I’ve been documenting our stops, so I have to think about what I’m going to say. Everything I say to this woman seems to matter. “Forty years from now, I’m not going to remember the best investments I made or my most lucrative short. But I’ll remember this trip. I’m more satisfied watching him chase a squirrel or swim in a lake than I ever was shifting the market.”
The bartender sets down a new beer and I drain half of it.
“This dog…he was trying to be a constant in my life and I was too busy gambling on numbers some analyst pulled out of thin air. Coming home late. Letting someone else walk him.” Resentment sinks into my stomach, remembering why I ever landed behind a desk in the first place. Why I was so driven to be there. “I’m not going to miss the next good thing that comes along. I’m not going to take the good things for granted ever again.”
Christ, am I actually self-conscious? Yeah. I think I am. As I tug my phone out of my pocket and pull up my Instagram account, handing it over to Teresa, I realize I’ve either been recognized on the road by followers or communicated through two-word replies. But I’ve never actually had to show anyone the product of the last month in person. “That’s, uh…turns out, making those memories for him is what’s more important than my bullshit.” I exhale. “He’s sick.”