by Burton, Jaci
“You don’t know me.”
“Daughter of a military father. Your mother dumped and ran when you were young. No siblings. You went to private school. Other than a lousy mother, seems to me you had it all.”
Now it was her turn to stare across the lake, to remember the loneliness, the isolation. The expectations, the feeling that she could never measure up. How many times had she heard it? Felt it. Knew she was a failure no matter what she did.
At least Spence had been born male. He was leaps and bounds ahead of her as far as her father was concerned. She had been damned because of her sex from the day she was born.
“You don’t know me at all, Spence. But there’s nothing I can say to convince you I’m not who you think I am, so you just go ahead and keep thinking I’m the spoiled rich girl if it makes you feel better about being the misunderstood boy from the wrong side of the tracks.”
He looked over at her and frowned.
“I’ll be at the bike when you’re done taking your poor, pitiful walk down memory lane.”
She turned and started her walk through the thick grass. Spence’s fingers around her wrist stopped her halfway up the slope. She turned to face him. He looked angry. At what? At her, or something else? Someone else?
“You don’t know me, either.”
She cocked a brow. “Don’t I? I’ve run up against your kind all my life. Guys who think I owe them something because of this supposed life of privilege I led. You judge me based on my father and my address, but it’s you who doesn’t know me. You don’t know anything about my life because you’re too wrapped up in feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Then tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“About your life. What was so bad about it?”
Did he really think she was going to believe he cared? “I don’t think so.” She tried to jerk away from him, but he held firm.
“I’m serious, Shadoe. Tell me.”
He sank to the grass and pulled her down with him. Since he had a pretty firm hold on her arm, she had no choice but to sit.
And then he straightened out his legs, shifted his hands behind him, leaned his weight on them, and turned his head to give her his attention.
Disconcerting, to say the least, having a gorgeous man with deep blue eyes stare at you like that. She stretched out her legs and kicked off her boots.
“Okay, tell me what was so bad about your life.”
She shook her head. “I’m not interested in spilling my guts to someone who doesn’t give a shit.”
His lips curled. “How do you know I don’t give a shit until you try me?”
“Is this how you avoid talking about yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“You turn the topic to the other person, make it about them so the heat is off you.”
Now he grinned. “Maybe. But we’re not talking about me right now. You’re the one all worked up over your upbringing, not me. So tell me about it.”
Shadoe disagreed. She figured Spence was pretty worked up about a lot of things, primarily about being back home. “I’ll talk about me if you talk about yourself when I’m finished.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way.”
“Then I’m not going to play.”
“Too bad. I think you want to talk to someone about what’s bugging you.”
She laughed. “There’s nothing bothering me.”
“Right. You’ve had a stick up your ass from the minute I met you.”
She lifted her chin, refusing to take the bait. “And you’re carrying more than a couple bags of chips on those shoulders.”
Now he smiled. “Nah, that’s just my natural charm, darlin’.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Maybe that’s what’s on my shoulders instead of chips.” He pushed off his hands, lifted both arms, and sniffed. “No, no shit there.”
Unable to resist, Shadoe laughed. All the men she knew were so serious. She never knew any that could so easily make fun of themselves, and look so damn sexy while they did it. “You are something else.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
Yeah, he was definitely full of it. And evasive as hell, too. He had a great way of changing the subject. “Grange knows you’re from here, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Despite the bullshit, it’s obviously painful for you to come back here. So why would he do that to you?”
“We’re not pussies, Shadoe. We all have to face our demons head-on. Grange knows that better than anyone. We tackled the past a long time ago. It’s done.”
“Is it?”
“For me it is.”
She looked out at the water, the serenity so compelling she could get lost in it, forget why she was here and what brought her to this point in her life. The way she drove herself, the way she’d competed with men since she was a child. And all because of her father. She often wondered if she was in this job because it was what she loved and wanted to do with her life, or because she had some driving need to prove to him that she could do it, that she could be as good as any man.
“If you don’t get it out into the open, it’ll eat away at you.”
She snapped her gaze to Spence’s. “Get what out?”
“The anger inside. It’ll distract you. You need to get rid of it.”
“I’m not angry.”
His lips lifted. “Yeah, you are. Is it Daddy or just men in general?”
She snorted. “Put your textbook away, Professor. I already went through psych eval at the academy. I passed.”
“I’m sure you did. But you’re still pissed off, and it’ll affect you on the job. You need to be able to trust your partner.”
“You mean you can’t trust me unless you know everything about me.”
“Yes.”
“Then it should work both ways, shouldn’t it?”
He didn’t have a snappy comeback to that. Good. Did he think she was stupid? Why did he want to know about her past anyway? The last thing most guys were interested in was listening to a woman drone on about her woes.
He couldn’t help her. Correction—she didn’t need any help. There was nothing wrong with her.
“I’m ready to go back.” She grabbed her boots and lifted her foot to slide the first one on.
“My dad was a drunk, my mom not much better than him,” Spence started.
Shadoe laid the boot down on the grass.
“Money was spent on booze for both of them, which meant my little brother and I went hungry. A lot. So if Trevor and I wanted to eat, it was up to me to find food. Most of the time Mom and Dad would come home from work, open up the bottles of beer and whiskey, and they’d be dead drunk and passed out by nine.”
“They didn’t feed you?”
“No.”
“How old were you?”
“I was twelve or so. Trevor was nine.”
A stab of pain knifed through Shadoe’s middle. What kind of parents neglected their children that way? “Did you have any other family? Anyone you could go to?”
He shook his head. “We lived out on the bayou. People keep to themselves and don’t get into anyone’s business.”
“What about school? The principal or counselor?”
He turned his gaze to her. “Did you think I was going to tell anyone? They’d take us away, split up Trevor and me. I couldn’t let that happen. At least at home we were together.”
She wanted to fold him in her arms and hug him, but knew a man like Spence would see that as her thinking he was weak. She thought him anything but. How could he survive a childhood like that? “How did you eat?”
“I started stealing money from my parents’ wallets. Just a bit here and there, not enough that they’d notice. Or so I thought.”
“They noticed.”
“Eventually. You don’t take a dollar’s worth of booze money from a drunk and have them not notice,” he replied with a grim smile. “My old man
figured it out, then my mom mentioned she thought her wallet was short, too. All hell broke loose after that and I paid the price.”
Her eyes widened. “He beat you?”
Spence shrugged. “That was nothing new. By that age I was pretty used to it, so I could handle it.”
A child so used to beatings he shrugged them off at age twelve. Shadoe was horrified. “How bad was it?”
“He didn’t break anything that time. Just a few bruises and a cut lip. I survived.”
“Jesus, Spence. Why didn’t you—”
“Because of Trevor.” The look on his face was fierce. Angry. “It was my job to protect him, to take care of him. Because they sure as hell weren’t.”
She fought back tears at the thought of a twelve-year-old boy—a child himself—forced to become caregiver to his little brother. She was appalled and angry on his behalf. “What happened then?”
“I got smarter. No stealing from the drunk parents. I figured out another way.”
“Which was?”
“I stole from everyone else.”
His grin spoke of pride. “Who?”
“Other classmates. Neighbors. Merchants in the small town we lived in. Anywhere and everywhere I could. Money, food, whatever it took to feed my brother and me.”
How could he not be angry—still carry that anger with him? She would. “Your parents should have been arrested.”
“Trevor and I survived. It’s the only thing that mattered.”
“How long did this go on?”
He shifted, turning on his side and leaning his head against his hand. “The years went by; my parents lost their jobs. You can’t drink like they did and hold down a job. My dad eventually took off and Mom went on welfare. I hated that. Everyone knew it. I took shit for it.”
“From your friends.”
He let out a short laugh. “Friends don’t laugh at you when you’re down. I had no friends. Just Trevor. He and I were tight.”
“Did he steal, too?”
His brows winged. “Hell no. I wouldn’t let him, though he knew what I was doing. I didn’t want to ruin him. I wanted him straight. I had high hopes for him to make something of himself despite the shithole we grew up in. He was smart, ya know? Fucking awesome grades in school. Teachers loved him. By the time he was sixteen I knew he would go on to college. He had the stuff to get scholarships. I had to keep him on the right track, make sure that happened.”
She didn’t like the direction the conversation was headed.
“What did you do?”
“I got him the hell out of that house that always smelled like booze and failure. Set him up with foster parents. A really nice couple who had a son Trevor’s age and had always wanted more kids but couldn’t have them. They were always nice to us, fed us whenever we were over there. They contacted Social Services, petitioned the court, got Mom’s parental rights taken away.”
“How did you manage that?”
His devilish smile said everything. “I went around the system. I’d played it for years so I knew the ins and outs. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to walk into that filth that was our house and realize it was a shit environment for a kid.”
“What about you?”
“I was nineteen by then, and in trouble. I hightailed it out of there long before it all went down. I wanted to steer clear to pave the road for everything to go right for Trevor.”
“You abandoned him?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted saying them. His sharp frown made her feel two inches tall.
“I did what was best for my brother. I was a thief, a lowlife, and he was already way too close to me. I saw the writing on the wall. If I didn’t get out of there, I was going to taint him.”
She didn’t believe that, but she kept her mouth shut this time.
“I’d already had too many close calls with the law and I was skirting the edge. I had to go underground, and I wasn’t going to leave Trevor alone with a useless, drunk, out-of-her-mind mother who wouldn’t take care of him. So I . . . made arrangements.”
“How did Trevor take it?”
Spence shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess he got over it. Last I heard he was in medical school.” His wistful smile made her heart ache.
“He’s going to be a doctor?”
“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”
“It’s amazing. You did a wonderful thing for your brother.”
He shrugged. “He was destined for good things anyway. I just shoved him in the right direction.”
“You saved his life, his future. He survived because of you. He became what he is today because of what you did for him, because of the sacrifices you made for him.”
Shadoe had been wrong about Spence. What he must have endured all those years. The suffering he went through. He was right. Between her life and his, there was no comparison. She was ashamed for feeling like she’d had it bad. He’d lived a childhood of hell, without love and warmth. Except for his brother.
“Why don’t you look him up now?”
He shook his head. “No point in that. We cut our ties. He has his life and I have mine.”
“But look what you’ve done with yours. You have an amazing life—”
He shot her a glare. “That I can’t tell him about. You know that.”
She nodded, understood, hated that he couldn’t share his success with his brother, show him what he’d become. For all Trevor knew, Spence could be in prison. Or dead.
That annoyed her. But it wasn’t her place to object, or frankly, to even care. She wasn’t involved with him other than as his partner on this case.
The problem was she did care. More than she should. She felt his pain, even though he tried hard to mask it under shrugs and grins and nonchalance. She reached over and laid her hand on his arm, offering the only support she could.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do that.”
His tone was harsh.
“Why not?”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“You think I pity you?” She laughed. “I don’t pity you at all, Spence. I admire you.”
He looked appalled. “For what?”
“For what you’ve done with your life, for the sacrifices you’ve made. The amazing strength to endure what you did. Most guys growing up like you did wouldn’t have done what you did for your brother. Many would have ended up just like your parents.”
“That was the last thing I wanted.”
“Obviously. Which is why I admire you. You set a good example for your brother.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Lying, cheating, and stealing are great examples.”
“You did what you had to do since you had no other resources. I’m sure he understood that you did all those things because you loved him.”
“I’m no hero, Shadoe. Don’t think of me that way.”
She smiled, refusing to let him denigrate himself. “You’re not a bad guy either.”
“You still don’t know me at all.”
“I know more about you now than I did an hour ago.”
“I’m not a nice guy.”
He stood and she did, too, bending down to grab her boots.
“I think you’re a really nice guy.” She didn’t care that he didn’t think so. She needed him to hear it, to understand it. He probably never heard it often enough.
“I’m really not a nice guy, Shadoe,” he said again.
She was about to argue, but she didn’t expect the lightning quick move he made, sweeping one arm under her, using the other to jerk her against him. Shocked, she dropped her boots and gasped.
She had only a fraction of a second to see the need, the anger flash in his sharp blue eyes before he bent down and slashed his mouth over hers. She didn’t have time to ponder why he was doing this. Her mind went utterly blank and she forgot everything but the feel of him against her, the taste of his mouth, and the full blast of awakening inside her body.
EIGHT
SPENCE
’S KISS WAS ANGRY. IN THE BACK OF HER PASSION-MUDDLED mind, Shadoe recognized that he wasn’t kissing her because of any sudden urge to make out. He wanted to punish her. He was striking out at her, trying to prove to her that he was anything but a nice guy.
She didn’t care, because his kiss was mind melting, toe curling, and everything she’d always wanted out of a kiss. To be swept off her feet, rendered senseless by a man who knew exactly what he was doing, who knew his way around a woman’s body.
The way he touched her—not tentative in the least, but bold, with no hesitation, grabbing her ass to haul her up against his rock-hard erection—was anything but nice. Did he think she was going to push him away because he was rough with her? Anything but. Her nipples tightened at the fierceness of his passion, the hungry need evidenced by the way he dug his fingers into her arm, swept his hand along her ribs to lift her shirt so he could feel her bare skin. And all the while his lips moved over hers in this driving, claiming way, his tongue a velvet torture device that made her weak in the knees. Her pussy wept with joy at the way he devoured her.
She wanted more, and let him know by clutching his arms and drawing closer to him, moaning against his lips, rocking her hips against him. He answered by growling, and, oh man, did that excite her. She’d never been with a man who was so amazingly animalistic like Spence. Hell, she’d never been with a man who was so much like a man. So primal, even in the way he smelled—earthy, sexy, potent. She wanted to strip him down right there, push him onto the grassy slope and fuck him hard.
Instead, he pulled away from her and dropped to his knees, using his hands to stroke her hips, her thighs.
She held her breath as he stopped there, his fingers teasing the hem of her skirt before sliding up inside. He began to lift her skirt, inch by slow, torturous inch. Every touch of his fingers against her legs made her pussy swell, her clit quiver in anticipation.
“Spread your legs for me, Shadoe,” he said, keeping his gaze focused on her legs—between her legs.
She parted her legs, and he continued the slow rise of her skirt, raising it over her hips to reveal her black thong panties. He removed her hidden sheath and knife and laid them on the ground next to him, then leaned forward, spread his fingers wide over her ass cheeks and buried his face into the vee of her crotch.