Because Molly was a tease, and he wouldn’t waste another second on her, knowing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere, even if she’d seemed into him, too.
When the music snapped off, he glanced at her. She’d silenced the radio and was staring out the windshield at the road. A slant of light covered her, making her hair shine.
Making his libido rage.
“I am fun,” she said out of the blue.
Huh? Had they been engaged in a conversation and he hadn’t known it?
She went on. “You said back in the courtyard that I wasn’t fun, but I am.”
He reached into his mind for the exact words he’d uttered. Ah. The part about how he had better things to do than sticking around and teaching a virgin how to have fun?
“Have you been mulling over that this entire time?” he asked. Damn, and he thought that he was one to hold on to things that rubbed him the wrong way.
As she looked at him, the spill of moonlight from the window colored up her eyes. Green and blue, not one or the other.
“It’s not true that I don’t know how to have fun,” she said. “I laugh a lot when I’m back home. I go out with my friends. I have a social life.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“That place . . . the R and T.” She plucked at the side of her skirt. “It wasn’t my kind of fun.”
“We’ve established that, because you couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
“How would you feel in a place where every woman was being objectified? Do you have any idea how that made me feel?”
“Let me guess. Objectified?” Never mind his failure to read her very well—he’d also picked a rabid feminist to seduce. No wonder he’d failed in closing this deal.
She sighed emphatically. “I’m sure you wanted to bring me to the saloon all along, show me off to your friends. You think I didn’t know what you had up your sleeve?”
Looked like he’d been called out. But he couldn’t be miffed by that, because she was right on.
“Listen,” he said, “no one’s forcing any of those women to be there.”
“I know, I know. I wasn’t even forced. But do you or your friends ever think about how . . . meretricious that place is?”
“Ooo, a thousand-dollar word. Maybe we can put that amount toward the money I lost today after investing in this bang-up date.”
“Well, if you knew what meretricious means, you’d agree.”
It felt like he’d been smacked. He laughed harshly and gripped the wheel.
After a moment, he said, “Of course I wouldn’t know. I’m not a schoolboy, Molly P. Preston. I wouldn’t even be able to figure out from how you used the word that it might mean ‘tawdry’ or something.”
That shut her up. And it pissed him off, because things shouldn’t have gotten this strained. If she hadn’t checked her phone back in the saloon, making him think that she was only taking one for the team and she’d never given him a sweet little nip on his shoulder while they were dancing, he might have laughed off her comment about meretricious.
The moonlight had deserted the car, leaving them in blue-lit dashboard dimness. Silence caged them again until she added one more thing.
“I didn’t mean to offend you by using a big word.”
“Then what did you mean to do?”
“I . . .”
When she stopped herself, his temper got the better of him, and he steered toward the next turnoff, following a paved road toward some mountains.
“Where’re we going?” She sounded panicked.
He drove to the side of that road, putting his ride in park and turning off the motor. Those wide eyes of hers gave him a moment of satisfaction before common sense took over.
She was scared, but they wouldn’t stay here long.
“I need to make something clear,” he said. “I’m not an idiot. I’m not a degenerate or troglodyte or most of the names that probably ran through your head today. What I am is . . .”
Shit, he wasn’t sure what he was, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
He decided on a safe explanation. “I’m a guy who can read a clock.” He gestured to the one on his dashboard. “And it tells me that I sure as hell didn’t get my money’s worth.”
Man, he sounded like a dick.
Seat belt and all, Molly turned to him. Her movement sent a whiff of that strawberries-and-champagne scent he’d noticed earlier, and it rocked him.
“How much more money would you say you’re still owed?” she asked. “I want to be fair about this since you obviously expected something out of me that I wasn’t prepared to give.”
“You seemed to give me a bit of it while we were dancing.”
At the reference to that arousing, tiny bite, she tensed.
“You must’ve been imagining things.”
“I don’t think so.”
She steered them back toward the previous subject. “How much are you still owed?”
Now that they were in her territory—numbers—she seemed confident. And, damn, that was sexy.
“Let’s figure it out,” he said.
“I already have. If you were going to allow me to pay off Arden’s ten-thousand-dollar bet in an hour and the ‘date’ technically lasted forty minutes, that means, rounded off, she still owes you three thousand three hundred and thirty four dollars.”
The human calculator.
She continued. “Arden can come up with that in a month, if you allow her to.”
Could she? “I’ll be gone in a month, and to who knows where.”
“You will?”
He paused. Why she did care? But he answered anyway. “I’m looking after a buddy’s house in Rough and Tumble, and he’ll be back before then.”
It looked like she was about to quiz him further but thought better of it.
“So?” she asked.
“So that arrangement doesn’t suit me.”
She seemed to deflate at that, and no matter how much of a jerk he was, he didn’t enjoy seeing her like this. It wasn’t fun, and that was all he’d ever been after.
Did they still have time left for fun? He’d sure as hell give it a try.
A few seconds went by, and she fidgeted. She had to be feeling that awareness between them, too, and he’d be a fool not to take advantage.
“What does suit me,” he said, softer now, leaning his arm on the back of the seat, “is making up the rest of the time tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night,” she repeated, like she was processing the information in that abacus brain of hers.
“Don’t tell me Arden lost another game and you’ll be rented out to a different guy.”
She laughed, then bit her lip, looking up at him through her lashes. Those damned long princess lashes that made lust trickle through him.
As she kept biting that lip, obviously still thinking, his gaze rested on it, his cock starting to strain at his button fly.
Yup, there was still some time left for fun tonight, and he’d bet the house on that.
***
Molly hadn’t known Cash for very long, but she was already well educated in the fact that every time he looked at her this way, she did stupid things.
It didn’t help that she only wanted to clear this debt for Arden. Even worse, the car windows were getting foggy and the glow of the dashboard light made everything more sensual. His eyes were intense in that sultry light, hardly hiding his craving for her. And when his gaze traveled from her face down to her chest, then back up again, leaving the same honey-flow that she’d felt when he’d first surveyed her in the saloon today, she got even stupider.
But . . . Arden’s debt.
There was a way for Molly to squirm out of any more commitments if she could just take care of the details now. Her brain whirred with ideas.
Bargaining. Didn’t that make sense? Then she could be back to the hotel in twenty minutes and life would return to where she’d been this morning, before she’d ever stepped foot in the Rough & Tumble.
What she wouldn’t admit was that she’d had an idea that would make Cash see how fun she could be. To a certain extent.
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, the sound of his fingers whisking over stubble filling the car. Then he looked her up and down again.
“Okay. What do you have in mind, Miss Molly?”
She was going to do this: finish business. Wipe away the debt. It was better than going through another date, and it would show him that she could play as well as he could. It wouldn’t have to go far.
When she reached to her opposite arm and slipped her fingers under her high sleeve, drawing down a bra strap, Cash leaned back against his door, his expression not half as entertained as it’d been before.
A flood of power pushed from her belly down to the spot between her legs, where it stayed, beating. She couldn’t believe she’d done this. Her—Molly, the Friday-night couch fixture.
“How much would you pay for it?” she asked.
He paused, grinned. “Is the bra lace?”
“Satin, and it matches my underwear.” She couldn’t resist because this was working.
“White satin?” he asked, his voice scratching the air.
“My strap’s white, but you’ll have to see the rest on your own. And to see, you’ll have to name a price.”
Oh my God, she was really doing this. She’d surprised herself more today than during any other day of her life, except maybe the time she’d poured ice water on Genhaven’s crotch.
And it felt good.
Cash’s gaze had gone that cloudy shade of want, and she knew she had him. That felt even better.
But he was no dummy. She’d never taken him for one, not even when she’d been a bitch and used one of her word-of-the-day calendar gems on him.
“I’m a lace man,” he finally said, “so satin’s not gonna bring the price you’re hoping for, princess.”
Princess.
Prissy and boring.
An extradangerous thought snuck into her. Obviously, erasing the debt would require more oomph, and she had just about enough in her to save Arden.
She unbuttoned the top of her blouse. It didn’t expose anything but her upper chest, but the gesture in and of itself was huge for Molly, and she waited for his reaction.
When he merely tightened his jaw, she smiled. Now, this was pretty fun.
“Five hundred bucks,” he said, his voice still scraped.
She began to rebutton her blouse, and he corrected himself.
“A thousand.”
That wasn’t bad for a bra, right? She had enough at home to make up for it, even though she’d always liked this one.
“How about the whole three thousand–plus?” she asked.
He smirked, calling her bluff by going to start the car, and she stopped him.
“All right, a thousand, then.” She pulled the strap the rest of the way down, pushing her hand through it, then her arm. She did the same on the other side.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “What’re you doing?”
“Giving you the bra.”
His expression was stunned again.
“What?” she asked.
“Molly, I think you’ve missed the point of my buying the bra.”
No, she hadn’t. She gave him the same smirk he’d worn earlier and undid the seat belt, reaching around to the back of her and then under her blouse, where she expertly unhooked the bra and removed it. She handed it to him, a white satin concoction with filmy layers at the top of the cups.
How was that for a princess?
He held it, sweeping a thumb over the gauze. She told herself not to look, because the way he was caressing it made her fantasize about how he would’ve stroked the rise of her breasts if that bra were actually on her.
Imagining it made her clitoris ping, and it took all she had not to touch herself, assuaging the sharp arousal as she would’ve if she’d been by herself, alone at night in her bed. And when he held the bra to his face, smelling it, blood ran to her face.
His gaze met hers, conjuring all sorts of scenarios.
He lowered the bra, then leaned his arm on the back of the seat again, close to her, letting the lingerie dangle from his fingers.
“So tell me, Molly,” he said, his eyes gleaming, “how much for your panties?”
9
Molly almost choked on an answer.
How much for her underwear?
She couldn’t believe he’d gone there. Or wanted to go there. Most of all, though, she couldn’t believe how much she wanted to go there.
A liquid pumping sensation was brutally working her where it counted. This was it—the line between fantasy and reality. The difference between having an erotic adventure between the pages of a book and between the sheets.
All right, so there were no sheets in a classic Ford Thunderbird. But didn’t the idea of sex with a bad boy in a mean black machine get her own motor running?
A soft, sharp pain in her clitoris told her yes. Hell yes.
He spoke again, smiling like a cocky jerk. “I’ll start the bidding if you’re too shy to. How about another thousand for that piece of satin under your skirt?”
Another thousand would put her most of the way to a cleared debt. Not that it mattered so much right now because she was getting so swollen, so needy, and she was quickly forgetting why she was here.
For the first time in her life, Molly didn’t look away from a man who was sweet-talking her. His eyes had her, and she bit her lip again, mind-blowingly nervous and excited as she inched up her skirt in answer to his offer.
He watched, visually devouring every move she made, and when the eye contact became too much to bear, she lost her guts, slightly turning her hips away so he couldn’t see what she was about to do.
She thought she heard a guttural groan from him as she discreetly lifted her skirt a little more, reaching under it, arching her hips to tug her undies down. Delicately, she stepped out of them with one heel, then the other.
Without looking directly at him, she pushed the lingerie across the seat, but he didn’t touch it. The underwear lay there, satin with sheer panels on the side, like flying wings.
There was no sound in the car except for her heartbeat, no sound from outside. Molly had no idea what was coming next, and it made her pulsate even harder.
“You’re still short on your debt,” he said, a near growl in the semidarkness.
“I . . . don’t have anything left to bargain with.”
“Jesus, are you kidding?” His laugh cut through the steeped air. “You have no idea, do you?”
“About . . . ?”
“About how fucking hot you are.”
Zing. She felt it from her chest to her sweet spot. But his comment made her shift in her seat, because she didn’t like talking about how she looked. She’d been trained to be on the offensive a long time ago, on the playground, at the swings, wearing clothes only a bused-in kid would wear back before she’d grown up and into herself.
But that was then, and when she noticed Cash pulling her undies toward him, her gaze followed their path. Her eyes widened as he rubbed the satin between his fingers, circling his thumb to the crotch, stroking.
Oh God.
“You know what I’d bargain with if I were you?” he asked.
“Don’t you dare say it. I’m not trading in sex.”
“That’s not what I was going to ask for.”
He reached over to touch her hair,
and she closed her eyes, then opened them.
“A thousand three hundred and thirty four dollars,” he whispered, “for one last souvenir.”
Her hair? He wanted a piece of that?
Molly wasn’t sure whether she should be weirded out or flattered once again. She’d read about courtly love—admiration expressed during medieval times, chivalric and dreamy. Taking a forbidden lady’s lock of hair off to battle would’ve been something a knight would’ve done. Yet how well did chivalry go with her bra and panties?
And with Cash?
Do this and Arden is off the hook, Molly thought, sucking it up. But the truth was she liked the idea. It made her go even wetter.
“Just one piece of it?” she asked.
“You say that like I want to shave it all off,” he said. “I only want a little. Enough to, say, tie in a bow, and that’s it.”
Fair enough. The request didn’t sound too weird. “Okay. But I don’t have anything to . . .”
He’d already reached into a front pocket of his jeans, bringing out a pocketknife.
Back in Molly’s Real World, she would’ve screamed and flailed her way out of the car, but now she locked gazes with him, and when she only saw desire there, she lifted up her hair with one hand, reaching out the other for the knife.
He gave it over with a slow smile, and she used the button to flick the blade open.
“You know how to make something go pop,” he said.
She ignored the innuendo. But when she discovered that she actually needed three hands to do the cutting, he seemed to anticipate her, smoothing his fingers to her neck, then upward, holding most of her hair while leaving some of it free.
She could feel his breath on her neck as she searched for enough hair, then sawed it off, pressing her lips together. It was like separating something she loved from herself.
He kept his hand where it was, cupping the back of her head as she put the lock on the dashboard. It was the lightest color in the car.
A tremble was mowing around her belly, and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he was going to stop touching her now. Praying he wouldn’t.
“I believe that makes us even.” Her voice, also trembling.
Rough and Tumble Page 10