What Matters More

by Liora Blake

  “At the risk of sounding like a judgmental asshole, I have to ask you something. I’m sure once I do, this will be over—given that your answer will involve either you sprinting across the parking lot or you telling me to go fuck myself.”

  She widened her eyes, encouraging him to ask away without actually saying the words. JT crossed his arms over his chest and Anya tried not to stare, but his stance—imposing yet tempting—made that difficult.

  “I’m assuming you saw my jacket. I’m also assuming you saw me reach for my holster when you came up behind me. But just in case you didn’t notice either of those things, then let me be upfront: I’m a US Marshal.” His tone changed, turning harsh and direct. “And even though I’m not picking up on any indication you’re a sex worker, I’ve been wrong before. But if that is your game, I will remind you that hustling is fucking dangerous and give you the phone number for a nonprofit group that can help you transition off the streets when you’re ready. Tonight, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you try to set up a trick and you can just turn around and walk away. That saves us both a trip down to the sheriff’s office.”

  It took her a moment to process what he was saying, and once she did, it was Anya’s turn to have her jaw drop.

  This man thought she was a prostitute. Really? Why? Anya didn’t know much about prostitution save for a few episodes of Cops and the Hollywood atrocity that was Pretty Woman. Both relied on the stereotype of a woman in revealing clothing who was loitering on street corners. Anya took note of her location and peered down at her outfit. She was standing in a parking lot, so no street corners or loitering. As for her dress, it wasn’t that short.

  A wave of indignation swept over her. She was actually assessing her own hemline, as if how much thigh she showed should matter. Unbelievable.

  She shot JT a withering look. Immediately, he raised his hands up, palms out in surrender, muttering a few curses.

  “Your face tells me everything, so I’ll save you cussing me out. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I’m a cop. I’ve seen too much to take anything at face value anymore. And this”—JT waved a hand between them—“doesn’t happen to me.”

  Anya rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, please. The first part was bad enough, but don’t make it worse by pretending you’re so shocked by a woman coming on to you. You’re gorgeous. Your jawline alone would make a sculptor weep. You have all those tattoos and you smolder like nobody’s business. So do not act like you’re all dumbfounded here. It detracts from your overall hotness and makes me question my previous decision to unleash my feminine wiles on you.”

  One side of JT’s mouth twitched. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “Look, I’m not saying women haven’t made it clear they’re interested before. They have—and it’s awesome when they do. It’s just never been like this, exactly. I’ve never had a woman approach me who’s so . . .”

  “Suave? Charming? Smooth like butter?”

  JT let out a chuckle, a broad smile breaking out across his face so swiftly that he looked caught off guard by his own reaction. Anya’s heart started to beat harder at the sight.

  “That must be it. All that buttery-smoothness was what threw me off,” he said with a snort. Then he tipped his chin with a sigh, shooting her a no-nonsense look. “That still doesn’t explain what’s going on here, though. We aren’t stumbling home from some club, after pawing at each other on the dance floor all night, and we didn’t meet on some app where people just want to find someone to fuck around with for the night. And neither of us had enough to drink in there to claim this is the alcohol talking. So you’re gonna have to explain to me how we went from talking about D.B. Cooper to talking about fucking each other.”

  Anya groaned inside. She wasn’t all that interested in sharing, but unfortunately, a US Marshal probably wasn’t the best choice if she wanted a no-questions-asked sort of guy. If JT was who she wanted in her bed tonight—and he was—then there wasn’t any way around it. She blew out an exasperated breath.

  “Two weeks ago, I went into work and was told my job was being eliminated due to budget cuts. After I boxed up my belongings, I went home and walked in on my boyfriend giving his new teaching assistant a ‘work evaluation’ that involved him bending her over on my work table in my studio space. I moved out and I’ve been crashing on my best friend’s couch, but she’s married with a toddler and the last thing she needs is a long-term houseguest. All of this is shorthand for: my life currently sucks. I found a house-sitting gig that starts in the next few days, but tonight I just want to blow off some steam. I want to feel good, even if it’s just for a few hours. It’s that simple.”

  Somewhere in the midst of her speech, JT’s posture changed. He ran a hand over the back of his neck as his attention dropped to the asphalt. She wasn’t sure what to make of his expression because there wasn’t one, at least not one that she could read. Overall, he just looked uncomfortable.

  Oh, hell.

  She got it now.

  The man wasn’t interested. She’d laid out her case, offering herself up as brazenly as possible while he stood there and probably tried not to cringe on her behalf. Maybe he wasn’t sure how to say it, but what he was thinking was obvious. He was o-u-t, out.

  Anya began to backpedal. “If you . . . I mean, if you don’t . . .”

  Her words drifted off as she faltered, scrambling for a subtle way to turn on her heel and walk away while hiding her face behind her bag—which, of course, didn’t exist. Her best bet was to accept the rejection gracefully and try not to trip over her own feet when she ultimately cowered her way back to the hotel.

  “Look. This doesn’t have to be weird. If you aren’t interested, that’s fine, I’ll just—”

  “I’m interested.”

  His voice was gravelly. What she’d seen before in his body language, the uneasy fidgeting and the way he’d averted his gaze, had morphed into something else entirely. Into straightforward, uncomplicated desire. His eyes were taking her in—all of her. Every inch of her bare legs, the swell of her breasts above the low neckline of her dress, even the column of her neck.

  “I’m interested,” he repeated. This time there was nothing but resolve in his voice, and every inch of Anya’s skin prickled pleasantly at the sound.

  JT reached for the door handle and tipped his head toward the passenger side. “You ready?”

  Anya stood motionless, letting it all sink in. Her heart felt lighter than it had in weeks, and her body was eager for the touch of a man who wanted her, even if it was just for one night.

  Tomorrow she would remember all the ways her life was in disarray. Tomorrow she would paint. But tonight?

  Tonight she would forget everything else.

  4

  JT

  JT put his mind on rewind. He sorted through the last few hours of his life, trying to figure out how in the hell he’d ended up here.

  First, he’d left the Marshals’ office with Chris, both of them in a shitty mood. Next, they’d nursed a couple of beers at a crappy chain restaurant. Then Chris had bailed and left JT sitting alone, one beer away from a very pathetic wallowing session. There was a silent round of fortifying self-talk that didn’t quite work, some almost-talk with a cute bartender, and then some real talk with . . . Anya.

  A woman whose name somehow perfectly matched both her person and her personality, with its subtle mix of sultry and light, quirky and carnal. A woman who reminded JT how a little banter between strangers could easily become more when you didn’t overthink it. And when that banter included a few moments of unguarded eye contact that felt a lot like seeing each other naked, a man might find himself thinking that there was an end in sight to his epic dry spell.

  That was how JT had ended up here. In a crappy hotel on the outskirts of the city, taking in the shabby room around him while Anya did whatever she was doing in the bathroom. Water rushed in the sink, but he refused to focus on the sound. If he fixated on any one thing too much,
he was bound to talk himself out of this. He had already done that more than once tonight, letting his brain get the best of him until he was sure that clearing out of the restaurant was the only reasonable course of action.

  JT perused the room again. Plastic bags stuffed with clothes sat near the door along with a couple of half-opened cardboard boxes filled with books. In the far corner, there were two easels set up, and between them a box overflowing with paints and brushes. A stack of painted canvases were propped against the wall, in varying sizes and shapes.

  He stepped closer to the makeshift studio Anya had fashioned in a corner of the room and crouched down so he could look at the canvases, curious if seeing them up close would make it easier to understand what they were. JT peered closer and tried to discern what in the hell he was looking at.

  Fuck. He had no idea. They weren’t of anything, just slashes of paint atop other splotches of paint, smudged together into a riot of brushstrokes that made absolutely no sense to his heavily left-brain tendencies. Nothing on these canvases looked like anything JT associated with the word art. No mountain ranges, seascapes, or rolling meadows. And there weren’t any happy little trees anywhere. Evidently, Anya did not find her inspiration via the illustrious Bob Ross.

  Anya emerged from the bathroom and flopped onto the saggy queen bed.

  “That’s the other reason I invited you here.” She leaned back lazily, resting on her forearms with her legs stretched out across the bed.

  “If you think I’m a guy with a taste for art, you’re way off base. I wouldn’t know a Picasso from a little kid’s finger painting,” he muttered, continuing to study the canvas.

  Anya chuckled. “Don’t worry. I did not mistake you for a big-time art collector. But I’m currently in the midst of a serious blank-canvas funk. Wild guess, but I suppose that finding my boyfriend banging another woman in my studio is part of the problem.” She gave up a little eye roll. “Anyway, I need some inspiration. Sex is usually good for my creativity. And great sex, the kind that makes you forget where you are or how loud you’re being? That’s been known to pay creative dividends for weeks.”

  JT gave up on the canvas and looked over his shoulder to where Anya sat on the bed. He tried to come up with something casual to say but found it impossible to think about anything other than the kind of sex that made you forget everything else. Between that and the way Anya’s position on the bed spotlighted her curvy, spectacular legs, his brain couldn’t process anything else.

  When they were talking at the bar, his focus had been on her face. The swath of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the flecks of green in her hazel eyes, the honey-blond hair that looked like it would be silky to the touch, and the way her plump lips curved when she smiled. It was only after she’d run him down in the parking lot that he’d had an opportunity to take in the rest of her, standing there in a just-short-enough dress that showed off a beautiful body in all the best ways, including her full breasts and hips, and long but lush legs.

  JT blinked. He needed to stop staring at her—those legs, her hips, her face, her everything. If he didn’t, she was bound to kick his weird ass out of here. He tried to focus on what they were talking about before she’d mentioned sex.

  Oh yeah. Art. Like that made not thinking about her naked any easier. Ask him about the Cardinals’ upcoming season or the proper way to execute a federal arrest warrant and he could easily talk for hours, while also keeping his mind out of the gutter. But art? That was a topic he would come up empty on, every single time.

  “These are . . .” His voice trailed off as he stared at the canvas.

  To him, it looked like it was only half-done because there was just a dollop of electric-blue paint in one corner and a slash of gray paint running across the bottom border. But for all he knew, it was a finished piece. Fuck if he could tell. His mind ran frantically through what words might sound complimentary yet wouldn’t also sound like complete bullshit. Nothing came to him. Finally, Anya let out a quiet chuckle.

  JT sighed and muttered apologetically about how he knew next to nothing about art. She gave him a conciliatory smile.

  “Don’t worry about it; you don’t have to get it. Abstract expressionism isn’t for everyone. I’m used to it.” She paused, then rose up to sit back on her heels. “And we both know that talking about art isn’t really what we’re here for.”

  The calm but intent look on her face should have been enough to put JT at ease, but it wasn’t. He found himself stalling because a rush of anxiety about what came next had hit him hard, like a dam had suddenly broken.

  The problem was, he didn’t know the rules here. And JT always felt more comfortable when he knew the rules. After all, he’d been raised by a now-retired Air Force colonel and a sweet-until-you-backtalk-her southern belle, and they’d both believed kids thrived best knowing exactly what was expected of them. Plus, JT had enlisted in the Marines right out of high school and had become a Marshal soon after he’d left the military, never once balking at the way both organizations were built on a strict framework of processes and procedures.

  Clearly, JT liked rules.

  But when it came to sex—at least sex outside of a long-term relationship—he didn’t have much to fall back on. He’d experienced a grand sum total of two one-night stands. Both had happened the summer after high school and were the result of drunken late-night house parties with girls who thought that his going off to boot camp sounded glamorous or some shit. The truth was, he liked monogamy. He liked the anticipation, the buildup, and the growing pains of getting to know a woman—everything that came with real relationships. He wanted the nerves that came with a first night together, knowing that there would be longer nights to come. Nights that gave him hours and hours to figure out what made her ache and moan. Whether she preferred it fast and hard, or drawn out and slow, rough or gentle, filthy or sweet—or God help him, all of the above. He didn’t care, so long as she eventually came so hard he could feel it in his balls.

  But tonight wasn’t his first night with Anya, it was his only night. So with no experience to speak of, he was left at the mercy of his instincts. And those instincts told him one thing. That Anya wanted him closer.

  Well, that, and the fact she was crooking a finger his way in order to encourage him.

  JT stepped forward until his knees met the edge of the mattress. Anya didn’t say a word, merely rose up on her knees, running her hands up his abs and across his chest, over the worn cotton of his t-shirt. His breath hitched for a beat. He’d stashed his jacket and holster in the truck, securing his service revolver in the SUV’s locked center-console safe, which meant he had felt bare when he’d come into the room. Right now, though, the heady, intense feeling of her nearness was all worth that earlier sacrifice. Her hands on him were an acute reminder of how little touch—chaste or otherwise—he’d received from anyone in months. Until now, he’d had no idea how much he had missed that simple pleasure.

  Anya slowed her hands over his pecs, teasing the tips of her fingers over his nipples a few times. His skin heated wherever her light touch lingered, and JT ached to give the same back to her. Sweeping a stray lock of her hair back, he tucked it behind her ear and trailed his fingertips across the soft skin of her cheek, each one of her freckles offering up a pathway for his touch. He watched her face for any sign that she liked the way he was touching her, hoping she would show him what she wanted next. Anya’s lips parted on a soft moan, but that alone didn’t seem like enough. Without more, JT faltered.

  Anya’s hands were still on his chest, her fingertips curling in just enough that he could feel the nip of her nails against his skin. JT scanned her face again and Anya met his gaze directly. Nothing in her body language indicated that her nerves were on edge the way his were, which was almost maddening. JT wasn’t sure how she managed that, but he envied her for it.

  “Is this something you do? A lot?” he asked.

  The gentle smile she’d had on her face faded a little. �
�What do you mean? Do what?”

  “This.” He emphasized with a chin nudge between them. “Hook up. Have one-night stands, whatever you want to call it.”

  A frown replaced what was left of her smile, and her eyebrows knit together, sending him an icy look.

  “Oh, goody,” she said dryly. “Have we arrived at the slut-shaming portion of this evening’s festivities?”

  Her answer stopped JT short, and he immediately realized how wrong it was that he’d asked her a question like that. It wasn’t any of his business whether she was more experienced at this than he was, no matter how he’d intended the question. All he was trying to do was understand how it was she managed to stay so calm, but instead it seemed he had fucked up royally.

  “Christ,” he sighed. “That wasn’t what I meant, I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s just that I don’t do this and I’m not sure how this kind of thing goes down. Consent comes first, obviously—but after that, I feel like an idiot. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me what the rules are.”

  At his admission, Anya’s hazel eyes softened, looking at him like he was some adorable little puppy, which wasn’t what a guy wanted to see from a woman in a moment like this. JT’s rougher instincts shouted at him to change that, putting aside all of his hesitations and doing whatever it took to grab the lead here. He might not be the most experienced when it came to hooking up, but that didn’t mean he was a rookie when it came to leaving a woman satisfied. He could fuck with the best of them, and with months of pent-up desire brimming up inside of him, JT’s ego was dead set on proving that to her.

  But Anya beat him to it. Her hands moved from his chest to his neck and then with one smooth tug, she urged his face to hers. Their lips touched in a not-quite kiss that sent every ounce of blood in his body roaring through his veins, leaving him with a head rush in its wake. Anya’s lips were still grazing his when she spoke.