by M. S. Parker
“My schedule is pretty full this trip, Hank. With the foundation meetings and the opening of the school, I’m slammed.”
Then to my surprise, she reached up and touched my cheek. Electricity shot through me and I tried to keep it from showing.
“I had a little bit of time, I thought, but...” Her thumb brushed against my bottom lip. “Fate sort of intervened.”
When I tipped my head down to look at her, she was staring up at me. The look on her face was enough to remind me that it had been a damn long time since I’d had a woman beneath me. Or on top of me. Or caught between me and a wall. Bent over a table. Any position at all.
Her breath caught, a blush rising on her cheeks and I forced myself to look away. Shit. This was definitely not the time or the place.
“You look at a woman like that for too long, she’s going to start thinking she needs protection,” Carly said, her voice soft and silky.
I tensed. She couldn’t think I’d ever hurt any woman, let alone her. “I would never–”
“I meant a different kind of protection.” She tossed me a quick look. “I feel like you already know what size bra and what color panties I’m wearing.”
I sucked in my breath as I caught her meaning. Then her fingers brushed my thigh under the table. Fuck. My muscles tensed and jerked in response to that light touch.
“Bobby?” she said my name in a low voice.
She was going to be the death of me.
Instinctively, I tipped my head closer. She reached up and laid her hand on my cheek. Now my instincts were fighting a war. One part of me was telling me to put my mouth on hers. It was a damn nice mouth, wide and soft and lush, the kind of mouth a guy could spin entire fantasies around. And I’d already had a taste of it.
But the other part of me was saying all the things I already knew. She was out of my league. I didn’t deserve her.
Ryan and Jake would kill me.
Plus, we were in public.
But then she took the matter out of my hands, leaning and pressing her mouth to mine. I could’ve stopped her then, but I didn’t. I kissed her back. Her lips parted, and I traced the entrance with my tongue. She sighed and opened wider. When her tongue came out to tease mine, I closed one hand into a fist. My cock started to pulse, stirring to life. The scent of her, the taste, went straight to my head, and just as I was about ready to reach out, catch one of those curls she’d left trailing down her neck, Carly pulled back.
A flash of white out of the corner of my eye had me tensing. I’d forgotten we weren’t alone. She put a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s just the cameras.”
I didn’t quite realize what she meant until the flash came again. Before I had a chance to react, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine in a quick, chaste kiss. Another camera flash. I felt oddly frozen and then she pulled away. I stared at her, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
She wiped at my mouth as she murmured, “Smudge proof, my ass.”
I caught her wrist. “What are you doing?” I could barely keep my voice under control.
“Do you really want to wear my lipstick? Harlot red isn’t your color, Bobby.” She gave me a sensual smile.
A low chuckle that was devoid of true humor had me looking up. I pushed my own feelings aside. I had a job to do, and it didn’t include anything about me.
“Well, I’ll admit, when I saw the news clips of the two of you, I had no idea things had become so...intimate.” Hank was staring at us with a greasy sort of smirk on his lips.
I gave him a hard glare and watched as that smug, sneering look on his face faltered, then faded away completely. Only after he was no longer looking at Carly, I allowed myself to look away.
A moment later, there was a faint noise from the podium. It was time for whatever in the hell it was to start.
It was boring, that’s what it was.
The problem with boring was that it left me with too much time to think, and almost every single thought centered around Carly and the sleek, silvery-blue dress she wore and how much fun I could have peeling it away.
It had been nearly twelve months since I’d had sex.
The first thing I’d done after I got out was sit through a full physical and health screening. Disease was rampant in prison, and I’d lived with that fear for pretty much my entire incarceration.
To my relief, I’d gotten back a clean bill of health just a few days later. The first chance I had after that, I’d found myself a bar, and when the opportunity had presented itself, I’d gotten laid. I didn’t remember her name, and I was pretty sure she didn’t remember mine either. We’d had a box of condoms and we’d used the entire damn supply in a single weekend.
That had been a little over eleven months ago.
Since then, the only relief I’d received came from my own fist.
But I was pretty certain that even if I’d had sex three times a week, and twice on Sundays, my body would still have been misbehaving around Carly Prince. She seemed to drag it out of me. The mischievous grin, the way she watched me, the way she moved...oh yeah. I’d want her no matter what.
Now, as the third speaker of the night was escorted onto the stage, I found my eyes studying the elegant lines of Carly’s profile, the pretty bow of her lips, the curve of her jaw down to her neck. The dress she wore had an odd sort of sparkle to it, as if the designer had crushed up jewels to make it.
It clung to her breasts, accentuating her curves while still looking elegant, demure, even. It slid down along her torso, along her waist and hips, ended a few inches above her knee. I could only imagine what she wore under it. That sparkly thing fit like a glove, and while I was positive she had on something underneath it, I preferred to pretend she was naked.
Completely naked.
“...Carly Prince!”
The sound of her name jarred me out of my erotic stupor and I moved, half on autopilot. Jake and Ryan had walked me through what I was supposed to do, and I was already on my feet, drawing her chair back by the time the spotlight found our table. I could only hope that my suit jacket would cover the partial-erection I had, thanks to the direction my thoughts had gone.
She gave me a wide, open smile, and when I offered my hand to help her stand, she accepted as though we’d done this a hundred times. I escorted her up to the stage and passed her hand to one of the men there, then stood off in the shadows to wait for her to return.
Hands folded in front, I let my gaze roam over the crowd, just as I had seen Jake and Ryan doing. I was half-listening, but paying more attention to any potentially dangerous threat that might’ve presented itself.
On the stage next to me, Carly started to speak.
Her speech, I realized moments later, was all about second chances.
Things began to blur as we moved back and forth to events regarding what I soon realized was the music program Carly was funding in her father’s name.
The dinner I’d escorted her to had been a two thousand dollar a plate fundraiser and the place had been sold out. While I was glad she was raising money for the program, I couldn’t imagine paying two thousand dollars for a dinner where I’d have to listen to boring speakers.
The program itself, however, wasn’t boring. It was going to be multi-faceted, and despite myself, I was interested. Music lessons would be offered to disadvantaged youth, but there would also be a program for the politely named ‘troubled’ youth. Troubled like I’d been.
Sometimes I wondered what I might have been, who I might have been, if I’d realized I had better options. I’d made my choices knowing full well they were the wrong ones, and I had nobody to blame but myself, but her speeches about second chances made me think about what might have been.
We spent most of the day following the dinner dealing with stuff at the music center. Or rather Carly did, while we stood around looking stupid in suits and sunglasses. At least, I was pretty sure I looked stupid. Even with his arm in a cast, Jake looked like a natural.
Carly was exhausted when she got back to the hotel, and collapsed into bed almost immediately, while the rest of us stayed up to watch basketball. The Kentucky Wildcats had done pretty well so far, and I wasn’t opposed to them continuing on to the tournament.
My opinion on the matter provided some good-natured ribbing from Jake – and twenty dollars in my pocket when his team lost.
“Sucker’s bet,” I told him. “Anybody could have seen they were going tonight.”
It wasn’t until everybody else was asleep that I realized how long it had been since I’d just sat around bullshitting with a bunch of guys just for the hell of it. It had been...nice. Sitting in there, talking to guys who knew about my past and didn’t care. I liked it.
And I only had a couple days left.
That thought left me in a foul mood the next morning, and it wasn’t going to be a good day anyway. It turned out to be a lot worse than I’d planned. It wasn’t just less than stellar. It fucking sucked.
It turned out to be a tooth-grinding exercise in patience and bullshit as Carly made the rounds to all the local news stations, and then a couple of radio stations on top of that. At each one, she talked all nice with everybody and in turn, people played nice back – right up until they had her in front of the camera, and then they asked questions that were either borderline rude or right over the line.
The exceptions were the radio stations, and by the time we reached the last one of the day, Carly was dragging, and I was ready to hit something just to relieve some of the tension.
Preferably one of the assholes who were treating Carly badly.
“Is it always like this?” I asked Ryan, keeping my voice low as we stood in the corner, watching through the windows as she chatted with a couple of DJs.
“Like what?”
I tried to figure out how to say it, and then finally jutted my chin toward the DJs. “Well, those guys are being pretty decent. But the TV people...it’s like they were baiting her, just trying to get her upset.”
“They were.” Ryan sighed and shrugged. “And this wasn’t even a bad day. Local news stations don’t ever get that bad since she does have ties to the community here. Well, I won’t say never, but they aren’t like Barbara Walters or anything.” He checked the time and then looked over at me. “There’s no privacy for anyone anymore, Bobby. If you’re in the public eye, there’s even less. She didn’t ask to be in the public eye. She was just born there. I guess she could’ve moved to Montana, raise horses...” He shrugged. “Disappear. But she feels like she owes it to her dad’s memory to not completely vanish. People want some part of him to hold on to. She’s it.”
“She doesn’t owe people her entire life.”
“No.” Ryan shook his head. “She doesn’t. But that’s Carly for you. She doesn’t do anything half-assed. Her father left a legacy behind in a lot of ways. She just wants to make sure he’s remembered.”
“She gives up an awful lot of herself for that.”
We both watched as she rose from the table, a smile on her face and shadows under her eyes.
“Yeah.” Ryan nodded. “She does.”
One day left.
That thought had me out of my room and pacing, standing at the window and staring outside instead of sleeping. I didn’t need much sleep most of the time. Came from having been in prison, I supposed. I’d been a killer, but not the biggest badass, which meant I’d had to watch my back. Which meant staying awake as much as I could. Sometimes I craved it, but couldn’t manage any more than a couple of hours, and then there were times when I’d crash, and sleep for twelve hours straight. But today wasn’t one of those days.
I couldn’t shut my brain down, and part of it was because I was too busy wishing I hadn’t taken this job. As soon as it was gone, I would be reminded of everything missing in my life. Not just the decent food, although I sure as hell hadn’t minded having room service once I’d adjusted to it.
No, what I was going to miss were things like listening to Ryan and Carly bitch at each other in the morning. Seeing Carly stumble to the table in next to nothing, and then watching her smile at me once the caffeine hit her system. It was probably for the best, though, because that smile of hers was starting to get to me. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could resist her...
A door creaked open.
I lifted my head and looked, watched as she slid out of her room and padded toward me, wearing one of those miserable excuses for a nightgown, some slippy looking thing that was the color of midnight. It skimmed just a few inches below her ass and made her skin look even softer than usual.
I missed soft things.
“Can’t sleep?”
Even her voice was soft, and I turned my head to look back outside because looking at her was more temptation than I needed.
“Still not used to the quiet, I guess.” I shrugged.
I tensed when she came up behind me and slid her arms around my middle. Her lips were satin against the back of my right shoulder. I closed my eyes. Fuck.
She started to trail a line of kisses across my shoulder. With a sigh, I reached down and caught her hands, turning around even as I stepped away from her.
“What are you doing, Carly?” I asked after I’d put what seemed to be a wise distance between us.
Ten feet was safe, right?
Ten feet made it hard for me to catch the scent of her skin, although I could still remember it. And no amount of distance would undo the memory of her mouth moving under mine, or wipe away the memory of her taste. The sight of her skin and weight of her breasts that night Ryan had interrupted us...
She apparently didn’t like the distance.
Ten feet became eight feet, then five.
I’d put my back to the bar, and now she stood just two feet away, the crazy corkscrews of her hair spilling more than halfway down her back. I wanted to twist my hands in it, pull her up against me and get lost in her.
And I would get lost, I knew. If I let myself, I could lose everything in her, for her.
Her gaze dropped down to my mouth and my dick gave a hard, almost vicious twist.
She closed the remaining distance between us once more and reached up, touching my mouth. I caught her wrist.
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
“Isn’t that obvious?”
She leaned against me, and through her thin nightshirt, I felt all of her and it was like feeling heaven. Hot skin, soft woman and sweet curves.
But in the back of my mind, I kept seeing those white flashes from a dozen cameras.
“We were interrupted last time,” she said.
“We were in public,” I reminded her. “In front of a bunch of cameras.”
She’d done that on purpose too. I hadn’t brought it up, but I wasn’t an idiot either. Just because I spoke with a drawl and had spent time in prison didn’t mean I wasn’t smart. I was intelligent enough to figure out that she’d had me sit with her because she could kiss me in public, in front of the media. She could shut down that asshole Hank, and give the press a new story to chase for a while.
“I’m not talking about at the dinner.” She tugged, but I didn’t let her go just yet. She didn’t seem disturbed by it, just leaned in and kissed the fingers I’d closed around her wrist.
I stifled a groan and remembered the night she’d been talking about. Yeah, we’d been interrupted, alright.
Thank goodness.
“That shouldn’t have happened to begin with,” I said gruffly. “Besides, we’re just as likely to get interrupted again anyway.”
Her pulse throbbed against my thumb and absently, I stroked that fragile, rapid beat. Her skin felt like silk under my touch. I didn’t think I’d ever been so aware of how rough my own skin was. Her lashes fluttered, and I had the insane urge to lean in and press a kiss to her eye, to watch those lids close and then kiss my way down her body, to worship her with my mouth, bring her as much pleasure as I possibly could.
“Oh, I disa
gree there,” she said. She tugged again and this time, I let her go, hoping she’d do the smart thing and pull away.
But she didn’t.
Of course she didn’t.
She slid her hand up my bicep, along my shoulder, ran her fingers through my hair. “I keep thinking I wish we would’ve been smart and gone into your room...or mine.” Her fingers tightened in my hair until it hurt. “Can we be smart this time?”
“Smart would have been you throwing me out on my ass the night we met,” I said, even as part of me started screaming for me to shut up. I ignored it and tried another tactic. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know I want you.”
I tensed as she skimmed the flat of her hand up my rib cage and then down. My cock was at full attention now, and my pants weren’t doing anything to hide it.
“I know I want to know more of you. I know you make me laugh. I know you kiss me like you want to breathe me in, like I’m the air to you.” She leaned in, brushed her mouth against mine. “I know I want you, and I think you want me too. That’s enough for now.”
My head started to spin. I could say the same things to her, all of the same things. I opened my mouth, but none of those sweet things were what came out. Instead, I asked a question.
“Why did you kiss me at the dinner?”
I was an idiot.
Slowly, she lowered herself from her tip toes, head cocked as she studied my face. “Does it matter?”
“If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked,” I pointed out. Now that I’d asked the question, I wanted an answer.
She huffed out a put-upon sigh and she looked so damn cute, I almost didn’t catch that glint in her eyes. Almost. “When you live my kind of life, you don’t exactly forget. You just stop thinking about them.”
I knew she was being honest. Sort of. I’d seen that look in her eyes. She didn’t want to tell me the whole story.
“You didn’t entirely stop thinking about them.” I shook my head and moved a little closer, taking back the small bit of space she’d given up when she’d eased away. This time I wanted to use the proximity against her. “Did you?”