Playing Dirty

by Lauren Hawkeye

  “Tank’s already loading him into his van,” Amy said. “He’ll get him in the door, if you could just meet them there.”

  “On my way.” Sliding her phone back into her pocket, Beth hesitated, then grabbed the keys to the sporty little Toyota sitting in her shop. She’d just serviced it, but her client, a friend from high school, wasn’t picking it up until morning.

  Beth didn’t think Natalie would mind. It was an emergency. So she slid into the little red car, barely noticing the familiar smell of the cleaner she’d used to wipe down the dashboard—Natalie’s daughter always had sticky fingers.

  Ford wasn’t the kind of guy to get sloppy drunk. He liked to be in control.

  What the fuck had happened?

  * * *

  “He’s in the tub.” Beth had only met Tank, one of the artists who worked at Amy’s shop, a handful of times. At six and a half feet tall and built like a linebacker, he lived up to his name. Beth didn’t have to ask how he’d hauled a man who wasn’t small himself all the way to the bathroom. “You’ll want to help him shower. He reeks.”

  “Thanks, Tank.” Beth shook his hand, giving it a squeeze. “Your next oil change is on me.”

  “I’ll hold you to it.” He jerked a thumb at his van, which was covered with spray-painted art. “The beast is making a clunking noise. I’ll pop in next week.”

  Entering Ford’s house, Beth closed and locked the door behind her. As she tossed her jacket on the bench where she always did, it occurred to her how comfortable she was here. Comfortable enough to let herself in and head to the en suite, which was where she assumed Tank had deposited Ford.

  The medicinal aroma of scotch was strong enough to make her feel drunk just from breathing the air. Gagging for a moment, Beth blinked down at where Ford was reclining, fully clothed, in the ancient avocado-green tub.

  “This is not a good look for you.” Dropping to her knees, she started to tug his T-shirt over his head. He grunted but let her undress him like a rag doll.

  Unable to get him upright, she ran a hot bath for him. She ran soap over his body, into his hair, aware that his eyes were on her the entire time. He seemed slightly more sober when she tried to get him to stand up after, though he still wobbled when she toweled him off and dragged him to the bed.

  “Let’s sleep it off, Sir Lassiter.” Arranging his naked frame on the sheets, she pulled the quilt over him, then stripped and climbed in on the other side. There wasn’t a point in trying to get him to talk while he was still so drunk, so she’d wait until morning.

  She was surprised when he rolled onto his side, facing her.

  “My dad sucks,” he slurred, reaching out to cup her cheek. He missed, stroking his hand over her nose and mouth instead. “All of him sucks. Not all of me sucks, but he reminded me of a part that sucks today.”

  “Figured there was a reason for the scotch spree.” She pursed her lips. “Why scotch, dude? You’re going to feel like shit in the morning.”

  “My dad knows I’m kinky.” Ford frowned, trying to focus. “Picked up on it when I was a teenager. He likes it. He’s proud of it. Said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Beth’s stomach rolled.

  “I shouldn’t treat you like that.” She watched him swallow—he needed some water. “Shouldn’t be that kind of man.”

  Temper licked along her skin—not at Ford, but at the asshole who had spawned him. Ford was still settling into being comfortable with who he was. This was the last thing he needed.

  She opened her mouth to argue, but Ford’s eyes were already closed. He’d rolled onto his back. She thought he was already asleep, but he said one thing before he started to snore. One little thing, but it made her blood chill.

  “I’m not good enough for you.”

  * * *

  Ford smelled coffee before he even opened his eyes.

  He needed some. Preferably a bucketful to soak his head in.

  He pushed himself to a sitting position, yelping when the white light of morning blinded him. Stabbing pains pierced his skull, and he clutched his head in his hands, willing the pounding drums to stop.

  There was a glass of orange juice and two tablets of aspirin on his bedside table. Beth. The woman was a fucking goddess.

  Staggering into the bathroom, Ford brushed the fuzzy feeling from his teeth, then showered away the alcoholic sweat. Pulling on the first shirt and track pants he found, he stumbled into the kitchen.

  Beth was sitting at his table, playing with her phone while she sipped tea from a mug. His mug, one that said Lassiter Hotels.

  He needed to get rid of that.

  She watched as he seated himself beside her. Assuming the piece of dry toast was for him, he choked it down silently, aware that she had her eyes on him the entire time.

  “Better?” she asked when he pushed the plate away. Cautiously, he took stock, then nodded. He wasn’t great, but he’d do.

  It wasn’t until he chugged his own mug of coffee that his vision cleared enough for him to really look at Beth. She was there, which was definitely something, but her manner was...off. Stiff.

  What the fuck had he done?

  “Do you remember last night?”

  He winced, rubbing his hand over the top of his head. “Yeah. It’s hazy, but yeah. Right up until you hauled my ass into bed.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She set her mug down with a sharp click. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

  “Ah...no.” Fuck.

  “I see.” Nodding, she folded her hands together, then seemed to change her mind, holding one hand up as she ticked items off a list. “You told me your dad was an asshole. Granted, I only met him for a moment, but the way he stared at my tits made me inclined to agree.”

  Ford’s stomach sank.

  “Since we’re not the sum total of our parents, that didn’t bother me very much. What did get under my skin was when you compared yourself to him. Specifically, when you told me that you weren’t worthy of me because you were a bad, bad man for being kinky like dear old dad.”

  “I—” The words brought it back. The humiliation that had come rushing in when his dad had mocked him for thinking that he’d distanced himself.

  The sinking sensation that Bruce was right—that even after all the effort he’d put into it, he was cut from the same cloth.

  “He’s not wrong.” Whether it was the shitty way he felt, the way the sun was still streaming into his eyes and blinding him, or the fact that he was just emotionally bankrupt after the night before—he said it, and he didn’t even feel like taking it back. “Jesus, Beth. You, of all people, I shouldn’t be fucked-up and rough with.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” She slammed her hands on the table, sending the coffee mugs flying. “Me, of all people? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “You know what it means.” He couldn’t stop the words from flying out of his mouth, maybe because they needed to be said, his deepest fears seeing the light of day. “It means that I don’t want to be responsible for sending you to the hospital again because I’m a perverted fucker!”

  “I suppose it’s missed your attention entirely that I like the fact that you’re a perverted fucker.” When he didn’t answer, Beth stood, shaking her head. “I’m out of here.”

  He wanted to go after her, wanted to hold her down and claim her with his body until neither of them had any doubt about what they both really wanted.

  So close on the heels of the shit with his dad, the thought both aroused him and made his stomach turn. He let Beth make her way to the front door, misery seeping from every pore.

  Before she left, she turned around, glaring at him with those fierce blue eyes. She pointed with her index finger, and he couldn’t look away. “I have a disease that affects my life. Yup, I do. You have daddy issues. We’re both kinky as fuck, and we both need to g
et the hell over it. When you sort that shit out, you know where to find me.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HER SISTERS WERE being twitchy. All of them.

  The three women were lounging around the garage as Beth checked the brake pads of an old beater some high school student had dragged in. He wanted the thing to run for a big date but couldn’t afford the service. She’d traded him for some work around the garage and was pleased with the way her space sparkled.

  An engine sounded outside, and her sisters all tensed. Beth looked around, wondering what she was missing that they were obviously clued in to.

  The engine noise drew closer, and suddenly her sisters were on her. Meg ran a brush through the length of her ponytail, Amy scrubbed grease from her nose with a clean rag and Jo unzipped her coveralls so that they fell to the ground and Beth was obliged to step out of them, leaving her in a shirt and her shorts.

  “What the hell, guys?” She tried to jerk away, but they clung to her like pandas to bamboo. Finally satisfied, they pulled away, letting her turn to greet the newcomer.

  A shiny silver Porsche Turbo sat in the garage. It had a gigantic purple bow on it, and Beth’s pulse went from zero to sixty as Ford swung himself out from behind the wheel.

  She hadn’t seen him, heard from him, even heard about him since she’d left his pathetic, hungover self sitting at his breakfast table. When she left she’d felt confident that he would get his shit together, but just this morning a tendril of worry had snaked its way into her gut, making her wonder if maybe he hadn’t been able to overcome his mixed feelings about who he was and what he wanted.

  “Got to get to work!” Amy held a condom in front of Beth’s face, then tucked it into the waist of her shorts before scampering up the steps to the house. Meg followed her, laughing. Jo moved more slowly, and when she reached the top of the stairs Beth was amused to see her point to her eyes, then to Ford’s again, mimicking the gesture she’d given him the first time he’d been over since he’d been back.

  The garage was quiet with the chatter of her sisters suddenly gone—almost too quiet. Beth could hear the sudden thundering of her heart as she turned to face the man she loved, hoping, praying that things were going to be okay.

  He stared right back. Finally, she cleared her throat and pointed at the Turbo. “What’s with the bow?”

  “You know how much I love this car,” Ford started, closing the distance between them. He stopped with a thin ribbon of space still between them, and Beth yearned to press her body against him, to take in his heat. To take in him.

  “I might have an inkling.” For something to do, she ran a hand over the sleek silver hood.

  “I love you more.” Startled, she turned her gaze back to him. His expression was dead serious, his hands held out for her. Slowly, cautiously, she took them, a shudder of relief working through her at the feel of his skin on hers.

  Looking from him to the car, she understood. “You are not giving me a Porsche. Your Porsche. No way.”

  “I needed something to demonstrate how I feel. How stupid I’ve been.” He grinned crookedly, one side of his mouth curling up higher than the other. “It’s this or a ring, baby. I figured you’d choose the car.”

  “Holy shit.” She knew she was gaping; she couldn’t help it. “You’re insane. And playing dirty.”

  “I sure am. I’m a little messed up,” he admitted, pulling her against him. Burying his face in her hair, he inhaled deeply, and she melted against him. “Look, I’m not miraculously all better. I have issues. You do too, you know.”

  She sniffed but said nothing.

  “But I know one thing with absolute certainty. I want you in my life.” Grasping her chin, he tilted her face so she looked at him. “Do you feel the same way?”

  She wanted to make him work for it after what he’d put her through, but she didn’t have the heart. Swallowing past a sudden burning lump of tears, she nodded, unable to speak.

  He grabbed the end of her ponytail, wrapping it around his hand. She gasped when he tugged her head back, his smile turning from relieved to wicked. “Besides, when you finally agree to that ring, the Turbo will at least be in the same house again.”

  “You’re so bad.” She gasped when he tugged again, dipping his head to sink his teeth into the cord of her neck. She hissed out a breath when his free hand cupped her breast firmly, pushing her back until her ass hit the front hood of the Turbo. Wet heat rushed between her legs as he eased her back onto the hood, the way he had so many years before.

  “Like it or not, it seems that I am,” he agreed, sliding his hand down between her legs. She cried out when he rubbed his fingers over her clit, through her shorts.

  “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving to you just how bad I can be. ’Cause that’s what we both want.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from One Night Only by JC Harroway.

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  One Night Only

  by JC Harroway

  CHAPTER ONE

  IF THIS SETTING, so far from the wreckage he’d left behind in New York, couldn’t p
rovide ballast, nowhere could. Ash Jacob closed his eyes, sucked in a deep breath and focussed on the sun warming his back, the hypnotic chatter of English birdsong and the continuous distant hum of London traffic.

  ‘Shit!’

  The violent exclamation pulled him up short. So he wasn’t the only one having a bad day. His vision hazed as the bright July sunlight hit his retinas once more, his surroundings sharpening into focus. He stretched one arm along the back of the park bench, the wooden slats of which dug into his fatigued muscles—a reminder that he’d spent twelve hours on a plane yesterday, largely bent like a pretzel despite his first-class seat.

  ‘Bloody, buggering, shit.’

  What a charming turn of phrase.

  His mouth twitched and his mood lightened. She stood a short distance away from his secluded spot in St James’s Park, her short, flowery dress revealing bare, shapely legs; golden hair streaked with enough russet to turn her long ponytail to fire in the right light; a small denim backpack slung over one shoulder, which made her appear younger than what he estimated as mid-twenties.

  A student? A tourist? A fellow soul, far from home?

  One delicate finger jabbed at the screen of her phone, as if she could poke it back to life by dogged persistence alone.

  Intrigue and a flicker of lust made Ash sit up straighter. Her quirky English accent and endearing choice of expletives reminded him that New York was a long way away. And yes, the women in his exclusive, affluent circle had the kind of polish and poise that this beguiling stranger seemed, at first glance, to lack, but the effect of the jut of her pert breasts and the cut of her fine-boned features in profile on his jet-lagged libido equalled, if not surpassed, his usual level of interest in the opposite sex. An interest that circumstances had shaped into two simple rules: one—on his terms; and two—one night only.

  He shifted on the hard seat, his jeans becoming skintight, at least around the groin. The beauty dropped the hand holding the offending device to her side and cast her wide eyes around their corner of the park.