Lucky Charmed

by Sharla Lovelace

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t put the Sully I knew in an apron,” I said.

  “I’m not the Sully you knew!” he yelled. He took a deep breath as I stepped back. “The Carmen I knew would have never settled for a white picket fence married to a guy she didn’t love, either,” he said in a lower tone. “But life fucking happens, doesn’t it?”

  I gasped as his words hit home.

  “That guy was a stupid kid with rainbows in his head who listened to everyone else but himself and ended up alone.” He looked ready to punch something, and I wanted to throw myself in front of the dessert. “I watched my father live for the life and die alone. My mother escaped the life and still died alone. I came here to find something real and solid, and yes, I put things in the ground and I cook when I’m angry because I never had those things before and they give me peace!”

  The sorrow under his anger hit my heart, pulling at everything I kept trying to stamp down. Everything in me was warring between wanting to pull him into my arms and give him what he was missing—and wanting to run out that door and never look back.

  “Now I’m in this fucked-up town that I thought could finally be a real home,” he said, looking out the window over his sink. “And yet I can stand in the middle of fifty people and I’m still alone. I’ll always be the outsider. The dirty carnie that never graduated high school. We lie, we steal, we embellish things. We tarnish the sweet little town’s golden girl.”

  The boulder in my chest was immense.

  “You didn’t tarnish me,” I said. “And I was far from golden.”

  His focus was still far away. I didn’t even know if he’d heard me.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said softly.

  “Ever wish you hadn’t done all this?” I asked.

  “Only every day,” he said automatically, as if he’d asked the question himself and was simply verifying it. “Every morning when I wake up, it’s huge. It’s heavy. It’s daunting.” He turned his head, driving that intense gaze into me. “But that’s okay. At least I’m living.”

  I gave him a questioning look. “You call digging your toes into the bee puke of Charmed living?”

  Sully’s mouth pulled into a lopsided grin. “Yes,” he said. He walked closer, looming over me as he reached for a cabinet door and opened it. “See that?” he asked, pointing inside at the dishes and bowls and glasses. He looked in there too, and the look of pride on his face was astounding. “That’s living.”

  As I looked up into his face, just inches from mine, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t blink. And every nerve ending was on full alert. That was living, too.

  Shit, did I just think that?

  Sully turned back to his dessert. I took the opportunity to draw a full breath. What the hell.

  “Bailey knew I couldn’t pass that up,” he said. “That old man sees things that shouldn’t be seen.” Sully chuckled as he dropped chocolate shavings over the top. “He knows my weaknesses, and he caught me at a weak moment.”

  “Of?”

  Why did I ask that? I had no right to ask that.

  Sully paused. “Of needing to get away from my brother before I walked away from the whole damn thing.”

  I remembered what Dean had blustered about.

  “It’s that bad?” I asked.

  He nodded slightly. “It’s that bad. He’s toxic. He’s dependent. I can’t—” He shook his head. “I just can’t anymore.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just stood there, watching him fiddle with things. I could leave, but in some weird, messed-up sense, it felt comforting. Like he wanted me there. I wanted me there. And that right there should have been enough to shove me out the door.

  “Bailey used to tell me I was a broken bird waiting for a little bird,” he said. “He’d say I had wings but was too messed up to know how to use them.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That sounds helpful.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, he’s a little whacked, but he’s got a good heart.”

  “You told me once that he was psychic or something,” I said.

  Sully cut me a sideways glance. “Or something. I don’t buy all that. My dad did, and he swore by him, but…” He stopped and ran a finger and thumb over his eyes. He looked exhausted and wired at the same time. “Still, I never let him get a read on me—just in case.”

  I smirked, and let my finger trace a pattern in the tiled countertop. “Yeah, heaven forbid someone figure you out.”

  I felt the weight of his stare and looked up.

  “I’m easy,” he said. “So are you.”

  I tilted my head, taken a little off-guard. “Really, now?”

  “All you ever wanted was out of here.”

  My throat burned. “Yes.”

  “And all I’ve ever wanted was a house with no wheels that can’t be broken down and moved in an hour… or less.” He gripped the edge of the island and leaned on it, his arms spread wide. “I’m easy.”

  “And now—”

  “Now I finally have that in my grasp, and it’s being taken away.”

  The silence rang in my ears. “Because of me,” I said, hearing the shake in my voice.

  Sully stood up straight and picked up my spoon, filling it full of the decadent dessert.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Feeding you.”

  “Are you high?”

  “No,” he said, those eyes landing on me and sending my stomach into a fluttering frenzy. “I’m—” He stopped and clamped his jaw tight and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I am,” he said. “But listening to you moan as you eat this is what’s going to get me through the rest of this day.”

  Everything in me went warm.

  “You want me to moan on command? That won’t work,” I said.

  “We’ll see,” he said. He brought the spoon to my mouth, only to tease me by smearing my lips with whipped cream instead of giving me the bite.

  I darted out my tongue to lick them and went lightheaded as his eyes dropped to watch me do that. They went an impossibly dark shade of lust, and all systems loaded south. I was suddenly hyperaware of every air molecule touching my skin.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  “Give me the chocolate,” I whispered back, my words slow and deliberate.

  He pushed the spoon into my mouth and I wrapped my tongue around it, sucking it clean while Sully Hart stopped breathing. Nothing in my life had ever felt more powerful. More demanding. More hot.

  The spoon clattered to the floor as my hands went up into his hair and his mouth landed on mine.

  Chapter Nine

  He tasted of chocolate and testosterone and if I could have climbed under his skin, it wouldn’t have been close enough. It wasn’t yesterday’s loving kiss of longing, searching need. This was punishing, lip-crushing, raw desire. This was fifteen years of pent-up and buried want and hurt and anger, manifesting into carnal need at a primal level.

  I wrapped my arms around his head as my feet left the floor, pulling him in deeper, kissing him harder as my legs went around his waist. Sully growled into my mouth, lighting me on fire as he pinned me against the counter.

  He pushed against me, already rock hard as his hands slid along my thighs, fingers splayed, needing. His hands were calloused and rough on my skin as they slid under my shirt, his fingertips digging into me as they shoved inside the back of my jeans, pulling me harder against him.

  “Jesus, God,” I moaned as he ground himself between my legs, dragging his lips down my neck as his hands pushed my breasts up to meet them. It had been too long. Too damn long. Somewhere deep down I knew that this was a bad idea on about a hundred and ten different levels, but oh my God his mouth felt glorious on my skin.

  “So—fucking—sweet,” Sully mumbled, licking and tasting along the neckline of my shirt, his scruff scratching me.

  My fingers were wound in his hair, pulling him in. I needed more. I needed his shirt off. I needed—

  He lifted his
head at the same moment, like we shared the same thought. His face was in my hands and my breasts were in his, both of us breathing like we’d run a mile and back.

  I closed my eyes as he leaned his forehead against mine. I wanted him so badly. I missed every nuance of him. But I couldn’t need him. I couldn’t need him.

  That was off the table—so to speak. There was too much history, too much pain, regardless of the what-ifs and reasons. There was too much everything in this man. And I was leaving and he was staying and the fact that I couldn’t take my hands off his body meant nothing. Knowing that his touch and his smell would send me into an orbital mess of freakish proportions was good to file away for the future.

  So that I could avoid this.

  Sully took the first step, sliding his hands out from under my shirt and setting me back on my feet. I let my hands trail down his neck and chest. My eyes followed the path. I couldn’t just let go.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice husky.

  I shook my head, still looking at my hands. “I believe I—it was me.”

  “No, I…” He blew out a breath that was more of a growl as he backed up. “I’m so mad, I don’t know where to go with it, and… I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He looked so serious and pissed off, and suddenly the heat of the last thirty seconds cooled. Sully raked a hand through his hair. Good God, I’d had my hands in that hair, caught it on my fingers.

  Get it together, woman.

  “Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have either, but…” I nodded accusingly toward the pan. “You fed me chocolate. You get what you get.”

  A chuckle rolled from his throat, even though the rest of his body was still tight with anger. “I get what I get, huh?”

  I shrugged as the feel-goods crept into the kitchen, already looking for the exits. How messed up was that? I was good with jumping his bones in a hard, unemotional, carnal frenzy, but put a smile and a tinge of affection in the mix and I was ready to bolt?

  Sully came closer, looking down into my face. So close, I could have kissed him again if I’d wanted to. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, my lips tingled.

  Walk away.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he said softly. He reached up to play with a strand of my hair, and that with the word that fell out of his mouth was the catalyst pulling me out the door. His eyes darted to mine immediately. “I’m sorry.”

  It was random, and sweet, and intimate—and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t feel this again.

  “I have to go,” I said, sliding toward the doorway. “I have to—I’ve got things.”

  Sully shook his head and laughed sarcastically, turning away.

  I stopped. “What?”

  “Of course you have to go,” he said. “That’s all you do.”

  Oh, good, we were back. Heat—and not the good kind—rose to the surface of my skin.

  “Excuse me, that’s all I do?” I asked.

  “I left,” he said, nodding and holding his arms up to the universe. “And you punished me every year for that, yet you’re still hell bent on beating that horse. Every day, every place, every conversation—and there you go.”

  I headed through the doorway.

  “I’m not going to listen to this from the man who left me in a parking lot,” I said with a smile over my shoulder.

  I could actually say that with a smile over my shoulder. Damn, how far I’d rallied.

  He pointed. “Like I said.”

  “Yeah, just keep saying,” I mumbled under my breath, pausing to circle back. I grabbed the blue bowl, scooped another very ungraceful portion of Sex in a Pan into it, and walked out. “See you later.”

  It would be necessary. After that escapade? It would be vital.

  “Fridge,” he called after me.

  Fuck balls.

  “Martha.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t get to sleep that night. My mind raced, and my body refused to shut off the Sully effect. I even took a cold shower, something I’d never done on purpose in my life, and I still couldn’t calm down. I could still taste him. I’d eaten the sex dessert (which probably didn’t help, and I’d never look at whipped cream the same way again), chased that with ice cream, and still couldn’t lose the taste of his mouth and the feel of him all over my body. I also might have waited—a while—to change my clothes.

  Shit, I was becoming that pathetic person that smells their sex clothes, and we hadn’t even had sex yet!

  Yet. I said yet. Not out loud, but that thought was as loud as it gets.

  That thought lived with me all night. All the next morning. By the time I picked Lanie up that afternoon to drive back out to the site, I was an irritable mess.

  “Fuck,” I muttered as we sat at a red light.

  “What?” Lanie said, looking alarmed from the passenger side.

  I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “Just realizing the full force of my screwedness.”

  “You do realize this is voluntary, right?” she asked pointedly, but smiling. “Meaning—”

  “That we don’t have to go there,” I finished for her. “You forget about my mother. If we didn’t show up, I’d hear it from her for the next year.”

  “She doesn’t like Sully,” Lanie said. “I bet we could get a reprieve.”

  “Never bet on things to make sense when it comes to Geraldine Frost,” I said, knowing I was full of crap and Lanie probably knew it, too.

  I needed to steer clear of Sully Hart. I needed to avoid his eyes, his voice, his hands, his mouth… especially that last one. Maybe the last two. I couldn’t seem to make it five minutes around him without falling into his mouth or getting felt up.

  That had to stop. We couldn’t keep doing that. He was here to settle down, and I was gearing up to move on. Apples and oranges. Oil and water. Ice cream and grits.

  Certain things just didn’t belong together.

  So why did I keep trying to change that?

  New wood had been purchased and delivered, and while the protestors—led by none other than Katrina Bowman, who’d been out there with us just last week—took up their pacing in front of the water, Sully appeared calmer than yesterday.

  I wasn’t about to claim responsibility for that. If his night were anything like mine, it would make him more frustrated, not less.

  He was already working on the frame for—something needing a frame, lining up people to knock it out faster. He and a partner nailed together two-by-fours at the top. As Lanie and I walked up, Sully turned toward us. I tried not to look for something meaningful in his expression, but of course I did. I had smelled my damn almost-sex clothes, for God’s sake; naturally, I searched his eyes like a lost puppy. Did he smell his clothes looking for me? Did he lay awake all night thinking about it, or did guys even do that?

  “We need two more screwing at the middle and the bottom while we nail you,” he said, meeting my eyes with bemusement. “Y’all up for it?”

  “Charming,” Lanie uttered with a smirk. “What are you, twelve?”

  “Hi, Lanie,” he said, the grin that pulled at his mouth disarmed me.

  I was getting weak and ridiculous in my old age.

  “Sully,” she said. “Hand me a drill. I’ll screw anything that needs it.”

  He laughed. I was envious. Why couldn’t I have a witty comeback like that? Normally, I was the queen of snarky wit. I wasn’t the queen of anything right now, though. Sully drove in a nail above my head, and his bicep rippled and contracted. I was lost in the memory of hands and tongue and all things carnal.

  “Carmen?”

  “Yes?” I said a little too loudly, jolting back to the present as he hovered over me.

  “Screws are right there,” he said, pointing with his chin. “You can use my drill.”

  I was too close for this conversation.

  Spinning around and nearly taking out Lanie in the process, I grabbed his drill and a handful of screws. I stared at the boards in front of me.

  “Okay
,” I said.

  “Do you know how to do this?” he asked from behind me.

  “Of course,” I lied. “Just tell me where you want it.”

  Mm-hmm, two could play that game.

  Lanie snorted below me, handling the drill with expertise.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked her.

  “Aunt Ruby,” she said. “She was always wanting to build something, fix something.” Lanie positioned another screw, lined up her drill bit, and schwoop there it went. “That usually meant me building or fixing. Unless it was plumbing. I know nothing about plumbing.”

  “I know,” I said. “Your shower sucks.”

  “Two on the bottom, two in the middle where it intersects,” Sully said, pointing, his body brushing up against my back. “You see?”

  He was talking right above my ear and my skin was on fire, so no, I didn’t see much of anything.

  I cleared my throat. “Sure,” I said.

  “How was dessert?” he asked.

  I blinked and opened my mouth as Lanie craned her neck backwards to look up at me.

  Dessert? she mouthed.

  “Screw,” I said waggling a finger toward her boards.

  Sully backed up and strolled along the line of people working, and I instantly missed his body close by and his voice hovering over my ear making me ape-shit crazy. My screwedness.

  “We’re making eight of these walls, but not attaching them together,” he said to the group. “That’s where the levers will come in, but that takes some finesse to get everything lined up. I’d like to get these done in the next hour.”

  Lanie was on her knees, already six screws in. I might not have finesse, but I could do this. I had a cordless screwdriver; this was just bigger and I was attaching things, not just putting a screw in the wall to hang a picture.

  I lined up my screw, hit the trigger, and sent it flying off over Lanie’s head.

  “You have to put some weight behind it,” Sully’s partner said. “Otherwise it’s just gonna flop all over the place.”

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “I’m just rusty.”

  I pulled out another screw and lined the drill bit up into the grooves, pushing in a little. I hit the trigger again and luckily moved my other hand, because the drill jumped the screw and started drilling a hole in the wood, right where my hand had been two seconds earlier.