by Holley Trent
Her jaw dropped and eyes went round as saucers.
Chuckling, he hooked his fingers beneath her chin and nudged it up. While he was there, he stole a caress. He’d been wondering if her skin was as silky as it looked, and he decided as he pulled the pad of his thumb along the edge of her jaw that yes, it was.
Surprisingly, she didn’t knock his hand away, but she did stare down at it before cutting a sideways glare at him.
“Sorry.” He draped his hands over the steering wheel and stared through the rows at cars in search for that flash of red hair that would indicate Carine was on her way out. “I generally keep my hands to myself. I couldn’t resist.”
“Apology accepted.” She turned her phone over, input some numbers, and put the device to her ear. “Where the hell is Carine?”
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
“It’d be just my luck that she got distracted by some big blond lumberjack and went into that so-called dungeon with him.”
“Okay, first of all, a lumberjack?”
“Her newest fetish”—she rolled her eyes—“seems to be lumbersexuals. Big guys with facial hair and man-buns.”
“I don’t think anyone matching that description showed up tonight, but I’d reckon there are a few blonds in there, if that’s what she really likes. Lord knows more than enough men in there have been trying to figure that out in two years. And second of all, it’s not a so-called dungeon. It’s a legitimate dungeon.”
“You’re bullshitting me.”
“Nope. Clay used to own a fetish club down in Miami and it got flooded out during a storm. The torture devices in the basement were what he had leftover in storage. They get a lot of use.”
Her jaw dropped again, and this time instead of touching her, he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and chuckled.
“I don’t want to imagine that,” she said. “I probably know way too many people in that house right now, at least by sight.”
“Really? That’s funny, because I know everyone in there, and I’ve never seen you before.”
The lady cleared her throat and turned her gaze to the windshield. “Carine, where the hell are you?” she said into the phone. “You’ve been gone for, like, ten minutes and I’m sitting here with…” She turned to Tim.
“Tim,” he offered.
“Tim. I’m sitting here with Tim wondering if you got invited into the dungeon or something.”
He couldn’t make out what Carine was saying on the other end, but whatever it was had the lady in the car pulling some very annoyed expressions.
Probably used to being the responsible one, he mused.
He’d been uptight like that once upon a time, and a very enthusiastic dominatrix had cured him of it and unlocked the part of him that taught him how to be in control when he needed to be and to let go of the small things.
He bet the lady in the car could do with a bit of reprogramming, and perhaps he wouldn’t even have to blow the dust off his crop to do it.
“Just hurry up.” She gave herself a little shake as she disconnected the call, dropped the phone into the cup holder, and crossed her arms over her chest. “She said Clay loaned out the gas can and they’re asking around to see who has one in their truck.”
“I have one in my truck. Two, actually.”
She perked up. “Well, let’s get one.”
Tim made a sardonic clucking sound with his tongue. “That’d be a smart thing to do if there was gas in either of them. I meant to refill them and take them down to the wharf earlier today, but I got held up.”
“Damn it.”
“What’s the hurry? Have somewhere else you’re supposed to be tonight?”
“Well, I’ve got some calls to make to make sure Monday’s work goes to schedule. Also, I just don’t like sitting around waiting for acts of kindness from others. I’m used to doing things for myself.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Yeah?” She drummed her fingertips against the sides of her arms and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes.
“What’s with the incredulity?”
“Privilege is a funny sort of thing. It sometimes makes people blind to how good they have it.”
“And you think I’ve had it so well, is what you’re saying.”
“You’re wearing an eighty-dollar shirt and shoes that cost upwards of a hundred bucks. I work in construction, so I know guys who dress well and have rough hands like yours.” She canted her head toward the steering wheel. “Calloused and with a bit of dirt under their nails they’ll never be able to get out. You may be used to working for your money, but now I bet you’ve got people working for you.”
Obviously, Tim wasn’t the only observant one in the car.
“That kind of goes with the territory when you get to be a certain age. Unless you’re standing absolutely still in your career, there are going to be people under you.”
She’d pegged him, though.
He did have people working for him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get up every morning and do some heavy lifting, too. No boat left his factory with the Dowd name on it if Tim didn’t personally inspect every cog and seam on it. He had too much at stake to fuck up after so many years of blood, sweat, and tears.
She rested her elbow on the dashboard and leaned the side of her head against her fist, staring at him. “I bet you’re used to having people under you.”
“In some ways more than other ones, lately.”
Judging by the way her lips parted, he would have guessed her jaw was going to drop again, but she seemed to catch herself and closed her mouth without a word.
“I told you that the people here tend to be very honest,” he said. “We’re going to try to make you comfortable, so you’ll let your guard down a little. That way we can find out what you like, what you want. People will tell you why they’re here and what they’re looking for, and you’ll hold it in confidence because you’ll want them to do the same thing for you.”
“And what is it that you’re looking for, Tim?”
“Right now, all I’m looking for is your name. You still haven’t told it to me.”
“If you know everyone here, you’ll probably find out soon enough. Names aren’t secrets.”
“So why are you keeping it from me? The only explanation I can think of is it’s the one way you can keep control of the situation. You’ve got the upper hand right now because I’m begging you for it, and it’s such a small thing.”
“Begging me?”
“Mm-hmm. Dying to know it, so tomorrow I know what to call you in my mind when I think about how I got absolutely nowhere with you.”
Hell, Heidi probably would have better luck.
“There are probably a dozen women in there you could go get somewhere with,” the lady said.
“Mm-hmm.” He knew them all and had gone somewhere with a few. If he’d had any desire to repeat the liaisons, he would have picked up a phone and called them. They weren’t what he wanted, though, because he hadn’t wanted anything at all.
The lady beside him made him curious, though. She didn’t seem to want anything at all, either.
Who is she?
Suddenly, his thoughts were on a singular track to finding out. He’d had strangers on their knees and begging to suck his cock in the same amount of time he’d spent trying to get that one little word from her. He knew how to work people like those, though. They’d expected him to play the part of the dom. The lady beside him didn’t. Regardless, that didn’t mean he couldn’t work her the way he wanted.
“How about a little more honesty for you?” He leaned against the door and tried to make himself a little less imposing to her, which was hard. He was well over six feet tall and was already calculating which maneuvers he’d used to get out of the tiny car without bruising his middle-aged hips.
Extending his hand to her to shake, he said, “Tim Dowd. I build high-end, custom boats for a living.”
Her eyes
widened again, and her hand stopped midway to his. “You’re the Dowd behind Dowd Wave Cruisers? Your boats are all over the coast.”
He took the hand she extended halfway and gave it a gentle shake and squeeze. The skin of her warm had was nearly as soft as her face.
One less item to find out about.
She had pretty hands. Femininely tapered fingers. Elegant oval nails slicked with nude polish. Her grip was careful. He bet he’d have to teach a lady like her that she wouldn’t break his cock with a little squeeze. He’d show her how to grip him tight and then sit back and watch her make him spill all over that opaline manicure.
“Yep,” he said hoarsely and swallowed hard. Fuck, he wanted that. Wanted her hands on his secret places. Wanted to see how a lady who wore nude nights liked to play. “That’s me. Now would you please tell me your name? You’re beautiful. I’d like to talk you into letting me take you back to my place to fuck you tonight—because I’m all about honesty—and that seems like a natural next step.”
Her hand tensed inside his, but she didn’t pull it away. Her lips shaped soundless words and nose crinkled. As the start of some strained sound worked its way through her throat, there was a knock on the window behind him.
“It’s Carine, isn’t it?” he asked.
The lady in the car nodded.
“Who’s with her?”
“She’s alone.”
“Then she can wait. She kept you waiting, right? You gonna tell me? No strings attached if you do, but I meant what I said about taking you home.”
Her wary gaze flitted past Tim to the lady behind him back to Tim again, and she furrowed her brow. “Valerie Lawson.”
Valerie…
A stately name, he thought. It suited her.
“Truly?” he asked.
“Yes. No reason to lie. Why don’t you open the door and see what she wants?”
“Not gonna answer me about the other thing?”
“Do I look easy to you?”
“I don’t know what easy looks like, but I suspect you’re not it. I’ll give you a moment to think it over, though.”
He gave Valerie back her hand and opened the door a crack. “You find some gas?”
“No, and the tow guy I called can’t bring me any until tomorrow. I’d be better off finding someone here to drive me to an open gas station on their way out tonight.”
“Good luck with that way out here,” Tim said. “Most have the pumps turned off after nine.”
She rolled her eyes. “Can you drive us home? I’m not in the mood to stay and play tonight if no one’s feeling chivalrous beyond Heidi. I didn’t want her to end her evening early, though.” Carine made a sputtering sound and stared at the house over the rows of cars.
“Yep. I’ll drive you home.”
“Great. I won’t trouble you to bring me back in the morning, either.”
Valerie sighed and pushed her door open. “I’ll bring you back, gas can in hand.” She hauled her big purse off the floor and slammed the door.
Carine dipped her head into the car and raised an eyebrow at him. “Huh.”
“Huh, what?”
“Might work.”
“What might?”
She pointed to him and then hooked her thumb toward the lady waiting in front of the car who was paying them no mind because she was staring at her phone screen again.
Carine tapped her chin pensively, leaned in close, and whispered, “Intellectually, she’ll keep up with you with no problems. I know how bored you get. No one keeps your interest.”
“I didn’t say I was interested.”
“Whatever, Tim. I get it. You’re not looking for anyone, but I’m trying to throw you a bone here.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s leaving anyway. You don’t want strings attached? You’re not going to get any from her.”
“Huh.” He rubbed his beard, considering Carine’s words.
No commitment meant that in the end, she wouldn’t be disappointed. Tim was tired of not being what women wanted, and being commitment-averse was a pretty fucking lonely place. Maybe Valerie was just what the doctor ordered.
“You can repay me later,” Carine said. “I might need a ride somewhere.”
CHAPTER THREE
Nervous as hell being alone with Tim in the truck, Valerie gripped her purse tightly against her chest. She watched Carine walked up the path to her mother’s house.
Beneath the illumination so of a pole light, Carine turned and waved to them—evidently her signal that they could go.
Valerie wished Tim had dropped her off first, but Carine’s place was closer to Clay’s. Valerie generally didn’t get nervous being around men—she was used to being the only lady at her construction sites—but something about Tim made her unusually timid.
He threw the huge truck into reverse and backed skillfully out of the narrow parking space he’d wedged the mammoth vehicle into. “All right. Where are you staying?”
“I live on-site in Shora in the first house we finished. The temporary office is downstairs. I have the rooms upstairs. Carine’s going to move in when the current phase of the project is done.”
Not that he needs to know all that.
Valerie let out a silent groan. She was rambling. She always rambled when men made her nervous. She despised him for knocking her so far off her usual even keel.
“Shora it is.” He slung the truck onto the road. Given that it was well after ten o’clock, traffic was blessedly light.
“Thank you, again, for going out of your way to drive us home.”
“You assume I don’t have ulterior motives.”
“I don’t assume that at all.” She simply hadn’t wanted to invite discussion about things she had no plans on following through on. The guy was brazen as all get-out. Though she was used to dealing with confident men like him on job sites, none had ever told her in such explicit verbiage that he wanted to get her into bed.
Such a Leah situation, Valerie mused. The woman had such a knack for finding new scandals to hop gleefully into. At that thought, Valerie rooted her phone out of her purse and cringed at the backlog of text messages. She scrolled up and read them from earliest to latest.
Are you still there?
Answer me.
What are the men like?
Answer me.
Carine said some guy is giving you a ride home.
AN.SWER.ME.
—One missed call.—
BITCH.
—One missed call.—
Carine says he’s rich. Wouldn’t that be a nice change from your ordinary?
—One missed call.—
Carine says you’re being a stuck-up snot. She’s my sister now instead of you. Snot.
That insult had been Leah’s last message. Valerie rolled her eyes and dropped the phone back into the bottomless void of her purse. Carine probably hadn’t called Valerie a stuck-up snot—in those words, anyway—but she’d probably hinted at it. Valerie couldn’t argue with them without having to share truths she’d never intended for anyone else to know.
What Carine and Leah didn’t know about Valerie’s past sexual indiscretions wouldn’t kill them, and she planned to keep them in the dark.
“Your phone seems to give you as much angst as mine does me.” Tim spared a glance at Valerie before fixing his gaze back on the road.
“Probably for different reasons. A little monster lives inside mine and it likes to display emotionally manipulative text messages.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely not my problem.” He rolled to a stop at a light and motored down his window. Slinging his arm onto the sill in a way that marked him as a country boy through-and-through, he tapped the radio on with his free hand.
News. Plain-old news, no excessive commentary. She knew the channel. She kept it on at the office so the weather didn’t take her unawares. The last thing she needed was more delays on the Shora project. Her job was supposed to have been done two months ago, but the e
arliest stages had been held up by “local” protesters. It’d turned out that none of them lived within ten miles of the development. They simply hadn’t liked the idea of another—albeit underutilized—tract of land being turned into someplace livable. Then came the permit issues, which had been one nonstop headache. Folks didn’t know what to make of a mixed-use development. Obviously, the idea of putting a grocery store within walking distance of a neighborhood was a foreign concept out in the sticks.
She and the rest of the folks on-site had been working at a breakneck pace since the project got the green light, and she was more motivated than anyone to reach the finish line. The project she had lined up for after Shora—the one she really wanted—was contingent on her getting out of Shora in time. If she didn’t, her worry wasn’t that she wouldn’t get assigned to something else. Her biggest fear was getting saddled with another boring residential project in some middle-of-nowhere place no one cared about. She wanted that Miami job. She wanted something she could start from scratch with and not just piggyback on after the developer had already worked out which cookie-cutter styles to recycle from the last subdivision.
And she wanted to be somewhere—in a place with a name people recognized.
No one had ever heard of the places Lipton had assigned her. Shora, North Carolina? McKeeson, Tennessee? Spotsneck, Georgia?
Same thing over and over again.
She was ready for something big—something career-changing.
Letting her lips sputter, she clutched her purse tighter as Tim put his foot on the accelerator again. She could be cordial and make conversation. She could consider it her good deed for the week. “So, what annoying thing do you have living in your phone?” she asked.
“Annoying things.” Tim’s chuckle was deep and as rich as he was. “I’ve got one foreman who can’t make a decision without consulting an oracle, another foreman who I suspect was Napoleon in a past life, and a—” Tim closed his lips on whatever it was he was going to say, so of course Valerie turned to look at him.
