by Cari Quinn
Tonight’s roadblock was an all-new variation, she had to give him that. How many women could say that their man’s declaration of love had driven them further apart?
“She tried to give me the solar system.” He smiled faintly. “Don’t think it goes with the decor in my place.”
“I’ll take it.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until his sharp tone snapped her back. “Why would you want it?”
Because it was yours. Because it will remind me of you.
“You know I’m into astronomy, too,” she said, hoping he’d just leave it alone.
“I’d never guessed before last week.” He brushed the back of his knuckles over her cheek and her pulse sped up. “Clearly there are a lot of things I don’t know about you.”
She shrugged. “Open book, babe.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. “Did you really want me to tie you up?”
She darted a glance into the hall, though she knew Dillon had headed out to the hospital and Cory’s parents were still in the kitchen. It just felt weird to discuss bondage in his childhood bedroom. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”
“So you’d be open to trying more.”
Yes. After the barn, she didn’t have any hesitation about trying anything with him. But one thing she did hesitate on? Telling him the whole truth and nothing but. He had enough weapons to wield against her already. And he was pretending to love her, which felt like the biggest one of all.
Taking her time, she sipped the last of her cider and eyed him over the rim. He’d sucked his down so fast. And she’d just bet he tasted like apples and spice and everything nice.
“That depends.”
He blotted up a dab of cider on her chin before sucking it off his thumb. From the sizzling expression in his eyes, he was imagining tasting something else entirely. “On what?”
Heat quickened between her thighs. “What, exactly, do you want to do to me?”
“Oh, Victoria. You have no idea.” A jolt of longing surged through her as he kissed her temple. “It’s getting late. We should go.”
She nodded before she could ask him what he’d meant or worse, beg him to spend the night. He’d likely refuse her in both cases. After his kitchen declaration, it was probably just as well they get some space from each other. “In a hurry to dump me off, huh?”
She’d sort of been joking, but his eyes cooled as if she’d hit too close to home. “Finish your cider,” he said, stepping from the room.
When she returned downstairs, she could hear Cory’s low voice mingling with his mother’s down the hall. Corinne probably expected her to come and say good night, but she just couldn’t do it.
Feeling utterly alone, she went out to wait for him in his car. She’d resume the acting job of her life tomorrow.
She expected him to drive her back to her house and that to be it. Instead he came inside and she poured them both glasses of wine. She had absolutely no clue why he’d wanted to come in. To turn the screws some more? Perhaps to suggest some household items he could use as binding agents?
Goddammit, she hated him sometimes.
Once they were settled in the living room, he stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, eyeing her silently for so long that her skin crawled with nerves. “Why do you dislike the holidays?”
With her goldfish-bowl-sized glass of wine in hand, she curled up at the other end of her couch. Far, far away from him. “What makes you think I do?”
“It never occurred to you to include any Christmas elements in the magazine.”
“So?”
“So you notice details. You make lists. You made sure to include a small mention about adding a patriotic theme to your decorating for Veteran’s Day. Yet you forgot Christmas?”
Speaking of noticing details… Damn that laser-beam brain of his. She shrugged and focused on not stiffening up. “Just not a big fan is all.”
“You mentioned being unavailable the week of Christmas when you took the magazine job. Are you going to visit your dad? You’ve never said where he’s living now.”
That was because he lived all over the place, depending which friend he could mooch off next. She wasn’t going there with him yet. Maybe not ever. ”Don’t most people take the holidays off?”
“Sure.”
“But not you, Mr. Big Shot.”
“Well, I take off Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually. Though last Christmas I ended up working that night. There was a scheduling problem in the Tarenton store and—” Catching her smothering a yawn, he shook his head. “Never mind. But even if I end up working, I like the holidays.”
So had she, once upon a time. “We’re just barely into fall. Can we take it one season at a time, please?” When he shrugged, she decided to humor him. “Why do you like them?”
He shrugged. “Well, there are the retail aspects. Good business. Lots of people want to finish their home improvement projects before winter sets in, and then there are those do-it-yourselfer gift givers. I like the smells, the music. Everyone smiles a lot more. Sometimes I even like seeing my family.”
“Sometimes.”
“This year may be different. It’ll be harder to want to be around them when they’re circling their nets to get me coupled off. Though maybe a couple of months of distance will help.” He dropped his hand to her knee like a spider dive-bombing off the ceiling. She had no time to react. “Evasion looks good on you, Ms. Townsend.”
She sank a little lower in the cushions. It had really felt like they’d turned a corner tonight until he’d made her question her decision to enter this relationship once again. And she wanted to tell someone why those three tiny words bothered her so much. Wanted to tell him. But that would cause more trouble than it was worth. He’d just dismiss her as a nitpicky female. Maybe she was.
She’d already agreed to lie. What were a few more embellishments to the story?
“You asked if I’m going to visit my dad. I should, but I’m not.” She waited for him to press her further, but he didn’t. Just waited.
She took a long sip before she spoke. “My mom left us right before Christmas. No warning. Well, there was some, but I wasn’t old enough to understand what all the silence between my parents meant. I was thirteen,” she added, expecting the inevitable follow-up questions.
That’s it? That’s why you’ve hated a holiday for twelve years?
But he didn’t say anything at all. The hand on her knee rubbed and rubbed, continuing even when a sound dangerously close to a sob escaped her mouth. Her eyes were bone-dry, but God, she was crying just the same. On the inside, where no one could hear.
“I got up one morning and ran into their room first thing. She’d told me the night before that she’d hidden mine and Melly’s presents and I was going to try to figure out where. I headed right for their closet, sure she’d yell at me to stop nosing around, but the only sound I heard was my dad. He was on the bed, his head in his hands, crying all over the letter she’d left him. His tears made the ink run.”
She could still hear it, the soft snuffling sound of a heart breaking. She’d vowed then and there never to love someone the way her father had loved her mom, not if it meant she’d one day be left behind.
“Christmas that year was hell. She’d written us all notes saying good-bye and that she was sorry. But it was different with Bryan. They’d been arguing over stupid shit and he told her he hated her the night before she left for good. He was always saying stuff like that back then. He said he hated me too after she left, but I knew it wasn’t true.”
“How could it be?”
She didn’t know what to say to that so she waited until she could speak without her voice wobbling. “He was so furious, so hurt that she’d never said good-bye to him. Those letters weren’t worth much, but they were something. And she didn’t even leave him that.” She looked down. Moonlight rippled over the pool of dark liquid in her glass. “At least th
at’s what he thought.”
“There was a letter?”
“There was.” It had been full of anger and blame, and she’d hidden it from her brother to protect him. She still had it in the bottom of her dresser, where it had been all these years. One day she knew she owed it to Bry to give it to him. But that wasn’t a story Vicky intended to share with anyone but her brother.
“She never came back,” he said in a low voice. He’d known the result of the story if not the beginning.
“No.”
“And your dad…he never remarried.”
She laughed hollowly, thinking of the shell of a man she’d last seen the week before the Fourth of July. He’d retired from his job as an accountant a few months earlier and claimed he’d decided to travel. Instead he’d immediately holed up in Vegas and started spinning the wheel.
“No. He turned to a different sort of mistress.”
“Drinking?”
She shook her head. “Gambling.”
“What about your mom? Have you talked to her since then?”
“I’ve spoken to her,” she said, taking another strengthening mouthful of wine. She still remembered the phone call and letter she’d gotten out of the blue several years ago. Her mom had changed her mind about being away from her family and wanted them back. She’d grown tired of living alone and didn’t want to spend the rest of her life drifting from place to place, or so she’d said. It wasn’t until Vicky had asked her to meet for coffee that the truth had come out about her living situation. Could Vicky come to visit her at the group home instead?
It had floored her that her mom had been an hour away from them for over a year at that point and they’d never known. Before that, she’d wandered from place to place, trying to lay down roots but never succeeding. Her illness had drawn her back home—and to the people she’d left behind.
Since then, there had been good days and bad. Vicky visited her religiously, even when she hated the idea of spending an afternoon in that sterile place of artificial cheer. What bothered her even more were the attacks of guilt over keeping secrets from her family every time she left. Originally she’d planned to tell them once her mom was doing a little better, in the hopes of helping to facilitate a happy reunion. Ha, what a crock.
Lately her mom had been getting worse despite being on new meds. And Vicky’s secret had weighed her down even more.
When she didn’t say anything further, he took the glass out of her hand and drew her into the circle of his arms. He held her head against his shoulder, urging her wordlessly to let go. To trust him that much.
Twice in one night he’d asked for her trust. But her tears weren’t nearly as easy to coax free as orgasms. They’d been shoved down for too long.
She’d never cried in anyone’s arms before, but she ached for the comfort of someone—Cory—holding her tight while she broke apart. For once, she didn’t want to have to be so strong that she constantly felt weak.
“You can, you know.” His voice sounded rough. “I’m here.”
She risked a glance up at his face. He was already staring down at her, his handsome profile silvered in moonlight from the window behind him. She couldn’t breathe around the ball of need inside her chest, and she damn sure couldn’t cry.
She gripped the lapel of his jacket and leaned up, intent on kissing away the frown on his sulky mouth. Half an inch away from his lips, the scene from the kitchen flashed back into her mind.
“We’re together and madly in love.”
Right. Sure they were. Just imagining them becoming lovers had seemed far-fetched, but him falling for her? Loving her with the same passion they’d fought with for so long? Too much to hope for.
Hell, she hadn’t even been sure she wanted that with him. She’d recently had some strong niggling suspicions that she could be nudged in that direction, yes, but fantasies weren’t reality. She knew that better than anyone.
Now she was lying to not just one family, but two. Cory’s mom had been such a support to her, and this was how she paid her back? By not only pretending to date her son, but by claiming to love him? And that she was loved back? Those three little words took her harmless lie and somehow made it a giant, irreversible violation.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gruffly as she moved back to her corner of the couch.
“You caused all this to happen. You and your big mouth,” she muttered, even though that wasn’t exactly true. It was their big mouths that had led them to make out on that gazebo, and now they were both paying the price.
She waited for him to call her out for blaming him entirely. Shockingly, he didn’t.
“I know. Believe me, I know.” He rested his head on the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “It shouldn’t make a difference. A lie’s a lie. But saying too much always leads to problems later on down the road.” He sighed. “The question is what the hell do we do now? It’s not like I can take the words back. So I suppose we have no choice but to…take things up a notch, to add veracity to our big blowup. That won’t be long from now,” he added, clearly thinking his reminding her of how soon their relationship would end would work in his favor.
Wrong-o.
She stared over his head out the window, going back to those moments they’d shared in the barn. The power of that encounter had shaken her more than any other she’d ever had. Maybe because she’d so willingly surrendered some of her control. Maybe because it was Cory. Maybe both. The more time they spent together, the more she couldn’t help thinking beyond the moment, even knowing it was dangerous. Especially with him.
Every little girl had her favorite fairy tales, and one of the last of hers was finding someone to share her life with. The most important ingredient in her bucolic farm fantasies.
She choked back a laugh. Who’d’ve thunk it? Up-for-anything Vicky Townsend, dreaming of farms and marriage and babies. Of the home she’d had for such a short time as a child and wanted with every fiber to create again.
Compared to the other stubborn dream she still held—her mother ever getting better—part of this one at least was in reach. She could be Cory’s girlfriend for a few weeks. Even if it wasn’t real.
Her family life years ago hadn’t exactly been real, either. So she should be adjusted by now.
When she shot her gaze to his, he cleared his throat. “I didn’t intend any of this,” he added almost as an afterthought.
A quick stabbing sensation in her eyes made her blink, hard. Something had changed between them in the barn. Altered subtly, like molecules shifting. They’d grown closer, and she couldn’t go back in time.
From what she’d seen in the kitchen, his job was on the line. That didn’t really make sense to her, since his parents were good people. But for some reason, his coupledom was a requirement of his continued employment, and the idea of Cory without his work was a scary thing indeed.
What would be left of him then? And could she really willingly cause pain to someone she cared about, when the answer was so simple?
All she had to do was continue down the path they’d set, unwittingly, the night of the gala. Besides, her family didn’t have the best track record at finding—and staying with—their significant others. Maybe a fake relationship was her best bet.
“You know, my mom and dad set some precedent,” she said, shaking her head. “First they split up, then there’s Bry, who never dates the same woman two months in a row. Sometimes even two weeks is a strain. Melly tried to settle down with someone, but it didn’t stick. He cheated on her and dumped her. Then there’s me, the people pleaser who partied too hard in high school. Tonight, one of the guests—Cassandra—asked if I was that girl who’d had sex at the water tower and got arrested. I don’t think she believed me when I said I’d never been handcuffed.” She laughed just a bit too loud. “Gotta love small towns. Everyone knows everyone’s business and no one ever forgets.”
Cory edged closer to her, his expression intent in the low light. “If Cassandra Martino�
�or anyone else—ever says anything derogatory to you about your past again, let me know. I’ll handle it.”
Her heart swelled before she quashed her instant of sentimentality. Yeah, right, like he’d be sticking around long enough to shield her. As if she needed shielding. She could handle it. Hadn’t she handled much worse? “My hero,” she murmured, only half-joking.
“I’m no one’s hero.” He finished his wine and set it aside. They’d both had a few glasses tonight, plus he’d had some brandy. No wonder they were both a little…different. “You think you’re the only one who has a past people won’t forget. My dad wasn’t exactly loved in this town. He had a rep for bar fights, and there’s still an imprint of his fist in the wall at Connor’s Bar. Or so I’ve heard. Add in his penchant for sleeping with married women while he was still with my mom and you see why some people haven’t forgotten. He made quite the impression.”
“I never realized.”
He cracked the knuckles of one hand while his other slipped over her knee. “You’re not like your parents or your brother and sister, Vic. You’re you, and there’s no one else like you in the world.” When she shifted to look at him, he kept going. “Don’t ever change, for anyone. Even me.”
She glanced down at her lap, her hair falling forward to hide her face. His words revealed a part of him she’d never known. It was as if she was seeing him anew. He brushed back the wind-tangled strands and left his fingers on her skin. Taunting her with his nearness. “Victoria?”
She barely registered his voice. She wasn’t the only one who was alone. Despite the women he’d dated in the past, she knew he didn’t want some quiet Stepford girlfriend who didn’t make waves. That would bore him to tears in a week. He needed someone who laughed loudly and cried easily and booty-danced because a friend was having a baby. Someone who lived and loved hard.
