His Secret Heart (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  Yeah. Maybe it really was that simple. Maybe I was just a painful cliche. I had sudden and serious Daddy issues. So I climbed into a stranger’s lap and begged him to fuck me.

  He was surprised, but he certainly wasn't unwilling. I could feel that as I ground my hips into his lap. Kissing him was an accident, something I didn't think I wanted, but once I started, it only made me want more. He - whoever he was - was a really good kisser. Taking his time, letting me control it right up until the moment I lost control. And then he took over, twining his fingers into my hair, and tilting my head to use me as he saw fit.

  I let him. I wanted this stranger to mark me. To bruise me. I wanted to feel his fingers all over me, raking down my back and sinking into my hips. I wanted him to overwhelm me and silence the crush of thoughts in my head. I wanted to shut off my brain and just be a body. Something mindless and free.

  Most of all, I wanted to feel good.

  "Make me feel good," I groaned against his mouth.

  His answer was to stand, lifting me as he did. I wrapped my legs around his waist and kept kissing him, biting, licking, tasting the ash and salt on his skin. His growl was what I needed. His grunt as I used my teeth to hurt him - but not enough to stop me - was what I craved.

  He took the two steps up to the trailer and threw the door open. But he kept the light off. Thank God. If he'd turned the light on, I might have come to my senses. Light would bring me back to reality and remind me that I wasn't the kind of girl who did shit like this. But in the dark, I could pretend I was a different person. Someone who took this kind of risk. Someone whose world wasn't completely upside down.

  Someone who wasn't me.

  He tumbled us into the bed, and landed on top of me. I let him lift my shirt from my body, and was rewarded with the suck of his lips against the tops of my breasts. His mouth was searingly hot, and smell of bourbon hung in a mist around us.

  "Keep going,” I urged him, and that low evil chuckle should have scared me. But it didn't. The darkness made it easy to let him pull my jeans down, then my panties. My skin was already humming. So when he traced a trail down my center with his finger, then followed it with his tongue, I was primed for the explosion. Like a rubber band pulled too tight, I snapped.

  I reached down, yanking his hair into fistfuls as I ground up against his mouth. Taking. Taking. I screamed out my pain along with the pleasure. Frustration and grief along with the ecstasy.

  "Yes!" I was panting now, and tears were falling down my face. “Fuck, that was good.”

  He pulled back and stood up, a shadow looming above me. I was already aching for more, and I knew he would give it. The no-holds-barred way he’d used his tongue and fingers told me exactly what I could expect to come next. I was shaking with need for it.

  “You want me? God you want me so bad. don't you?” I reached up and closed my hand around the perfect shape of him that pressed under his jeans. "Tell me you want me. Say something." I spread my legs wider as I tugged at his belt. “What are you waiting for?”

  Even in the gloom I could see his shoulders rise and fall in a huge inhale. And for some reason I could feel tears prick at the corners of my eyes.

  When he pressed his hand over mine, pushing it away from his belt, shame heated by face. "You don't want me." It came out like an accusation.

  "No!" he shouted. I scrambled backward, but he reached out, and wrapped his fingers around my ankles. Not holding me, not preventing me from escaping. Just applying slight pressure. He squeezed, then swirled his roughly calloused thumbs in circles.

  Then snatched his hands away again.

  "You'd better believe I want you." He sounded like he was trying to keep his voice steady so as not to frighten me again. "But I know what it's like to make a bad decision when you're hurting."

  "I'm fine." I clenched my teeth and lifted my chin even though he couldn't see me in the dark.

  I sensed him shaking his head. There was something about this man that made me hugely aware of the space he took up. H changed the patten of the air around him, as if he was some great mountain disrupting the ocean and wind.

  "Yeah, maybe you are." He stepped away, then away again, until he had put several feet of space between us. I was instantly colder, and I reached for the sheet to clutch around my shoulders.

  "Maybe you're fine," he repeated. "But the fact that I even have to question it means I need to back the fuck up here. I've made a lot of bad decisions and I own them.” He let out a long breath. “But I don't think I am too keen on being someone else's."

  Hot angry tears were closing my throat. The room lurched and I suddenly felt unhinged. And very, very drunk. If I spoke now, it would be in a high pitched shriek. I would shout at him and swear at him and claw at his eyes.

  I didn't have much of anything left in the world that I could hold on to except for my dignity. So I kept my mouth shut. I held my head high and kept my jaw clenched, willing the tears to stay away until I was no longer in his presence. I would not fall apart a second time today.

  I felt around for my clothes, and bundled them against my chest. Then hestitated. I wasn’t sure I could stand without falling.

  "You don't have to go," he rumbled out from the dark.

  "I'm not staying," I snapped, anger steadying my voice. "Not now."

  "Suit yourself," he said. "But it's raining."

  The world snapped back into drunken focus. I suddenly became aware of the study patter of drops on the roof of his trailer.

  "Might be more comfortable here," he went on.

  "Fuck." The tears were coming, and I wasn't able to stop them. Shame, despair, and complete bewilderment took over. I fell back onto the bed and curled up in a tight ball, clutching the sheet around my naked body.

  The tears fell fast soaking the bed beneath me. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  The last thing I felt - before whiskey and exhaustion tugged me towards a dreamless black - was his hand on my back. It was warm, and heavy, and he kept it there, rubbing in slow, hesitant circles until I fell asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Finn

  I awoke with an ache in my neck and an even bigger ache in my groin. Usually an epic case of blue balls wasn’t something to smile about.

  But that’s what I did.

  I'd packed up and left so my brother could have a shot at happiness with Rachel. Giving him the chance to live his new life unburdened by... me - was the only selfless thing I’d ever done.

  Until last night.

  Last night, I’d brought that lifelong total up to… two. My brother would be proud of me.

  I almost wish I could call and tell him.

  It was the kind of thing he would've done. It was something a good person did. Definitely out of character for a piece of shit like Finn King.

  I smiled and almost felt proud of myself.

  And then I remembered what exactly what it was that I was celebrating.

  I didn't fuck a drunk chick.

  My proud smile shriveled back up again and I cursed. That’s what I was proud of? Really? Not fucking her? I’d kissed her, undressed her, and eaten her pussy like a starving man, but I didn’t stick my cock in her. Woo hoo. Somebody get me a goddamn gold medal for doing the absolute bare minimum.

  That fledgling pride gave way to disgust, which propelled me out of the tiny corner of the bed that she left me.

  I stood, and stretched. Then studied the near catastrophe now spilled across my mattress.

  From her voice, I knew she'd be pretty. From her eyes I’d known she’d be beautiful. And I'd gotten enough sense of her shape with my hands to have a pretty good idea that she was actually smoking hot. After last night, I'd formed a picture in my head of someone rough. The tattooed bad girl with nicotine stains on her fingers and a “Daddy’s Little Angel” tattoo across her chest.

  So it was a bit of a shock to see a pale, delicate slip of a thing wrapped in my bed sheets. Her hair was not just blond. It was a fine white gold the same color as th
e sunshine that spilled through my trailer windows. Her lips weren't just pink. They were perfectly formed and obviously ripe for kissing.

  But her pale perfection was interrupted by the startling slash of her dark eyebrows. There was something familiar about that combination of blond hair, and dark brows. I'd seen it before.

  But before I could think too hard on what that meant, her eyes fluttered open.

  I barely had a moment to take in their startling blueness before she narrowed them at me.

  “No fucking way," she breathed.

  "Good morning to you too," I said, turning away as she tugged the sheet up above her breasts.

  She sounded pissed. Why the fuck was she pissed at me? I didn't touch her except to rub her back as she cried and push her over onto her side so she didn't puke. Well, that’s if you set aside all the touching I’d done before that, but still. I didn’t fuck her. My aching balls were a testament to that. She’d drunk my whiskey and slept in my bed. How the fuck was she pissed at me?

  I let the defensiveness wash over me. Yet another case of me trying to do the right thing and fucking it up anyway. I was so used to it, it almost felt comforting. I was always at my best when I had a reason to feel persecuted. “I’ll turn around, let you get dressed and everything,” I muttered. “You can go now or you can get some coffee, then go. Your choice."

  I turned my back and headed to the espresso machine. I’d given Jonah so much shit for having it installed in our tour bus, but now I was grateful for it. I stood at the dials, waiting to hear her reply. I expected another smart remark.

  I didn't expect her to burst out laughing.

  Dumbfounded, I turned back to the bed. She'd doubled over. With her head cradled on her knees, her shoulders shook in silent, helpless laughter. "At least you're not crying?” I muttered.

  She wiped her eyes with my sheet. "Holy fuck,” she wheezed. “Ah God, so that's why you sounded so familiar."

  I was instantly cold. “Do I know you? Please fucking tell me I don't know you." I didn’t know her, although her eyes were bugging the shit out of me. Like I’d seen them before. On another face.

  “No. You don’t.“ She shook her head and looked away, biting her lip to try to stop laughing. But she didn't succeed, and started laughing again.

  This was too much for first thing in the morning. “Please,“ I sniped. “Let me in on the joke. I could use a laugh. And an aspirin.” My head was throbbing now, instead of my dick. “What about you?”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "Yeah, Finn. I could use an aspirin."

  I stiffened at my name and sucked in a slow breath. So fucking much for disappearing. “You recognize me?”

  “The beard is different. But not by much.”

  I went rigid. “Are you a fan or something?"

  “Like... the complete opposite.”

  “Re-eally?”

  “That surprise you? That a girl my age didn’t want to like, marry you on sight or something?”

  “Nah. That's more Jonah’s thing.”

  She looked up sharply. “Holy shit, you really are Finn King.”

  This was getting old. I poured myself an espresso without offering her one. “We established this.”

  She looked down at the sheets. “And I’m in your bed.” The wild laughter was bubbling up again. “The only chick on the planet Finn King won’t fuck. I should get that engraved on a trophy.”

  “What the hell?” I set the cup down before I threw it. Fight or flight, they call it. The panic response. The second she'd said my name, adrenaline surged through me.

  I couldn't exactly fight a girl - especially not when she was tiny and naked and lying in my bed. So I started looking for an escape route. Getting ready to walk right out of this trailer and never look back. “You got a problem with me?”

  But she either didn’t notice my reaction, or didn’t care. “No,” she mused, picking at the sheet with her fingers. The casual slope of her shoulders made mine relax a fraction. “True, I always thought The King Brothers were shit, but that's not really your fault. Hell, you always looked like you belonged more in a punk band than in some crappy teen pop band."

  I'd had very similar thoughts. Many similar thoughts, many, many, times. But I still felt a protective prickle for my brothers' sake. "That 'crappy teen pop' paid for the trailer you slept in,” I retorted. “And this fucking espresso machine.” I went back over to it, and grudgingly started setting it up for another cup.

  For her.

  Because no matter how much I’d wanted to run a second ago, I wasn't going to. Her fragile rage - as well as her wide eyes and that dark slash of brows that gave her an edge I wanted to peer over and into - kept me here. With her.

  I didn’t want to - no I couldn’t - leave her alone.

  “So you know who I am,” I grunted, shoving my way through the complicated sequence of levers and buttons to make her espresso. “Can I at least know who you are? I mean, since you’re drinking my coffee and took up seven-eighths of my bed last night?”

  She looked down again like she’d forgotten where she was. “Jesus,” she muttered.

  “Here.” I handed her the cup I’d prepared. “I’ll go get the aspirin.”

  “And my T-shirt?” she asked. “If I’m going to be drinking this, I’d like to be clothed.”

  “Fair.” I stood up and reached under the bed, then handed it to her.

  She laughed when I turned my back to give her privacy. “What the fuck?” She didn’t sound like she was talking to me, so I didn’t turn even though I wanted to. I went to the bathroom and fetched the aspirin, listening to her chant it over and over again, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” She whispered it like a little prayer.

  “You decent?” I called out.

  “Am I dead?” she blurted.

  I peered around the corner. “Are you still drunk?”

  “I wish.” She sighed. “So this is real then? I didn’t die and end up in purgatory?” She glanced around, taking in the inside of the tour bus. “Or some really strange version of heaven?”

  “I have no idea how to answer that. Except no. This is real.”

  “I’m really in a tour bus with Finn King.”

  I jerked at the sound of my name again. “Yeah, you know my name. Can I at least know yours now?”

  She grimaced. "My name is Sky. I told you that."

  “Do you have a last name, Sky? Or are you like Cher or Prince or something?”

  "Well, now,” she sat up straighter and leaned against the headboard. Tucking her legs under her, she folded her hands in her lap. She looked... demure. So very different from the wild abandon of last night. I wondered which version was the real Sky. “So here’s the thing, Finn.” She bit off my name acidly. “That’s the funny part. You see, up until yesterday, I would have told you my last name was Clarence.”

  This cryptic shit was starting to annoy me. “How the fuck does your last name change in the span of twenty-hour hours?"

  Instead of answering, she stared me straight in the face with those vivid blue eyes. "What the hell are you doing here? You're like, a celebrity."

  Fuck it. If she wasn’t going to answer questions, I wasn’t going to either. “Camping,” I deadpanned.

  She glared at me. I glared right back. She widened her eyes and clapped her hand over her mouth.

  And then the laughter came again. Helpless and hysterical, it bubbled around her hand until she gave up and let it fall to her side with a thud. She shook her head, blinking those big blue eyes as they filled with tears, then cast them up to the ceiling. But even as she laughed, they began to fall again.

  I knew what a breakdown looks like. I’d seen this staring back at me from the mirror, but I’d never watched it in another person before.

  I flexed my fingers. The tips itched with the need to reach for something… something I didn’t have a name for. I hated feeling helpless, but I had no idea what to do for her. Fucking or fighting, those were
the two things I was good at. And I'd already almost fucked this girl. I sure as hell wasn't about to fight her, not when she looked like she was one step outside of the mental hospital.

  So I did the only other thing I’m good at.

  I ran away.

  Sure, I was still right here in the room. You don’t have to actually leave to check the fuck out. You also don’t have to mean to do it either. The walls come up automatically, forming a barrier between you and the world.

  “Fuck,” I whispered as I felt it happened. But it happened all the same. No matter how badly I wanted to stay open, I closed myself off. And turned away.