by Aubrey Rose
“I can’t let you go home.” But even as he said those bossy words, which blew her mind, he settled back in his seat, not making any aggressive moves to leave.
She could have said many things. Why? And why so bossy? But instead she told him: “I’m not going home, cowboy, so you don't have to hold me hostage.”
His gaze looked over her face, and then it got softer. “Where you going, baby?”
There was no way she should have told him. There were a lot of crazy things working between them, such as him finding her, him coming there, and then him saying she couldn’t go home. The fact they’d done it all night, many positions, and he’d been so into her he’d touched, licked, and caressed every inch of her body. While she’d tasted him back. And Tess remembered him very well. The smell of him, the taste of his skin on her tongue, and the feel of his mounded sinew against her mouth.
But when Vincent Whitehorse looked at a woman—when he looked at her with softer, more intimate black eyes—she just expelled, “Not sure. Rowdie’s, maybe.”
The softness left his eyes as he dropped his gaze to her mouth, then lifted back to her eyes. His look sharpened as if he knew she’d been thinking of licking his body. Of his cock filling her ...
“No fucking way,” he uttered.
God, she wanted to climb over him, grab him, and she trembled trying not to, even as he bossed her. “Way,” she stated firmly.
He shook his head. “No. Fucking. Way.”
He turned and whipped the key into the ignition, starting the truck. She yelped, dropped the clothes and purse she was holding to try to grab her door handle, but his hand closed around her upper arm and he tugged. She and the dry cleaning bunched across the seat until she hit his side. Hard to do, because her legs were still on the other side. His arm raised and curled over her shoulder, down her side, then tightened, holding her body against his.
She finally dropped her boots, turning toward him to try to push. “Let me go,” she exclaimed.
“Wish I could,” he muttered. Then the truck was moving forward. She was trying to push her hand steadily against his bunched muscles, which she wouldn’t think felt incredible. But it wasn’t getting her anywhere; he was too strong, holding her tight to his side.
“You’re scaring me,” she tried, and he turned his face to her. They were very close to each other and the truck stopped, leading out of the back alley behind her store.
She knew her gaze was pleading, looking into his.
“I’d never hurt you,” he whispered, then he turned and continued to drive.
She wanted to whisper back, “But you already did.” However, she bit her lip.
“What is it you want from me?” she exclaimed, and she knew her voice sounded anguished.
“I was not talking about you on that fucking call. Case I’m working. Don’t like the client, called him fucker. Really don’t like her, a cheater. Caught her screwing the masseuse. Now I can get rid of both of them.” Vincent growled this amazing, lengthy answer into her hair and she was so struck he'd spoken so many words put together, she nearly missed their meaning.
It still hurt.
But ...
FOUR / CAN’T LET YOU LEAVE
Vincent couldn’t let Tess tell her husband, Navarro, that she knew about the affair because then Navarro would tell Luna and he wasn’t ready for that. There was no way he could let Tess stay at Rowdie’s—it was too dangerous for a woman alone. So screw him, he had her now even though he’d just meant to talk to her, and then get out of her life. Better for both of them. He was no fucking good for her. He’d proved that by picking manic-assed Luna.
His track record with women was screwed and he should have never toppled into bed with Tess. Damn the fact he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and damn the fact that she felt all curves and softness against his side. And really damn the fact she was so sweet that she made him ache for ...
“Where are we going?” Tess whispered against his chin. She’d stopped trying to fight him after his explanation, and she’d softened into him. He could feel the fullness of her breast under his armpit. Hell. A woman like she was walked into a man’s life, what the hell was he supposed to do with that? He couldn't believe she’d just accepted his explanation, easy as that—no bitching.
“I have a place Luna doesn’t know about,” he told her.
She pressed closer into him and he liked it so much he held her there, keeping his eye on the road, as he turned his truck up into the low hills.
“Luna is your wife?” she asked softly, her breath warming his jaw.
He nodded, then added in a voice intended to warn her, “You do not want Luna fucking with you.” Tess stiffened against him, her hand curling into his chest. “I got you,” he assured her, finding himself not willing to scare her too much.
Her temple touched his jaw as she looked down where they were pressed together. “You do not want Steven Navarro fucking with you,” she whispered. She clutched his shirt, tugging on it. His gaze caught hers as she lifted her head. “Really, Vincent.”
What was this? He’d not gotten a read on Luna’s newest conquest. He’d had one of the teams at WTSF working a file on Navarro, but all he knew was only a couple hours old. He’d been kind of busy after finally tracking Luna to the man she was screwing. All he knew about Navarro was that he was a talent agent and Luna thought she was fucking flying high with him. Vincent knew she thought Navarro would get her the attention she craved like an addict.
Vincent looked at the road, tightening his arm around Tess. “We’ll talk and you’ll tell me.” He felt her nod, then damn him if she didn’t lay her head on his shoulder and sigh.
By the time he got to the place he’d carved out without Luna knowing about it—it was a small ranch with a smaller two-story house—all his intentions of talking and not fucking were flown on the wings of a hawk. All he had left was thinking about getting into all the softness Tess had ... and never getting out again.
It rode him so hard, by the time he pulled up to his place in the dark and stopped his truck, he’d turned into Tess and had her mouth tilted up to kiss. At first she was startled, then seconds later she was moaning into his mouth.
Then she was crawling up his chest. Then straddling his lap where he’d pulled her. “What the hell have you got on,” he growled against her mouth.
“It clasps in the front,” she informed him, and he switched from trying to unhook her bra in the back, under her silky top ... to the front. Front was better. Way better. Plump, soft.
“Vincent, we shouldn’t,” she whispered against his mouth. Then he had her breasts free and his thumbs brushed over the taut points of her nipples. “Oh,” she gasped breathily. “God,” she moaned.
He lashed his tongue inside her mouth, then retreated, while cupping and squeezing her full breasts. “Too sweet. Got to have you,” he muttered.
“Too hard. Got to have you,” she moaned, doing a twist of her hips and riding all her sweetness over his erection beneath his jeans. “But we still shouldn’t.”
“Tess,” he growled. Meaning, shut up.
“Vincent,” she whispered. Meaning, talk.
“I’m talking with these in my hands,” he told her, then before she could stop him, he lifted her shirt off and tossed her bra aside.
She leaned back against the steering wheel as he grabbed up her round breasts, fondling them slowly. They looked like fucking erotic art in the moonlight. “Talk,” he challenged.
“We can’t talk like this!”
He did something tight and tugging, making her moan. “Only way,” he told her.
“God, Vincent.” Her hands reached for his shoulders and her soft center humped his erection again.
“We’re both married,” she finally gasped.
He stopped ... while holding her breasts in his hands and her hard nipples under his thumb. “So?” he muttered, trying to see her gaze in the moonlight, but all he could see were pinpoints in her irises.
She
heaved a breath, filling his hands more with her pillowy flesh. “I just knew I’d never be the one to cheat on my marriage,” she whispered.
He could point out that she already did. “I get you,” he replied, then he let go of her perfect breasts and clasped the satin across her back, pulling her against him, their noses almost touching. He knew jack about pretty, delicate, soft women. Well, strike that, he knew about them from his charity work, but never intimately. He guessed he should do everything the opposite, as say, he’d done with Luna. “I never cheated,” he told her.
He had to say if they were going to talk, this was the way to do it. So close. Her arms came around his neck and he played with the ends of her silky hair, alternating with strokes of her back. Each little stroke of his fingers made her do a small catch of breath that he liked.
“I’d have bet you didn’t,” she murmured, her breath warm against his mouth. “Vincent, I’m never going back to him,” she whispered.
“That’s good, beautiful,” he replied, tightening around her, then loosening a bit. “You afraid of him?” he asked quietly.
She nodded slowly, and he felt her temple touch his, then leave. “Some.” She took a breath as if fortifying herself. “He was different, nicer, last time I left him for cheating.”
Vincent stilled. They had some ugly marriage messes in common. Like cheating.
“But he got in with a tough crowd, somehow through promotions at big venues, and he’s changed in the last couple of years.”
He grabbed her hair, bunching it at the back of her head. “How?”
“I think he had a guy that innocently flirted with me beat up badly, as in bad enough to go to the emergency room with a hospital stay after.” Her arms tightened around his neck and her face went past him, until she hugged against the side of his face. “It’s like he doesn't want me, but he doesn't want anyone else to have me. So I can leave him. I think. He won’t get too nasty as long as he gets no hint of ...”
“Of another man in your bed,” Vincent finished for her, and he felt her nod.
“I think,” she whispered.
Vincent used her hair until she was looking at him again. “First, no man lets other men flirt with his woman.” She started to interrupt, but he talked over her. “Hospital stay and bad beating is extreme as long as it was one-sided flirting? And not yours. But, baby, my ball and chain acts the same fucked-up way.”
“She does?” Tess asked, sounding disbelieving. “Ball and chain is your wife, right?”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Now that I’m finally fucking thinking without my dick. I can’t let you get in her headlights.” He let go of Tess’ hair, and reached to the side of her. “You. Her. She’d hurt you.” His hand found soft material, and he said too damn roughly, “Put your shirt on, Tess.”
Tess didn’t argue with Vincent when he used his gravelly, deep voice with command, but a hint of harshness that she wanted to believe was bitter disappointment. She didn’t argue when he shut off, got distant, and set her away from him. Her body screamed for more of his heat and her mind screamed for more of his forceful passion, but he helped her by cutting it off and she found her strength through him. It wasn’t fair. It was the taste of something more powerful than she’d ever had, but they both had crazy and maybe dangerous soon-to-be ex’s.
She didn’t want Vincent to get hurt, and she knew if he felt the same way, she knew how much he felt it. So she got dressed, not looking at him. When he came around his truck and opened the door, she got out and followed him in the dark up to the porch of a small two-story house.
He had the dry cleaning again, and it crinkled between them as she stayed close to his back while he unlocked the door in the dark. She would stay—listen to what Vincent had to say about not telling her husband that she knew about the affair, had seen the bastard cheating—and then she’d go find a place to stay.
Vincent reached in and flipped on a light, then he stepped behind her, letting her go first. Her heartbeat quickened at the gentlemanly gesture and she shoved her reaction down, hearing him ask, “Have you eaten?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, stepping inside as her gaze swept the area. It was totally male and it looked totally comfortable, but not in a man-cave way. It was higher-class male comfort.
“Heard your stomach rumble.”
Tess wanted to grab her stomach in defense as she stepped aside, letting him walk past her toward the kitchen she could see through the open area.
She nearly muttered, “Did not.”
But he muttered, “I’ll make eggs. Sit.”
Tess clutched her purse with the strap over her shoulder as she watched Vincent toss the dry cleaning over a high-backed stool, then he entered the kitchen, turning on the light as he went. As soon as he turned the light on she saw the island, separating the kitchen and living room, had a spectacular granite top of bronze and gold with black and white flecks. Her mind went “wow,” luckily her mouth stayed shut.
“I forgot, that’s yours,” Vincent said across the divide, and he nodded toward the dry cleaning.
She didn’t understand, staying rooted to the spot right inside his front door. “What?”
“Your leather. I had it cleaned.”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. He’d gotten her favorite leather jacket cleaned! She watched him pushing up the sleeves on his long-sleeve brown shirt. His gaze was deep and unreadable. She stepped toward him, where before she’d been uncertain.
“Thank you,” she offered. “Really.”
He lifted his chin slightly. A gesture she took to mean “You're welcome” in hardass land, then he went to the big double-door stainless refrigerator. She turned her gaze from mouthwatering over his refrigerator’s beauty. Gorgeous man, gorgeous fridge. Oh boy.
The crass comments she’d overheard Vincent saying that morning after they tumbled into bed did not seem to align with his recent actions. As in, just nearly just laying her out to fuck her silly in his truck, then having a hard time stopping, and now getting her jacket cleaned. The first could be a horny man looking for an easy lay. His wife was a bitch and they probably didn’t do it much. She knew she and Steven hadn’t had sex for over eighteen months, four days, and about an hour. She counted each long month, day, and hour. It hurt. Maybe bad enough not to feel very guilty about going to bed with Vincent. Who gave her orgasms.
Tess’ cheeks heated, and she saw Vincent looking at her with that hyper-alert and intense gaze he had. As if he knew she’d been thinking about sex with him.
“Baby, you want coffee?”
She loved it when he called her that, with his deeper-than-deep voice that slid through her. It made her hurt inside, in a sweet yet intense way.
She made certain to make her voice sound level when she answered, “Sure. Thanks, and just black is great.” She walked forward and set her purse on the beautiful granite top and reached for the dry-cleaning bag as she said, “Coffee will help with the late-night driving I have ahead of me. Maybe I will try that hotel out on the highway.”
Before she’d finished the word “highway,” she felt heat at her side. “Stay here, Tess.”
She was startled, and she tried to back up, but hit the granite edge, looking up at Vincent’s rugged and intense features. “I couldn’t.” Her voice sounded breathless. “Remember our violence-prone soon-to-be ex’s?”
That was the reason she decided to use? Not that it was the craziest thing she’d heard of ... two cheated-on spouses living together. Of course it wouldn’t be living, just offering a room for a while, but no ... no. If Steven found out. She couldn’t. She also couldn’t get her mind off living with Vincent, and maybe seeing him in the morning after just waking, seeing him sitting in front of the TV, on the couch. Vincent maybe with his shirt off.
She jerked her head to the side, away from Vincent, afraid he could read her mind. Was she that starved for affection that she’d ...?
“I can’t let you leave,” Vincent stated. She stilled, comple
tely caught on the possibilities of what he meant. His hand lifted and grasped her chin, turning her gaze back to his. That close in the light she saw nothing but endless black in his eyes. “It’s not safe,” he muttered, looking at her mouth.
“If Steven found out,” she whispered.
“He won’t,” Vincent answered with finality.
“I can’t, Vincent,” she kept whispering. “I don’t know you.”
His gaze drilled into hers and it felt as if he’d just licked her slowly, right between her legs. “You know me,” his voice rumbled. “I know you.”
He meant as intimately as a man and woman could get through sex. He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip, and a slow grinding ache sparked, low ... low on her body. “Can’t let you stay at a hotel. Not safe. Can’t let you stay where Luna could find you. Not safe. Can’t let you stay where Navarro can find you.”
She started to say, “But—”
He kept talking. “You go to that hotel you're not letting your husband know where you are ... right?”
“Right,” she agreed, and he dropped his hand, stepping back and taking a step back of his intensity with him.
“Same thing as staying here.” He shrugged, then he turned and went around the island back into the kitchen, while she followed long enough to watch his ass in jeans. Yum.
He seemed to think it was all settled, and she realized the last thing she really wanted to do with Vincent was argue. She’d leave it until later, right before she left. But, ohmygod, him saying, “I know you” was melt-worthy.
“First coffee, then eggs,” Vincent said, setting a mug of coffee on his side of the island and then bringing her around to him. She set her cleaned leather jacket over the back of the curved wrought-iron stool with embroidered material stretched across its cushion. The picture woven into the material was of a hawk flying over mountain trees. It went along with most of the southwestern theme throughout Vincent’s home, or hideaway as he called it.
Vincent was whipping eggs in a blue glass bowl by the stove when she grabbed the mug of coffee he’d set out for her. She saw immediately the stainless steel gas stove, built in, wider than a normal stove. It was beautiful and she really wanted to go over and pet it. To keep herself from doing something so silly, she looked around the rest of Vincent’s amazing kitchen.
