Unforgiven

by Anne Calhoun

  “I could use a drain cleaner.”

  “It’ll eat right through the pipes,” he replied. “They’re seventy years old. Some weekend soon I’ll replace the drain line and the P-trap. Maybe that will help. In the meantime . . .”

  He handed her the flashlight, then stretched out on his back and wedged his torso into the cabinet under the sink. One hand fumbled in the toolbox. He lifted his head to see better, banged his forehead on the cabinet, and grunted.

  “Sorry,” Alana said hastily, and shone the light on the offending pipes.

  It took only minutes to clear the pipe, then reattach the stopper to the drain lever, each stage punctuated by curt instructions given by the big male maneuvering in the small room. He twisted, his legs pushing against the opposite wall so his knee pressed into her shoulder.

  “Do you wash your hair in the sink?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, pulling a handful forward to consider it. It was thick and poker-straight, cut in a bob that swung just below her jawline. It’s only redeeming characteristic was the natural, pale blond color. Freddie bemoaned her regular appointments at Chicago’s best hair salon to maintain the same shade. “There’s just a lot of it.”

  “I can see that,” he said to the interior of the cabinet. His dress shirt pulled free from his pants, revealing the waistband of his dark blue boxers. A thin line of hair ran from his navel into the waistband. Muscles flexed as he tightened the joint, and with each moment the scent of male skin and laundry soap permeated the air.

  Don’t let this chance slip through your fingers.

  According to the thriving small-town gossip he wasn’t seeing anyone, which gave her an excellent reason to use what she’d heard described as the oldest technique in the book to get over what happened with David. She was going to get under Lucas Ridgeway. Tonight. A single, uncomplicated interlude without any awkwardness because he’d leave for the town council meeting.

  She should probably attend, too. The town was in the process of conducting a search for a permanent librarian, one capable of ushering the library into the digital age. That was her research focus during her master’s program, but while she’d given Mayor Mitch Turner a fairly lengthy document outlining a wide variety of possible approaches to upgrading the library, she had no real long-term business in town. It was an interesting challenge. The library, built with money donated by Andrew Carnegie in the early 1900s, was a beautiful old building dangerously near the point of being unrepairable. Something would have to be done, soon, although she assumed the something would be done by whoever they hired full time. . . .

  The wrench thudded back into the toolbox.

  Stay focused.

  “Do you want a beer?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  In the time it took him to extract himself from his contortionist’s position under the cabinet she went into the kitchen and snagged a bottle from the fridge. Back in the tiny bathroom she handed him the bottle. He twisted the cap off and tossed it on the counter, then tipped the bottle back. His throat worked as he swallowed. Her heart skittered in her chest.

  Then he turned sideways to step through the door just as Alana made the same move. They ended up chest to chest in the narrow doorway, her breasts brushing that rock-solid chest with each breathy inhale. An electric charge sparked between them, heating the air as she looked up at him. He didn’t move closer, or take her mouth. He simply stayed a breath and a heartbeat away, waiting for her to close the distance.

  She went on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his, slow and hot, striking sparks. His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her against his body as he leaned back into the doorframe, adding to her breathlessness. He wasn’t like any other man she’d kissed. He let her lead, waited for her tongue to touch his before responding, somehow both completely male and completely available to her all at once. As she grew bolder, drawing back to nibble at the sensitive corner of his mouth, she pressed herself against him, and felt his erection thicken against her lower belly.

  With a growl, he backed out of the doorway and down the hall until the backs of his legs hit the boxy arm of her black leather sofa. He tipped backward. She landed on top of him, forcing a grunt that became a groan as they shifted up so that his head lay against a red throw pillow. The vivid color softened his brown eyes, or maybe that was the simmering heat radiating from his big body. She wove their legs together, gripped the armrest over his head, and kissed him through the groan with hot, sexy demand. He looped one leg over hers and rubbed his erect cock against her hip and belly.

  Her hands found his lower abdomen, warm skin and ridged muscle that sent a hot zing along her nerves. She looked down. His pants had ridden down again, revealing his erection straining against his boxers waistband. Starting with the lowest button on his dress shirt, she worked her way up to his throat, then spread the fabric wide. He looked at her, his body bared to her, his gaze unapologetically, unashamedly sexual.

  And for good reason. He was built, ripped, whatever the current slang was for not an ounce of fat under skin stretched over workout-honed muscles. She looked him over, her fingers winding in that tantalizing line of hair.

  “That doesn’t tickle?” she asked.

  His abs tightened but his smile loosened. “Not enough to distract me from how close your hand is to my cock.”

  Heat flared in her cheeks. “Very close,” she said as she trailed the tip of her middle finger down the chestnut brown hair, then squeezed the hard shaft straining against his zipper. A few moments of one-handed work, all very slow and awkward and yet somehow sexy, and she’d unzipped his pants, then tugged the fabric to the tops of his thighs. He didn’t help, just lay there, the fingers of one hand tangled in her hair while the other flexed on her hip, and let her strip him.

  The combination of utter availability and remoteness was so hot.

  Then hard hands closed on her ass. “Take this off,” he growled as he worked the hem of her sweater up over her hips.

  “Why?”

  He looked at her, the gold flecks in his brown eyes glowing in the lamplight. “Because I like watching you blush.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said as he tugged the cashmere sweater over her head. Static electricity lifted her hair in a wild nimbus. He smoothed it down again, hands cupping her ears as his gaze traveled from her eyes to her lips, then to her throat and the tops of her breasts. “I do it all the time,” she added breathlessly.

  “All the time?” he asked, as if he hadn’t noticed.

  She nodded.

  “Show me.”

  * * *

  THE WAY ALANA Wentworth blushed damn near slayed him. Every. Single. Time.

  Blushing usually meant innocence, but the combination of soft hands on his body and the heated slide of her tongue banished any illusions he had about sheltered librarians. When she unbuttoned his shirt and spread the fabric to either side of his chest, the color on her cheeks darkened from the pale shade of his grandmother’s Pierre de Ronsard roses into Fragrant Cloud, a color he would associate forevermore with arousal.

  He waited a long moment, letting the heat coursing down his spine show in his eyes, until she kissed him again, her lace bra chafing his chest. Her nipples pebbled as the kiss extended, her tongue rubbing seductively against his before she nipped at his lower lip. He reached behind her and unfastened her bra. The sweet, hot pressure of her breasts made his heart pound. He shifted and tightened one arm around her waist while cupping her breast in his other hand. Her thigh pressed hard against his erection, and for a few moments he indulged himself in the tantalizing, erotic tease of making out on the couch, lips pressed together, tongues sliding. Her hair tumbled on either side of his face, snagging on his five o’clock shadow.

  Duke barked. Hands firmly gripping her seriously luscious ass, Lucas paused to listen.

  “What is it?” Alana murmured.

  The last time a woman purred into his ear that plaintively he’d been deep inside her, moving
slow and hard and steady. Maybe the spring weather revitalized Duke enough to go after a squirrel.

  Another bark. Alana lifted her head and peered in the direction of his house. Since they were in her living room all she could see was a wall of bookshelves, but he got the idea. He relaxed his grip and groaned low in his throat. “Someone’s at my house.”

  That got an unexpected reaction. She sat up, snagged her bra and sweater, and all but levitated backward into the bathroom where, based on the sounds of lace and silk against skin, she was dressing like a teenager whose parents came home without warning. For his part, he sat up slowly, rubbed his face with both hands, then stood to button his shirt. Tucking his shirt back into his pants only confirmed how frustrated he was. He took a deep breath, thought about cold nights in cold cars staking out coldhearted criminals.

  Not working. Blood thumped slow and hot in his veins.

  Alana reappeared beside him, arms tense with the effort of holding the toolbox. “Here. This will . . . I’m sure it won’t look like . . .”

  He took the box before she dropped it on her bare feet, but didn’t move. “Hey. We’re two consenting adults.”

  “I know . . . it’s just . . . you have a position to maintain in the community, and I’m not . . .”

  Was that some kind of code for I don’t want anyone to know what we were doing? He lifted the corners of his mouth in what passed for a smile for him these days. “Relax. I’m fine. You’re fine. It’s all fine.”

  She breathed in, smiled back at him. “Okay. Good. But—”

  Next door his screen door slammed. “Lucas? You around?”

  Mayor Mitchell Turner.

  “We’ll talk,” he said, and headed for the kitchen door.

  The door closed behind him. Still gripping the toolbox, Lucas rubbed the back of his neck and took a deep breath.

  Where in the hell did that come from? Alana always seemed too—he hated to say innocent because a decade with the Denver PD and five years on the DEA task force had trampled any notions of the existence of innocence, but that was sure what it seemed like. She blushed, for God’s sake, and she did it a lot. She’d blushed as she signed the rental agreement on the house next door to his, and Lucas hadn’t been able to get the memory out of his mind. It was so completely small-town librarian, which she wasn’t, and so innocently sexy.

  He was beginning to suspect she wasn’t innocently anything.

  He knew she watched him, but the only time she ever said anything was when something broke. Then, after he’d gone over and fixed whatever it was, she’d turn on a throaty jazz singer, hand him a drink, and struggle to make small talk. Which was strange in itself. In his experience, women as polished as Alana knew what they wanted and how to ask for it, but Alana turned the color of his grandmother’s roses every time she had to ask him for anything.

  And yet she’d come on to him tonight. And he’d let his hard-on dictate his response. She was an enigma he’d have to figure out later—after they finished what they started.

  He inhaled deeply, reaching for his composure, trying to reroute blood from his cock to his brain. Then he crossed her driveway to his house. The purple-blue twilight glittered and carried the scent of a greening prairie, the texture of starlight. Maybe he’d take a couple of days off and go rock-climbing in the Black Hills. It had been years since he’d been cranking, long enough for memories to fade.

  He’d go. After Alana left. Just in case she wanted to take what happened tonight to its natural conclusion, then maybe do it again.

  That’s an excuse, and you know it. You’re procrastinating.

  For a very good reason . . .

  “Hi, Mitch,” he said to the man standing on his front porch.

  “Lucas.” Mitch said as Lucas climbed the stairs and opened the porch. “Some guard dog you’ve got here.” Duke leaned against Mitch’s leg, eyes closed in satisfaction as Mitch scratched the sweet spot behind his ears.

  “What’s up?” Lucas asked. He opened the front door and walked inside. Mitch and Duke followed but stayed in the living room as Lucas stowed the toolbox in the kitchen.

  “I thought we’d head to the meeting together,” Mitch said.

  Lucas narrowed his eyes at the mayor, who played the political game with the savvy of a Washington insider. Most of the time he went to council meetings on his own. There’d been a small but noticeable spike in burglaries lately, which meant that the discussion about renovating the library would face opposition from people more concerned with public safety. While Mitch wasn’t one to sell his seed corn to pay for the harvest, he’d been pretty tight-lipped about why he’d hired Alana temporarily, or how committed he was to a large-scale library renovation. Tonight he wanted to show up with the chief of police by his side.

  “What are you up to, Mitch?”

  “Just wanted some company.” Mitch unwittingly copied Alana’s move and glanced significantly at the living room wall. “Problem next door?”

  Lucas kept his face blank. “Just seventy-year-old plumbing,” he said noncommittally.

  “You should replace it, or just sell the house.”

  “No time,” Lucas said shortly.

  “Huh,” Mitch said. “Let’s go. We can talk on the way.”

  * * *

  ONCE THE MEETING started, Mitch morphed into Mayor Turner in formal business mode and ran efficiently through the budget. A few minutes later, Alana slipped into the back row of the high school auditorium, still dressed in her work clothes. Lucas had his moment in the spotlight addressing the burglaries, reminding people to lock their doors and report anything suspicious. Alana picked up a handout discarded by local rancher Jack Whiting and paged through it, seemingly half listening to the various line items and totals. The general rustling of people slipping into spring jackets and tucking handouts into purses and coat pockets halted when Mitch spoke again.

  “Ms. Wentworth, I read through the information you compiled on the options and costs around renovating the library. Would you run through the situation for us?”

  Clearly surprised, Alana got to her feet. When she moved, her perfume drifted into Lucas’s nose, straight to the back of his brain. Not possible. They were thirty feet apart, maybe more, but there it was. It took a moment, but he realized her perfume was on his skin.

  “As you know, the building’s in dire need of renovation. The plaster needs repairing and the brickwork and roof are long past their best days. The Carnegie libraries are a national treasure. It would be an absolute shame to lose that building. The budget for books is adequate, but the shift in technology to e-books and e-readers means making a commitment to new technology. The computers are adequate, for now, which means in a year they’ll be hopelessly obsolete.”

  “And what exactly do you recommend?”

  Alana blinked. “I didn’t . . . that is, all I did was gather information about possible directions you could take the library. But the real question that must be addressed before any renovations or shift in fund allocation occurs is what purpose does the library serve in the community? Without an answer to that question, you can’t direct the funds you have to best meet your needs.”

  Don Walker, the local bank owner and spokesperson for the fiscally conservative segment of the town, spoke. “Miss Wentworth, we’re the last town this side of Brookings to keep our library open at all. We barely have the money to do that, let alone upgrade computers or repair a hundred-year-old building.”

  “There are technology grants available,” she started, but Mr. Walker cut her off.

  “We’re not in the business of supporting national treasures. What percentage of the community uses the library?” he asked. “We’ve got high-speed internet access now. Based on what I’ve heard from Chief Ridgeway, we need to upgrade the police department’s vehicles and consider making David Wimmer a full-time officer. You’re asking us to commit a fairly sizable investment to a resource that, as you said, is well on its way to becoming obsolete.”

  “
That’s not what I said at all,” Alana replied. “Nearly a quarter of the county’s residents live below the poverty line. Those who can afford the service have high-speed internet access. Many in Walkers Ford and the surrounding county cannot. Access to information is one of the greatest divides between rich and poor in this country. I think we’d all agree that poverty fuels crime.”

  “Let’s keep this impartial and balanced, Don,” Mitch said. “We’ve got an expert here, and it doesn’t cost us anything to work up a proposal. Ms. Wentworth, why don’t you put something together for the renovation project, talk to people, give us something to work with? Present it in a couple of weeks, just before you leave. How does that sound?”

  As one, the audience turned to look at Alana. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “I could do that,” she said.

  “Good,” Mayor Turner said. “I’m calling a special session in two weeks. Ruth, make sure the meeting announcement is posted in all the appropriate places, and book the auditorium. Talk to Ms. Wentworth about the A/V setup she’ll need for the presentation. Folks, if you have any questions or ideas, feel free to contact Ms. Wentworth. For any other business, you can contact me, or any of the council members, or Chief Ridgeway.”

  Lucas recognized the tone in his voice. Mayor Mitch “Sandbagger” Turner strikes again. What the hell was that crafty old bastard up to?

  He’d barely had time to formulate the question in his head before he was surrounded by people with questions about the break-ins, information about suspicious activity occurring down every remote dirt road in the county, and a whole slew of other questions. He glanced past Don Walker’s shoulder at Alana, who was similarly surrounded. Mrs. Battle, the former English teacher who’d come out of retirement to work part-time at the library, stopped to talk to Alana before leaving.

  Alana looked over Mrs. Battle’s head, straight at Lucas. Electricity sparked along the invisible connection between them, an involuntary tug of attraction he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.