by Kim Amos
His eyes widened in surprise. She could already feel moisture collecting at the small of her back. Internally, she repeated Shut up to the part of the brain screaming to stop what she was doing already and get to work.
She was ready to turn away when Kieran made an animalistic sound in the back of his throat. It froze her in place like prey in the wild. His eyes flashed dangerously. She’d had an effect on him.
“This isn’t how you get ahead in businesses that I run,” he said, low and gravelly.
“That’s because,” she demurred, “maybe you’re talking about the wrong kind of head entirely.”
If he started to smile, he pinned it back quickly. “I don’t remember you being so forward.”
“A lot can change in five years.”
He looked her up and down. His gaze was ravenous. “Clearly,” he said.
The raw emotion coursing through her was suddenly carnal enough to spark fear. It jolted the logical part of her brain into action. What was she even doing? This was downright reckless. It was tawdry. She could lose her job.
“I should…” she started, but the words faded away into less than a whisper.
She should what, exactly? A few weeks ago, she thought she knew how to answer that question: She should work hard at a job that would reward her efforts. She should try not to make waves. She should put others first. She should guard her heart so no one like Kieran Callaghan would come roaring into her life ever again.
Which had all led her here. Broke. Underemployed. Restless. And with Kieran Callaghan staring at her like he wanted to devour her.
Turn away, her internal editor commanded. Go to work. But instead she simply watched as Kieran’s hand grasped her upper arm, and he pushed her straight back into the women’s restroom from which she’d just emerged. It was just a single stall and a sink, a cramped space, which felt smaller still from the heat of Kieran’s body and the overwhelming mass of him. Had he always been this tall?
He turned the lock with a satisfying click.
Then his lips were on hers in a searing kiss that left every part of her scorched with pleasure.
* * *
Kieran backed her against the bathroom door roughly. The handle dug into the small of her back, the metal frigid against her exposed skin. But none of it mattered when his enormous hands grasped the side of her face and held her while his mouth claimed hers.
Her internal cries of don’ts and can’ts were muted against a rush of surprise and then desire. Oh, how easily it came back to her—the feel of him, the touch of him. In five years, she’d never once been kissed like this. It was as if Kieran wanted to taste not just her mouth, but to taste the very things that comprised Audrey’s essence.
Her hands traveled up the crisp cotton of his shirt, feeling the corded hardness of his forearms, his biceps. She inhaled his spicy scent and the bleach of the clean bathroom just underneath.
The bathroom.
Good God, she should be horrified at losing herself like this in a bathroom, of all places. With colleagues from the dealership just outside, no less! If people found out, everyone in town would be gossiping about it.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the whispers in her head and pressed herself fully against Kieran’s body. She could feel his hardness through the fabric of her jeans. The thick stiffness of it made her heart pound. He groaned and ran his hands down her corseted sides. Sparks ignited behind her eyelids. It didn’t matter one bit what anyone said, she realized, sucking on his lower lip. For the first time in years, Audrey felt alive.
Memories that she’d shut away for too long came surging forward with the power of ocean waves: In vivid high definition, she could still remember how Kieran had peeled off her clothes as they tumbled into bed together and then stared at her as if she’d been a Renaissance sculpture. The seconds had ticked in her head—was he horrified by what he was seeing?—but the awe on his face was unmistakable. He’d run his hands over every part of her: calves, thighs, stomach, arms, even hands and feet. She’d wondered what he was doing, but then he’d murmured into her ear how he’d begun to doubt if she was real, and touching every part of her was the only way he’d know he wasn’t dreaming.
Kieran was a mass of angles and muscles that thrilled her, but it was when he’d quoted Emily Dickinson to her in bed—“I had been hungry, all the years, my noon had come, to dine”—that she’d found herself swept up in an explosion of affection, a glittering supernova of emotion for this man. He could have just been another hot body in a leather jacket. But Kieran was something else entirely, something that had pierced right through her in a way she hadn’t expected.
And now, as if reading her thoughts, he murmured into her ear, “Boldness be my friend,” and lowered his head to place his lips against the rounded top of her breast.
Was that Shakespeare he was quoting? But suddenly it didn’t matter, because he’d freed her breasts from the corset and placed the tip of one in his mouth, sucking gently. Hot sparks lit up her body. She moaned, biting her lip against the sound, against the improbable rightness of his touch.
She plunged her fingers into his dark red hair and arched against him. His lips were hot on her skin, his tongue was alive and wild. Audrey was the verge of losing herself completely when his cell phone rang. The shrill noise echoed off the cold tile of the bathroom, shattering the moment.
“Dammit,” Kieran mumbled, fumbling for the device in his back pocket. It rang again, high and loud, and Audrey heard laughter outside the bathroom door. “Folks taking calls in the bathroom, what’s next?” someone said. It sounded like Fletch.
Kieran ignored the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He studied her for a long moment, his broad chest rising and falling like he’d just run a race. Audrey was keenly aware that her breasts were still exposed, her nipples taut and high in the cold air. A hungry part of her wanted Kieran’s mouth on them again, even though another part of her cried out that this had been a terrible mistake. They’d both lost their heads.
Slowly, cold dread replaced Audrey’s hot lust. Had she really played the fool and let Kieran take what he wanted from her all over again? And in a company bathroom, no less?
Her cheeks burned. She fumbled for her corset and pulled it over her aching breasts. Kieran watched her but didn’t offer to help.
Damn him, she thought bitterly. But damn me more for being so stupid.
Her brain raced, searching for a way to salvage her dignity. She straightened, determined to seem as though this had been no big deal. Like she did this thing all the time.
“I wanted to ask you something before we got…distracted,” she said. “It’s important.”
Kieran arched a brow. “Oh?” Before she could answer, he grabbed her wrist. His thumb rubbed a gentle circle. The movement made her knees weak.
“I want—that is, I should learn to ride a motorcycle. That should be part of the job.”
“You really want to ride a Harley?” Kieran asked. Audrey glanced just past his left temple, unsure of how to address the question. Was it really so improbable?
He pulled her even closer, and her breath caught. “If you want to learn,” he murmured into her ear, “then I’m happy to show you.”
She stared into the green depths of his eyes. This is what she’d wanted. Kieran was going to teach her to ride. But the reality of it had alarm bells sounding in her brain. Being around Kieran clearly made her lose whatever composure she had. What would happen when they added the romance of the open road and a powerful motorcycle to everything?
He traced a line from her wrist to her palm and back again. She found herself staring at Kieran’s wide mouth, at the perfect color of his lips against his golden skin.
Would it really be so bad if she let him be her teacher?
Just be alter-ego Audrey, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t be that hard to play the part.
“I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m as good a student as I was a teacher,” she replied.
Hunger flashed in his eyes, but before he could do anything, his cell phone rang once more, sharp and loud. He pulled it out and grimaced as he looked at the number.
“I have to go,” he said abruptly, not meeting her eyes.
His energy shifted suddenly—going from hot and predatory to cold and something else. Regretful, perhaps?
Audrey’s heart constricted. He wasn’t eager to be away from her already, was he? Whatever his reasons were, he’d flipped off his desire for her like a switch. The effect left a confused ache in her chest.
You can’t trust this man, she thought. Never mind that her heart lurched toward him as if ready to trust him implicitly.
“I’ll talk to you later,” he said, pulling the door open an inch to ensure the hallway was empty.
And then, when the coast was clear, he was gone. He’d left as quickly as he’d pulled her into the small room. His absence should have been a relief, but instead it left her as cold as the white tile all around her.
* * *
Kieran strode down the hallway toward the dealership’s used lot, bursting out the back door with enough frustration to make the heavy steel groan.
Archangel Michael and his heavenly host, Audrey Tanner was going to undo him.
He ran his fingers through his hair, swearing under his breath. The truth was that he didn’t mind Audrey unraveling him. The feel of her curves against him in the bathroom had been so unbearably pleasurable he’d worried for a moment he might spill himself right there in front of her.
He wanted this woman, there was no doubt about it. No matter their past, no matter his mistakes. He felt more for Audrey Tanner than he had for any woman in five years—or, hell, his whole life. Oh, the things he would do to her if he had his way.
What he didn’t want, though, was any connection with her sister.
He glanced at his phone, where Casey’s number flashed as a missed call. Freezing dread filled him. The picture of his mom, riddled with cancer and struggling for breath, flashed in his mind. All the scheming, all the lies, only to lose Mom after all. He shook his head, trying to clear the image.
The smart thing would be to walk away from Audrey right now. She and her sister were at the center of things he wanted buried forever. He should fire her, get her out of his sight, and never have any contact with her again.
But could he do it?
He paced the blacktop, pulling on the cuffs of his shirt as if the answer was in the cotton. He’d been a first-rate jerk to her, leaving just as they were falling in love, and he figured she’d have nothing but ire and anger for him. But, wouldn’t you know it, she was as open-hearted as ever. She should have shoved him away in that bathroom, told him to get lost and never touch her again, but instead she’d made demands on him, same as he had on her. She was playful and bold instead of bitter. And he’d been able to kiss her until they were both breathless.
The memory of it had his jeans tenting all over again.
Audrey still felt something for him. He knew it as surely as he knew his own feelings for her had come roaring back unexpectedly, a tidal wave he hadn’t prepared for, but that had taken him under anyway.
He stopped his manic strides and took a deep breath. All around him, used Harleys sparkled in the light, lined up like soldiers ready for battle.
If he’d had more time, he would have pushed Audrey against the wall and licked the long, graceful line from her collarbone to her ear until she shuddered with tenderness. He would have kneed apart her legs and placed his raging erection between them—pressing the long ache of him into her until she gasped—and then taken her to his apartment to finish what he’d started.
He shuddered, thinking about the past, when their bodies had come together. They’d been passionate but exploratory, just getting to know one another. The realization hit him that he didn’t know whether Audrey preferred back rubs or foot rubs, if she liked to be held in the morning after lovemaking or turned loose to start her day, or how many times she could come apart in his hands—with his hands, and with other things—in a single night.
He clenched his fists. He could not go on like this, being tormented.
But he couldn’t face Casey again. She not only knew about his black past, but they’d made a terrible deal together. One that he’d thought would save his mom.
In the end, he’d lost both Mom and Audrey.
And now—if he told Audrey the truth, it might come at the unbearable price of shattering her.
He raked his hands through his hair, wishing desperately for some way around this impasse. He wanted to pull Audrey close, to be near her.
Except…no.
Kieran gritted his teeth. The thought was impossible. The idea of being with Audrey Tanner was like wishing for the moon. You could stretch and stretch, you could imagine your fingertips brushing its chalky surface, but in the end you’d just come away with empty space.
And yet, he had to admit he’d had fantasies about what life could be like in White Pine—permanently. He’d allowed himself to imagine the things in his life that would be possible if he had someone like Audrey believing in him. Now, with her so close, with five years of trying to forget her undone in a matter of days, maybe it was time to make the fantasy a reality. At one point he’d been the man she wanted. Now, perhaps he could work to be the man she deserved.
He shook his head. It was insanity, he told himself.
Then again, how many times had he taken ridiculous odds and come out ahead? He could still picture the bet he took in a back-hole gambling den in Reno. The dry desert wind had rattled the thin walls of a shabby room that was cobbled onto the side of a dark bar. He swore he tasted sand every time he swallowed. Around him were four other players, but only one of them was still in the game with him. It was the last card of a hand of Texas Hold ’Em. The river card.
He was all in. He’d bet everything on a terrible hand, starting with a smattering of low cards. But they were black, everything in his hand was black (some days he felt like everything in his goddamn life was black), and as the cards turned over on the table, he began to think he could pull together a straight flush. All spades.
Spades to dig him into a hole, or dig him out of one. Naturally.
The meat-fisted man across the table had stopped rolling the toothpick from side to side in his mouth. It was his “tell,” the physical tic he exhibited when things were going his way. He had a good hand.
The dealer reached out, ready to flip the river card. Kieran tensed. He was drawing to the inside. He needed a four of spades. The odds were beyond bad. And even if he got it, who was to say that the other player didn’t have a straight flush of his own, but with higher cards? Kieran’s straight was as low as it could go, starting with a two.
The card had flipped and Kieran had swallowed back a whoop of ecstasy. He’d stayed stone still, a quiet so practiced that no one would ever be able to read him. They showed their hands. Toothpick man had a full house. Incredible cards.
Only Kieran’s were better.
That day, he’d used both arms to scrape his winnings off the table. He’d tested the universe, challenged the odds that the impossible was possible, and he’d won. It was what he loved about gambling, what had drawn him to the tables even when it had passed from being a hobby to a sickness. Even when his luck had turned and he’d lost everything.
No, he thought. That wasn’t true.
He hadn’t lost everything until he’d lost Audrey.
The thought rattled him. If he wanted to try to win her back, he would have to confront Audrey’s sister, and that was a dangerous prospect indeed.
The idea sent a cold chill through him despite the warm sun all around.
He grimaced at his odds. He’d have to bring the past to light to have any chance of being with Audrey. And once he did, would she even want him?
He stared at the wide blue sky, the color of dawn breaking over Moccasin Lake, and wondered if he could ride away from this place and never come b
ack. He’d done it once, but nothing in him was convinced he could do it a second time.
Audrey Tanner was pulling on him with a force stronger than gravity. Was it time to finally stop resisting? He closed his eyes, imagining himself letting go and crashing into her. The impact would shatter them both. But perhaps there was a single entity they could put together from the pieces of their separate selves.
Maybe it was time to place one final bet.
* * *
Later that afternoon, whatever distracting thoughts Audrey had about Kieran vanished as she walked into the showroom after her two o’clock break and saw three teenage boys elbowing one another and laughing.
The click of her heels on the tile slowed, then stalled.
These were White Pine High School kids.
Oh, Lord. She’d told herself that she wasn’t in any danger of seeing former students since she worked during school hours. But of course that wouldn’t account for spring break, or teachers’ conferences, or any of the other days that had students running around White Pine when they were normally in classes.
She didn’t want it to, but her whole body heated with mortification. They were going to see her. Maybe they’d even come to see her. The lure of a former teacher strutting around motorcycles might be too good for a bunch of hormonal teenagers to pass up. After all, she was sure the rumor about her fate at the dealership was all over school by now.
Nevertheless, she batted back the creeping embarrassment. She should be proud of the fact that she was seeing students. She’d taught many of them and had cared about all of them. She had nothing to be ashamed of just because her career prospects had changed.
She looked down at the tops of her breasts mounding over the bustier. She tried to ignore two good reasons for being self-conscious staring her in the face.
She squared her shoulders. No sense in avoiding them. No sense in being scared of them, either. They were kids. If they judged her, it was because they were young and silly. When they were her age, they’d understand how life could take turns you didn’t expect, and how one day you were wearing gym shorts and the next day you were wearing chaps.
