She was lying to him. About Dennis. About who she was.
And right now, picking herself up from the shattered remains of her act, of the game she played, raw and twitching in the sunlight of all that pleasure, she wasn’t even sure who she was.
She heard him shift, felt the air between them cool as he stepped away on bare feet.
“Go.” His voice rough and deep and full of reproach and worry and a thousand other things she didn’t want to turn and see on his face.
She slid past him and ran out of the kitchen.
Sweat burned Luc’s eyes, and cold air froze his lungs. His legs were putty on his skates, his ankles wobbly. Stars sparkled in the corner of his eyes, obliterating the boards in his periphery. But still he worked. He worked. Leg over leg, skating in a line, he shifted backwards. The puck was on a string and the net went by in a blur; still backwards he skated toward center ice. At the crease he spun, lifted the stick, an extension of his arm, his hips—his goddamned dick.
The puck was a rocket, snagged by the high left corner of the net.
He retrieved it. Leg over leg, backwards again.
The sparkles gathered force in the corners of his vision, grew teeth, grew ugly. His head swam, distanced, suddenly from the rest of him. And his legs slowed, his heart lurched.
The boards covered with ads for a local used-car dealership were close and then unexpectedly closer. And then he was in them, hips first. And his stomach was in his throat.
He dropped his stick, shook off his gloves, and pawed at his chin strap—God, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even see past the blinding wall of shine in front of his face.
His head hurt so bad he felt it in his knees. He braced himself against the boards.
“You all right?” The voice belonged to a kid, probably the same kid Luc had noticed sitting up in the bleachers, watching his workouts. He had a fairly good idea the kid was Randy’s, and since he never got in the way, only watched, Luc didn’t bother to say anything.
“Luc?”
“Fine,” he said, though he knew that he wasn’t, not really.
“You—”
Luc pushed off the boards, skating away from the kid.
Twenty minutes later, exhausted, his blood still pumping hard in his veins, he stepped into the private shower the manager let him use and cranked on the hot water.
Tara Jean was still taking up center ice in his head and that workout hadn’t done anything to take the edge off his hunger for her. The all-consuming, totally humbling desire he had for a woman who had walked away from him.
“Get it together, Luc,” he muttered and grabbed the soap from the ledge. Hot water hit the tiles and erupted in steam, and soon the shower was more like a steam bath and he couldn’t see his feet. His legs.
He turned to face the water, letting the jets hit the sorest of the muscles in his chest, the tops of his shoulders. It ran down his back, over his ass and legs. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes and let the water pour over his face. In the dark and the heat, his body hungry, he thought of Tara. The silk of her skin, the perfect weight of her breasts. He thought about the slow suction of her body, the tangy sweet taste of her.
His hand … no, he’d go with her hand, soapy and wet, sliding down his stomach, the muscles of his abs, top of his thigh. Part of him felt ridiculous, like a sick sixteen-year-old kid who didn’t have any other outlet. But the rest of him just wanted some relief.
Just wanted Tara.
Giving into the fantasy, he cupped the heavy weight of his sac, the thick stalk of his dick, and found his rhythm. Gathering speed and steam, imagining Tara Jean’s hands, her breasts. Imagining her on her knees in front of him. Imagining the sensation of driving into her, her mouth, her body.
It was good. So good.
He bit his lip, stroked harder, held himself out, made himself work. But all good things had to end, and he groaned into his bicep where he’d rested it against the wall and ejaculated into the mist. Panting, he rinsed off his hand and wrestled with how hollow he felt. How sometimes masturbation turned the dial way up on his loneliness.
He turned off the water and opened the glass door, letting the cold air smother the steam and raise goose bumps across his skin.
If Tara had her way, this was the closest he’d ever get to her again.
And he couldn’t let that happen.
Monday morning, things weren’t going well for Tara. She hadn’t slept well for the past two nights, her body too aware that the source of all that pleasure was under the same roof. Like some kind of divining rod, she vibrated all night.
Finally at dawn, she couldn’t take it anymore and she dragged herself, exhausted and stressed, out of bed. She stood in front of her closet in a state of total apathy. Too hot for leather. Or jeans. She wasn’t in the mood for anything tight. Or boobylicious. Finally, from the back, she pulled a knee-length pale blue linen skirt with a sleeveless white wrap top.
Are you a nun? the demon asked, and Tara thought the idea had merit.
She passed Eli in front of the coffeemaker. He poured her a cup of coffee and pushed the sugar bowl her way. “You all right?”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “You seem … edgy.”
Edgy like a Ginsu knife; she could chew through a tin can without a problem.
“I’m fine,” she grunted, and added three heaping teaspoons of sugar to her coffee. Eli chuckled and like a smart man, went on his way.
Outside, the humidity slapped her like a damp washcloth and her mood sunk even lower; the walk to the greenhouse felt like slogging through mud.
The message light on her phone flashed and for some reason, the nature of its blinking seemed foreboding. Malevolent.
That’s just your mood, she told herself, but she wasted no time dialing her service.
“Hi, Tara Jean, this is Claire Hughes.” Tara’s stomach tied itself into a dozen little knots. Claire Hughes was the buyer for Nordstrom. “I just heard about Lyle’s death, I’m so sorry. Please give me a call to discuss what this means for our meeting.”
What this means? she thought, staring down into the little holes on the receiver as if they might be able to translate the vaguely discouraging nature of that message. What this means?
It wasn’t possible that the Nordstrom deal was going to go south. There was no way. She thought of Dennis, of his hand around her throat.
Victoria.
Christ, Jacob.
The blood roared in her ears as she quickly dialed Claire’s number.
“Come on,” she breathed as the phone rang. It clicked, and she smiled broadly, as if Claire were standing right in front of her.
“Hi, this is Tara—”
“You’ve reached the voice mail box of Claire Hughes. I will be out of the office until Friday, June twelfth. Please leave a message and I’ll return your call as soon as possible.”
“Fuck!” she cried, just before the beep.
“Hi there, Claire,” she said after the beep. For some reason she let her accent have full rein when talking to Claire. She sounded as Southern as catfish when dealing with the woman. Actually, she sounded like her own momma.
That’s right, the demon purred. Everyone loves a little sugar.
“This is Tara Jean Sweet. I just got your message and I wanted to reassure you that Lyle’s death in no way changes our plans for working with you and Nordstrom. I am very much looking forward to meeting you at the end of July.”
Tara Jean hung up and took a big breath. “Nothing you can do about it, Tara,” she whispered, a sad little pep talk. “Not one goddamned thing.”
Tired already, she picked up her coffee and sat down in her chair.
Which erupted in wild, juicy fart noises.
She jerked upright and her coffee, hot and staining, splashed all over her white top.
“What the hell!” she cried, turning to see the plastic bladder on the seat. “A whoopee cushion?”
From the far end of the greenhouse
, under the cutting table in the darkest shadows, she heard a muffled giggle.
Oh no, she thought, picking up the toy. No freaking way! Not the kid on top of everything else.
She stomped down the center aisle, fanning her ruined shirt away from the scalded skin beneath it until she got to the table. She waited a second, and in the silence she heard the faint wheeze of an inhaler.
She crouched, and there in the darkness she saw a flash of pale skin, a cheek, and one big wide eye before the boy shifted back into the shadows, rustling paper as he went.
“I can hear you, you know,” she sighed.
Another thump and a box fell forward, spilling empty Starburst wrappers over her feet.
Son of a bitch!
“Hi.” His fingers lifted in a little wave.
“Get the hell out of there.”
He crawled out, knocking over another box as he went. Zippers flew everywhere.
“You think this is funny?” She shook the whoopee cushion at him.
“Uh … yeah?”
“Well, it’s not. What if I had sat down while I was on the phone?”
The boy had the good sense to wince. “I guess that wouldn’t have been funny.”
“No, it wouldn’t have. And you’ve been eating my candy.”
“I got hungry,” he whispered. He took a quick puff off his inhaler and she refused to listen to the voices in her head screaming “bully!”
“Where’s your momma?” she asked.
“Probably looking for me.”
“Well, let’s go find her.”
“But you know, I was thinking, maybe I could help you around here or something. I could …” He shrugged, looking like an earnest dark-haired Opie. “Do whatever you needed. Clean up, or—”
“I don’t need any help around here,” she said, cold as ice.
“Oh. You sure? Because I really hate dance classes.”
His smile, lopsided and toothy, was endearing. More endearing actually than she could stand, the way he stood there with his young, new heart right there on his face, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, hold him close, protect that tender heart from the dangers of the world. Dangers like her.
Such innocence only reminded her of her own ruin. How far she’d fallen.
“Absolutely. Let’s find your mom.”
She took off for the door, stepping out into the white-hot early June sunshine. Like glue, the heat put all the fragile pieces of her act back together.
Luc came down the front steps of the house and the boy ran over to him, slipping his hand into his uncle’s. And she forced herself to stand up straight and look Luc in the eye, brushing aside the memory of his hands on her body. Her hands on his body. Pretending it was all nothing.
“What’s going on?” Luc asked, his hand curved around Jacob’s shoulder, and her body shook in memory and shame.
“Keep the kid away from the greenhouse,” Tara Jean snapped.
“Was he causing trouble?”
She pushed the whoopee cushion against his chest.
Luc laughed and Tara Jean felt herself turn red. “It’s not funny, Luc. Keep the kid away from me.”
chapter
16
No good could come of following her. He knew that.
He should wait for a better moment. A moment not quite so aggressive. But if he waited for a moment without the fireworks, he had no doubt that he’d be waiting a long time.
The way she’d treated Jacob was concerning, but whatever her reasons for playing the bitch, he was invested enough to listen.
To try and figure her out.
He stepped into the greenhouse only to find her crouched on the floor, her skirt hiked up to reveal the long, muscled length of her leg.
His blood pumped harder and he realized in that moment that what he liked most about Tara Jean was the challenge of her. The fight of her. She gave him nothing that he didn’t work for. And he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
He watched as she swept the wrappers into the garbage can and then picked up the bag of spilled candy.
“What do you want?” That she refused to look at him wasn’t a surprise.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” Luc stayed calm, trying not to take offense. Trying not to get his own temper engaged.
“The kid.” She stood and put an orange candy in her mouth. “You guys need to watch him better.”
He glanced around her pristine workshop. “Did he damage something? Break anything?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She tried to step past him toward her desk, but he got in her way.
“You scared him, and I’d like to know why.”
He could see the skin around her eye twitch and he leaned closer, trying to get her to look at him. To see him. The man who had held her while she crashed through orgasm after orgasm. The man whom she’d talked to, really talked to, about her past and her life.
Because she was acting like he was nothing.
“The boy’s not welcome here.”
“You know, he’s just a kid and he’s all alone—”
“Not my problem, Luc.”
“Then what is?” As soon as the challenge came out of his mouth, he regretted it, because engaging in a fight wasn’t what he wanted. He’d lose her in a fight.
“Is this about Saturday night?” he asked.
“No, Luc. Not everything is about sex.”
“Saturday night wasn’t even about sex.”
“You signed up to be used, Luc.”
He laughed, and she bristled. “Honey, I’d be nothing but happy if you’d used me for sex. If you’d turned around and told me you were done with me and I should go on my merry way, I would have gone. But something else happened, Tara. And I was—”
“It had been a while, that’s all.”
He didn’t believe her, not for a minute, but he nodded anyway and she jerked away, cutting the other way around the table.
“Tara. Look at me.”
She didn’t and he waited her out, waited and waited, wondering if she was such a coward, until finally she sighed like a put-out teenager and tossed her long hair over her shoulder.
“What?”
“I’m … in.” He held out his hands, as if showing her he had no hidden agenda. No weapons formed against her. “I’m interested. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not interested in using you. I like you. And … I’d like to like you more. Know you more.”
For a moment it was as if she were frozen, unblinking, as if his words had done something to her, shorted out all electrical activity, and he had hope. Hope that she’d turn toward him rather than away.
“That’s a bad idea.” She crouched to pick up a box of spilled zippers and the moment shattered. He sucked in a quick breath, struggling for recovery.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not interested in knowing anything else about you.” She threw zippers into the box as if they’d grown legs and were trying to escape. “You bore me, with your privilege and your daddy issues. Who gives a shit about an old hockey player who is too stupid to know when he should retire?”
It wasn’t as bad as the Gilcot hit, but he felt it. A rippling pain radiating from his stomach. And the killer was that he hadn’t seen it coming.
“Is this … is this you?” Luc asked, and she looked right at him, her eyes the color of already gone. Of who gives a shit. “I mean, every time I turn around I have no idea who I’m going to get. The flirt, or the woman who tries to help me, or the—”
“The bitch,” she interrupted. “The bitch is me, Luc. All the way down. So mind your own business, keep the kid away, and leave me the hell alone.”
She watched his jaw, the fine muscles there pulsing and relaxing, and she could only imagine what he was forcing himself not to say. She bit her own tongue to keep herself from taking the words back, because throwing this man away with both hands was surprisingly hard.
Surprisingly painful.
“I … I wo
n’t be back, Tara,” he said, and she nodded at his words. She knew that, she’d hit him where he hurt, and Luc had enough pride not to sniff around where he wasn’t wanted.
“Well, you’re slow, but you ain’t stupid, are you?”
God, she sounded exactly like her mother.
She could feel all his efforts to get past her act like crowbars, she knew that stupidly, she’d let down her guard a few million times too many with this man, and he knew the routes and paths, the secret entrances into her head.
But not anymore. Not after the other night.
Dennis was back and she needed to be strong. And liking this man, letting him remind her of how lonely she was, how scared, how hungry she could be for affection—it would only make her weak.
She knew how vulnerable that could make someone; she’d preyed on those weaknesses in other people.
“Fine,” he said and walked away. Just like she wanted. And he didn’t look back, not once, as if he knew what a coward she was, how she could never be as honest with him as he’d been with her. As if he knew she simply wasn’t worth the effort.
He left and took her every chance at being better with him.
The silence he left behind was too thick and she couldn’t breathe. Her heart fluttered in her chest, unpredictable and erratic. She saw silvery spots at the corner of her vision.
It was a panic attack. She knew that, used to get them all the time when she’d first come out to the ranch. She’d wake up at night in a cold sweat, hyperventilating—which wasn’t exactly comfortable with broken ribs—convinced that Dennis was coming in through the window.
To take her back to her old life.
Luc didn’t know what he was asking for. Wanting to know her? Please, it was ridiculous. If he knew … well, if he knew, it wouldn’t be an issue anymore, would it?
It’s for the best, the demon whispered. He’s not for the likes of you.
There was no arguing with the demon. Searching for a little comfort, she unwrapped a cherry Starburst. Usually her favorite. But it tasted like ash in her mouth.
The flavor of regret.
Luc got in his truck and left. He still had a few hours before the ice was his, but he’d find something to do. Something far away from the ranch. Maybe he’d help out with the peewees who had the ice before him. Teaching a bunch of screaming kids to stay on their skates would keep his mind off Tara.
Can't Buy Me Love Page 17
