Can't Buy Me Love

by Molly O'Keefe

“To take you home.”

  “Anyone could do that. Why you?”

  “You … you don’t want me here?”

  “I don’t need your pity, Tara. Or your fucking Florence Nightingale routine.”

  He expected her to flinch, to reel back in pain, because he was a bully and she had lunch money.

  “You want me to show you my boobs?”

  She managed to stun him out of his acrimony.

  “Tara—”

  She kicked shut the door and reached behind her to untie the red halter top from around her neck. Her arms, elegant and white, flexed with hidden muscles and his mouth went dry with sudden desire.

  Her eyes sparkled with Eve’s knowledge as she peeled the cotton/spandex blend from the tops of her milky breasts, pausing just slightly as the top of her nut-brown nipples were revealed.

  He was a teenager at a peep show. Transfixed. Turned on. Despite himself.

  She ran her thumb across the front of the fold between her breasts and the fabric. Those nipples went hard. So did he.

  She pushed the shirt past her breasts, white and perfect. High and round.

  “You’re beautiful,” he murmured.

  She pulled her shirt up and tied it back around her neck. “Somehow I don’t think you feel better.”

  “My career is over, Tara Jean. It’s going to take more than a peep show.” He felt the bite of despair, of a loss so huge it didn’t even register.

  “Hey, hey, Luc—” She cupped his face, kissed his cheeks. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “You don’t know that, Tara.” He grabbed her arms, trying not to squeeze, trying not to hurt her, but the well of pain inside him knew no boundary. “I appreciate the efforts, but you really don’t have any idea what my life is going to be like.”

  Finally, the unflagging optimism took a hit and she backed away.

  “All right.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding what she’d just flaunted. “I get it. You want me to call your mom or Billy?”

  The way he treated her was one more knife to his throat.

  But he was caught up in this current and didn’t have the energy to extricate himself.

  “No, I just want to go home.”

  The cell phone beside his bed buzzed and Tara Jean—who’d stayed until after all the tests had been run last night, filing her nails and telling the nurses who were trying to enforce visiting hours that she was his spiritual guide—arched her eyebrows at him when he let it ring.

  “You going to get that?”

  “It’s my agent.”

  “You don’t think you should talk to him?”

  “He’s only going to tell me that Toronto has dropped my contract and that some headache medicine wants to sign me on as a spokesman.”

  “That doesn’t interest you?”

  He sighed and pulled on his jeans. “ ’Fraid not.”

  “Okay.” Tara Jean was all business and that suited him, gave him something to rest his anger against. “Anyone you need to talk to before we leave?”

  “Nope.” He picked up his discharge papers and the stuff his sister and mother had brought from home last night.

  He had an appointment in a few days to come back and talk to the neurologist, and he’d already talked to Dr. Matthews back in Toronto. He was going to fly in to consult at the appointment.

  It was all very neat and tidy. Official. Appointments and meetings. None of it seemed to have anything at all to do with the long, slow scream in his head.

  “I’m sorry, Luc,” Matthews had said. “I can’t clear you to play, not for a while. And my opinion is that you are a liability on that ice.”

  Luc had told him it was okay. But the word was like a bubble of oil in his mouth, leaving nothing but grease on his tongue. The end of his career tasted like bad onion rings.

  The orderly with the wheelchair waited outside the door and Luc tried to protest, but Tara cut him off.

  “Get in, hotshot,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

  He waved at the nurses at the desk; he’d signed all their husbands’ and sons’ and fathers’ autographs and he’d been repaid in extra breakfasts. Even a private stock of chocolate chip cookies. And they had let Tara Jean hang out long past visiting hours despite her spiritual advisor nonsense.

  Another orderly stopped him in front of the regular exit.

  “There are a lot of reporters out there,” the man said.

  Tara Jean stopped pushing him. “You want to deal with that right now?”

  “No,” Luc answered. One of Beckett’s messages, one of the more frantic ones, had told Luc not to talk to reporters until he and Beckett could come up with a statement.

  He’d hold off on talking to any reporters.

  “Have you remembered what happened?” she asked, wheeling him through white brightly lit hallways.

  “Not yet.” No matter how hard he tried to pull up the memories of the hit, all he recalled was talking to Billy before starting the workout with Tyler. And fear ate him, fear that more memories would get snatched away by this concussion until he was walking outside his house wondering where he lived.

  “Did you see it?” he asked.

  “Not all of it.” She stopped pushing the chair and stepped around to face him, her eyes like ice picks. “Dennis was there.”

  “What?” His funk was blown apart and it felt good to be mad, so he fed that particular fire until his body was alive with something other than self-pity. “Did you call the cops?”

  “I got a little distracted, Luc.”

  He took the hit in stride. “What did he say?”

  “That he wants the money.”

  “I hope you told him to go to hell.” Part of him worried that despite severing her connection to her past, she might get sucked in by Dennis.

  “Of course I did. But he also said you have some investigator on him, asking questions.”

  The censure in her eyes put a slight dent in his righteousness, but he met her head on, refusing to apologize for doing the right thing by his family.

  “God, Luc, I told you not to do that. I told you—”

  “I know what you told me. But it’s my family, Tara. I can’t sit back and do nothing.”

  She turned away and he heard her swearing at him under her breath, and he would rather have this woman, with all her vulgar fire, than the sweet nurse she’d been the last twenty-four hours.

  She started to push him again with a jerk and his head snapped back. “Do it your way, but if this blows up in your face it’s on you.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Listen to you, tough guy. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  She pushed him through the last door into the sun-splashed parking lot and he stood up. The world was the same, much to his chagrin. It wasn’t as if he expected anything different, but with his life so in ruins, the bright, sunny Texas morning seemed like a cruel cherry on top of his crap sundae.

  Would a little rain to match his mood be too much to ask?

  “Here.” Tara handed him sunglasses and put on her own. “You’re going to need these.”

  chapter

  25

  Luc was being a baby.

  She didn’t know who he thought he was kidding, sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV cloaked in his indifference. His cool control. While at the same time he was throwing off so much sadness, she was fighting back tears.

  Tears she blinked away. Pity, she knew, would not go down well with the Ice Man.

  That little show at the hospital, telling her he didn’t want her there, stung. But she understood. Weeks ago, that had been her. Hurting him just because he was there and he was trying to see behind the mask she was determined to keep on.

  She couldn’t look at this man—holding on so hard to his control it was cracking in his hands—and not see the man with tears in his eyes in that destroyed locker room. And he probably thought the same when he looked at her.

  It was as if all that ice the Ice
Man surrounded himself in had thawed and she saw the collection of fears and misgivings, all the human foibles and dreams held together with chicken wire and masking tape.

  And he was all the more beautiful because of it. Not that he’d see that. Not now, maybe not ever.

  And he was feeling really shitty right now.

  Which was almost enough to make her forgive the childish behavior, but she was no man’s doormat. And considering that twenty-four hours ago she had been ready to go to bed with him—and she still wanted to—she’d need an apology of some kind if he thought he was ever going to see down her shirt again.

  Her spine popped straight. Listen to me, she thought, surprised by this new feminine strength and proud of it. Once upon a time she would have slept with him just so he’d apologize.

  “I’m sorry,” Luc said as if he’d read her mind. She turned and met his sad eyes. “For in the hospital. I was mean.”

  “You were. But I’ve thrown a few fits in my life. You don’t scare me.”

  “Still. I’m sorry.” He touched her hand, curled his finger over hers. “I liked seeing your boobs. I’m glad it was you picking me up. I’m glad … I’m glad you’re here.”

  As far as apologies went, it was world class. For her, anyway.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and he lifted her hand, kissing her knuckles. Charming, even in his grief.

  Oh, what the hell? she thought. In her experience there was one surefire way to make a sad man feel better.

  Time to get naked.

  She got them off the interstate, onto the two-lane highway leading to the ranch, and then took the first gravel road on the left.

  Two hundred meters in the distance there was a left turn down a dirt road that dipped behind the hills. She punched the gas and took the corner so fast gravel spit up behind them.

  Luc grabbed onto the handle above the door.

  “What are you doing?”

  Dust flew up around them as she barreled down the road, stones pinging off the windshield.

  “Are you going to kill us?”

  She stopped the car under the long branches of a roadside willow.

  The silence and the shadow were the perfect cocoon.

  She turned off the car and turned to him.

  Their connection was intense. Dizzying. As if somehow she could see the ribbons that tied them, that curled around them in an endless figure eight she didn’t understand but she could no longer outrun.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” she whispered. “I’m going to fuck you.”

  He lunged across the seat, sealing her lips with his. Hot and warm, she melted against him.

  It took her a second to unbuckle her seat belt and crawl into his lap, where his heat, the living presence of him, made her sigh with pleasure.

  She banished the demon trying to tell her what to do and went with her heart. And her heart told her to put her arms around this man for as long as she could.

  He reached beside him and hit the lever to lower the back of his seat and she leaned back.

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Never,” he said.

  “Come on, a quickie in a car?”

  “This … quickies in a car only happen if you’re out of control.”

  “And you’re never out of control?” Her stomach turned over, like she was on The Zipper at the State Fair when she was a kid.

  “There’s something about you, Tara Jean …”

  “That makes you want to get naked in a car.”

  “That makes me want to get you naked in a car. Naked.” He kissed her lips, a nip that made her gasp. “Hot.” He sucked on that spot on her neck as if he had a secret map to the places that made her crazy. “And wet.”

  She shifted her legs so she was straddling him. Her skirt stopped her from getting close to him, so she wiggled, trying to hike it up past her hips.

  Luc helped. His big hands, warm and callused, slid up her legs pushing up her skirt, revealing the bright blue cotton bikini underwear she wore with the smiley face on the crotch.

  “Cute,” he murmured, his breath fanning her neck, sending goose bumps down her arms and across her back. He smelled like coffee and toothpaste.

  With the skirt out of the way, she pressed herself into his lap, gasping when that smiley face met the erection growing under his jeans. Looking into his eyes, she saw the sadness cut away with a knife and she circled her hips, teasing him. Teasing her. Making that smiley face very happy.

  His hands slid up under her halter top, across the trembling taut skin of her belly. Her nipples hurt with anticipation; hard and painful, they waited for his touch. Slowly, his palms cupped the undersides of her breasts and her eyes fluttered shut. Breathless, she leaned against him—alive where he was touching her, cold where he wasn’t.

  She leaned down and put her lips to his neck, bumping her head on the window. Her hips popped away from his, cool air blowing between them, and she moaned in protest, trying to scoot closer. He braced his foot on the floorboards, hitting his knee against the dash. They laughed into each other’s skin.

  It had been a long time since she’d made out in a car, and she’d forgotten the pleasures of confined places. The bliss of extra-close proximity.

  She leaned back, putting her hand against the roof of the car for leverage. His face was dark, the skin nearly red, his lips white from the force applied by his teeth.

  His eyes met hers, and for a moment it was the kitchen all over again and what she saw in his eyes was too much. His emotion and need contributed to hers, and the combined weight was going to sink the good ship dry hump.

  Closing her eyes seemed the best option—to keep the good times going, to keep her from freaking out again.

  Don’t count on me past this, don’t expect more. Because there is nothing in me to give you. Nothing lasting. Nothing real.

  He was seeing things that weren’t there. She was empty. Ruined where it mattered a long, long time ago.

  Panic cut through the desire.

  He’s lost his career, she told herself. And he was grabbing onto her with both hands because she was there. He was going to try to make more out of this than there was.

  “Tara? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just sex,” she told him. His hips stopped. Smiley face would have frowned had it been able.

  “Instead of … what? A pony?”

  “I’m just saying …” She stroked his cheek, trying to take the sting out of her words. “You’re a man at a crossroads, Luc. And I’m a diversion, nothing to hold onto.”

  His chuckle was hot and dangerous, and the temperature in her core climbed. His hands cupped her breasts, his fingers surveying the curves, circling the nipples. She waited for the stroke of his thumb, but instead he pulled her closer and she got the wet heat of his tongue through her shirt as he sucked her into his mouth. She cried out, cupping the back of his head, grinding against him as he used his teeth against her. Pleasure curled and the hot, bright edge of it was pain.

  He left that breast, the nipple cold in the damp fabric, to find her other one and his mouth through the fabric was sexy and dirty, but it wasn’t what she wanted and she clawed off her shirt, tossing it onto the driver’s-side seat.

  “I’m not going to argue with you now,” he muttered. “Let’s just agree to disagree.” He cupped her breasts, cradling the weight, kissing and licking the soft and sensitive flesh until honestly she thought she’d go mad with it.

  She caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, revealing the hard muscles, the soft skin. The fine hair under his arms made her crazy. The dip of muscle to ligament, ligament to bone, and the gorgeous skin that blanketed it all was perfection. Exactly as it should be.

  He was an anatomy textbook brought to life.

  She kissed his shoulder, traced his bicep, found the ridge of whatever muscle it was on his back that made him look so wide. So strong. A shield she could hide behind.

  “This isn’t some kind of pity fuck
, is it?” he asked, and she leaned back to stare into his earnest face. “Poor Luc, he’s lost his career?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “I feel bad for you, Luc. But I would never pity you.” She could see he didn’t totally believe her, that it would take years before he believed that no one was pitying him. “Truth be told, Luc, men who cry and throw shit—it’s a big turn-on.”

  His laughter was bright and relieved and his kiss tasted sweet. Like gratitude.

  But his fingers, nimble and clever, slid up her legs to the happy face. He petted her through the fabric until she knew she was so wet he could feel it. He dipped a finger beneath the elastic and she gasped, curling against him, holding onto the pleasure as hard as she could. He teased, traced the edges of her sex, sliding past her clitoris, leaving her breathless.

  Grinding against him, chasing that finger down as best she could, she whimpered in frustration.

  “Oh God, Tara, you kill me.”

  His hands slid under her butt and with a shrug of his shoulders, he practically threw her into the roomy backseat of the SUV.

  She turned, flipping her hair out of her face, only to see him crawling after her, his face dark, his intent clear. If she weren’t so sick with lust, so mad with affection, she might have popped open the door and run, just so he could catch her.

  A game. To keep them both safe. Their emotions locked behind flirtation and subterfuge.

  But she was dying for him, and the only thing she could do was lie back and open her arms.

  He licked a hot path up her belly, back to her breasts, murmuring all the while dark and wicked things that made her blush and squirm.

  “I want to taste you,” he said, sucking on her lips, nipping at her tongue. He started to backtrack, taking side roads across her cheeks, to her ears, down to that hot spot on her neck, but she stopped him.

  “Me first,” she murmured, sliding awkwardly against the leather, her skin sticking. He lay down, filling the space she had vacated, and she started her own National Geographic tour of his landscape.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured against his chest, licking his nipple, tugging at the button on his jeans. She stroked the skin of his stomach and sides with both hands spread wide, trying to touch as much of him as she could. His hands captured hers, pulling them over his chest, right over the beat of his heart. Looking up, she found his eyes burning and she couldn’t look away. She licked his belly, tugged free one of her hands, and cupped his erection, opening her mouth to blow hot air over the fabric. He bared his teeth, lifted his hips, and the air in the truck was a bonfire of sweat and need and sex.