by Anna Brooks
My throat tightens, and I swallow, hoping to wash down some of the lust that’s risen. “I’m not sure. Honestly, I haven’t thought that much about it. What do you think?” I turn my head to watch him looking at me. His eyes are trained on mine, and the lids become heavy, much like mine feel.
His fingers toy with the bottom of my shirt. “Can I?”
“Yeah.”
He watches as he slides the fabric against my skin, and he raises it. Right before he reaches my bra, he stops. His finger glides down over my ribs, and the pressure increases the farther down he goes. Goose bumps erupt where he touches, and I tremble under his inspection.
He retraces the path back up and dips over, skimming the sensitive skin below my breasts. We both inhale sharply as he uses just one finger to slide back and forth.
He finally looks up at me instead of my bare skin. “Have you thought about going lower?”
The slight Southern accent in his words is more pronounced, and it causes another part of me to tremble. “Lower?”
“Lower.” He draws an imaginary line from under my bra all the way down to the waist of my jeans then continues over the denim until he reaches the top of my thigh. Even through the thick material, his touch warms me, sets me on fire. “The stem could begin down here; I could make it . . . pulling, almost, away from the ground, like it’s freeing itself. The Bird of Paradise is a symbol of freedom, so it’d be like a double meaning, but if I did that, I’d need to start lower, so I’d have more room.” He flexes his hand on my thigh and then steps back. “Plus, I think it’d just look kick ass. But it’s entirely up to you.”
I sit up, so I’m facing him again. My mouth can’t form words. My mind can’t even comprehend what’s swirling around in it. I jump down and grab my purse with the intention of getting the hell out of here because it’s too much. He’s too much. I shouldn’t get excited from another man’s touch. It’s inappropriate. It’s so wrong. It’s cheating. And I’m not a cheater.
“You okay?”
“I . . . I can’t do this.”
“Get a tattoo? You don’t have to; it’s c—”
“You! I can’t with you. You can’t touch me; you can’t make me . . . feel things, Vaughn. I can’t.”
He holds his hands up. “Sorry. Jesus.” After he angrily runs a hand through his hair, he continues talking. “I won’t touch you, but you need to stop looking at me like you want me to.”
“I don’t!”
“Rainey, baby. You do.”
I step closer to him. “I do not.” I don’t, do I?
“If I didn’t know any better, because you’ve made your distaste for me quite clear, I’d say you wrote the freaking book on teasing a man.”
My head shakes, and I huff. “I am not a tease.”
“Okay.” He walks out of the room, and I follow him, stomping.
“Hey. I don’t tease you, Vaughn. We’re supposed to be friends.”
When he stops short and turns around, I run into him. My purse falls from my hands, and I reach up and grab his arms to steady myself while he holds me around the waist. He takes a step forward, and I take one back. We move again the same way, almost dancing, until my back hits the wall. His chest rapidly rises and falls while my breath locks in my throat.
I’m the one to pull him closer, and the instant he feels the movement, he slams his mouth against mine. My fingers tighten on his arm, and he lifts me by my butt. My legs wrap around his waist, and we both let out a moan when his very hard dick grinds against me.
He nips at my bottom lip, and I open my mouth. Our tongues crash together, and I move my hands from his arms to the thick head of hair. I’ve been secretly wondering if it was as smooth as it looks. I tug on the strands, and he growls then presses into me harder.
His hands knead my butt and thighs, and I lock my legs tighter around him, rubbing against him as I chase the orgasm that’s been teasing me since the moment I saw this man. It’s been so long for me that I can already feel my core tightening, and I whimper into his mouth. Using my hands and the advantage they have in his hair, I turn his head the other way to try to gain some control over our kiss.
Not so easy to concede, I feel him smile against my mouth and the door beep at the same time. We both freeze. He gently kisses my lips before he turns his head, blocking my face from view.
“Hey, man,” he says.
“I, um, have an appointment at five.”
“Yeah. Give me a few.”
Vaughn pats me on the thigh, and the weight of what I just did bears down on me so hard I almost fall to the ground. He steadies me, and without looking at him, I grab my purse and haul ass, making sure not to make eye contact with the guy sitting in the waiting room.
The cool fall air hits me in the face and almost immediately dries the tears that fall impulsively. He calls my name, but I ignore him and quicken my steps until I reach my car. Just as I’m grabbing my key fob out of my purse, he steps up behind me and traps me between him and my car.
“Rayne?”
“I’m sorry,” I cry.
He turns me around, but I can’t bear to look at him. I’m a horrible person. The worst. He grabs my face and tilts my head up. “Why the hell are you crying?”
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I’m so scared to say them. He’s going to think I’m awful, which I am. But I don’t want him to. Or maybe I do. Either way, I need to be honest with him. If not for me, then for Bryan.
I hold my eyes shut for a second and finally summon the courage to look at him. “I have a boyfriend.”
Chapter 6
Vaughn
Faster than if she were on fire, I drop my hands and step back. This is not happening. This is why she’s been holding out? She already has a man? “You’re fuckin’ with me, right?”
“No. I’m sorry. I just—”
“God, Rayne. What the hell?” I might not be the most moral person in the world, but I’d never put my hands on someone else’s woman.
“He, um. He’s not . . . he—”
“I don’t give a fuck.” I start backing away from her. “You need to get your shit together, babe, ’cause the next guy you pull this on might not be as nice as I am.”
She wipes away the wetness from her face. “I didn’t pull anything; I didn’t mean to—”
“To what? Tell me what you didn’t mean to do.” I stop a few feet away from her and grab a cigarette out of the pack in my back pocket and light it. “Tell me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” I’ve lived my entire adult life being certain I was going to get something before I went after it. At heart, I’m a pessimist because if something could go wrong with me, it always did. So when I finally decide I want something, I make sure I won’t leave disappointed. And I want her. I thought she was just playing hard to get, thought she was just scared; the attraction between us is so intense it even startled me at first. That was why I was willing to hold out. But this . . . this is fucked up.
“Vaughn . . .”
“Whatever, Rayne.” My ego bruised like a motherfucker, and it pisses me off that she managed to actually hurt me. Nobody’s ever done that before except my mother, and after learning the bitter lesson she taught me, I made damn sure not to let it happen again. “I’ll see you around.”
She doesn’t protest or say anything else, and I don’t look back as I walk to the shop. I toss my smoke on the ground and stomp it out before heading inside to work on my next client.
I manage to get through the appointment and avoid a lot of small talk, blaming it on the fact I need to focus on the intricate details of the portrait I’m putting on his chest. I cancel the rest of my clients for the night because I can’t concentrate anymore. When I make my way outside, I look over at the bar and contemplate drowning my sorrows in a bottle but decide against it and head for my truck. Alcohol was never a vice of mine.
The ride home is usually one of my favorite things, but as I roll the window down,
the wind that normally makes me feel free is like one big slap in the face. I back into my parking space, and when I get to my apartment, I toss my keys on the counter and grab a beer from the fridge.
I sit on my chair by the window and turn on the overhead light then open my sketchbook to an empty page and begin drawing a Bird of Paradise. As soon as the colors blend with the page, everything else fades away. The stress of the day vanishes, and I’ve forgotten the girl who marked herself on me, at least temporarily. After five and a half hours, I can barely keep my eyes open, so I shut off the light, take my clothes off, and fall into bed.
* * *
“Vaughn?” I recognize the girl from next door, but I don’t know her name.
“Yeah. Sorry. I never got your name.”
“It’s Polly.” She holds out a paper bag. “This is from Rayne. She said—”
“Listen, I’m sorry she put you in the middle of this, but I don’t want it. I don’t want her food or anything else from her. You can either throw it in the garbage yourself, or leave it here and I’ll do it after you leave.” I go back to the butterfly I’m designing and don’t look up until the door beeps again.
This is the first day we’ve been working at the same time since she rubbed her little body against mine and made me experience more than just a hard-on. She’s closed on Saturday, and I was closed on Sunday. This definitely isn’t the way I wanted to start off the week, especially since I spent all of yesterday drawing and in denial about how much it sucks that I can’t have the only person I’ve ever really wanted.
I’m adding a little shading to the wings when the door chimes again. Rayne walks in and throws the bag at me. I don’t attempt to catch it, and it falls to the floor.
“Take the damn sandwich.”
I love that she’s such a mouthy little thing. “Don’t want it.”
“Vaughn, eat the sandwich.”
I pick up the bag then lean over the counter and drop it into the garbage can.
She tosses her hands in the air. “Oh, my God. Seriously?”
My head is down, and I’m pretending to ignore her when that’s the furthest thing from what I want. I want more than anything for her to tell me she was lying. To say it was a joke or something. But in my gut, I know that’s not the truth. I don’t know anything about her man, and I don’t give a shit. I’ll be damned if I’m going to be played.
“Will you please let me explain?”
I can hear the sadness in her voice, and I squeeze my pencil so hard it snaps, but I continue to ignore her. It’s better for both of us. She’s taken, and I’m a fool for allowing myself in this position. When I don’t answer, I hear her feet shuffle and the door slam shut.
Certain she’s gone, I finally look up and release the breath that was pushing against my chest and cutting off the oxygen supply to my brain.
I manage to get through most of the day without thinking about her too much, focusing instead on my work. Drawing is what saved me before. It’s what got me through a lifetime of abuse and betrayal and is the only thing that’s been consistently loyal to me. When the alarm I set on my phone goes off at three thirty, I finish wiping down the table I was cleaning for the fifth time and then go outside. Between three and four, I scheduled to be between clients. For this. For her.
I knock on the door to The Lunch Box, and she comes over and unlocks it. It pains me to look at her. To know I can’t have her. To know how damn good it would be, but to have to deny myself the satisfaction of being with her. Before she says anything, I talk. “You’re still not walking out of here by yourself. You ready?”
She quickly blinks a couple of times and clears her throat. “In like two minutes.”
“I’ll wait out here.”
I turn away and lean on the building then light a smoke as I wait for her. Sure enough, when two minutes pass, she comes out. She follows me when I start walking to her car and doesn’t try to strike up a conversation. We get to her vehicle; I stop and flick the rest of my cigarette then wait for her to get in.
“Thank you,” she says.
I nod and walk back to the shop and continue my day with a damn knife in my heart. Fuck.
* * *
I’m almost done with the flower I’m sketching for Rayne—I have no clue why I’m even still doing it—when my phone rings. I pick it up and wait for Brad to yell at me.
“You can’t even let her explain?”
“Nope. She’s got a man. Not much more to explain.”
“There is, Vaughn. If you’d quit being so stubborn and let the poor girl talk, maybe—”
“She’s not a little girl, Brad. She’s a grown-ass adult who knows damn well what happens when you test a man. I was giving her time; I was waiting. But I can only be pushed so far.”
He sighs. “If you would just listen, she—”
“I did listen when she had the opportunity to talk. Now, I’m done listening.”
“You’re going to regret it. When you finally pull your head from your ass and give her two fucking minutes to talk, I promise you, you’ll regret it.”
“Nothing to regret.”
“Stop being so headstrong.”
“I have to be!” I yell. “Because when I’m not, you know what happens. You know what fucking happened. I’m the only one who gives a shit about me, Brad. If I don’t look out for myself . . . nobody else will.”
“She’s not your mother, Vaughn.”
Dammit. I really need to stop comparing everything that happens in my life to my mother. Thinking every relationship will end up like shit because of her. “You’re right. But Rayne is someone who can and has already disappointed me.” I hang up before he has a chance to try to change my mind.
As I sit on my bed alone, I’m hit with a sudden reminder of my childhood. I spent so many nights alone in my room but not alone in the house. The sounds of my mother crying would keep me awake. Or my stepdad yelling. Glass breaking. I toss myself back on the bed and throw an arm over my eyes as if it’ll help shield the memories from penetrating.
When the flashbacks become too real, I get up, grab a beer from the fridge, and sit at my table, stretching my back before I begin to draw. Same as when I was a kid, it immediately pushes the dark shit away, and nothing but color fills my eyes.
* * *
I had a cancellation this afternoon, so I’m doing nothing but waiting for my alarm to go off so I can walk Rayne to her car. As I’m tapping my foot on the ground, the door opens, and I look up to see none other than the woman I want so badly to be mad at. That I want to be able to push away, but I know will end up just coming back.
“Can I make an appointment?” she asks before I can even say anything.
My pride is telling me to say no. But my heart, the bastard, is telling me to stop being so stubborn. I shouldn’t, but I can’t say no. “I’m booked pretty far out.”
“That’s okay. I can wait.” She steps closer to the counter.
I flip the pages of my appointment book and create an opening. I usually book around four months out, but I’ll switch some stuff around for her in a few weeks. “Wanna come in on the twenty-third?”
“Yes.”
My eyebrow rises. “You didn’t even check to see if you could.”
“I’ll make it work.”
Scribbling her name, I try to hide a smile. “Okay. I’ve got you down for six.”
“Okay. Thanks, Vaughn.”
“Yep.” I toss the pencil down and look up to see her walking out. “Shit.” I hurry out the door to catch up with her.
“You don’t need to walk me to my car, Vaughn. I know you don’t like me, and I get that. I deserve it. So please stop acting like you have some obligation to me.”
I grab her arm and step in front of her. “You think I don’t like you, Rayne? Really?”
She shrugs her shoulders and wets her lips with her tongue.
I watch the movement and remember what her mouth felt like against mine. “I like you too fucking much
, okay?” I admit.
“I like you, too,” she whispers.
“Christ.” I run my fingers through my hair and take a breath. Am I really willing to see this through with her even though she has another man in her life? “You’re with someone else?”
Her eyes become damp, and she nods.
“You really think your man would be cool with you hanging out with a guy you threw yourself at?”
She pushes up on her toes. “I didn’t throw myself at you.”
“You didn’t say no.”
“You’re right.” She sighs. “I didn’t.”
We stand in the middle of the sidewalk, and as she searches my face, I do the same to her. Not exactly sure what we’re looking for in each other, but almost certain the other person could be the one to provide it. “What do you want from me?” I break the silence.
“A friend. I could really use a friend right now.”
My shoulder muscles tense when I look up at the sky. I feel like the universe is playing a joke on me or something. When I wanted friends as a child, I wasn’t allowed to have any and had to sneak around when I played with them. As a teenager, I only had guys who had my back if I had theirs. No real friendships. And now, as an adult, the woman who I want to be more than a friend wants me to push those feelings aside and be just her friend. But I already know she’s worth it. “I can’t promise you anything, Rayne. I don’t know if I can be that, and deep down, I know this is going to end badly. You know it, too.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
She’s unbelievable in every sense of the word. I need to walk the fuck away from her. I know I do . . . but I don’t understand why I can’t. “What are you going to tell your boyfriend? What’s his name?”
“Bryan.”
“What are you going to tell Bryan?”
“I already did. I told him I kissed someone else, and I apologized, and—”
