Hard Compromise (Compromise Me)

by Samanthe Beck

  A waiter approached. Booker recognized him as a local, but couldn’t put a name to the face. Based on age, he figured Lauralie probably knew him. The way the man’s blue eyes scanned the table and stalled on her confirmed his guess. Booker got the distinct impression the rest of the room had just disappeared for blue eyes. He blushed to the roots of his dark hair, and mumbled, “Hi, Laurie.”

  Aw, hell. Another one. He draped his arm along the back of her chair.

  She looked up, and immediately smiled. “Hey, Scott. Great to see you.”

  “Great to see you, too. You look…great.”

  Great. Testosterone levels restored, Booker skimmed his fingers along the curve of her neck. Too bad their waiter’s attention never wavered from her face.

  “You, too,” she replied. “Are you home on break?” To the table, she added, “Scott’s in his—sorry, I forget—third or fourth year of medical school?”

  “Third year. We’re on break now, so I’m helping my folks out while I’m home. I fly back tomorrow night.”

  The information led Booker to a positive ID. Scott Delaney. His parents owned the restaurant.

  “I know it’s last minute, but maybe we could…um…get together later, and catch up?” The blush returned.

  Booker trailed his fingers over her earlobe and toyed with her earring. The flash caught lover boy’s eye, and the hopeful smile disappeared.

  Sorry, Scottie.

  Lauralie shot him an I’ve-got-this look before turning her attention to her admirer. “I’m sorry. I’ve got plans for later.”

  “Oh, hey, no problem.” Scott cleared his throat and pressed on. “Maybe next time?”

  Maybe never. Lauralie’s hand rested on the table. He slid his palm under hers, threaded their fingers, and deliberately moved their linked hands to his leg—and had the satisfaction of hearing her noncommittal reply hitch in her throat. He kept her hand while Scott took their orders, but when the waiter departed and the conversation turned again to Kate’s nuptials, he shifted in his chair and, beneath the screen of the tablecloth, moved their hands to her lap.

  She spared him a raised eyebrow, but otherwise continued with the riveting discussion of veil lengths. He released her hand and eased his fingers between her crossed thighs. Lean muscles jumped under his palm, and then she uncrossed her legs. Despite the invitation, he didn’t explore. He simply kept his hand on her thigh, heavy and still.

  A corresponding heaviness flowed into his cock. Persistent, but on the right side of the pain/pleasure spectrum. Lauralie replied to something Kate said, and ran restless fingers along the wide, slouchy neckline of her sweater. The gray knit slipped down to reveal a slender shoulder and the narrow strap of her bra.

  The heaviness advanced to an ache. She fiddled with her sweater again, and squirmed in her chair. He tightened his grip on her leg. Without looking his way, she slipped her hand under the table and purposefully grazed his cock before settling on his thigh.

  He coughed into his fist to cover a groan, and watched the corner of her mouth twist into a devious smirk. He retaliated by stroking a finger along the inseam of her leggings while Miranda and Kate debated the appropriateness of children at weddings. Miranda referred to them as pint-sized party crashers.

  Her hand trembled as she reached for her water. She emptied the glass in a single gulp.

  “Would you like more?” he murmured, and inched his finger higher.

  “I—”

  “Speaking of party crashers,” Miranda interjected, “how long is your mother in town?”

  Lauralie jerked back as if someone had slapped her. The pretty flush faded from her cheeks, and she shifted out of his grasp. “My mother isn’t in town.”

  “She most certainly is. I saw her New Year’s Eve. She made an appearance at the Montenido Arts Council party I planned at Las Ventanas. I walked her out personally, with the aid of security.”

  Sadly, that sounded exactly like Denise. His direct experience with the woman was limited, though uniformly negative. She’d been part of a group arrest for public drunkenness he and Halloran had made one Fourth of July when he’d been a rookie. Another deputy and he had picked her up for shoplifting from a liquor store a few years later. He had secondhand knowledge of some additional incidents, but he wasn’t aware of her visiting Montenido since she’d moved to Los Angeles. He definitely hadn’t known she’d turned up recently. A glance to his right, however, told him the same couldn’t be said for his date. The slight relaxing of her shoulders gave her up.

  “She left New Year’s Day,” Lauralie replied. “I drove her to the train station.”

  “When?” His question came out sharp, but, dammit, this was new information. Why hadn’t she said something to him?

  Her eyes flicked to his, then away. She ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip. “It doesn’t matter. She’s gone.”

  Counterarguments leaped to his lips, but Scott arrived, balancing plates like a guy who’d grown up waiting tables, and reminding him they were in the middle of dinner with Kate and Miranda. He’d ask later. He knew how to bide his time.

  He also knew when someone was hiding something.

  …

  Mist-heavy air cooled Laurie’s skin. She tightened her hold on the jacket she carried because she was too warm to wear it, and tried to blame Booker for her overheated condition. Resting his arm around the back of her chair, touching her leg, casually handling her at every opportunity. Even if most of the contact was for show, a girl could only withstand so much. The show appeared to have adequately offended Miranda McQueen’s strict social sensibilities, and completely convinced his sister they were dating, not to mention Scott and Jessie. Hell, if she didn’t know better…

  But she did. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. At the beginning of the evening it had been easy to forget reality, but after Miranda had looked at her like a sleazy social climber, and then mentioned seeing her mother on New Year’s Eve, she’d felt the difference in his touch. At first, he’d been playing with her, almost competitively upping the stakes in a game aimed at slowly and deliberately driving her out of her mind. Afterward, the playfulness disappeared from his touch. The sweep of his fingers on her shoulder, or his hand resting on her arm still advanced the charade, but—maybe this was her guilty conscience messing with her—she sensed an undercurrent of something else.

  It was still there, in the clasp of his hand, something inescapable and authoritative. And that’s what had her sweating right now. Booker wanted details about her mom’s visit.

  The thought of admitting Denise had shown up to extort money from her was humiliating enough, but admitting she’d given in to the demand? She’d sooner choke on her own tongue. Plus telling Booker the entire truth inevitably opened a huge can of worms. He’d insist she tell her insurance company, for starters, and that put too much at risk. Her mother had a reputation, and people around here assumed she was cut from the same cheap cloth. Nelson might think all signs pointed to an electrical fire, but what if they didn’t? What if there was just enough doubt for the insurance adjusters to point the finger at her, the woman who cleaned out her safe hours before the shop burned to the ground?

  She’d lose everything.

  Worst of all, Booker would be disappointed in her. She didn’t think she could take that. Tonight he’d told her he was proud of her, and though she hadn’t expected the words, they mattered to her. He trusted her, too, and that also mattered. Coming clean meant losing both. On the other hand, if she let him ask questions, not coming clean meant telling a bald-faced lie—something she’d managed to avoid doing so far, though some might argue deliberate omission amounted to the same thing.

  Distraction seemed like her best option, and she knew exactly what men found most distracting about her. As they neared her front door, she turned to him, letting her breast brush his arm, and her mouth hover close to his ear. “Are you coming in, or are you going to make a liar out of me?” Or both.

  He stopped on
her doorstep, and looked down at her. Streetlights cast a glow, but his eyes remained shadowed and inscrutable. “How would I do that?”

  She swept her hand under his sweater and along the rugged terrain of his abs. “I told Scott I had plans for tonight.”

  His hand found hers through his sweater, and covered it. Didn’t encourage her, or brush her away, just held her there. After a moment the corner of his mouth lifted. “You did.”

  The small grin loosened the stiffness in her shoulders. Situation defused. Everything was going to be all right. She slid her hand down the flat plane of his stomach, until her fingers hooked into the waist of his pants. “He was a little slower on the uptake than Jessie.” She resisted mentioning Miranda had sized up the situation immediately, and was probably on the phone with Booker’s mother right now, warning the woman a tacky baker from the wrong side of town had ambitions involving her only son. Meanwhile, Booker had the nerve to call her a snob.

  His teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Scott was too busy making his move on the one that got away to accurately assess the situation.”

  The comment paused her in the process of closing the space between them, even though her nipples were already tight and tingly in anticipation. A laugh escaped before she could tamp down on the cynical sound. “The one that got away? I thought you didn’t want to venture into this minefield?”

  “This is not a minefield.” He lifted her jacket from her arm and hung it on the doorknob, and then he splayed a hand at the center of her back and pressed their bodies together. His big thigh eased between hers. “It’s a fact.”

  Pressure built everywhere they touched, along with an urgent need for friction. She couldn’t keep still, so she rose up on her toes and rubbed against him. “I hate to break it to you, but I wasn’t the one that got away. Actually, I always suspected I was his first.”

  “You were undoubtedly his first.” His hand journeyed to her ass, and hauled her closer, so her toes barely touched the ground. She had no choice but to lean on him. Let him keep them upright with his strength. His mouth cruised along the side of her neck. “He looks at you with the awestruck wonder a guy reserves for the girl who shows him his first glimpse of heaven. You’re the one who got away because he never got another shot with you. Nobody has. Except me.”

  The truth of his observation shook her almost as much as the certainty in his voice. Yet another reason why conversation with Booker was a dangerous thing. Fear that she actually had no secrets from the man kept her quiet, but when she didn’t immediately answer, he scraped his teeth along the curve of her shoulder, and challenged, “Fact?”

  Honesty shivered out of her. “Y-yes.”

  He muttered something, which sounded like, “He’ll never get another shot at you,” but she couldn’t be sure. She could barely concentrate on his words. The hard, thick length of his cock nestled against her stomach like a promise.

  “Since we’re doing so well with facts, share one more with me.” His thumb strummed along her spine. He drew back and looked at her. “Did your mother’s visit have anything to do with why I woke up alone on New Year’s Day?”

  Her heartbeat quickened. The question dispelled any notion her effort at distraction worked. None of her tricks worked on him. She had no control over Booker.

  Control? What a joke. Practically every aspect of her life eluded her control. Her mother, who continued to find ways to bleed her, and probably would until she sucked her dry. Her burned up dream, which might never rise from the ashes if she answered his question. He saw too much, and expected too much, and, dammit, he made her want too much. She tightened her arms around his neck and drew him down until they were nearly forehead to forehead. “Booker, if you want another shot at me, take it now. I’ve been hurting all night, thanks to you, and if you’re not going to put me out of my misery, I’m going to take care of myself.”

  Desperation fueled the ultimatum. A risky move for a woman who didn’t have a hell of a lot left except pride, but the glimpse of raw hunger in his eyes gave her hope. Then those eyes went dark and serious. “Welcome to my world, Jailbait. I’ve been suffering since you opened the door in two scraps of lace. Answer my question, and I’ll put us both out of our misery.”

  Anger fanned flames already running through her blood. She’d had enough of people blackmailing her, be it her mom’s classic brand or Booker’s sexual brinksmanship, but she twined her fingers into his hair and swept her mouth over his in a deliberate torment as she uttered three words. “You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

  The next second strong hands cupped her jaw, capturing her, as his mouth slammed down on hers. A whole lot of heat, and need, and some barely banked male temper flowed into her mouth. She drank it down like a shot of whiskey, not caring about the burn.

  And then it was gone. He stepped away so abruptly she would have fallen were it not for the door at her back. She swallowed her cry of surprise and blinked at his retreating form.

  “See you around, Jailbait.”

  Chapter Nine

  I’ve called you. I’ve texted you. What do I get for my efforts? Silence. Don’t make me come over there…

  Booker sighed at the screen of his phone. His mother rarely issued idle threats, but he planned to ignore the text anyway, because she wasn’t the woman he wanted to see right now.

  There’s someone I want you to meet before your sister’s wedding…

  He slammed the front door behind him and threw his keys and phone on the narrow table he’d put there for the express purpose of saving himself the pain of searching for the damn things every morning. Too bad he couldn’t resolve other pains quite so easily.

  A week spent in a semi-constant state of blue balls surely set some kind of record. One he preferred not to hold, obviously, but it was what it was. The sound of his footfalls changed from hushed thuds on the refinished oak floor to distinct treads on the black-and-white octagonal tile in the kitchen. A rummage through his nearly empty fridge produced a cold beer. He twisted the cap off, took a long swallow, and considered his options.

  Avoiding the cause of his torment hadn’t helped—though it had proved easier than expected. A normal week of circulating through their town generally put him in Lauralie’s path at some point, but without the bakery as her control center, her daily routine had become less predictable.

  So much for seeing her around.

  He flicked his beer cap into the trash and wandered to the large, arched window over the sink to stare at the view—just enough light left in the day to identify the outlines of Channel Islands in the distance, but nothing unique enough to distract him from his thoughts. They wandered to Lauralie whenever he didn’t keep them on a leash, and that was bad enough. But his dreams? Those were impossible to control. His subconscious refused to wear a leash. It treated him to feverish and all too lifelike fantasies.

  The longing went beyond a physical ache. He missed her. Not just her body, or the sex. He missed her smart mouth and her hard head. Over the better part of ten years she’d worked her way under his skin, and there was no quick, painless way of getting her out.

  Even knowing this, he’d spent the last week fighting relentless urges to engineer things so he would, in fact, see her around. He resisted, in part because arranging a “coincidental” encounter involved resorting to stalker-ish shit like staking out her apartment, but in larger part because the ruse wouldn’t work. They’d both know he had given in, and, frankly, weaseling a confrontation ran afoul of his ethics. If he caved, he’d at least do it in a straightforward way—come to her door, tell her she had five seconds to slam it in his face or prepare for the ride of her life, and then do his level best to fuck an answer out of her.

  Did your mother’s visit have anything to do with why I woke up alone on New Year’s Day?

  Not necessarily a tough question, but one requiring some honest discussion. Unfortunately, as soon as he showed up on her doorstep, he lost any hope of having one. She’d know she could have him on her terms,
subject to whatever limits she set, which meant this thing between them would never progress. She’d never voluntarily share her troubles or ask for help. So he’d wait her out, even if it killed him, and pray she blinked first…soon.

  The beacon from the lighthouse a few miles down the coast cut through the foggy dusk, and the solitary signal seemed to cut through his internal turmoil to another truth he’d been trying to ignore. Denise Peterson hadn’t trekked all the way to Montendio to wish her daughter a happy New Year. She wanted something. Something more than a ride to the train station. And whatever it was, it worried Lauralie. The hunted look on her face when Miranda had mentioned Denise confirmed as much. She didn’t want to confide in him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need help.

  Screw staying strong. He put the half-finished beer on the counter, and retraced his steps to the front door. He’d try the storm-in-and-fuck-an-answer-out-of-her approach. As he snagged his keys from the hall table, someone knocked on his door.

  And that’s what you get for ignoring texts—your mother on your doorstep.

  “I can’t talk to you now. I’m on my way out,” he said as he opened the door, and then stopped in his tracks.

  Lauralie stood there in a slinky black T-shirt of a dress that clung in all the right places and ended high on her bare legs. Her hair tumbled away from her face in wild curls. Her upraised fist hung in the air between them.

  The rush of blood to his cock was instantaneous and dangerously mind-numbing. Unfortunately, his words—words she couldn’t know weren’t intended for her—had the opposite effect on her. Flashing blue eyes narrowed at him, but not before he caught a flicker of hurt in their depths. “Fine. Whatever.” She spun on her heel. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here anyw—”

  He caught her arm and swung her around. Momentum brought her up against his chest and he trapped her there with an arm around her waist. “Not you, Jailbait. I thought you were…it doesn’t matter.” This counted as her blinking first, he decided, and rewarded himself for his patience by giving her a detailed demonstration of exactly what the fuck she was doing there.