Truly Madly Yours

by Rachel Gibson

  When she pulled into the parking lot behind her salon, Nick’s Jeep was parked behind his business. His dark silhouette leaned against the back fender, his familiar posture relaxed. The headlights of her Miata cut across his leather jacket as he pushed himself away from the four-wheel drive.

  Delaney cut the car’s engine and reached for the plastic grocery bag. “Are you following me?” she asked as she got out of the car and shut the door.

  “Of course.”

  “Why?” The heels of her stilettoes stirred the gravel as she started toward the stairs.

  “Tell me about the notes.” He reached out and grabbed the grocery bag from her hand as she passed.

  “Hey, I can carry that,” she protested even as she realized it had been a long time since a man had offered to carry anything for her. Not that Nick had offered, of course.

  “Tell me about the notes.”

  “How did you know about those?” He followed so close behind her up the steps, she felt his heavier tread beneath the soles of her shoes. “Did Ann Marie tell you?”

  “No. I heard your conversation with Helen tonight.”

  Delaney wondered how many others had heard it as well. Her breath hung in front of her face as she quickly unlocked her door. Since it would have been a total waste of breath, she didn’t bother to tell Nick he couldn’t come in. “Helen has written me a couple of little notes.” She walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light.

  Nick followed, unzipping his jacket and filling the small space with his size and presence. He set her groceries on the counter. “What do they say?”

  “Read for yourself.” She dug into her coat pocket and handed him the envelope she’d shoved in there earlier. “The other one said something like, ‘I’m watching you.’ ” She brushed past him and moved into the short hall leading to the bedroom.

  “Have you called the sheriff?”

  “No.” She hung her coat in the closet, then retraced her steps. “I can’t prove Helen is the one leaving them, although I’m certain it’s her. And besides, the notes aren’t really threatening, just annoying.” From the doorway, she watched him study the note in his hand. His txapel made him look like an exotic Basque freedom fighter.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “By my front door.”

  “Do you still have the oth-.” He looked up and stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes widened a fraction, then his gaze swept her from hair to stilettoes. For the first time in her life, she’d rendered Nick speechless. It had taken a hooker outfit to do it.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Don’t you have a least one smart or smarmy comment?” She tried to stand perfectly still, as if she couldn’t feel his gaze touching her everywhere. But in the end she blew it and moved the boa to cover her cleavage pressed against the satin bustier.

  “At least one.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  He pointed to her waist. “What do you do with the cuffs?”

  “You’d know better than me.”

  “Wild thing,” he said, a salacious smile tilting the corners of his mouth, “I don’t need extra hardware to get the job done.”

  She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Spare me the details of your sex life.”

  “Are you sure? You might learn something good.”

  She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “I doubt you know anything I’d want to learn.” Then she quickly added, “That wasn’t a challenge.”

  His soft laughter filled the short distance between them. “It was a challenge, Delaney.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” He took a step toward her, and she held up her hand like a traffic cop. “I don’t want to go there with you, Nick. I thought you came up here to look at the note Helen left me.”

  “I did.” He stopped when her palm hit his chest. Cool leather pressed into her hand. “But you make it a real hard to think about anything but your zippers.”

  “You're a big boy. Try to concentrate.” Delaney dropped her hand and moved past him to the refrigerator. “Wanna beer?”

  “Sure.”

  She twisted off the tops, then handed him a pumpkin beer she’d bought at the microbrewery. He looked at the designer brew as if he didn’t quite know what to do with it. “It’s really good,” she assured him and took a big swallow.

  Nick raised the beer to his lips, and his gray eyes watched her over the top of the bottle as he took a drink. He immediately lowered the beer and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary that’s foul.”

  “I like it.” She smiled and took an extra long swig.

  “Do you have any real beer?” He set both the bottle and the note on the counter.

  “I have a raspberry ale.”

  He looked at her as if she were suggesting he chop off his testicles. “Got a Bud?”

  “Nope. But I have a Coke in that bag.” She waved her bottle toward the plastic sack then moved past Nick to the living room.

  “Where did you find the first note?” he called after her.

  “In the salon.” She switched on a light above the stereo, then moved to a table lamp next to the couch. “Actually, you pointed it out to me.”

  “When?”

  “The day you changed my locks.” She looked over her shoulder as she pulled the lamp’s chain. Nick stood in the middle of the room chugging the Coke she’d bought at the Value Rite. “Remember?”

  He lowered the bottle and sucked a brown drop from his bottom lip. “Perfectly.”

  Unbidden, the memory of his lips pressed to hers and the texture of his warm skin beneath her hands flooded her senses. “I was talking about the note.”

  “So was I.”

  No he wasn’t. “Why do you think Helen is responsible?”

  Delaney sat on the couch, carefully making sure her satin skirt didn’t slide to her crotch and make her a porno star. “Who else could it be?”

  He set the Coke on the coffee table and shrugged out of his jacket. “Who else would want you gone?”

  Delaney couldn’t think of anyone besides Nick and his entire family. “You.”

  He tossed his jacket on the arm of the sofa and looked at her from beneath lowered brows. “Do you really believe that?”

  Not really. “I don’t know.”

  “If you think I sneak around threatening women, why did you let me in your apartment?”

  “Could I have stopped you?”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t leave those notes and you know it.” He sat next to Delaney and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He’d rolled the sleeves of his chambray shirt up his forearms, and he wore a wristwatch with a worn black band. “Someone’s real upset with you. Have you given a bad haircut lately?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she set her pumpkin beer on the coffee table with a heavy thump. “First of all, Nick, I never give bad haircuts. And second, what do you think, that some infuriated psycho is running around leaving me notes because I trimmed her bangs too short or over processed a perm?”

  Nick looked across his shoulder at her and laughed. It started low in his chest and grew louder, feeding Delaney’s temper. “Why are you so pissed off?”

  “You insulted me.”

  He placed an innocent hand on the front of his shirt, pushing the soft fabric to the side and exposing a slice of tan chest. “I did not.”

  Delaney lifted her gaze to his amused eyes. “You absolutely did.”

  “Sorry.” Then he ruined the apology by adding insult to injury, “Wild thing.”

  She punched his arm. “Jerk.”

  Nick grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. “Has anyone told you that you’re a great-looking hooker?”

  The scent of sandalwood soap and warm skin filled her senses. His strong fingers sent tingling pinpricks up the inside of her arm, and she tried to pull away. He let her go only to grab her boa in both his hands and tug her closer. Her nose bumped his, an
d she felt herself sucked into his smoky gaze. She opened her mouth meaning to say something stinging and sarcastic, but her brain and voice betrayed her and what came out instead was a breathy, “Gee, thanks, Nick. I bet you say that to all your women of the night.”

  “Are you my woman for the night?” he asked just above her mouth, holding her with nothing more than a string of fluffy pink feathers and his smooth voice.

  She didn’t think she’d said that, or meant that, or something… “No. You know we can never be together.”

  “You should never say never.” The feathers brushed across her cheek and neck as he slid one hand to the top edge of her bustier. “Your heart is pounding.”

  “I have pretty high blood pressure.” Her eyelids were heavy and she felt the tip of his tongue touch her bottom lip.

  “You were always a really bad liar.” Then before Delaney knew quite how it happened, she was in Nick’s lap and his mouth was all over hers, in a kiss that started sweet but quickly shattered Delaney’s pitiful resistance. He had a hand on the back of her head, the other on the outside of her thigh, caressing her through black hose. His slick tongue stroked hers, urging a hotter, more passionate response, and she gave him a kiss that sent a shudder of raw lust through them. She slid her hands up the sides of his neck and worked the rubber band from his ponytail. The beret fell from his head as she combed her fingers through his cool, fine hair. She felt his fingers drift up her garter to the edge of her skirt, drawing a line of fire that heated the insides of her thighs and flamed the hunger deep in her abdomen. Then his fingers dipped beneath the black lace and elastic and he grasped her bare flesh. She shoved one hand inside the open collar of his shirt and touched his shoulder where he was warm, his muscles hard, but it wasn’t enough and she tugged at the buttons until his shirt lay open. He was hard and smooth, his skin hot and slightly damp. Beneath her bottom, his thick erection pressed into her and she squirmed deeper into his lap. His fingers bit into her thigh, and she felt his deep groan beneath her palm.

  He moved one hand to her waist, and his strong fingers squeezed her through the thin satin. A moan stuck in the top of her chest as his palm slipped upward, over her breast, to her throat. His knuckles brushed her collarbone and across the edge of her bustier. Then he slid his sensual mouth to her throat and his hand inside the tight satin top. He cupped her bare breast, and Delaney arched, pressing her hard nipple into his hot, hot palm. Her hands moved to his shoulder, and she grasped the soft fabric of his shirt in tight fists.

  She ached all over and, with her last shred of sanity whispered, “Nick, we have to stop this.”

  “We will,” he murmured as he pushed the bustier practically to her waist and lowered his head. He brushed his lips across the pink tip of her breast, then sucked it into his mouth, his tongue hot and wet and relentless. His big warm hand slipped between her thighs and he pressed his palm into her sensitive flesh. Through her damp cotton panties, his fingers felt her, and she squeezed her legs together, locking his hand in her crotch. Delaney eyes closed and his name escaped her lips, part moan, part sigh. It was the sound of need and desire. She wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to feel his naked body pressed to her. She had nothing to lose but self-respect. What was a little self-respect compared to a quality orgasm?

  Then his mouth was gone and cool air swept across her breast. She forced her eyes open and followed his fiery gaze to her glistening nipple. He slid his hand from her thighs and picked up one end of her boa, slowly brushing it across her sensitive flesh. “Tell me you want me.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Say it anyway.” He looked up, his eyes heavy with lust and determination. “Say it.” The feathers made another downy pass across her breasts.

  Delaney sucked in her breath. “I want you.”

  His gaze skimmed her face, then settled on her mouth. He placed a soft kiss on her lips and pulled her bustier back in place, covering her breasts once again.

  He wasn’t going to make love to her. Of course he wasn’t. He had a lot more to lose than she did. “Why do we keep doing this?” she asked when he lifted his mouth. “I never mean for this to happen with us, but it always does.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I wish I did.”

  “Unfinished business.”

  She took a deep breath and leaned against him.

  “What are you talking about? Unfinished business.”

  “That night at Angel Beach. We never got to finish what we started before you ran off.”

  “Ran off?” She felt her brows lower then rise up her forehead. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You had a choice and you made it. You left with Henry.”

  With as much dignity as possible under the circumstances, Delaney removed herself from his lap. Her left shoe was missing and her boa was stuck inside her bustier. “I left because you were using me.”

  “Exactly when was that?” He stood and towered over her. “When you begged me to touch you all over?”

  Delaney tugged her skirt down. “Shut up.”

  “Or when my head was between your legs?”

  “Shut up, Nick.” She yanked the boa free. “You were only out to humiliate me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You used me to get back at Henry.”

  He rocked back on his heels and his gaze narrowed. “I never used you. I told you not to worry and that I’d take care of you, but you looked at me like I was some kind of rapist and left with Henry.”

  She didn’t believe him. “I never looked at you like you were a rapist, and I would have remembered if you’d said one nice word. But you didn’t.”

  “Yes I did, only you chose to leave with the old man. And the way I see it, you owe me.”

  She picked up his jacket from the back of the couch and threw it at him. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “You better not be around here on June fourth, otherwise I’m going take what you’ve owed me for ten years.” He shoved his arms into his jacket and walked to the door. “And paybacks are a real bitch, wild thing.”

  Delaney stared at the closed door long after she heard his Jeep tear out of the alley. Her body still burned from his touch, and the thought of some sort of sexual payback didn’t sound all that unappealing. She turned back toward the room and picked up Nick’s txapel from the floor. She raised the beret to her nose. It smelled of leather and wool and Nick.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Uncle Nick, did you see that movie on TV the other night about a girl who was kidnapped as a baby and she never knew it until she was like about twenty or something?”

  Nick stared at his computer screen, going over the budget he’d projected on a home on the north shore of the lake. The foundation had been poured before the ground froze, and the roof put on before the snow. The home was close to completion, but the owner had decided on different fixtures throughout, and the finish carpentry was way over budget. Since business was slowing down, Ann Marie and Hilda only worked mornings. He and Sophie were alone in the building.

  “Uncle Nick.”

  “Hmm, what?” He deleted several figures, then typed in the new cost.

  Sophie took a deep drawn-out breath and sighed, “You’re not listening to me.”

  He glanced from the screen to his niece, then returned his gaze to his work. “Sure I am, Sophie.”

  “What did I say?”

  He added a restocking fee and reached for a calculator on the edge of his desk, but when he glanced at his niece again, his hand stilled. Her big brown eyes looked back at him as if he’d stomped her feelings beneath his work boots. “I wasn’t listening.” He pulled his hand back. “Sorry.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He figured she hadn’t dropped by his office on her way home from school to watch him work. “Sure.”

  “Okay, what would you do if you liked a girl and she didn’t know you liked her.” She paused and looked somewhere over the top of his head. �
��And she liked someone else with really great clothes and blond hair and everybody liked her and she was a cheerleader and everything?” She returned her gaze to his. “Would you give up?”

  Nick was confused. “Do you like a boy who dresses like a cheerleader?”

  “No! Geez, I like a boy who dates a cheerleader. She’s pretty and popular and has the best body in eighth grade, and Kyle doesn’t know I’m alive. I want him to notice me, so what should I do?”

  Nick looked across his desk at his niece, who was all shiny braces and had her mother’s Italian eyes that were way too big for her face. She had an enormous red pimple on her forehead that, despite her best efforts, would not remain concealed with the makeup she’d slapped on it. Someday Sophia Allegrezza would turn heads, but not today, thank God. She was too young to worry about boys, anyway. “Don’t do anything. You’re gorgeous, Sophie.”

  She rolled her eyes and reached for her backpack sitting on the floor by her chair. “You’re no better help than dad.”

  “What did Louie say?”

  “That I’m too young to worry about boys.”

  “Oh.” He leaned forward and grabbed her hand. “Well, I would never say that,” he lied.

  “I know. That’s why I came to talk to you. And it’s not just Kyle. No boys ever notice me.” She dragged her backpack into her lap and slumped in the chair, a lump of misery. “I hate it.”

  And he hated to see her so unhappy. He’d helped Louie raise Sophie, and she was the only female he’d ever felt completely free to show affection and love. The two of them could sit and watch a movie together or play Monopoly, and she never pried into his life or hung on to his neck too tight. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell me what boys like in girls.”

  “Eighth grade boys?” He scratched the side of his jaw and paused to think a moment. He didn’t want to lie, yet he didn’t want to spoil her innocent illusions, either.

  “I thought since you have a lot of girlfriends, you would know.”

  “A lot of girlfriends?” He watched her pull a bottle of green fingernail polish from her backpack. “I don’t have a lot of girlfriends. Who told you something like that?”