by Lexie Ray
Daren swung to put his feet on the floor and gave her his full attention.
“The plans have shifted slightly.”
“How?” Daren asked.
“Well, he has a new plan that he didn’t want to fully disclose. As it stands now, Jai and Dwayne will be taking Sophie here to the movies for the day.”
“Really? No school?” Sophie screeched with excitement.
“You can make it up another day,” Rebecca assured her.
Daren looked between her and the phone. “I don’t get it.”
“Mads said not to worry about it. You’re recuperating. His words, not mine.”
“I’m sidelined?” Daren lurched to his feet. “I’m completely fine.”
Rebecca gave him a sympathetic look even as a hint of a smile twitched at her lips.
“He said you’d have a few issues with it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Which is why he’s also given me the day off to keep you out of trouble.”
Damn it, Mads. If he was going to try and manipulate him, he could at least put a little effort into not making it obvious. Rebecca’s fingers found their way to Daren’s upper arm. She was developing a habit of touching him like that whenever she wanted him to agree with an argument. It bothered him how well it worked. How was he supposed to have any defense against that?
“You can call him,” she said. “Although, he wanted me to tell you that it would be a worthless effort.”
“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Daren grumbled.
Rebecca’s fingers trailed along his arm, leaving a streak of heat over his skin. His jaw clenched with the effort to keep himself from shivering at the touch.
“I’m sure I can find a few things for us to do to pass the time.” She smiled sweetly.
Daren lowered his gaze and tried to avoid her attention. She didn’t seem annoyed as she grabbed her purse and headed for the front door.
“I’ve just got an errand to run. Do you mind watching Sophie?”
“Sure,” Daren muttered.
“Good.” She kissed Sophie goodbye and called back over her shoulder, “I’ll bring breakfast back.”
The second the door closed, he pulled out his cell and dialed Mads’ number. A long conversation, a few curse words he had to make Sophie promise not to repeat, and nothing changed.
***
Rebecca hurried back as best she could, her newly bought items carefully concealed in her purse. It thrilled her to think about what she had planned for today. While she had thought about this plan in passing since meeting Daren, she hadn’t actually expected to follow it. But then Mads had called, promising that this whole situation would be resolved a lot quicker if she agreed to his change of plans.
Daren hadn’t been the only one left in the dark. Rebecca’s kneejerk reaction was that Mads was trying to use Sophie as bait. It had taken him a while to convince her that he was, in fact, taking Sophie out of the situation for the day, with two bodyguards in tow. All Rebecca had to do was keep Daren out of the way. She had never been one to believe in fate, but with the way everything had just lined up, she was tempted to change her mind.
She had been all excitement and fever when she had bought the items, letting her dirty ideas swirl around her head. But now that she was back at the carnival, where her ideas had the possibility to be actualized, her bravado was beginning to waver. People were already milling around the rides at carnival stalls when she got back, and it didn’t take long for her to find Sophie and Daren. Between them, they had reduced his bike down to just a frame and tires. Everything else was placed in neat, precise order over a plastic sheet. Apparently, the phone call with Mads hadn’t gone all that well.
They both looked up as Rebecca neared. Daren had managed to contain the grease smudges to his hands alone. Sophie, however, had it smeared across her face, shirt, jeans, and arms. She had also somehow gotten it into her hair. Sophie sprang up and ran over to engulf Rebecca in a staining hug. Daren wiped his hands on a rag as he smiled at the sight.
“It looks like you two are having fun.”
“Daren keeps saying he’s going to time me putting it back together. Tell him that’s not fair.”
Daren grinned. “She’s just sour because I can beat her.”
“I’m still learning,” Sophie shot back, her arms still wrapped around Rebecca’s leg.
“We can all make excuses.”
Sophie began a high-pitched tirade about all the ways in which this was just mean, her words coming louder and faster as Daren continued to tease her. After numerous attempts to calm her down, Rebecca held up the take-out food bag. Sophie snatched it and ran.
“You wash your hands before you eat anything,” Rebecca called after her.
Daren stood up as she came closer, a soft smile on his face. He kept wiping his hands although he couldn’t really get any more of it off without water.
“Did you get everything done that you needed?” he asked.
It was hard to fight off her blush. “Um, yeah. Thanks for watching her. I hope she wasn’t a bother.”
“Nah, she’s a good kid.”
“She really likes you.”
“I know,” he smirked. “It’s really weird.”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said. “I like you too.”
On cue, Daren blushed and looked away. He mumbled a ‘thank you,’ or something along those lines. It was hard to tell. He was still struggling for some kind of response when Sophie slammed the door back open and yelled out to them.
“Come on, I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” Daren shot back.
Sophie pouted and put her hands on her hips in defiance.
“We better go. I bought you something, too.”
Daren rubbed the back of his neck. Rebecca noticed that he was still wearing the same outfit as yesterday. He hadn’t even tried to get one of the others to cover for him so he could have a shower.
“I’ll give you some cash later on.”
“It’s my treat,” Rebecca insisted.
Sophie scarfed down her breakfast, excited to either get back to the bike or head to the movies. Rebecca never had much time to take Sophie to a mall for just a normal, fun afternoon, and the promise of a movie and possible trip to an arcade had her strumming with energy.
“Knock, knock,” Dwayne said as he leaned through the open door, tall enough to be seen even without going up the stairs. “Someone ready to help me outvote Jai to watch a horrible movie?”
Sophie leapt to her feet and rushed to the door. Dwayne held up a hand to stop her from getting any closer.
“Maybe you should shower first. It looks like you climbed out of a bog.” Dwayne looked over to Daren and smirked. “Didn’t you wear that yesterday?”
“Shut up, Dwayne,” Daren and Sophie said in unison.
Chapter Seventeen
Daren wasn’t sure why Rebecca had asked him to come back after Sophie left. It was possible she wanted him to work on a few things for her, but then letting him go shower was kind of stupid. Odds were that she was taking Mads’ request to keep him occupied to heart. In the space of a couple of days, he had been sidelined twice, and it was really starting to annoy the hell out of him.
Water dripped from his hair, soaking into his fresh shirt as he crossed the yard back to the trailer. His bike was still scattered in a hundred pieces. He had planned to put it back together, but Sophie had insisted that he had to let her do it later. How annoyed would she be if he did it anyway? He could leave Rebecca to deal with the fallout. That thought was short-lived, and he rapped his knuckles against the metal door. Rebecca was quick to answer, and the expression on her face had him reacting before any real thought.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Her voice hitched.
Daren pushed up the stairs, his right hand pressing her against the safety of the wall while his left pulled his gun out from the back of his waistband.
“What are you doing
? Have you had that the whole time?”
He ignored her as his eyes searched the trailer. There were in a damn choke point. His fingers tightened on her wrist, and he began to pull her toward the door. She yanked herself free.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Me?”
“You’re the one pulling the gun.”
“You’re the one lying to my face,” he replied.
Rebecca let her eyes close briefly as she shook her head. “Okay, I wasn’t lying. I was just nervous.”
“About what?”
“Get upstairs and put down the gun, okay?”
Daren wasn’t too happy to once again be on the outside of the decisions, but grudgingly did what he was told. Once in the kitchen, he tucked his gun away and turned back to face her.
“What’s going on?”
“Is the safety on that thing?”
“Of course,” he grunted.
“Okay,” Rebecca tried to steady herself with a deep breath but it didn’t seem to do much. “You know, this all seemed like an easy plan in my head. It’s a lot different with you here.”
His eyebrows knitted as he tried to make sense of that. “Ya need me to do something?”
“In a way,” she laughed nervously. “Okay, so, ever since my divorce, I haven’t really put myself out there.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
Rebecca bit down on her lip to keep in a laugh. “Let me start again. Do you remember what we talked about last night? About your past relationships?”
A spark of realization zipped through his head, and he had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes.
“Rebecca, I told you. You don’t owe me nothing. You don’t have to do a damn thing.”
“I want to do things,” Rebecca blurted, “to you.”
He rolled those words in his head a dozen times, but they still didn’t make any kind of sense.
“Huh?”
“Okay, this isn’t working.”
“You want me to leave?”
“No. Take off your shoes.”
Daren toed out of his boots without thought.
Rebecca watched him with an odd sense of fascination. It didn’t help him sort any of this mess out in his head. There was no way a woman like Rebecca could be reduced to picking him of all people to satisfy a craving.
“I don’t get what’s going on.”
“Socks too.”
He grumbled put pulled them off. “Rebecca, if you need me to do something, if you’re in trouble, all you have to do is tell me.”
“Yeah, I’ve just figured that out myself,” she smiled. “That will make this a whole lot easier.”
His tongue hurt as he bit it to keep from yelling at her. Before he could remind her that she hadn’t actually explained anything, Rebecca closed the distance between them. Her hand reached up and gently cupped the back of his neck. She pulled, and he surrendered willingly into her kiss. It was just a slight touch of lips, hot and soft, and then it was gone. He opened his eyes just as Rebecca licked the tip of her tongue against his upper lip. He opened his mouth as she tilted her head up. She didn’t kiss him, though. She ducked away at the last moment and left him chasing air.
Twice more she teased him before she claimed his mouth in a searing kiss. Her hand slid up along his neck to tangle within his hair, lighting his scalp up in a sea of sparks. With a final, chaste kiss, she pulled back to look at him.
“You don’t like something, you tell me. You need a break, we stop. Understand?”
“I get the meaning. Ain’t too steady on the context,” Daren whispered, not trusting his voice to go any louder.
Rebecca grinned at him as she took his hand. “I have a feeling that I could talk to you about it for a year, and you still wouldn’t believe me. So how about we just skip to action?”
She pulled on his hand, and once again he followed. The world narrowed down to the thumping of his heart and the touch of her hand in his. It was a short walk to her bedroom, but he was breathing like he had just run a marathon when he reached it. The door was open, and she motioned for him to go inside. He looked at her.
“Sit down on the bed, darling,” she said softly.
Accustomed to taking orders, Daren’s body didn’t wait for his brain to catch up before it did as Rebecca wanted. The bed was large, taking up most of the space and leaving only just enough room for her to close the door behind her. Holding his gaze, she reached behind her and locked the door. His breath hitched at the sound.
“Why don’t you put that gun away?” she said.
He pulled the gun out from behind his back and put it on one of the inbuilt shelfs. With a hand on his chest, Rebecca gently pushed until he was flat on the bed. The mattress dented as she crawled up beside him.
“Are you normally so agreeable?” Rebecca asked.
“Guess so,” he mumbled as he watched her. He hadn’t really had any prolonged experience. Not nearly enough to know if there was any kind of pattern or habit that he liked. “You normally so direct?”
“Never.” He felt every second it took her to lean down and press her lips to his. “I really like the idea of taking care of you.”
Daren didn’t know what to say to that, but he doubted that she was waiting on a witty response. Her tongue slid across his as she stretched out alongside him. The entire side of his body flushed with the heat of her body, his skin tingling where her breast molded to the curve of his side.
Like he was something breakable, delicate, she trailed her fingers down the tendons of his neck. He didn’t try to stop her, and her touch grew bolder. Her whole hand followed the line of his collarbone, her fingertips sneaking under the material of his shirt. A moan rattled from him, and Rebecca swallowed it greedily. He reached for her and suddenly, she was gone.
Daren’s eyes snapped open. He lifted his head to find her kneeling by his hip, the smile on her face easing his worry that he had unknowingly crossed a line. Holding his gaze, she braced her hands on his hips and shifted to straddle his thighs. Her weight rested on his thighs, keeping him in place. His brain’s first thought was that he was trapped, his movements hindered. None of that mattered, however, since the sensation of her soft rear against his thighs efficiently melted his brain. His skin flushed under her touch as she slid her hands up his sides, his shirt riding up under the attention. He flinched.
“Something wrong, darling?”
“I just…” He didn’t know how to say it without sounding like an idiot. It was taking everything he had not to push her hands away when all he wanted was her hands on him. “I don’t look like Dwayne.”
“Good.” She beamed at him, a wicked glint in her eyes.
Her hands left his sides, and he instantly began berating himself for not leaving well enough alone. Soft and slender, her fingers curled around his wrists, the touch loose enough that he could break the contact at any moment.
“I’ve never really cared for a six pack,” she said as she pressed his wrists to the pillows on either side of his head.
“I bet,” he muttered.
She rose onto her knees, looming over him as she hungrily claimed his lips again. The touch was so sudden and tantalizing that his hips bucked. They didn’t find any contact as she leaned over him and pulled his wrists to his temples.
“I’m more of an arm girl,” she said before commanding him to lift his head.
He did as he was told, and she layered his hands behind his head. She took her time arranging his arms, studying the way each shift of position made his biceps bulge and swell. Leaning over him as she was, her shirt gaped, exposing a lush expanse of flesh and a hint of lace. Her touch stilled, and it hit Daren that he had been staring.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You can look,” Rebecca chuckled softly. “Did you like what you saw?”
She trailed her fingers over one of her breasts. Her shirt caught under the attention and flashed a little more skin. The small bud of her nipple hardened. Too much bl
ood rushed to his cock for him to form any kind of response. Rebecca didn’t wait for one. Instead, she turned her focus to one of his arms. The heat of her chest lingered on her fingertips as she traced the hills and valleys of his straining bicep.
“I like what I see,” she purred.
Like she was starving for just a taste of him, she draped over his chest and littered sucking kisses over his arm. Jolts shot through his body each time she suckled on the tender skin under his arm. She dragged her teeth over the curve of his muscle, a moan vibrating her lips. The combined sensations made his eyes roll and his hips twitch.
She was breathless when she spoke again, riled up just by touching him, tasting him. Pride swam through thick tendrils of lust that had filled Daren’s chest. He licked his suddenly dry lips and tried to pay attention to her actual words.
“You shouldn’t distract me like that.” She drew her weight back off of him. His spine bowed, trying to regain the contact. “It’s okay, darling. I’m not going anywhere.” Meeting his eyes, she gave his arms a firm squeeze. “These stay here.”
With that, she shuffled back down to straddle his thighs again. She held his eyes, as if challenging him to say something, and shoved the end of his shirt up until it bunched under his arms. Cold air rushed over his heated skin and made his stomach twitch. The first swipe of her tongue sent a spike of pleasure coursing through him. He ground his teeth but still couldn’t keep in the breathy curse.
Each slick, lingering kiss she placed on his skin stoked the fire in the pit of stomach. His head thumped back against his hands. He quickly forced it back up, trying not to miss a second of her exploration. It didn’t seem real unless he saw it. Her lips and tongue toyed with the edge of his waistband, the saliva left behind cooling in the air.
She worked her way across his stomach, over the tips of his hip bones, and lazily up his chest. Each time she looked up to meet his eyes, he had to clench the back of his skull to keep from reaching out for her. There was no way to tell how much time he had spent hovering in tortured delight, caught between too much and not enough. He came back to Earth when she twisted her hand in the bunched-up fabric of his shirt and tugged.
