by Stacy Gail
Obviously it had.
Her name was gone.
No. It was more than that.
She was gone.
She stared at his arm uncomprehendingly, concentrating on it so hard she forgot to breathe. Her name was really gone. As if it had never been. The tattoo that had obliterated it looked like it had been there a while, with no redness or swelling. It even looked a bit faded, as tattoos had a tendency to do when they had a few years on them.
Apparently he hadn’t wasted a single second before wiping her out of existence.
“So? What do you think?”
What did she think? She couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. Their tattoos had been created as a symbol of how much they had meant to each other before everything had gone to hell. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the tattoo on her back still held meaning for her. That was why she still had it—no matter how much she tried to harden her heart to the love she’d had for Coe, an echo of it remained, and that was why she still had his name on her body. But without a qualm he’d pulled the trigger on the tattoo that represented her, obliterating it as if it had meant nothing to him.
And there it was. If that didn’t explain it to her in no uncertain terms, nothing would. And she shouldn’t even be surprised, much less hurt.
Too bad hurt didn’t understand logic.
“Miranda?”
“Sorry.” Stuffing the ridiculous bruised feelings into the burgeoning file labeled The Past where it belonged, she dragged her eyes to his. Damn her stupid peripheral vision for pointing out the area where deltoid met biceps, the place that had once been decorated with her name. “What do I think of what?”
He spread his arms wide, showing off the breadth of shoulder worthy of a blacksmith of old. “It’s approximately fifteen-hundred square feet with one full bath. It’s not furnished except for the futon, but the kitchen appliances are included and up to Lucy’s standards, if that means anything. A stacked washer-dryer unit’s behind the folding door off the kitchen. If you want cable or a landline, that’s on your dime, but electric and utilities are thrown into the rent, which is about forty dollars less than what that idiocy expert, Kip Kippley, had the gall to demand for your trailer of doom.”
Her brain was such a screwed-up tangle she didn’t even realize her jaw was doing a slow swan dive. “How would you know what my rent—”
“Remember the errand I ran this morning? I went over to Garden Court’s front office and had a talk with Kippley.”
Her loose jaw tightened with a flash of irritation. Unless she was vastly wrong, that was her business, not his. “That was hardly necessary.”
“Oh, it was very necessary. Someone had to point out that if you didn’t get refunded the bulk of the first and last month’s rent, Chandler Thorne at the Herald was going to get an earful on how Kip tried to murder you via criminal negligence. I’m still going to report the CO detector incident to Sheriff Berry, and I hope you will too,” he added, while she tried to wrap her head around the enormity of his pronouncement. “That trailer’s unlivable, Miranda. You know it, and so do I. Someone has to go on record about how dangerous it is before Kippley rents it out to someone else, and as a result accidentally kills them.”
The very thought of another unsuspecting person falling into that trap chilled her blood, but at the moment she had other fish to fry. “So you’re saying...” She put a hand to her forehead to hold her spinning brain in place. It didn’t help. “Setting aside the extraordinary high-handedness of your actions, are you saying you’d be willing to rent this loft space out to me for the time that I’m in town?”
“Close, but not quite.” He closed the distance between them and pressed the keys into her hand before she knew what his intentions were. “I’m saying I’ve already rented it to you.”
At first she thought she’d misheard him. But the keys biting into her palm told her otherwise. “What?”
He grinned at her surprise. “Say hello to your new landlord.”
“Wait.” She wasn’t going to lie. It was a knee-weakening relief to not have to choose between being homeless and suffocating in her sleep. And it was downright miraculous to have the solution to where she could stay fall magically into her lap. But no woman with a spine would just let anyone manage her life without at least a token pushback. “Considering I haven’t agreed to anything, much less paid for anything, I’m pretty sure I haven’t rented this place.”
“I’m keeping the refunded money Kippley coughed up as this month’s rent on the loft. It also happens to be more than enough to cover the costs of the repairs on your car.” He tilted his head. “I don’t see a problem here.”
He wouldn’t. He had a business he loved, a solid place in the world and had wiped her name off his body like she was nothing. He had control of his life. She, on the other hand, had an embarrassing lack of it. “Contrary to what I’m sure you probably think of me at this point, I’m not helpless, Coe. I really am capable of making decisions on my own. I’m grateful for the offer of this loft, I swear, but I need to consider all my options.” Yes, absolutely. All those options that didn’t exist needed her deep and profound consideration.
He sighed. “You don’t have to turn everything into a fight, you know.”
“I don’t do that.” Which sounded like the start of another fight.
“Let me count the ways on how you do that. You’re sitting on an insane amount of money that you refuse to touch out of a sense of righteous outrage and, as far as I can tell, sheer stubbornness,” he said, talking loudly over her until she had no choice to but to give up in a huff. “You’ve consigned yourself to the most squalid hovel in the worst part of town, rather than accept a single dime of the money your father put aside so you could pull off this crazy obstacle course he set up for you in his will. I have a newly vacated place for you to live. It’s a place you can afford, a place that you won’t be terminally allergic to, and I can guarantee you won’t have to worry about dying in your sleep. Yet now you’re digging in your heels and talking about options. Why would you fight this? What is it that you want?”
“I want you to get your life back.” The words gushed out before she could slam a precautionary censor on it. But it was the truth. She couldn’t erase the past the way he had erased her from his body, but by God she’d get back all the things he’d lost if it was the last thing she did. “I haven’t been able to get my own life back together, because I’m so insanely obsessed with finding a way to give back to you all that you lost. I can’t focus on anything else. I keep thinking that if I can just make sure you get what you deserve, I’m the one who’ll get the chance to finally move on. I can leave all of it behind me—you, this town, the shame I feel over being a Brookhaven—all of it. I’ll be able to get on with what my life should have been before it got so wrecked.”
His dark brows drew together. “Can’t you do that anyway? Just let it go.”
“It’s not that simple. It’s crushing me, don’t you see? I’ve been dying by inches under this horrible weight for years, and I feel that I’ll lose my mind if I don’t get out from under it. That’s why I can’t accept even a bottle of milk from you, Coe. To accept anything from the one person from whom my family has already taken so much...it only adds to the weight that’s smothering me,” she said, trying not to cringe at how appalled he looked. But she was done with hiding how messed up she was beneath a mantle of pride. “Please, just...help me, okay? Help me give back to you everything you lost, because once you get that back, I can finally be free of all of it.”
“Miranda.” To her surprise he made a helpless gesture, when she would have bet her newly fixed car that Coe Rodas had never experienced a helpless moment in his adult life. Then, while she wrestled with that shock, he reached out and pulled her into his arms.
Chapter Eleven
The world screeche
d to a standstill for Miranda. She stood motionless as he engulfed her in a fierce yet surprisingly gentle embrace. One arm locked around her lower back, a hand coming to curl around her rib cage just below the underside of her breast. The other arm pressed against her upper back, pushing her against the cinderblock-like solidity of his chest while his fingers dived into her hair to cradle the back of her head.
It was like being hugged by a gladiator trying to get in touch with his softer, more cuddly side.
“Ah.” Flustered bewilderment held her still for two full heartbeats—she could feel the forceful hammer of them against his chest—before she tried to pull away. No dice. She wasn’t going anywhere until he was good and ready to let that happen. “I hope I don’t sound like I’m being deliberately obtuse, but...what are you doing?”
“Three. Four. Five...”
What the hell? “Coe?” Awkwardly she shifted, refusing to give into the urge to put her arms around him. That was one slippery slope she’d already wiped out on. “Um...Why are you hugging me?”
“Nine. Ten. Eleven...”
“And counting.” If he laughed like Count Von Count, she’d freaking lose it. “You’re hugging me and counting out loud. Yeah, that’s not weird.” She kept her mouth running because a terrible thing was happening—her bones were liquefying as awareness at how her breasts flattened against his rib cage pushed to the fore. She had to get out of this, fast. “I suppose you have a reason for doing this?”
His arms squeezed in affirmation that he heard her. The move brought her closer still, giving the totally unrealistic impression she was somehow precious to him. “Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen...”
Her confusion increased, but his warmth and the secure cage of his arms slowly seeped into every corner of her mind. She felt safe in a way that she’d forgotten existed, as if no part of the world could reach her through the cradle of his arms. It was insane to feel so utterly protected in the arms of the enemy, but she did. Every cell in her body shuddered in relief as her defenses relaxed and serenity flowed in like a silent miracle. She was tired, so damn tired, of always being on guard.
“Nineteen...”
On their own volition, her arms crept around his waist to meet behind his back. Clutching, not just resting. Locking them together like two puzzle pieces meant to create a solid whole. Her eyes drifted shut, and she tucked her face against the warm curve of his neck while the little voice in her head whispered feebly for her to snap out of it. She didn’t want to snap out of it. She’d been on full alert for so long, the universe owed her a couple of stolen moments where she was free enough to just. Freaking. Breathe.
“Twenty.” The long fingers in her hair tightened imperceptibly, his palm cupping the back of her head as if he wanted to somehow fuse them together through the gentle pressure. His cheek nuzzled her hair, almost as if he enjoyed the sensation of holding her as much as she enjoyed being held. Which was impossible. Even when they’d been dating, closeness or intimacy that wasn’t sex-related had never been high on Coe’s list of priorities.
But still...
“I’ll be damned.” His murmur rumbled beneath her ear, a sound more felt than heard. For some unfathomable reason, it made her smile. “It really works.”
Opening her eyes seemed a ridiculously difficult task. “What works?”
“The twenty-second hug.”
That explained the counting, but not much else. “What’s the twenty-second hug supposed to accomplish?”
“Lucy once told me it’s supposed to trigger something, like world peace or...I don’t know. Something important.” He altered the angle of her head, and some brainless part of her fluttered like a smitten idiot at the feel of his lips brushing her hair. “At the time I didn’t pay much attention, since I thought it was a bunch of bullshit. But it works, doesn’t it? The thing it triggers, whatever it is. It feels important.”
“Yes, it does.” In fact, it felt more important than her next breath. It was an illusion, obviously, but there was no harm in pretending she was cared for. Just as long as she remembered that all illusions shattered, she could enjoy these few moments for what they were.
“Here’s the thing. Lucy never told me how to end a twenty-second hug.” His thigh brushed hers. It was too slow and drawn out to be anything but deliberate, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself it was incidental. The friction of it had enough electricity in it to keep the lights burning in all of Bitterthorn for a week. “Any ideas?”
With all that thigh rubbing, she had a veritable cornucopia of ideas, none of them G-rated. “Fresh out.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Somehow she doubted that. “I do know that all good things must come to an end.”
His arms tightened. For one delusional second she could almost believe he worried she’d slip from his grasp then and there. “You do realize you just called this a good thing, right?”
Whoops. “So I did.”
“You’re right. This is a good thing. Very good.”
When his fingers tightened on her hair to lift her face from its hiding place against his neck, she knew he was going to kiss her. She could feel it in the tension in his muscles, see the intent of it smoldering in his eyes. She no longer knew whether this was a continuation on the punishment theme they seemed to have going on, or something more. All she knew was that she was bowled over by her own eagerness to get his lips on hers, as if his kiss was what her body required in order to continue to function properly.
No, she realized. This no longer had anything to do with punishment, at least on her part. She wanted this.
But even that wasn’t completely accurate.
She wanted Coe.
The unveiling of a truth buried so deeply that not even she knew it was there had a galvanic effect. Raw hunger ripped her idea of who she was apart. In its place bloomed a greedy desperation to devour and be devoured, until it was the only thing that kept her world spinning. It pulled her up on her tiptoes so she could greet the pressure of his mouth head-on, plunging herself into physical sensation with the same uninhibited daring of a cliff diver taking a header into what could be rocks. It didn’t matter that it might kill her. The thrill was too seductive to resist.
A shudder rippled through his large frame, and some innate feminine instinct told her that whatever restraint had held him in check just snapped. A jagged sound escaped him—harsh to the point of tortured, as if the need inside him had claws and teeth and was shredding him alive to get out. The arms that held her tightened until she could barely breathe, and the thrust of his tongue against hers held the flavor of desperation rather than seduction. He hungered for her in a way that she’d never felt before; whether or not they had forgiven each other for past hurts was irrelevant if only for the moment. No matter what Coe might think about her with a clear and calm mind, she had no doubt that at this moment he wanted her with a passion that bordered on madness.
She was fine with that.
It took her a while to realize her feet were no longer touching the floor. With her mouth never leaving his, she lifted a leg to stroke along the outside of his thigh. She felt the catch in his breath as much as heard it, before he hitched her up higher until the bulge behind his zipper pressed at the juncture of her thighs. With her eyes closed—when she had closed them?—she had the sensation of movement, heard the echo of his footsteps on the wooden floorboards. Her other senses heightened, dedicating themselves to the scent and taste and feel of him.
And what her senses told her was that Coe the man was even more phenomenal than the boy she’d known.
Excellent.
His trapezoid muscles between neck and shoulders beneath her arms bunched with rock solid power as he rubbed her against him. Her fingers got lost in the waving length of his hair while their tongues dueled and teased. The channel between her legs grew slick with wet
heat as he worked his stiffened flesh against her, the barriers of their clothing both a tool to build anticipation and a torment to endure. But when she felt herself begin to fall back in slow motion, she couldn’t help but gasp and look around.
“Whoa.” The breath-starved sound escaped her as she darted a glance over her shoulder in time to see him shove a booted foot at the futon to unroll it. “I thought I was falling.”
“Not while I’m here.” He set her down, her back sinking into the cushion. But all she could see was Coe’s dark eyes, locked so completely with her it seemed like a matter of life and death if he ever looked away. “I’ve got you.”
He hadn’t been there to catch her from falling for him the first time around, came the response so clearly she was half convinced she’d said it out loud. But that was okay. All that falling for him garbage was in the past. History wasn’t going to repeat itself. She was older now, and so much wiser. Romance didn’t blossom like magic flowers in every kiss, and sex wasn’t the dewy-eyed expression of everlasting love. It was a primitive drive to mate, pragmatically imprinted in the DNA. It was lust, a raw, animalistic imperative to screw one’s brains out. No illusions. No lies. No disappointment. No future.
No problem.
Her shoes tumbled to the floor, and she toed her socks off as he made quick work of the fastenings of their jeans. She was happy to help slide them off along with her underwear, and even happier when the motion rubbed her pelvis against his hard flesh. She did it again with uncharacteristic boldness, and wanted to laugh out loud at the near agonized sound that was ripped out of him.
“Damn it.” He bared his teeth in a grimace when she tried to rub his arousal a third time, drunk on the feminine power of making a strong man tremble. But this time she came up empty as he pushed a hand against her belly to keep her down. The only consolation prize he gave her was that he couldn’t seem to find the will to stop himself from undulating his hips against her.
