Bare Essentials

by Leslie Kelly Jill Shalvis

“You lead such an exciting life,” she said on a sigh. “Well…enjoy. Do you have any plans for the night? Maybe a hot date or something to go with that exciting life?”

  Cassie looked down at herself and laughed. “Yeah, hot date. Look at me.”

  “I am. You’re beautiful.”

  “Stacie, I am dressed like a potato sack. I haven’t combed my hair or put on any makeup.”

  “Really?”

  Cassie started to laugh then realized Stacie wasn’t. “Maybe you need glasses.”

  Stacie shook her head, looking suddenly sad. “I mean, I can see you’re not dressed for a photo shoot, as you usually are, but my God, most women would kill to like you do right now on their very best day.”

  From inside, Cassie’s phone rang. Stacie smiled again. “I’ll let you go. Maybe tomorrow we can catch lunch together or something.”

  “I…” She stared into Stacie’s hopeful face and let out a breath. “I’d like that,” she said, shocked to mean it.

  She thought about that as she went running for the portable phone, which she kept meaning to put back on its base after she used it but hadn’t managed yet. By the time she found the thing, under Miss Priss and her big butt, she was breathless. “Hello?”

  Dial tone.

  Well, damn she hated that. She set it down and told herself she’d just taken too long to get to the phone and whoever had been calling had gotten tired of waiting.

  Only no one ever called her but Kate, who would have called her on her cell phone, not Flo’s phone. She shook her head to clear it. She was not going to get paranoid.

  “Meow.”

  Cassie sank back to the couch, reached for the ice cream and found it nearly gone. Shocked she craned her head and stared at the cat, who had a fudge mustache. “You are a pig.”

  Miss Priss started the rumble thing again and shifted closer. Then closer still, until she was in Cassie’s lap. Only then did she close her eyes and drift off.

  Cassie stared down at the big, fat, lazy cat. “You’re shedding,” she said. “Ugh. Luckily I don’t care about these clothes.” Leaving the cat in her lap, she reached for the plate Stacie had just brought, feeling a stab of something that felt uncomfortably like a conscience.

  Stacie thought they were friends, and Cassie had never said otherwise.

  But what kind of a friend took, took, took and didn’t give anything in return? Couldn’t give anything in return?

  “I’m leaving in a month,” she told Miss Priss. “Stacie knows that. You know that.”

  Miss Priss opened her slitted green eyes and stared at her.

  “I am,” Cassie said firmly, but her fingers sank into the cat’s fur. “And you’re going to have to find another person to mooch off of.”

  The doorbell rang again, and Cassie dislodged the fat cat. Grabbing a fistful of white-chocolate macadamia cookies to die for, she walked back into the foyer, figuring Stacie had forgotten something. Maybe she had another high-calorie offering.

  She just wished she didn’t feel so…vulnerable. Inexplicably, she felt open in a way she didn’t usually allow, and for some reason, couldn’t seem to close herself off. A little shaky, needing to be alone to regroup, she stuffed a cookie into her mouth and reluctantly opened the door.

  Not Stacie.

  “Tag,” she said around a mouthful.

  “Me,” he agreed. He was holding up the doorjamb with his long, rangy body. His legs were casually crossed, his weight on his arm and shoulder, with his sunglasses hanging out the side of his mouth by an earpiece. Then he straightened to his full height, removed the sunglasses from his mouth and used it for his lethal weapon.

  A smile.

  Only this smile was different than any other one he’d ever given her. This smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and now that she was staring at him so closely, she could see the strain around his mouth, the tension in every muscle so unfairly and perfectly delineated in his damn sheriff’s uniform.

  And there she stood, holding a fistful of cookies, crumbs down the front of her— Oh, God. Forget the crumbs. Forget that her heart had stopped at just the sight of him. Forget that she could tell something was wrong. She was standing there in baggy, ugly clothes, with her hair piled on top of her head in a ponytail of all things, and not an ounce of makeup on her face.

  She felt naked. “This isn’t a good time,” she said, and started to shut the door on his face.

  He simply slapped his hand to the wood and held it open.

  “Go away.” God, her voice sounded small. She cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “I’m not in the mood for you.” She tried to push the door shut but he was still in her way. Refusing to humiliate herself in a battle of the muscles that she couldn’t possibly win, she glared at him. “Is there something wrong with your hearing?”

  “Not at all.” His gaze ran over her face and she wished to God she’d at least put on makeup. Without eyeliner and lipstick at the bare minimum, she knew she looked like death warmed over. And how pathetic was it she still had a grip on a handful of cookies, not to mention the fudge ice cream stain on one breast.

  “Cassie, I don’t want to force my way in.”

  “Good. Then go.”

  “Please. Please let me in.”

  That low, gravely voice had never failed to knock her knees together and now was no exception. It really ticked her off. “Do I have a choice?”

  “You always have a choice, damn it.”

  She closed her eyes and put her forehead to the wood.

  So light she was certain she imagined it, he ran his hand down her hair. “If it’s because you’re not dressed,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen you like this before.”

  “Don’t remind me.” When he reached out and tugged lightly on a wayward strand of hair, she rolled her eyes. “No one sees me without makeup.”

  “I like you without it. You seem different. Softer. Let me in, Cassie.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need to talk.”

  “About last night? I already said I was sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you, but I don’t feel like paying you back right now—”

  “Maybe another time,” he said very softly, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he sounded frustrated, as well, “we’ll talk about the fact that you will never, ever owe me for letting me touch you. But right now I want to talk about my father.”

  Everything within her went still and she slowly lifted her head, thinking she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Who?”

  “You know who. My father.”

  11

  “YOU MIGHT HAVE TOLD ME you knew him personally,” Tag said to Cassie. “Especially since I asked you.”

  She lifted a shoulder. He’d thrown her off, just as both Stacie and Miss Priss had. He stood there gazing at her from eyes filled with hurt and pain and anger.

  And it made her…ache. Damn it, she didn’t want to think about this. She cared about him, she did. But it was just the bottom-line basic kind of care. The way she cared about her dentist. Her personal trainer.

  Her gynecologist.

  Which didn’t explain why she felt the inexplicable need to make him understand her.

  “Hey.” He stepped closer. “You okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Cassie.” His eyes held so much. “Why didn’t you tell me my father was the one to hurt you that night?”

  He was putting her on the spot. No one put her on the spot. And suddenly she couldn’t remember why she’d wanted to spare his feelings. Why it mattered what he thought.

  She really needed a moment, to think, to regroup. To build defenses against all these damn strings on her heart. “So I knew him. So I’ve always known him. So what.”

  “So, you might have told me. Did you think I wouldn’t care? That I wouldn’t believe you? That I wouldn’t want to kill him?”

  This was definitely the last thing Cassie wanted to talk about tonight. She didn’t want to hear how he’d found out. She didn’t wan
t to know how it affected him. She didn’t want to do anything but polish off the last of her ice cream.

  Alone.

  But Tag was looking at her with an expression of sober fury bordering on fear, and she realized it was all for her. Whether she liked it or not, her past had come back to haunt not only her, but him. “He didn’t hurt me, Tag.”

  “Not physically, but you trusted him.”

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “Because of him.”

  “That would be flattering him.”

  “Cassie…” A disparaging sound escaped him. “My father and I aren’t close. We tolerate each other at best. You wouldn’t be hurting me to admit he should have paid for what happened that night.”

  “I’ve forgotten all about it.”

  “Really? Is that why you’re gripping the wood so hard your knuckles are white?”

  Thrown off, when she was never thrown off by a mere man, she turned her back and stalked through the house. Naturally he followed her, because he was a jerk, because he was an a—

  “Cassie.” He was right behind her, matching her stride for angry stride. “Stop. We have to talk about this.”

  She whirled on him at that, right there in the hallway. “Talk? About how your father thought I was as wild and fun and man-hungry as my mother? No.”

  “Cassie—”

  “Don’t you get it? He knew how I was. Let’s face it, Tag, everyone knew, so why should he have been any different? I came to terms with that a long time ago about this place.”

  “Then why did you come back?”

  “Well, there was that little matter of living on Lilac Hill,” she said sarcastically. “And let’s not forget, I couldn’t wait to drive my fancy car downtown just to show everyone.”

  “You’ve never mentioned that last thing on your list,” he said very quietly.

  “It wasn’t important.”

  “On the contrary, I think it’s the most important one.” He stepped closer, then closer still, so they were breathing each other’s air, their bodies just brushing. His hand came up, cupped her face, and his thumb traced her jaw in an aching tenderness that made her eyes burn.

  “You wanted to become someone,” he said. “You even made a note that it should have been number one on your list. What were you thinking when you wrote that, Cassie? That you didn’t matter? You did. That you weren’t important? You were. You are.”

  “Stop it.” She slapped his hand away. “We both know I wrote that list ten years ago. It doesn’t mean anything now.”

  “It does if you don’t believe it, that you are someone.”

  “Oh, yeah, look at me.” She lifted her hands and turned full circle, giving him a good look at the au naturel Cassie Tremaine Montgomery. “I’m someone all right.”

  He shook his head. “My God, you have no idea, do you? How beautiful you are on the inside, or,” he said, holding her arms when she would have fled, “on the outside. Cassie, you’re just one big fraud.”

  She struggled, but he held firm. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “No, I mean it.” He bent a little, to look right into her eyes. “You honestly believe it’s the makeup and the body that sets you apart. You know what else? You honestly think the only thing between us is physical.”

  “It is.”

  “I don’t mind you wearing me out trying to prove that fact, but one of these days you’ll have to face the truth. There’s more to us than sex.” He let go of her arms, holding her with his gaze.

  “No.” Unable to stand the empathy and compassion in his eyes, she covered hers. “Damn it, you really caught me at a bad time, Tag. Just go away, okay?”

  “I can’t. I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.”

  Shocked, she dropped her hands and stared at him, then let out a laugh. “That’s funny.”

  “Really? Why?” He snagged her hand, brought it to his mouth. “Because you think about me, too?”

  She would have yanked her hand away but he’d opened his mouth on it and was doing something to her finger with his tongue that made her unable to speak. Then he sucked her finger into his mouth.

  Her breath caught. “I…I think about a lot of people.”

  “Me?”

  Still watching her, he bit the pad of her finger, just lightly, but she felt it all the way to her toes. “Maybe occasionally.”

  His tongue swirled over the pad of her finger before working its way to the inside of her wrist. Her tummy danced. Her nipples beaded.

  “Do you want me, Cassie? Right this minute, do you want me?”

  She forced out a laugh even as she felt her body weeping for him. “Of course not. You barge in here, you—”

  “You’re such a bad liar.”

  Her mouth had been getting her into trouble since the day she’d figured out how to use it, and today was no exception. “Okay, you’re right,” she said sarcastically. “Oh, Tag, I want you. I want you to make love to me. All night long—”

  His mouth covered hers in a kiss that stole her breath. “I’m going to pretend you meant that,” he said when they came up for air.

  “You can pretend all you want,” she said, daring him, then remembered…daring Tag was not a good idea.

  With a triumphant glare of his eyes, he cupped the back of her head with one hand. The other traced a finger over her throat to right between her breasts. “Not aroused at all?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “And yet your nipples are begging for attention. My attention.”

  “Maybe I’m cold.”

  “Ah.” Nodding agreeably, he swept his big, warm hands down her back, then beneath the material of her too-large T-shirt, spreading them wide on her bare skin. “Let me warm you then, since you’re not aroused at all.”

  His warm, warm fingers lightly ran up and down, causing a shiver when they just skimmed the very sides of her breasts.

  “Better?”

  “Um…yes.” She cleared her throat. “Much better, thank you.”

  “You’re not turned on at all, right?”

  “Just still slightly chilled, that’s all.” But a delicious languid feeling had begun to overcome her, and damn if her hips didn’t want to arch to his. Just barely, she managed to contain herself, and bit her lip to keep any moans she might feel the urge to utter to herself.

  “What was that?” His mouth lightly brushed her ear, causing another shiver. “Was that a…moan?”

  She locked her knees together. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He cupped her bottom, then gripped her hips to his so that she could feel how hard he was, and he was gloriously hard. His mouth was still doing something mind-boggling to that sensitive spot just beneath her ear and she let her head fall back to give him better access.

  “Cassie?”

  “Hmm?”

  Now his hands slid beneath her sweats, and finding her without anything beneath, he groaned. “Warm yet?”

  “Getting there,” she murmured, loving the way his fingers cupped and held her butt so that the hardest, neediest part of him was gliding over the softest, neediest part of her.

  “But not turned on, right?”

  She’d planted her face in his throat so she could smell him better. Realizing she was nuzzling up to him, her eyes flew open. She stared at his tanned, sexy throat. “Uh…no.”

  He let go of her. Then suddenly her sweats were down around her calves. Before she could grab for them, Tag sank to his knees in front of her. Hands on her hips, he stroked his thumbs over the quivering skin of her belly, then lower. “I’m turned on by you,” he said hoarsely, putting his lips to the very top of one thigh. “So turned on I can think of nothing else.” Now his thumbs met and together they slid over her mound and slowly, slowly, spread her open to his gaze.

  She was drenched.

  He looked up into her eyes, his glittering with triumph. “Don’t worry, I’m not the kind of man to say I told you so.”

  “Bastard—” But the word backed
up in her throat when he leaned forward and licked her like a lollipop.

  “Oh, my…” that was all she managed to get out, sinking her fingers into his hair and holding on tight. It was that or fall.

  Then he opened his mouth and took her in with a sucking motion that rocked her world. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. She sure as hell couldn’t stand, so she crumpled to a boneless heap.

  He caught her. They rolled on the carpet like a couple of wrestlers, fighting for space, struggling to remove clothes, biting, kissing, swearing, laughing.

  And then he had her flat on her back, arms held over her head. His body, hard and satisfactorily naked, pressed into her. “Still want to fight?”

  Slowly she shook her head.

  “Want to give me a hint on what you do want to do?”

  “I saw a condom fall out of your pocket.”

  He had it on before she could say anything else. She had barely spread her thighs for him when an impossibly powerful thrust sank him inside her to the hilt.

  And then she was lost. She was always lost when she was with him, just as, when he stroked them to a simultaneous orgasm in less than five hard strokes, she was found.

  How devastating was that?

  * * *

  THEY SPENT the next few nights in the same manner, with Tag attempting to talk to her, Cassie resisting, distracting him with other things—namely her body—and both of them ending up wearing each other out every way but yesterday.

  Unfortunately, they couldn’t seem to stop. Cassie couldn’t seem to stop. The devastating tugs on the strings to her heart just kept getting stronger every single day.

  At least she was sure she hadn’t seen Pete again, but what she had seen was worse. In the grocery store, no less than four people she recognized but didn’t personally know smiled at her. Smiled. At the gas station, the mechanic came out and offered to pump her gas—and he didn’t want anything for it.

  Then she caved and, at Stacie’s insistence, went over there for dinner and found her child a messy, sticky delight. She actually got talked into bowling afterwards—bowling!—because Stacie had just joined a league. And then, because apparently a weekly bowling night complete with greasy fries and cherry sodas appealed to her in a way she hadn’t imagined, she joined the league, too.