Going Hard: Steele Ridge Series

by Kelsey Browning

“I’m not saying that. But the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you talk… It makes it clear you couldn’t shake the North Carolina dirt off your feet fast enough.”

  “I wanted something…”

  “Better?”

  “Different.”

  “And did you find it?”

  “You don’t care about that. What you really want to know is whether or not I beat the shit out of Madison Henry and dumped her on the side of the 405.”

  “I asked you to tell me last night, but you avoided the topic.”

  “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be accused of that kind of brutality?” He paced around the mostly empty room, stopping to stare blankly at the couch. “To have people—not just random people, but clients and friends—believe you’re capable of punching a woman in the stomach, in the kidneys, in the face?”

  “Why did she lie?”

  He swung around and pinned her with an intense look. “How do you know she did?”

  Because she was thinking rationally now. “Because although I was stupid enough to go out with an asshole like Roy Darden once, I don’t have a history of getting involved with abusive men.”

  Grif dropped down on the couch and leaned his head back. No way would she remind him that he’d wanted nothing to do with the piece of furniture. “I met her at a club called Fair Game. Pretty popular place with beautiful women, most of them sports groupies.”

  Carlie Beth held her breath, afraid to move or reach for her water for fear he’d stop talking. Shut her out.

  “So it’s not a place I normally pick up women.” His chuckle was low and rough, as though his vocal cords had been scuffed with a rasp. “Hell, I’m rarely the one doing the picking up.”

  Of course he wasn’t. A man who looked like him—slick, handsome, successful—would have women elbowing each other out of the way to get his attention.

  “But Madison was different. Cool and calm instead of eager. Once I found out her name, I understood. Since her family owns the Henry hotel empire, she wasn’t there looking for money or fame. The way she talked, I thought she was a true sports fan. You’d be surprised the number of people who don’t know a sweep from a bootleg. We talked all night and she never once looked around as if she was trying to scope out better prey.”

  “And you were flattered.”

  “She had me hooked. And before long, we were dating. Looking back, I saw how she made certain our pictures ended up on all the celebrity blogs and let everyone know we were exclusive.”

  “She was setting you up from the start.” And that must’ve eaten at him like acid afterward.

  “You know what they say about hindsight,” he said, his focus on the blank wall across from him. “Of course, I took her to parties at my clients’ houses and other events.”

  “Is that how she met Andre Campbell? Couldn’t she have gotten an introduction some other way?”

  When he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were bleak. “Of course, but then she wouldn’t have had a scapegoat, now, would she?”

  “How could she possibly know she’d need one?”

  “Apparently this wasn’t the first time she went looking for a guy to kick her around. The Henry family was able to keep it quiet for a long time, but she has a history of hooking up with abusive men. They say if there’s one victim and one abuser in a crowd of a thousand, they’ll find one another. She knew what Andre was. She wanted him, targeted him just like she did me.”

  Risking the ick factor, Carlie Beth lowered herself to the cushion beside him. “What bothers you more—that you didn’t see her for what she was or that your client was that kind of man?”

  “Both.”

  “Have you ever hit a woman or child, Grif?”

  “Goddammit, have you heard a word I’ve been saying?” He twisted and loomed over her, but she didn’t flinch.

  “Every single one.”

  “Then why would you…” Lowering his head, he bracketed his forehead between his fingers and thumb. “Because you were trying to prove a point. What are you really asking me?”

  “I have to know if you’re going to break my daughter’s heart because of me. Because you think I’m just like Madison Henry—a manipulative bitch.”

  18

  Although Grif was grateful that Carlie Beth believed him, believed he’d been a victim, regret and shame mixed into a toxic brew in his stomach. As much as he wanted to reassure her that he’d never do anything to hurt Aubrey, even he knew that was a hollow promise. No way in hell would he ever raise a violent hand, but it seemed that loving someone, being loved by someone, was a fast-track to hurting one another. His parents’ marriage was a testament to that.

  “Did you fuck me over fifteen years ago? Did you mean to get pregnant that night?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why would you think I’d blame Aubrey for something she had nothing to do with?”

  “Sometimes people do. And I can’t handle the thought of her becoming attached to you and then being hurt when you leave.”

  “Have I done something to make you think I play with people and then walk away? That’s not what I did with you, so if you’ve somehow rewritten history and made me out as the bad guy, you need to revise your notes.”

  “Aubrey’s whole world is right here in Steele Ridge. And you threatened to take her away.”

  “I was pissed off.” Unable to help himself, he reached out and twirled a section of her hair around his finger. The golden-red strands were soft and silky against his skin. The scent that rose up was obviously the same shampoo Aubrey used, but on Carlie Beth, the fruity fragrance seemed seductive. Seemed to beckon him to sin.

  With her.

  “As a parent, you can’t go off half-cocked. Throwing out ultimatums because you’re mad or hurt.”

  “I haven’t had a lot of practice,” he said mildly.

  “Don’t you dare turn this around on me. Aubrey needs to know who she can trust. Who she can count on.”

  His grip tightened slightly. “And you think she can’t count on me because I don’t live two blocks down the street from her? Here’s the deal…Right now I do live just a few blocks away. Why can’t that be enough?”

  “Because when you go back to LA, she’ll be devastated.” Carlie Beth jumped up from the couch, pulling her beautiful hair from his grasp. Her top teeth anchored her bottom lip, and she rubbed her hands down her thighs. Grif had a strange feeling they weren’t actually talking about their daughter anymore.

  Maybe the thing he’d been avoiding—his bone-deep attraction for this woman—was exactly what they needed to test out. Because the way things were now, they were constantly dancing around one another without a true understanding of where they stood. What they were to one another.

  And since Grif had no intention of being excluded from his daughter’s life a second time even though he knew squat about being a father, he needed to understand what he and Carlie Beth would be to one another.

  Friendly acquaintances?

  Occasional friends?

  Civil parents?

  Passionate lovers?

  His heart hitched at that thought.

  “I have no intention of abandoning anyone or breaking anyone’s heart.” Carlie Beth started to speak, but he held up a hand and continued. “I’m sorry I lost control the other day. I treated you like the enemy. I backed you into a corner, which meant you had no other move but to come out swinging. But it’s time for us to be on the same side.”

  “What if I’m not done fighting? If I’m not ready to forgive you?” Her pursed mouth was more challenge than he could resist.

  “I think you need to ask yourself why you’re really fighting,” he said softly as he stood and advanced on her. “Because you think I’m going to hurt Aubrey or because I’m a threat to you?”

  “This isn’t about you and me—”

  “Carlie Beth, I’d be lying if I said I knew what the future looks like. Right now, I can’t see past get
ting to know my daughter and getting this town back on its feet. But until I do both of those things to my satisfaction, I won’t be away from Steele Ridge for more than two weeks at a time. Because I’m a man not easily satisfied.”

  He was damn gratified to see her swallow, which shifted his attention to the pulse jumping in the hollow of her throat. Somehow, she’d caught a hint of his thoughts, knew exactly where this was going.

  Although he was still questioning his own sanity, with a slow deliberate movement, he slid a hand around the back of her neck under the heavy weight of her sexy hair and rested his thumb over that fluttering vein. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “If I accept your…your apology, will you stop touching me?”

  “You can’t deny the attraction between us.”

  “This isn’t why I came over here,” she said, her voice breathy. “Now that I understand what happened between you and Madison Henry, I can—”

  Stroke.

  Her skin—warm and supple—felt like heaven.

  “Are…are you listening to me?”

  Stroke.

  God, he wanted to put his mouth right there.

  “This isn’t about us. It’s about—”

  Yank.

  He pulled her to him and covered her mouth. And if he’d thought her skin felt like heaven, it was a pale comparison to her mouth. Hot, sweet temptation. She tasted of sweet cherry and something undefinable. He wanted to eat her up, just swallow her whole.

  But he didn’t want to go down this road alone.

  Sliding his tongue into her mouth, he angled his head for better access to her sweetness. Oh, yeah. Now they were getting somewhere because she was kissing him back, gliding her tongue along his.

  He grabbed her waist and went in deeper, as if he could get inside her body, her mind, her very soul, through this tangle of tongues. But his newly patched-up chin had other ideas, throbbing from the pressure, and he groaned. Five days he had to live with these damn stitches.

  Carlie Beth pushed against his shoulder. “Grif? This is hurting you, isn’t it?”

  What was hurting worse was the growing pressure below the waistband of his sweatpants. So instead of answering her, he just pressed a line of kisses along her jawline and up to her ear. With a flick of his tongue, he played with her lobe and felt her shudder. When he caught it between his teeth, she wasn’t pushing anymore, but was holding on to his shoulders as if she’d fall otherwise.

  But she was right. He wasn’t in any shape to do this up against a wall. He’d be damned if he would chance his legs giving out on him at a particularly critical time and landing them in a heap on the floor. So he released her ear and said, “Come to bed with me.”

  “This…I…We…shouldn’t.”

  “You said you believed me.”

  “And I do. But that doesn’t mean I’ll have sex with you.”

  He tilted her face up and looked into her soft brown eyes. She couldn’t deny she was turned on as hell because her pupils were blown and with every breath she took, her hard little nipples grazed his chest.

  “Are you seeing someone?” God, that possibility should’ve probably occurred to him after that run-in with Roy Darden. Grif’s body went into fight-or-flight overdrive with the need to whip the ass of any man standing between him and this woman.

  “No, but—”

  Relief and possessiveness crashed through him.

  “—it’s not that simple between us.”

  He took her hand, pressed a hot kiss to the center of her palm. “Right now, it’s about as simple as it gets. One man and one woman with the same need.”

  “With more to think about than themselves.”

  “Maybe that’s the exact reason we should do this.”

  A surprised laugh popped out of her. “What?”

  He trailed a fingertip over her cheek, under her bottom lip, down her chin, to the fragile bumps of her breastbone, revealed by the open collar of her shirt. “We need to figure out what’s between us. Because our lives are connected, will always be connected. When two people have a child together, their lives are forever intertwined.”

  “Aubrey will grow up.”

  “What about graduation? Wedding? Babies?”

  Carlie Beth’s hand went to her throat. “Did you really just make us grandparents?”

  Yeah, it would be pretty damn funny if it weren’t actually coming, sometime down the road. And to a man who hadn’t known he was a parent a few days ago. “The point is that I plan to be a part of Aubrey’s life from now on. You and I will inevitably see one another even after she’s a grown woman.”

  “And somehow that led you to the idea that we should have sex?”

  God, she made him smile. He eased her hand away from her throat and laced his fingers with hers. “Can you honestly tell me you don’t want me as much as I want you?”

  “I don’t…want…” But her tongue touched the corner of her lips, completely giving her away.

  “Oh, you want,” he said. “You just don’t think you should.”

  When she didn’t protest, he led her toward the door to his bedroom. Carlie Beth stepped inside the room and paused, taking in the big bed with new sheets and a particleboard table covered by a lamp and a stack of books. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested.” The words rushed out of her as if they had a life of their own.

  With a gentle tug, he drew her into his arms. “Shortcake, we’re both adults. You don’t have to rationalize this.”

  The breath she blew out skimmed over his biceps and heated the skin there. Somehow she made the most normal things sexy. “Weren’t we just fighting? And I don’t make a habit of this. It’s hard to have much of a love life when you’re a single parent.”

  “I would say I’m sorry, because you deserve someone to take care of you, but right now? I’m not sorry you don’t have a man in your bed.” He wanted to be the only man stretching out next to her, lying on top of her, pushing inside her.

  Sunlight flirted around the edges of the window shades, just enough to illuminate the room without flipping on the light switch. Perfect for making love.

  Perfect for making love with Carlie Beth.

  Grif framed her face with his hands and brushed her lips with his. Slow, easy, sweet. Because before he was done with her he’d also give her fast, hard, and dirty.

  19

  Her breath already short, Carlie Beth turned her face away from his kiss and blinked, trying to orient herself. She was actually in Grif Steele’s bedroom looking at what appeared to be a multi-thousand-dollar bed. But there was no tablecloth on the pressboard side table and no curtains softened the tall windows with waist-high sills and roll-down shades.

  And she was standing here thinking about sex. It wasn’t even noon and she was considering having sex with Grif. Seriously considering it.

  Was she crazy? Or just lonely? She was a thirty-four-year-old mom, but Grif made her feel like a teenage girl who’d been talked into the backseat of her prom date’s car. Breathless. Unsure. Giddy. Greedy.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I want you. But this is just between you and me. So if you’re trying to use sex to get what you want with Aub—”

  He cut her off with a kiss, completely carnal and slightly brutal. The combination pared her world down to one second. One man.

  Grif’s hands were suddenly busy working on her shirt buttons while he consumed her with his kiss. Before she knew what was what, he had her shirt off one arm and hanging around her other wrist and she realized she’d worn her most comfy undershirt—a white cami with a ripped hem and little stains where she’d spilled some ketchup.

  Oh, God.

  She sucked at seduction.

  Grif’s hands stilled. “You froze up on me. If you’re scared—”

  “No, I’m just horrible at this.”

  He slipped his hands around her waist, caressing the subtle curve there. “From my perspective, you’re damn good at it. But if it’s not what you want—
”

  “Where do the women you date in LA buy their underwear?”

  His eyes closed and his face took on a pained expression. “This is bad. Bad bed etiquette to talk about other women.”

  “Not if the woman brings up the topic.”

  “It’s especially bad then.”

  “Just answer the question. Where do they buy their bras and panties?”

  “I don’t usually ask.”

  “Probably at little boutiques with a single set hanging on each beautiful rack.” He snuffled at that, and she had to laugh as well. “Not that kind of rack. The underwear I’m wearing? I bought it at the local dollar store, and it was crammed between a hundred other pairs of plain cotton bras and panties.”

  “If it reassures you any, I’m mainly interested in what’s inside them.”

  But she still wondered if she was just someone to soothe his bruised ego. A diversion, someone to play with while he was getting back on his emotional feet.

  So what? You’re a grown-ass woman. Maybe he’s just someone for you to play with.

  Carlie Beth shook out her arms like a boxer and exhaled. “You’re right. Okay, I’m ready.”

  His laugh was sharp. “You look like you’re about to climb into a ring. I don’t want you to have to psych yourself out for this.”

  No, no, no. He couldn’t back off now. If he did, she’d be forced to go home and dig through the junk drawer for all her stray C batteries.

  She needed this.

  She deserved this.

  So she reached for his hand and placed it over her pounding heart. “I’m just out of practice.”

  That earned her a smile, a slow and seductive transformation of his face, making her heart sputter and stall. What would it feel like to be on the receiving end of that smile every day?

  Don’t do that. There are no expectations here.

  “Well, why don’t we see what we can do about that?”

  He might be fighting the fact that his hometown needed him, but at his very center, he was a giver, a caretaker, although he’d deny it if she said so aloud.

  He started to pull her toward him, but she went up on her toes and kissed him, pouring pieces of herself into it that she didn’t even know needed to be released. She slid her hands under his T-shirt, savoring the feel of his warm skin, the ridges of muscle, the soft line of hair below his navel.