Rowdy

by Jay Crownover

  He let go of one of my arms and reached up to snatch my glasses off, which made me blink up at him as he went a little fuzzy around the edges of my vision. He used the pad of his thumb to rub the high arch of my eyebrow and I thought I was going to melt into a puddle at his feet.

  “I beat the shit out of him. Cracked a couple of his ribs, fucked up his nose, and left him in miserable pile of broken and bloody despair. The thing is, he also happened to be the starting quarterback and all of that went down a few weeks before a major bowl game.”

  I gasped and his frown switched to a grin. I didn’t notice he had been walking us backward the entire time he was talking and now I was backed up against the kitchen counter. He grabbed me around the waist and hefted me up so that I was perched on the edge and made himself at home between my legs.

  “The school kept it quiet because he was getting ready to be drafted and they didn’t want him to lose his authority over the rest of the team by having to admit he got his ass kicked by a freshman. I lost the scholarship I got recruited with and was pretty much banned from playing football at any college level for the next couple of years. To me it was like getting a Get Out of Jail Free card. I didn’t want to be in Alabama. I didn’t want to see your sister ever again. And football was never really where my heart was at anyway. All of it felt like it was being forced and I was sick of all of it.”

  I was still trying to get my head around the fact that he had proposed to my sister and now he was telling me he had tried to kill her college boyfriend with his bare hands. None of that should be a turn-on. None of it should make it okay that his hands were running up the outside of my thighs and into the hem of my shorts where my legs were bracketing his lean hips, but even with all these new revelations I wasn’t inclined to make him stop.

  “You beat up some guy just because he was seeing Poppy? You were that jealous?” That didn’t ring as one hundred percent true considering Poppy had dated a lot in high school and it never seemed to bother him. It was hard to think because his hands had found their way around the back of my legs and were now cupping my ass as he pulled me closer to the edge of the counter. There was no missing that our proximity was having an effect on him as well. The hard ridge in the front of his pants was unmistakable and I wanted to rub against him. It felt wanton and kind of wrong now that I knew what had happened with him and my sister in my absence.

  “That’s also not my story to tell. I beat him up because he was a grade-A asshole and I never liked him. He was the kind of guy that made me know for sure football was never going to be what I wanted to do. I was jealous that she cared about him and not about me, but that didn’t have anything to do with why I kicked his ass. So there you have it, Salem. I’m running all the time because those memories hurt when they catch up to me and I’ve had enough hurt in my life.”

  I sucked in another breath and put my hands on his shoulders as one of his hands left my ass and danced along the inner curve of my thigh, where all the best parts of me and him were pressed intimately together. I felt him run his knuckle along the edge of my panties and couldn’t help but gulp a little bit. I needed to tell him to stop but I just couldn’t seem to find the words. “That’s why you’re running from the past. Why are you running from me?” I sounded husky and turned on. I really should develop some shame but he felt so good and those eyes were so clear and vivid I couldn’t look away.

  He chuckled a little and I could feel it everywhere we touched. His fingers were getting bolder and my desire to keep some kind of control of him—of the situation—was fading into nothing.

  “You always saw me, Salem. You understood me when I didn’t even get myself. You were my best friend and then you left. I can’t care about someone, attach myself to someone, when they’re just going to leave me in the end.” He breathed in and out in a heavy way and I couldn’t stop myself from finally putting my fingers on that unruly piece of hair hanging in his eyes. His next words twisted my heart so much that it ached. “Not after what happened to my mom.”

  I was going to tell him I was sorry. I never meant to just drop out of his life altogether, but I was young and finally free from my father’s reins, so I had gone a little crazy and lost some of myself. I needed him to know he had been my best friend as well. I wanted to tell him how he was the only good I could remember from growing up but his mouth moved from my temple to my lips and just rested there.

  He didn’t kiss me, didn’t breathe me in, didn’t tease me with his tongue. He just rested his lips against my own as we stayed pressed together in silence, tension thick and throbbing between us. I felt like I was stuck. Caught in some kind of slow-motion movie reel where every touch, every move he made was agonizingly deliberate and torturously drawn out. Those talented fingers of his were skating very close to the edge of where fabric and skin met underneath my clothes and he was no longer anywhere near my inner thigh but so much closer to places that were hot and damp. Places that were beginning to coil tight with want and need.

  “What about you, Salem? Did you think of me as a brother?”

  When he spoke I felt his words as they brushed across my mouth more than heard what he said. I gave my head a tight little shake and let my fingers curl into the strong cords at the base of his neck.

  “No. I thought you were a beautiful and sad little boy and then I thought you were a clever and talented teenager.” I gasped and let out a tiny shriek of surprise because there was no longer fabric between his questing fingers and my wet and eager flesh. “Now I think you’re a gorgeous and complicated man, but none of my feelings for you have ever been familial. I never considered you like a brother, Rowdy.”

  It was hard to get the words out, hard to breathe because he was touching me, stroking me from the inside out, and finally his mouth was rubbing achingly across my own. How was a girl supposed to have a single coherent thought when all of that was happening to her and the guy doing it looked and felt like Rowdy did? When he was the only bright spot in an otherwise cloudy childhood.

  “Tell me you’re here for me.” His voice was low and I could practically feel the intensity of his gaze and he shifted me a little so his fingers could move deeper, play harder with all the most sensitive female parts of my body.

  I didn’t want to tell him that. Even if it was the truth.

  He kissed me. Really kissed me. His lips and tongue taking no prisoners as his thumb landed on my clit and pressed down with enough force to make me jerk in his hold. I kissed him back helplessly, sat there and let him play with me and my body like I was powerless to stop it . . . because I was. His fingers circled inside of me, his touch just right as he continued to ravish my mouth.

  He pulled back and dropped a hard, biting kiss on my mouth. He leaned a little closer, his hand pressing in with him as he used the very tip of his tongue to touch the very center of my top lip and then he brushed a kiss across the ruby that sat right above my mouth. It made me shiver and had my nails digging hard into where I was holding on to him. I cried out and arched my back when he found that perfect spot, that magical place inside of me that not every man had found before. I saw a flash of white as he grinned at me and then it disappeared as he buried his face in the curve of my neck and started kissing and sucking along the taut flesh that was there.

  “Tell me, Salem. Tell me you came here for me.”

  I was so close, could feel pleasure and something more burning along all my nerve endings. I was squirming in his hands, my body was bowing and quaking against his, and I knew I was going to break apart at his touch any second now. My nipples were tight and aching. My skin was overly sensitized and everywhere he touched I felt it electric and sparking right where his hands were, not to mention he had honed in right on the coiled core of my desire.

  “Rowdy . . .” His name escaped on a strangled groan, as his teeth sank into the side of my neck where my pulse was thundering. The noises I was making told him exactly how his touch was affecting me, it was over and he knew it. I felt him growl
against my pulse, I felt his muscles go tense as my body broke and spasmed around his fingers. It didn’t just feel good and sexy-sweet, it shook me to my very core.

  I liked sex, and had never been scared to admit it, but I had never been touched, never had a man put his hands on me and have it feel like I was better for it at the end like he had just done. I felt like he was showing me something new, teaching me something I didn’t know about myself, and it left me stunned.

  Rowdy pushed back just enough so that we were staring at each other. He pulled his hand out of my shorts and rested it on the top of my bare thigh. We were both breathing hard and just watching each other. His eyes glowed and there was a grin and something else dancing across his face.

  “I came for you.” My voice squeaked out high and thready.

  He laughed, deep and rumbling. “I know. I was right there with you, but I still want you to tell me you’re here for me.”

  I pushed him back from me with a scowl and jumped off the counter. The way my chest pressed against his much harder one made my already excited nipples hurt with the need for attention.

  “Fine. I’m here in Denver for you. I met Phil a few years back and he had me spilling my guts to him while he tattooed me. He asked where I grew up and I told him Loveless, Texas. He had to have known you and I had a lot of history. He put the wheels in motion before he passed away but the truth is I came here for you.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else but the puppy, who had remained surprisingly quiet during all our commotion, came hurtling out of my bedroom with the remains of a tattered and slobbered-on high heel in his mouth. I sighed as he brought his prize over and dropped it at Rowdy’s booted feet with a proud “woof.”

  I grumbled, “Looks like he wants to play.”

  Rowdy chuckled and bent down to scratch the dog behind the ears. “So do I.”

  I couldn’t stop my gaze from rolling over the way his pants were straining in the front. I bit my lower lip and saw his gaze narrow in on the motion.

  Now that there was some space between us, I got my wits back and told him, “Look, I had no idea you asked Poppy to marry you. I have all these memories of how sweet you always were, how in sync we always were, and how you always made me happy. I decided to chase those old feelings down. I was always missing something no matter where I was at and I kind of felt like that something was you. I didn’t think it all the way through . . . I never do.”

  I shifted uneasily on my bare feet as he continued to watch me in silence. “I want you, Rowdy. You’re gorgeous and extremely talented, but I’m not going to share a guy with my sister. Not any guy, not ever.” I wondered if he even knew she had married someone else just a few short years after rejecting him.

  He lifted one of his golden eyebrows at me and rose back up to his full and impressive height.

  “Poppy isn’t here.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to get my head around the fact you asked her to marry you, Rowdy.” I looked at the little dog that had wiggled between us and plopped his fuzzy bottom on my feet. “I always thought it was just puppy love, not something real.”

  He rubbed one of his sideburns with his index finger and a boyish grin flirted with his mouth. He was a dangerous mix of the boy I remembered and the complicated man I was starting to get to know on a much different level.

  He put his finger under my chin and lifted my face back up so that we were looking at each other.

  “I haven’t done something real, Salem. I loved Poppy for a lot of reasons and I don’t know looking back on it now that any of them would have lasted or would make any kind of sense now. What I do know is that when I saw you that day you got hired at the shop, it was like walking face-first into a wall, and not only did my dick get hard just by looking at you but something in my chest felt like it broke loose. I don’t know if any of that is good or bad yet, but what I do know is that it feels pretty damn real. More real than anything I ever felt for your sister. I know it all feels less like something that’s going to be easy and a good time and more like something I have to work my way through. I also know feeling all of that scares the living shit out of me.”

  Well, it wasn’t exactly a sweeping declaration of love and they weren’t words that put all my apprehensions to rest, but there was no denying the magnetic, physical response that we most definitely brought out in each other. I just needed a minute to get my head and my heart on the same page and I told him as much.

  “I need to figure out how I feel about the fact you were willing to spend the rest of your life with my sister, Rowdy. Nothing has ever mattered enough for me to want to put it all together before. Normally I get bored and move on when things get difficult or complicated. Including my feelings. It’s easy to run away and much harder to stay.”

  His eyes darkened to a fathomless turquoise and he took a step back from me. “Already been in your rearview once, Salem. I have no intention of ending up there again.”

  I sighed and bent to pick up the dog when he whined up at me. I rubbed my face in his soft fur and looked at Rowdy over the top of Jimbo’s head.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He snorted and turned so that he was walking toward the door.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He nodded to where he had left the drawings on my counter. “Take a look at those and let me know what you think.”

  He had the door open when I called his name: “Rowdy.” He looked at me over his shoulder and I saw everything I wanted from him in that electric-hot gaze. “We started out as friends, maybe we should try that first and it’ll give you time to see I’m here to stay and give me some time to figure out if I can work through your history with Poppy in my head.”

  He considered me for a long, silent moment and all I could hear was Jimbo panting and my heart thundering. If he said no, if he told me he wasn’t interested in rekindling that easy camaraderie we had always had, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I needed to have him in my life but I needed a minute for clarity as well.

  “I have plenty of friends, Salem. I don’t want get any of them naked or take any of them to bed. We don’t need to try and be friends again—we always were. That never went away—you did. You started this game of chase, so when you figure your shit out let me know because I’m already caught.”

  The door closed behind him on that definitive note and I was left staring after it not sure what to say or how to feel.

  I was fine on my own. In fact I thrived and had made a pretty wonderful life for myself all on my own. I wasn’t the type of woman that ever felt like I needed a man to be complete or fulfilled, but staring at the closed door and having my body still burning and sensitive from his attention, I suddenly wanted to call him back and ask him to stay. He was messing not only with my feelings, but also with what I thought I had always known.

  I kissed Jimbo and set him down after collecting my destroyed shoe and walked over to the counter where Rowdy had left the images for me to look at. I spread them out and just stared at them in awe. He really was amazingly skilled. The sketches looked 3-D and so lifelike that I had to touch one to make sure it was just plain pencil on paper. People were going to lose their minds when I got the graphics put on cute little tank tops and fun T-shirts. The gypsy would look awesome on the back of an old-style mechanic’s jacket.

  I was designing stuff in my head, so it took a second to register as I stared at the girl’s lovely face that she looked familiar. I picked up the picture and held it closer to my face since Rowdy had snatched my glasses and I could hardly see.

  She had long, dark hair. She had endless midnight eyes. She had a heart-shaped mouth with just the hint of a smile on her face. She was lovely, soft and romantic-looking. She was the spitting image of me. The face, all the features, everything was me if I was a 1940s fortune-teller.

  I made a strangled noise low in my throat and let the picture fall from numb fingers. He was still mad at me,
holding on to a lot of anger and feeling abandoned from when I left all those years ago. With his history of love and loss I couldn’t blame him. He didn’t trust that I was here for the duration, that he was enough to keep me rooted in Denver. He was leery and kind of harsh, but even in all of that he still saw me as something so beautiful it almost hurt me to look at it.

  It made me want to cry, mostly because as much as I loved the picture, loved the way he viewed me, I couldn’t stop my very next thought from being, was that how he still saw Poppy as well?

  Crap. This game of catch was turning out to be way trickier than I had anticipated.

  CHAPTER 7

  Rowdy

  NOW THAT THE TABLES had turned and Salem was the one avoiding me, giving me sidelong looks and running the other way when I crowded her, I saw just how annoying and frustrating it must have been when I was the one doing it to her. I took every opportunity that presented itself to touch her, to be near her, to crowd her and press in on her. I was the one treating her like prey and she was looking back at me like a deer caught in the headlights with those deep, dark eyes.

  I knew something was going to have to happen one way or another between the two of us. Either she was going to get over all that nonsense in her head about Poppy and let me take her to bed, or she was going to decide it was all too much and not meant to be and cut and run like she apparently had been doing all her life. I wasn’t sure which outcome I was gunning for since both had pros and cons.

  On one hand I wanted to get naked with her, tangle myself all up with her in all the raunchiest and dirtiest ways I could think of, but I didn’t want to have sex with her and then have her pull up stakes and leave me hanging. I had a feeling if I ever ended up in bed with Salem, it would mean an end to my hit-it-and-quit bedroom habits. There was no quitting with her, not considering how strongly I still reacted to her after a decade of no contact between the two of us. As a result I think subconsciously I was pushing her, trying to make her run because I knew all along that’s what she was more than likely going to do. It was her pattern. I was just trying to speed the process up before I could get any more invested in her and the fact I wanted her so bad I could taste it. The thing was, no matter how hard I pushed her, how close I got to her physically, she never told me to back off. She just gave me a knowing look, like she knew all the plays before they were called out and already had a defensive strategy in mind to counteract them.