So, of course, he kept on reading.
At first, he only holds my breasts in his hands, gently kneading them, dragging his thumbs over their tops, then tracing the bottom curves. When he rolls my nipples with his fingers, I feel heat explode in my belly. He dips his head to my neck and brushes his lips along my shoulder, then one hand leaves a breast to move between my legs. I open them wider so that he can touch me there, and he strokes my damp flesh with his long middle finger. I spread my legs more, and he covers me with his hand, caressing me, stroking me, fingering me until I shatter inside.
Cole reached blindly for his brandy—for some reason, he really needed a drink—and nearly knocked it off the desk before snagging it with shaky fingers. Damn. His hostess sure knew how to warm up a snowy winter day. He told himself he really should stop reading and go to bed. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway. He wanted to see how this turned out.
How it turned out was that she spent another page and a half describing how her lover washed every inch of her body, then another page on how he dried her off—and that guy did things with the loofah and towel in the process that Cole was pretty sure loofahs and towels had never been designed to do. Not that he didn’t give the invisible lover points for inventiveness. Eventually, though, the action moved into the bedroom, where things really started heating up.
He’s standing behind me, she wrote. I feel his cock long and hard against my back. He guides me to the bed and tells me he wants me on my hands and knees. I do what he says. He tells me to lower my shoulders to the mattress. I obey him. He tells me to spread my legs. I do that, too. He tells me to spread them wider. I spread them as wide as I can. Then he’s lying on his back beneath me with his head between my legs. His hands hold my hips in place while he lifts his mouth to lick me. As he tastes me there, slowly, deeply, methodically, his fingers venture into the cleft of my derriere and begin to pull me open and stroke me there. Then one finger pushes inside behind me as his tongue moves deeper into my damp flesh…
On and on, she wrote about her lover’s oral and digital skills, until she was coming apart again, and Cole was thinking he was probably going to have to check out his hostess’s pay-per-view selections later. That probably became a hell, yes over the next few pages, because she and her imaginary lover did things for and to each other on that bed that would have them both walking funny for days afterward.
Man, oh, man, he thought when the passage finally—finally—came to an end. Never had she written anything like that in her journal before.
Then he remembered that he’d been reading her journal backwards. So it was really that she hadn’t written anything like that after this particular passage. Meaning she might very well have written something like that before. Considering the comfortableness she’d exhibited with the subject matter, chances were good that she’d written something like that before. Maybe lots of times before. Just how far back did this journal go, anyway?
He actually moved his hand to the mouse to start scrolling backward and had to stop himself from completing the action. Not tonight, he told himself. No more tonight. No man had that kind of stamina. Except, of course, for Delilah’s imaginary lover.
Later, he told himself as he closed the file and powered down the computer. He could read more of Delilah’s, ah, exploits another day. Another night. Another day and night. What he needed now was sleep. Okay, a cold shower, and then sleep. And then maybe, with luck, a dream or two about a beautiful woman in lavender lace lingerie…
Ten
BREE TURNED THE KEY IN HER IGNITION FOR A fourth time, listened to the engine of the dilapidated Honda grind ineffectively—for a fourth time—and pressed her forehead to the steering wheel.
“Dammit,” she said eloquently.
“Let me take a look under the hood,” Rufus said, striding to the front of the little red car.
When no one else had been ready to head out to the parking garage that night, Bree had had no choice but to ask Rufus to do the honors, a request she hated to make. Not just because she didn’t want to have to rely on the guy for anything, but she didn’t want to encourage him in his romantic pursuit of her. That sounded so incredibly egotistical, she knew, but Rufus had made no secret about his feelings for her, so there was no ego involved—only fact. She just didn’t want to do anything that might give the guy false hope when she just wasn’t interested. So she tried to avoid him whenever she could, even when they had to work shoulder to shoulder.
Especially when they had to work shoulder to shoulder.
Because, too often, that was a literal state. And whenever Bree’s shoulder brushed Rufus’s—or whenever her elbow rubbed his, or their hips bumped or any other body parts came into contact, however inadvertently—she was all too aware of him. And aware was a condition she couldn’t afford around Rufus. Too often, awareness led to other -nesses that Bree didn’t want to feel around Rufus. Like attractiveness. And warmness. And keenness. And fondness. She totally couldn’t afford any fondness for the guy.
The guy who was bent over her engine right now, trying to fix her car for her. The guy who always walked her out to the parking garage so she wouldn’t be accosted by any creeps. The guy who’d given her a ride home one night when Lulu couldn’t make it. The guy who, at the last employee Christmas party, put a notice up in the break room saying he’d give twenty bucks to trade with whoever picked Bree’s name in the Secret Santa, then, when everyone was supposed to bring a gag gift that cost five dollars, gave her a dozen roses instead.
No way did she want to feel fondness for a guy like that. Because that way lay another -ness: madness.
Rufus really was a good guy. But he was a poor guy. And he would always be poor. Not because he couldn’t make a decent living if he wanted to, but because he didn’t mind not having money. It was almost like he didn’t even want money. And that, Bree thought, that was just wrong.
“Try it again,” he told her.
She turned the key in the ignition a fifth time, but this time, the engine didn’t even grind. This time, there was just a disconsolate click.
“Do you have Triple A?” he called from behind the open hood.
“No.” For the seventy-five dollar annual fee, she’d figured she could get a week’s worth of groceries. At the time, it had been a no-brainer. Now, though…
Rufus dropped the hood with a loud clang and came back to the driver’s side window brushing his palms together to get rid of the grime. “I know a guy who’s good with cars. He can probably look at it tomorrow and he won’t charge you anything.”
Probably, Bree couldn’t help thinking, because Rufus would tell the guy to send him the bill instead. So she’d have to find some other way to repay him. Some way that didn’t involve doing anything personal that might make him think she cared about him. Which she didn’t. Maybe she could get him a gift card for someplace. Someplace impersonal. Like Kroger.
Bree eyed him hopefully. “Can’t you call the guy now?”
Rufus arched his dark brows in surprise. “At two A.M.?”
She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “You and I are still awake.”
He smiled. “You and I work nights.” He leaned toward the window, propping an arm on the roof of the car. “This may come as a shock to you, Bree, but some people don’t work nights. Some people use nights for sleeping.”
There was something in his eyes that told her he was thinking about something else people used nights for, but he didn’t put voice to it. He didn’t have to. And, anyway, Rufus didn’t do stuff like that. Unlike most guys, he didn’t use every opportunity for sexual innuendo to say something suggestive. He was too good a guy for that.
She sighed fitfully. As much as she hated to, she was going to have to ask Rufus for a ride home. She steeled herself for the dizzying sensation that always overcame her whenever she looked him in the eye and met his gaze. Damn. Steeling herself never worked. She still always felt herself drowning in the dark espresso depths of his
eyes. There wasn’t a man on earth who had more beautiful eyes than Rufus Detweiler. Hell, she doubted there was a woman on earth who had more beautiful eyes than Rufus.
She inhaled a fortifying breath, but all that did was remind her of how good he smelled. How anyone could walk away from working a shift behind a bar and not smell like, at best, rank crème de menthe and, at worst, bar slime, was beyond her. Bree just hoped he wasn’t close enough to her to notice the half bottle of Cutty Sark she’d spilled down her front tonight.
“Rufus,” she said softly, “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for—”
“It would be my pleasure to give you a ride home,” he told her before she even had the chance to finish asking.
She smiled, though not too brightly. She didn’t want to give him any ideas. “Thanks,” she said. She started to say, I’ll make it up to you, but thought better of it and instead told him, “I appreciate it.” She’d tuck a bottle of Grey Goose with a thank-you note into his backpack tomorrow when he wasn’t looking. That should take care of the debt.
His old Jeep Wagoneer, complete with fake wood paneling, was parked three spaces away, and he had to unlock the door the old-fashioned way, by inserting the key into the lock, before opening the passenger side door for her.
“Buckle up,” he said with a grin as he closed it behind her.
As she watched him stride around the front of the truck to the driver’s side, she could have sworn he mouthed the words precious cargo to himself as he went. She told herself she should feel indignant at being considered cargo. Instead, the words sent a warm thrill of happiness through her.
Oh, damn. That was one of those -nesses she’d been trying to avoid. There would be no thrills of happiness around Rufus.
The two of them chatted amiably on the drive to her apartment about the evening’s events, laughing over one especially obnoxious patron. Rufus didn’t ask where she lived, obviously remembering from the other time he gave her a lift, but he took a different route from the one she had navigated for him last time. Instead of taking Broadway to Bardstown Road, which would have been the more direct, but less interesting route, he turned down Baxter and drove the more scenic way, making the approach to her intersection via the side street instead of the main thoroughfare. Bree wasn’t sure if it was because he was just that familiar with the Highlands and knew to go that way, or if he’d learned more about her neighborhood after finding out where she lived. She decided not to think about it. For all she knew, he lived in the Highlands, too. She’d never asked.
“So where do you live?” she said as he braked for a stop sign a block shy of her building. Damn. That was nosiness. Another -ness she didn’t need to be feeling around Rufus.
“Crescent Hill,” he told her.
“Oh, I love Crescent Hill,” she said anyway. She smiled. “They got some good eatin’ there on Frankfort Avenue.”
“Oh, yeah, and there’s such a dearth of good restaurants in your neighborhood.”
“I know,” she said with mock disappointment. “You could eat four-star cuisine every night around here. Gets boring after awhile.”
He looked over at her, but in the darkness, she couldn’t make out his expression. “Some kept woman you’re going to be, complaining about four-star cuisine.”
Something about the way he said kept woman sent another one of those ripples of gladness—damn those -nesses, anyway—down her spine. Heat exploded in her belly and seeped outward, pooling in places she’d just as soon not have heat gathering while she was in a darkened car on a deserted side street with a man like Rufus sitting next to her.
“Well, it’s just that I’ll expect my Sugar Daddy to take me to five-star restaurants every night, that’s all,” she told him. But the words came out a little too cursory, a little too quiet, and a little too uncaring.
Dammit. This was another reason she avoided Rufus. Whenever she tried to emphasize how important it was for her to live the lifestyle of the fabulously rich and unbelievably famous, she never sounded emphatic at all.
“You can just drop me here,” she said as he halted the truck for a stop sign, reaching for the seat belt and the door handle at the same time. “This time of night, you won’t find anyplace to park. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure about that?” he asked.
There was something in his voice that made her look up, and she saw a trio of young men standing in a shadow not ten feet from the side entrance of the building she had to use to get to her apartment over Deke’s. All of them were holding skateboards, one was smoking, two held bottles obscured by brown paper bags, and all were murmuring low. Bree’s neighborhood wasn’t a dangerous one, but episodes of mischief and petty crime weren’t unheard of. Episodes of worse crimes, though infrequent, weren’t unheard of, either. Probably, it was nothing but a few kids taking a break before going back to their shredding. Whatever the hell that was. Probably, they were talking about some new song one of them had downloaded off iTunes by a band Bree had never heard of. Probably, she’d be just fine if Rufus dropped her here at the corner and drove off the way she told him to.
Probably.
“I’ll find a place to park and walk you up,” he said.
“Rufus, it’s not necess—”
“It’s no trouble.”
“You can just watch from the car to make sure I get in all ri—”
But he’d already turned onto Bardstown Road and was cruising for a parking spot. Just as Bree had predicted, however, between the residences on the side streets and the bars on the main drag that were almost as busy on Thursday nights as they were on Fridays, he had to drive four blocks before finding a space big enough for his Wagoneer. She slung open her door and climbed out before he had a chance to make it around the truck and open it for her—a girl could only take so much courtesy and respect—but as they made their way down the sidewalk, Rufus moved to the outside, putting himself between her and the curb.
Jeez, the guy was too good to be true.
It was a balmy evening, with a breeze playful enough to dance in Bree’s hair, so a handful of revelers had spilled out of the bars and restaurants and coffee shops and onto the street. Music tumbled from nearly every establishment they passed, along with sultry laughter and snippets of incomplete conversation. Countless neon lights and illuminated storefront signs bathed them in first red, blue, then green as they went by, then the rainbow started all over again. Neither said a word as they walked, but somehow, the silence was in no way awkward. She and Rufus might as well have taken this walk every evening, so comfortable was his presence now.
She was even more grateful for it when they rounded the corner of her building and the three boys’ heads snapped up almost predatorily. When they saw Rufus, however, they only nodded, greeted him with varying versions of “Dude,” and continued with their chat. Bree wasn’t offended that the trio summarily ignored her, but something about their lack of acknowledgment also gave her the creeps.
Rufus must have felt a little uneasy himself, because although he nodded in response to the boys, he also opened his palm over the small of her back in a way that was clearly meant to look proprietary. She told herself it should feel proprietary, too, but what it actually felt was kind of comforting. And when he said resolutely, “I’ll walk you up,” instead of telling him it wasn’t necessary, she instead nodded and murmured a quiet “Thanks.”
He moved between her and the boys as she unlocked the exterior door, then he followed her up the stairs to a landing that opened onto two separate apartments. The one across from Bree’s was vacant at the moment, a fact that didn’t exactly lend itself to a feeling of safety. So after unlocking and opening her front door, she turned to Rufus and said, “You want to come in for a little while?” Hastily, lest he misunderstand—since why else would she prolong her time with Rufus unless it was because she felt unsafe with restless youth downstairs?—she added, “Just until the guys downstairs take off?”
He grinned, but there was nothing s
mug or triumphant in it. There was only good guy-ness in it. And suddenly, her stomach was filled with butterflies. And not the pastoral, pastel, prancing-about-the-meadow kind, either. These were the giant, ruthless, predatory kind that lived on the Amazon and carried off Yanomamo children. She’d seen them on the Discovery Channel and knew that was without question what had taken up residence in her midsection.
“Sure,” he told her. “No problem.”
“Or until Lulu gets home,” she said, recalling that her temporary roommate had been dragged to a gallery showing for one of her artsy friends—a showing that would doubtless run ’til dawn, knowing said artsy friend. Not that Lulu would stay for the whole thing. She never did. In fact, it was odd that she’d stayed out this late. “She should be back anytime now,” Bree added.
“Why is Lulu staying with you? Is she having problems at home with Mom and Dad?” he asked, his grin broadening. And just like that, the giant butterflies in Bree’s belly started doing a raucous mambo.
“No,” she said, trying to ignore the flutters. “She rented her house out for Derby and can’t go home until next Sunday, so she’s bunking here.”
“Ah. I’ve heard about people doing that. I can’t imagine letting some stranger live in my place, though.”
Not that any Derby visitor would want to rent Rufus’s place, Bree thought. Not that she had a clue what his place was like, other than it being in Crescent Hill. But she could imagine. Any guy whose life ambition was to tend bar probably wasn’t real big on amenities. Or luxuries. Or furniture. Or ownership, for that matter. Considering he had the same source of income she had, he couldn’t afford to own anything. Certainly not in Crescent Hill, unless the place was falling down around him.
She held the door open while Rufus entered, then closed it behind him. Belatedly, she realized she hadn’t left on any lights, so she reached for the switch by the front door…only to smack her hand against Rufus’s chest. Or rather, the acreage that was Rufus’s chest. Good God, she’d never thought he would have such a hard body—he seemed too tall and lanky for that. But what her knuckles grazed was solid rock. Just to be certain, she opened her palm flat over the soft fabric of his white bartender shirt and pushed lightly. Yep. Although his shirt was virtually identical to the one she wore, what was underneath was totally different. He was like Granite Man. Just to be absolutely certain, though, she skimmed her palm downward—bump, bump, bump—over abdominal muscles that rippled like the Sahara after a sirocco.
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