Dawn Atkins - At Her Beck and Call

Mike looked thoughtful. Please don’t say it, she silently begged him. A woman as beautiful as you shouldn’t be alone…People need people, blah, blah, blech.

Instead, he laughed, the sound warm and rich on the quiet desert air. “Good point. If I had a beer, I’d drink to that.”

“Hear, hear,” she said, pretending to lift a glass.

He tapped his knuckles against hers.

Heat zinged between them. They both looked away.

Standing close to Mike, breathing in synch, swaying closer with each heartbeat, Autumn’s back-burner sex drive was suddenly boiling all over the stove, flooding the floor and scalding her toes.

Sex with Mike would be different, unexpected, she could tell. It would be like wading into a lake and having the bottom suddenly drop out from under her.

“You’re in school now, anyway,” Mike said. “It’s not the right time to settle down.”

She didn’t argue, though she didn’t see marriage in her future. A steady lover might be nice if they could keep it simple. Her mother had been right. It was far better to count on yourself. If you started depending on a man, you got soft and lost your edge and your way.

“So, you’re enjoying school?” he asked.

“Very much.” So much it embarrassed her. She was wildly proud of her grades, lapped up her professors’ praise like a cream-hungry cat. “I’m older than most of the students, but I don’t care. I can’t believe how they take college for granted. They’re all living off daddy’s money, too busy partying to study. I love every lecture. I even love studying. I’m soaking it all up, you know? Sometimes, I forget to eat. I—” She stopped, embarrassed again. The guy made her too comfortable blurting out secrets. “Sorry. Got carried away.”

“I think it’s great, Autumn. I’d like to be that fired up about something.”

“You love being mayor, don’t you?”

“Sure.” He hesitated. “Maybe I just take it for granted. Maybe you’ll rub off on me.”

“Maybe.” The idea of rubbing against the man made her weak in the knees and she took a shuddering breath.

“So, you met Heidi at her salon, but what work did you do before you started school? I forget what your résumé said.”

She’d only listed her bookkeeping for Moons—the DD in DD Enterprises stood for the owner, Duke Dunmore. “I had bar experience.” Which was true.

“Ah, a waitress.”

She didn’t correct him. She had been a cocktail waitress, but when she needed money to keep her little brother out of trouble, she’d hit amateur night at a strip club. It took two shots of tequila and a muscle relaxant to endure the surreal embarrassment of teasing off her clothes in the hot, close quiet of men’s staring lust, but she’d done it, by God.

Took first place and the club owner offered her a job.

She’d found her game face, too—adding a sexy element to the mask she wore as a girl to get along with her angry mother. The trick with stripping was to offer the teasing possibility of sex, but always hold back your soul.

The money was great and she made friends among the dancers, DJs and bartenders. It could be a dark life. Some strippers used drugs or hooked on the side, but that wasn’t Autumn.

“Good for you for trying for more,” Mike said. “Sometimes I think about going back to school. I only did junior college. Mark and I had a deal—two years each—so we could keep the family landscaping business going.”

“What would you study if you went back?”

“I don’t know. Civic leadership. Or business. Hell, not too ambitious, huh? What’s the point? I have obligations.”

“The point is to do what makes you happy, not just what people expect.” She’d only begun to learn that lesson.

“I’m needed. That’s important to me.”

She admired his sense of duty. “But what you want matters, too. What do you wish you could do? Really?”

“Lord.” He looked up at the sky, then back down at her. “There have been things I gave up, I guess.”

“Like what?”

“I always wanted to get my pilot’s license. But it takes time and it’s expensive. Hell, for that matter, I’d love to learn to hang glide.”

“You want to hang glide?”

“Yeah. I took a ride with a pilot once. It’s so quiet and very free. You feel like you’ve escaped.”

“Is that what you want? To escape your life?”

He laughed. “Maybe I just need a vacation.”

“Or maybe more.” She felt his yearning like heat on her skin. In the moonlight, his eyes looked like diamonds bubbling in melted chocolate and the sight gave her a twisting sensation in her middle—part longing, part desire.

“Anyway, here’s where I tee off.” He kicked at the rubber mat at their feet, changing the subject.

“So you aim out there?” She squinted out into the darkness. “Too bad we don’t have a club and some balls.”

“We couldn’t see where they landed.”

“So what? Just let it fly.” Out here under the wide, star-scattered sky, she felt so free. Anything seemed possible. “I bet I could hit a hole in one in the dark.”

“You know what? I just bet you could.” He stepped closer.

The breeze lifted her hair, snagging a strand on her lip.

Mike brushed it away with gentle fingers, taking care of her the way he took care of the town. She felt the heat of his touch for long seconds. His diamond-chocolate eyes glittered at her, wanting her. He tilted his face, leaned closer. He wanted to kiss her.

And she wanted him to.

Why not? It was as if the whole evening had built to this moment. They were in a tiny time warp where this couldn’t possibly be wrong.

Normally, she would make the move, but this time she wanted to be kissed, to be swept away by Mike’s mouth, by his desire for her. She closed her eyes, parted her lips and waited. How would he kiss her? Soft or urgent? Gentle or fierce? Would he just use his lips or tease with his tongue, too? She hoped—

“Hang on,” Mike said.

She opened her eyes to see him galloping toward his car. God, had she scared him away? But then she saw him grab something out of his trunk—two golf clubs and two boxes of balls. He ran back to her, looking so good—his upper body tight and controlled, his gait easy, as though he could go for miles without breaking a sweat.

“Let’s do it,” he said when he reached her. “Let’s hit balls into the dark.” He didn’t seemed to have noticed she’d pooched her lips out at him. Good. Better, really. Less complicated.

“I’ve only played miniature golf,” she said.

“Close enough. Let me show you.” He demonstrated the grip, the stance, the swing. She’d never thought golf was particularly sexy, but the way Mike’s body twisted, muscles graceful with power, made her sex ache and her stomach melt. She’d love to see that body naked, wrapped around her, not a golf club.

“Want to try?” he asked, handing her the club.

Oh, yeah. “Sure.” She focused on getting the hang of a swing, which he’d made look easy. Her first tries were shaky and tentative, but soon she was ready to try hitting a ball.

“I’ve got two boxes of three balls, two brands, so we can tell them apart when we come back to see how we did.” He put the first ball on a tee. “You go first.”

“About where is the hole?”

When he pointed, his arm brushed her cheek. The sensation made her feel faint, but she prepared to swing, the swish of wind through the mesquites making her feel so light, she was afraid she could be blown away, too.

She wished Mike would put his arms around her, under the pretense of helping her, just to feel his skin against hers, but this had to be her own wild swing into the night.

“Here goes.” She pulled back her club, kept her eye on the ball and swung with all her might. There was a thwack, the blow vibrated the club in her hand, and the ball arced in a high curve she followed until it disappeared into the inky dark.