Beth Andrews - Small-Town Redemption

“You didn’t come here for a tame experience. We could do it here, on the floor or the table. Or maybe you’d like it against this counter, hard and fast. Your legs wrapped around my waist.” His voice dropped, grew husky. “Me buried deep inside of you.”

She flinched, but it wasn’t enough, not when she hadn’t pushed him away yet, hadn’t tried to cover herself. Hadn’t slapped him, called him a few choice names and stormed off. Not when, for a moment, she’d reduced him to the man he used to be.

“I’d make you feel good,” he promised, tracing lazy circles just below her collarbone. She shivered. “You wouldn’t care that it was me on top of you. I could make you forget your name.” He paused, laid his palm flat above her breast, felt her heart beating, too hard, too fast. “I could make you forget him. At least for a little while.”

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head before she could deny what they both knew was true.

“I could do all of that,” he continued. “If I wanted to.” He stepped back, the move not as easy to do as he would have liked. One more thing he blamed on her. “I don’t.”

Her fingers curled, scraping his skin before she slowly lowered her arms. “You...what?”

“I don’t want to.” He kept his voice flat. Cool. Honest. “I don’t want you.”

Her throat working, she hunched her shoulders, curling into herself and staring at him like a puppy he’d drop-kicked. Guilt and regret nudged him. Told him he could have been more sympathetic. Kinder. Except he’d learned to reserve his sympathy for those who truly deserved it.

And that kindness would only be used against him.

Besides, this wasn’t his fault. It was hers.

All hers.

She yanked on her shirt. “You don’t want me? Fine. Great.” Her head bent, her hair hiding her face, she buttoned it. “But let me tell you something, buddy, you’re the one missing out here. Not me.”

That was better, so much better than the disappointment that had been in her eyes a moment ago. The hurt.

“Someday,” he promised, “you’ll thank me for this.”

Her head whipped up, her eyes narrowing. “And someday you’ll kick your own ass for passing up the opportunity to be with me.”

Lifting her pointy chin and haughty nose, she swept past him, regal as a queen.

Because he worried she might be right, because she’d come here and stirred up this unwanted hunger for her, he snatched her arm. Whirled her around to face him. “Should I be honored that someone of your high moral standing offered herself to me?” he asked, his voice silky despite the tightness of his jaw. “Grateful to help you prove you’re over some other guy?”

“Yes...I mean...no. I mean...I...” She tugged her arm and he let go. She stepped back, her top teeth worrying her lower lip. But she held his gaze. “This isn’t about anyone but you and me. I’m here because I...I’m attracted to you.”

There it was. The truth. Part of it, anyway, said in a rush. A guilty secret.

An attraction that was purely physical. If she ignored it long enough, the flash of heat between them would eventually flicker and fade. When presented with a bright, burning flame, the best thing, the smart thing, was to keep your hands to yourself.

She wanted to touch it, to feel its burn. A good girl taking a walk on the wild side. Rebelling against the endless repetition of her tidy life and daily routine, the expectations of others and her own boredom.

“You’re here,” he said, “because you thought getting laid would make you feel better.”

Her shoulders snapped back. But then, that seemed to be her natural stance—rigid. Uptight. Condescending. “You don’t know anything about me.”

He knew the last time she was at his bar, she and Sadie had fought about James Montesano, a local carpenter. That their argument had disrupted Kane’s night and upset Sadie enough that she’d ducked out of work three hours before the end of her shift.

“I know you want to piss off your sister. Find some other way than throwing yourself at a guy.”

Charlotte’s hands balled into fists. “This has nothing to do with Sadie.”

“Bullshit. You think sleeping with me will prove you’re over him? That you don’t care he chose Sadie over you? All you’re doing is embarrassing yourself.”

Her eyes welled. Her lower lip trembled.

Panic squeezed his spine. Had his palms sweating. He had no use for tears or the women who used them to get what they wanted. Women like his mother.

“Swallow those back,” he growled. “Or I swear to God I’ll toss your skinny ass out the window.”

“I wouldn’t cry over you,” she said with a deep sniff. “I wouldn’t waste one single tear. You’re not worth it.”

She had that right. “Good to hear.”

“You...you’re...”

“Could you spit out whatever you’re choking on so I can get back to my bed?”

“You’re an ass. A bastard. A—”

Someone knocked on the door.

Red, her mouth open, her eyes wide, leaped behind the chair, half crouching behind it. “Who’s that?” she whispered.

“Sorry but my X-ray vision is on the fritz.” He stepped toward the door.

“No,” she gasped, grabbing his hand. “For God’s sake, don’t answer it.”

More knocking, rapid in succession and annoying as hell.

“If I don’t,” he ground out, pulling free, “I can’t get rid of them.”

For the second time that morning, he opened the door.

And for the second time that morning, found an unwelcome visitor.

“I’m sorry,” Sadie Nixon blurted, her blond hair a wild mass around her face, dark circles under her eyes. “Did I wake you?”

“I run a bar that doesn’t shut down until 2:00 a.m. What do you think?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, sounding as if she was about to burst into tears any second. Christ, but this was not his morning. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

He raised his eyebrows at the suitcase she held. “I hear the Holiday Inn off the highway has affordable rates.”

He started to shut the door, but she blocked it with her foot. “Please,” Sadie said, much nicer than Red ever spoke to him. “Just for a night or two.”

Have her bunk with him for a few nights? No way. He didn’t get involved in personal problems, didn’t get personally involved with the people he worked with.

Or, in this case, the people who worked for him.

“You don’t want to come in here,” he said.

“I do. I really do.”

Maybe the only way to get rid of her—of both of them—was to let Sadie in.

Scratching his stomach, he stepped aside. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Thanks,” she said, brushing past him. “I promise not to—”

“You have got to be kidding.”

Sadie slowly turned, her eyes about popping out of her head when she saw her sister. “What are you doing here? Where did you get those clothes? I didn’t realize Nordstrom had a tart department.” She whirled on Kane. “And you. You should be ashamed of yourself. She’s just a child!”

“I probably should be,” he agreed. Would be if he’d gone through with some of the more lewd thoughts he’d had concerning Red. “But I’m not.”

He had more than his fair share of sins, but this wasn’t one of them.

Red stalked over to her sister, towering over the curvy blonde. “How dare you? I’m a grown woman, damn it.”

Sadie sniffed. “Then I suggest you act like one.”

“I don’t need to stand here and listen to this.” With a toss of her hair, Red snatched up her purse. “You’re in my way,” she told Sadie, who blocked her exit.

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what, exactly, you’re doing here.”