Chasing Temptation (15 page)

He stopped, trying to form the next words. He went for more liquid courage, his hand wrapped tightly around the glass. “I don't know how he did it. We didn't live in the best of neighborhoods.”

“You don't have to tell me any more.”

The words were spilling out now; there was no way to stem the flow of the story even if he wanted to. The memories would still haunt him. They would still darken the air around them, making it heavy with grief.

“Anyway, he came up with the money, but needed more, so he went to the bank to withdraw what he and my mother had saved up. She didn't mind. They would leave the neighborhood and raise me in a better place.”

“Stop,” she said softly.

“On his way out, two boys came along. They shot him. While he lie on the ground bleeding to death, they went through his pockets, found the envelope and took it. They left him there to die.”

“The shop was mine.”

“Yes.” He finished his glass and went back into the kitchen.

*****

Lynne finished her own liquor, unable to control the storm of emotions brewing beneath the surface. She'd guessed his story had dark elements. Who didn't have dark skeletons in the closet?

But Lynne couldn't have imagined how she'd grieve for the little boy who had turned into this man. With a few words, he'd taken a begrudging respect and turned it into something she didn't want to feel for him. She hated him for it.

She could admit the anger was irrational, but better to be pissed at him than to feel the most dangerous thing she could feel for any other man. She gripped the stem of her glass and followed him into the kitchen. His arms were crossed, but held a glass in his left hand. He'd gotten a refill that didn't dim the darkness in his gaze.

“For once in your life you could have lied,” she snapped.

“I'm doing it for my mom,” he added and that didn't help. “And you had to know why I wanted the store. This changes nothing.”

“It changes everything, you ass,” she threw back.

His nostrils flared. “This is why I didn't want to tell you.”

“You didn't want to tell me because you keep your cards close to your chest. You don't play fair because it's business to you.”

His voice was dark, dangerous when he said, “The business is knowing your opponent’s weaknesses. I gave you mine, now give me yours.”

She placed her wine glass down, none too gently, and poked him in the chest.

“My family entrusted me with this store. Not blood-related family, but the one I chose. She built it from the ground up through heartbreak, through loneliness, and, for a time, my store was all she had in the world. I was there for every one of those moments. The store became mine just as much as hers. I let her in and she trusted me.”

The expression he wore hadn't softened. Words were so much harder to get a point across.

So Lynne tried harder. “Growing up, the rule of thought was that in order to create relationships, and the only reason to create a relationship, was what you could get out of it. Now imagine for a moment that with every person you meet in the back of your head you're hearing 'What do they want from me? There must be something'. It's not that I'm funny or compassionate or a nice person to be around. Megan didn't want anything from me. She loved me for me.”

Frustrated, she ran a hand through her hair. “In those walls of my store, I matter, and those walls matter to me because of it.”

She took another breath and let the rest spill. “You know what it's like to crave a home, something stable?” She shook her head. “No. Something you earned and made with your own sweat and tears. It doesn't matter that the woman I bought it from doesn't share the same blood. She's my family.” She stopped before her voice cracked and swallowed the emotion. “My family has entrusted me with this store. I'm not going to sell it because someone was willing to pay me an exorbitant amount. You can't put a price tag on what my family has given me, what Hart and Style represents. I swear I'm not going to give up fighting.”

“Neither am I,” he practically growled back.

“Good.” She poked him again in the chest to make her point.

Temper flared in his gaze. “Glad we had this talk.”

The moment went still, and Lynne's heart beat hard against her ribs. She wanted to forget the words he'd spoken earlier. She needed to forget how his heart still bled for his father. It made him too human, and too vulnerable.

He'd
made her want to hand over the store for the simple fact it would his ease the loss. If he were family, she could and would do it in a heartbeat.

Nate wasn’t and, dammit, he was right. This did come to down to the bottom line. They needed something to wash away the bitterness of reality, or else when the time came to win someone would get hurt.

She pulled at him, and he came willingly. A button on his shirt popped, but she didn't care.

“Let's have some angry sex.” She tried to sound reasonable, but her heart pounded and ached for him. “That way we can obsess over that instead of the reasons for wanting the store.”

The shadows in his eyes she'd gotten so used to darkened even more, but he put down his glass.

“You can't plan angry sex,” he said, sounding irritated. “It'll add to the complication we’ve piled on instead of lessening it. Sex doesn't make sense,” he argued, but didn't say anything more when she popped another button on his shirt.

“We've already complicated everything, and between us this is the only thing that’s felt right since the moment you tempted me. Are you saying you aren't man enough?”

She popped two more buttons, waiting for his gaze to change from grief to anything else. The relentless emotion stirred a part of her she wanted to ignore. The part she refused to appease. His shirt hung open, revealing an undershirt. She placed her hands on the hem of the tank top.

His jaw clenched. “I know what you're trying to do. It's not going to work.”

Then her hands were underneath the material, caressing, teasing the skin, hot beneath her palms. She ran her forefinger up and over his nipple. He hissed and clenched his jaw tighter. She pressed against him, his arousal hard against her stomach.

She murmured, “If you want to prove me wrong, if you really want to convince me you don't want this, think of cute little kittens.”

He kept his eyes closed a moment longer, then they snapped open. “I'm thinking of kicking you out. Sad drunk or not.” Then his hands were gripping her hair.

“I would love to see you try.” She smiled, knowing she had him now. “I've been kicking your butt since you came into town. I don't think you have it in you. You're all talk, Mr. Craine.”

He dipped his head to her neck and tasted her there, taking his time exploring the contours of the sensitive flesh. Her hands tightened into fists on the tank top. The sensation made it feel like his mouth was everywhere. Lynne wasn't sure if he was attempting to prove something, or if he were that talented.

He lifted his head. The grip he had on her hair at the nape of her neck was superficial, but she didn't try to break free.

“You're just trying to make me forget.” He made sure their eyes were level when he finished his statement, “I never will.”

He was right. Even though his mood had changed, even though he had conceded to defeat, the shadows still lurked in his gaze.

“Then make me forget,” she said.

Nate finally released the hold on her hair
.
His hands slid down to her thighs.

“Wrap them around my waist,” was all the warning he gave before lifting her.

Lynne was nestled against the ridge of his penis. With a quick swipe of his tongue he swallowed her moan of pleasure and then his mouth was devouring the next breathy sigh. The darkness of their conversation became a distant memory.

Nate kissed her until she felt like one big nerve ending, and he'd found one that shot straight to her womanhood. When cool sheets touched her bare arms, Lynne finally processed he'd carried her to the bedroom.

Lynne said, “Thinking I should have never provoked you.”

“You get what you ask for with me.”

And then he was silencing her again with his mouth. Almost punishing her for making him succumb to the challenge. Everything that was
him
surrounded her, filled her senses.

“We should argue more often,” he murmured, taking off her shirt.

He massaged her naked breasts. His roughened palms created the right amount friction and her nipples hardened beneath their teasing touches. Each time she moaned his mouth was back on hers as if he wanted to taste the sound of it. His hands moved down to her bare thighs.

She blinked. “When did you take off my pants?”

“You should pay attention.” Nate smirked. “You might miss something important.”

“Like my underwear?”

He chuckled and spread her thighs with his knees. “That might have been important.”

He was doing everything in his power to make sure no coherent thought took hold. He moved his hand down her torso, over the patch of hair between her thighs, and settled his palm against the sensitive hood of her sex. With his middle and forefinger, he spread her sex for his gaze to drink in.

He groaned. “I'm going to make you take back what you said about me in the kitchen,” Nate promised.

He pressed his thumb against the swelling bud, showing her how he'd do it.

“Never,” she gasped.

“I can make you scream it. Don't tempt me.”

She believed him when he made her moan deeply with a flick of his thumb.

Lynne forced herself still instead of crawling away because his touch was too much.

“I was right,” she said. “You're an arrogant bastard, but you couldn't make me scream if I gave you an instruction manual on how to do it.”

The chuckle rumbled through him. “You never give up, do you?”

She slid her hands down his back. Oh, God. Skin smooth and hot, tensed beneath her palms. “That's what I keep trying to tell you,” she said.

He nibbled on her earlobe. “Then I'm just going to have to make you.”

Lynne couldn't come up with a retort once his thumb started to lightly massage her clitoris. For the next few minutes he made sure the only thing coming out of her mouth were breathy sighs. She could care later, after her vision stopped blurring. Lynne clutched the plain cotton sheets. A scream lurked in her throat, but she bit it back and arched into his thumb.

He wouldn't win. She wouldn't let him. Lynne would lose something she'd never get back.

Nate placed his mouth against her neck. “Stop trying to defy me for the sake of it.”

“Stop trying to break me.”

His head jerked back, but she didn't give him time to reply. She sunk her teeth onto his chest. She did it again, waited for him to go lax and coaxed him with her mouth to lay on his back.

“My turn,” she said.

He didn't fight it, but watched her in a way that made her skin go hot. No words were needed as she stripped Nate of his clothing as he had done her. Unlike him, she didn't bother to taste the sounds of his pleasure. Slowly she nipped her way down his body until her lips closed over the heady length of him. With each groan, she took him deeper. She used her tongue, her mouth, in ways that made him grip his hands in her hair again.

He tugged her back. “You can't break me, either.”

“I'll try, anyway.”

They stopped long enough for him to sheath himself in one quick expertise move.

“Impatient.” Straddling him, she murmured, “And maybe I can't break you, but I'm going to try.”

He trailed his fingers over her hips, pressed her down onto him, until he was nestled firmly inside. She sighed. The turmoil inside settled for the first time.

This is what they should have been doing instead of arguing.

He griped her ass and lifted her up. He wanted to control this, even from the bottom. Lynne leaned forward, licked at his neck and sighed again.

And despite the words, she tried to weaken the hold he had over her. Maybe if she came enough times, he'd get from under her skin. But he stayed there like a tattoo—years later she might regret but not yet. Not while he was inside her.

Lynne did her best to exorcise him and nothing worked. Not him pounding into her and in control even while straddled between her legs and beneath her. Each stroke seemed to only make him go deeper inside her.

Drenched with sweat, she whimpered when her thighs screamed for some rest.

He grappled her hips. “Enough.”

“No, I'm not done.”

“Stubborn.” His voice went soft, tender. “I know, but I'm finishing it.”

He slammed into her long and deep, again and again until there was no argument to be had.

So she let go. If he broke at the same time it didn't count as giving up more emotional ground. Didn't mean he could, somehow, burrow into her heart and make a home there.

It was sex. It was an orgasm. Primitive and natural and nothing that would shift her world. That tiny concession finally made the heat rush over her skin. It swept down to her core and teased the sensitive flesh. Her body bowed.

Nate groaned. “Yes, just like that.”

Spread wide above him, she clenched tighter and tighter... “Oh..Oh..Nathan.”

“No. Nate when I make you scream.”

Her laugh got tangled up in a moan and she shuddered, shivered. He groaned and tensed between her legs. She came hard, taking Nate with her.

After they both caught their breath, he leaned forward, bit her earlobe. “We might break each other if we keep going,” he whispered.

“We will.” She placed her head on his chest, his heart thumped as hard as hers.

And, deep down, Lynne knew she was right.

Sneaking into the house would involve admitting shame, like Lynne had done something wrong. But knowing the fix she'd left Eloise in, Lynne couldn't help the guilt gnawing at her as she unlocked the door.

She immediately noticed the vacuumed floor. She softly thumped her head on the door at the elaborate design etched into the carpet. Some people showed their depression in sleeping, eating or acting out. Her mother became über-homemaker—Martha Stewart on steroids.