His arms tightened until she could barely breathe. "I told you to stop that," he warned. "You’ll be black and blue."
"If I am, it’ll be your fault, not mine! You’re the one doing the manhandling!" She kicked backward, catching his shin with her heel, but she was wearing soft-soled slippers and he was wearing boots; he grunted, but she knew she hadn’t hurt him. She twisted her body, trying to turn around so she could do more damage.
"You… little… wildcat," he said, panting with the effort of controlling her. "Damn it, would you be still! I was jealous," he admitted baldly.
For a moment, she was too stunned to react. She stood motionless in the circle of his arms, wariness at battle with a dizzying spurt of elation. Jealous! He couldn’t be jealous unless he cared – no. She couldn’t let herself fall into that trap. She didn’t dare believe him. She had witnessed his seduction technique before; she remembered how he had soothed Lindsey Partain, complimenting her, telling her how much he wanted her, needed her. He was adept at getting what he wanted. While she had no doubt that he
wanted her physically, with the evidence so prominent, she knew that nothing else had changed. He still wanted her to leave, and would use her weakness for him to convince her to go.
"Do you honestly expect me to believe you?" she finally asked, weariness in every word.
He nudged his hips forward. "Do you deny this?"
She forced herself to shrug. "What’s there to deny? You have a hard-on. Big deal. That doesn’t mean anything."
A chuckle vibrated in his chest. "It’s a good thing I have a healthy ego, or you’d give me an inferiority complex."
She wished he wouldn’t laugh. She didn’t want him to have a sense of humor. She wanted him to be mean-spirited and small-minded, so she could despise him. Instead he was bold and audacious, with a disarming laugh. He was ruthless, but he wasn’t mean.
He bent his head to nuzzle her ear, his warm breath tickling the sensitive whorls. "There doesn’t have to be a problem," he murmured. "We can be together – not here, but there’s a workable solution."
Faith stiffened again. "I’ll just bet there is. And it involves my leaving town, doesn’t it?"
His tongue flicked out, lazily playing with her earlobe before he caught it between his teeth and sensuously nipped at it. "You wouldn’t have to go far," he cajoled. "You don’t even have to sell this house. I’ll buy another house for you, a bigger one, if you want – "
Rage engulfed her, red-hot and seething. She wrenched free of his slackened embrace and spun to face him, her face white and her eyes burning. "Shut up! You can’t stop thinking that I’m for sale, can you? The only change is that you’ve moved me up into a higher price bracket! I don’t want your damn house, but I do want you out of mine. Right now!"
His eyes narrowed, and he didn’t move an inch. "I wasn’t thinking about buying you. I was trying to make things as easy as possible for you."
"Nice try, but I know too much about you. I’ve seen you in action, remember?" The memory of that night was bitter in her tone, and flashed starkly between them. She had that
other memory, too, one he didn’t know about: the time she had watched him with Lindsey Partain. She’d seen him in action, all right.
He was silent a moment, his dark gaze moving over her. "That won’t happen again," he said gently.
"No, it won’t," she agreed, lifting her chin. "I won’t let you ever treat me that way again."
"You wouldn’t have much choice, if I decided to do it," he said, that dangerous glitter coming into his eyes. He chucked her under the chin. "Remember that, baby. I can play a lot rougher than I have so far." She jerked her head away. "So can I." His gaze slid down her body, the expression in his eyes changing into something slow and heated. "I’ll bet you can. You almost tempt me to find out how rough you can be, just for the fun of it. But this discussion has gone way off course. We aren’t in a war, baby. We can have a nice arrangement, and enjoy ourselves without hurting my family, if you’ll only agree to it." "No," she said.
"That must be your favorite word. I’m getting damn tired of hearing it."
"Then stay away." She sighed, weary of the battle, and shook her head. "I don’t want to hurt your family. That isn’t why I came back. This is my home; I don’t want to cause any trouble, I just want to live here. If I have to fight you to do that, then I will."
"The battle lines are drawn, then." He shrugged. "It’s up to you, how much trouble you want to put up with to live here. I won’t back down; you’re still going to be unwelcome in town. If you change your mind, though, all you have to do is call me. I’ll take care of you, no questions asked, and no gloating." "I won’t call."
"Maybe you won’t, but maybe you will. Think about what we could have together."
"What? A couple of quickies every week? Lying about where you are, because you don’t want your family to know? Thanks, but no thanks." He reached out and cupped her cheek, and this time she
didn’t pull away. His touch was gentle as his thumb rubbed her lower lip, probing the inner softness. "There’s more to it than just the fucking," he said softly. "Though God knows I want that so much I hurt."
Because she wanted so desperately to believe him, she didn’t dare. She had to fight tears as she shook her head. "Please leave."
"All right, I’ll go. But think about it." He turned toward the door, then stopped. "About your company – "
Instantly she was alarmed, and tensed for another battle. "If you dare do anything to hurt my business – "
He gave her an impatient look. "Hush. I’m not going to do a thing. I just wanted you to know how proud I am of you. I’m glad you’ve accomplished as much as you have. In fact, I told my manager at the hotel to give special consideration to any groups booked by your agency."
Proud of her? Faith stood silently as he left, and the tears she had successfully held back began to trickle down her cheeks. Did she dare believe him in this? She couldn’t, she realized. She would keep to her original decision not to book any more groups into his hotel.
But the tears still fell. He’d said he was
proud
of her.
Ten
Monica took her time in the bathroom, needing the privacy to get herself back. It was always slightly alarming, that loss of self, of personhood. Michael didn’t seem to feel it; he was always content, a little drowsy, when he moved off of her. She could hear the squeak of the bed now as he moved, probably to put out his cigarette. He didn’t smoke much, he was trying to quit, but after sex was one of the times when he found cigarettes harder to resist. Today his hand had been shaking a little as he flicked his lighter, making the tiny flame dance.
That telltale reaction made her feel soft inside, and she stayed in the bathroom longer than usual so he wouldn’t see. It was bad enough that he knew how wild she went when he was inside her, moaning, clutching at him with wet hands, her hips moving. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t make them stay still. And she was wet down there, too; she heard the embarrassing slurping sounds when he moved in and out of her. She wasn’t embarrassed
then,
all she could think of was the fever building inside her, but afterward she felt the shame.
It wasn’t that way with Alex. With Alex she could restrain herself; he seemed to prefer it that way, and she knew why. He was pretending she was Mama.
She didn’t want to do it with Alex, but at the same time, she did. She couldn’t say that he forced her, not even to make herself feel better about what she did. She loved Alex, but – he was almost like a father to her. He couldn’t take Daddy’s place, no one could do that, but Alex had been Daddy’s best friend, and he had been so hurt when Daddy had left like that. Quietly he had given them all a shoulder to lean on, or to cry on, as the case may be. Sometimes, in those first awful days, she had been able to pretend a little bit that he
was
her father, that nothing had changed.
But the pretense hadn’t held up for long. The horrible shock of that day had forever changed something inside her, and she had accepted that things would never be perfect. Daddy wasn’t coming back; he’d preferred living with that slut rather than living with his own family. He didn’t love Mama and never had.
Alex loved Mama, though. Poor Alex. She couldn’t remember when she had first realized how he felt, when she had seen the devotion and sadness in his eyes; it had been several years after Daddy had left, though. It was about the time he had first coaxed Mama to eat dinner with them. He could do more with Mama than either she or Gray could; maybe it was the gentle, devoted courtesy with which he treated her. God knows Daddy had never been like that with her. He had been polite, and gentle, but you could tell he was just going through the motions and didn’t really care. Alex cared.
She remembered the night it had first happened. Gray had been in New Orleans on business. Mama had come down for dinner, but despite Alex’s cajoling, had been more depressed than usual and had really made an effort just to eat with them. She had gone back to her room almost immediately, despite his pleas. When he had turned back to face Monica, she had seen the desolation in his eyes, and impulsively reached out to put her hand on his arm, wanting to comfort him.
It had been a chilly winter night. There was a fire in the parlor, so they had gone in there, and she had set herself to easing that look from his eyes. They had sat on the sofa in front of the fire, talking quietly of many things while he
sipped an after-dinner brandy, his favorite. The house was quiet, the room dim, with only one lamp on. The fire had softly snapped. And in the firelight, she must have looked like Mama. She had worn her dark hair in a twist that night, and she always dressed in the conservative, classic style Mama preferred. For all those reasons, the brandy, the solitude, the darkened room, his own disappointment, her resemblance to Mama – it had happened.
A kiss had become two, then more. His hands were in her hair, and he was groaning. Monica remembered how her heart had pounded, in fear and an almost painful sympathy. He had touched her breasts, almost reverentially, but only through her clothes. And he had pushed up her skirt only enough to bare the essential part, as if he didn’t want to violate her modesty more than was necessary. She had a confused memory of naked flesh, unseen but felt, as he pressed himself to her, then a sharp sting of pain and the quick pumps into her. Unfaded by time, however, was the memory of how his voice had broken as he murmured, "Noelle," in her ear.
He didn’t seem to know he’d been the first. In his mind, she’d been Mama.
And in her mind, God help her, he’d been Daddy. It was so sick that she was still disgusted at herself. She’d never had any sexual feelings for Daddy; hadn’t had any at all, until Michael. But in the tumult of emotion that night, she’d thought, Maybe he won’t leave, if I give him what Mama won’t. So she had taken her mother’s place, offering herself sexually as a bribe to keep Daddy at home. Poor Alex… poor
her.
Both of them surrogates for something neither one could ever have. Freud would have had a field day with her.
But that night had been the first of many, over the past seven years. Though not that many, come to think of it. Michael had probably had her more often in just a year than Alex had in seven. Alex had been so ashamed, so apologetic. But he had come to her again, helplessly needing the pretense that Noelle would ever lie in his arms, and Monica had let him have the ease that he needed. He never
approached her when Gray was home, only when he was out of town on business.
The last time had been just two days ago, when Gray had been in New Orleans. She had gone to Alex’s office that night, as she usually did, and he had done it to her on the sofa there. It never took long. He never undressed her, or himself. Seven years he’d been doing it to her, and she’d never seen him naked, had actually only seen his thing a few times. He was still apologetic about his need, as if she really were Mama, and thought the process was nasty. So he finished as fast as he could, and Monica cleaned herself and went home.
It wasn’t like that with Michael. She still didn’t know what had attracted him to her, or how she had actually allowed things to progress so far. He’d grown up in Prescott, so she’d known him, to put a name to his face, to speak to, all of her life. He was five years older than Gray, and already a deputy with the sheriffs department when she had finished high school. He’d married his high school sweetheart and had two little boys. They’d been like Ward and June Cleaver, and then she’d up and left him, right out of the blue. She had moved to Bogalusa and remarried a couple of years later. His sons were seventeen and eighteen now, and he had a good relationship with them.
Michael had a good relationship with everyone, she thought, a smile curving her mouth. That was why he’d been elected sheriff when Sheriff Deese had finally retired three years ago. He was a true good old boy, disdaining suits in favor of a uniform, and wing tips in favor of boots. He was a lanky six feet, with sandy hair and friendly blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles across his nose. Opie, all grown up.
One day, a year ago, she’d been in town and decided to eat lunch at the courthouse grill, which made the best hamburgers in town. Mama would have been horrified at such a plebeian taste, but Monica loved hamburgers and treated herself occasionally. She’d been sitting at the little table when Michael had come in, gotten his own hamburger, and was on his way back to a booth when he suddenly paused by her table and asked if he could join her. Startled, she’d said yes.