Lucky in Love (7 page)

Above her, Ty was still as stone, a solid heated package of testosterone and sinew holding her down on the couch. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she felt just a little bit powerless and helpless, and that she liked it.

A lot.

Another thing she liked? The fact that every time he breathed, his leg shifted up against her core, putting her body on an entirely different page than her brain.

On the
get-more-of-him
page.

“She won’t give up,” she whispered, more than a little breathless.

“Watch.” Ty shifted again—oh God
his thigh
!—and pulled something from his pocket, which he threw.

Mallory heard the ping of the coin as it landed with deadly precision all the way across the huge room near the storage room entrance.

Holy shit he could throw.

“Oh!” they heard Lucille exclaim, whipping around toward the sound. “You’re escaping, you smart girl. Darn it all!”

They watched as the little beam of light wobbled back through the room to the entrance, and then in the next moment, vanished completely.

Silence reigned.

Well, except for Mallory’s thundering heartbeat. She was in an attic loft, flat beneath her Mr. Wrong. Her common sense was screaming
flee
! But her secret inner bad girl was screaming
oh please, can’t we have him? Just once?

“You okay?” Ty asked.

Loaded question. “You have some impressive skills,” she said. “I feel like a Bond girl.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself,” he said. “The way you shimmied up that ladder is going to fuel my fantasies for some time.”

So he
could
see in the dark. And now that they were up here with moonlight coming in the window, she could see too. She bit her lower lip because she could feel, too. She could feel him,
all
of him. Her breasts were mashed up against his chest, plumping out of her dress suggestively. She wasn’t sure he’d noticed, but then he very purposely dropped his head, his lips just barely brushing her exposed skin. She sucked in a breath and felt him stir against her.

Yeah. He’d noticed. “I have lots of ladder practice,” she said inanely.

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding intrigued. “You climb a lot of ladders in the ER?”

“Uh, no.” Nerves had her laughing. And babbling. “But I had to clear the gutters on my house last fall before the rains hit. I nearly fell when I found a fist-sized spider waiting for me but managed not to accidentally kill myself.”

A low laugh escaped him.

“So why did you do it?” she asked.

“The ladder? Nowhere else to go but up.”

“No, I mean why did you help me hide? And thanks, by the way. You pretty much saved my butt.”
Again
.

He slid a hand down her arm, squeezing her hip before shocking the hell out of her when he slid that hand further, cupping said butt. “My pleasure.”

At the words, at the touch, her body liquefied. Or maybe that was his fingers, tightening on her hindquarters, making her want to squirm and rock into him.

The brand new bad girl in her took over and did exactly that.

Ty went still. She wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but she was feeling things she hadn’t in far too long, and she intended to go with those feelings. So she squirmed again.

“Mallory.” There was a warning in that low, sexy tone of his, a very serious warning.

She’d wanted a kiss, but hearing him say her name like that was almost as good. And now she wanted more. She wanted things she didn’t even have names for. So she wriggled some more, hoping like hell she was getting her message across because she wasn’t all that practiced in the bad girl department. Amy had been right; she needed lessons. She made a mental note to address this as well at the next chocoholics meeting. For now, she’d wing it. “Yeah?”

“Are you coming onto me?”

“Well, technically, you’re on top of me,” she pointed out. “So I think that means that
you’re
coming onto
me
.”

With a groan, he pressed his forehead to hers and swore beneath his breath, and not the good kind of swear either. And though she should have seen this coming, she hadn’t.

He didn’t want her.

It was perfect, really. Perfect for the way the rest of the night had gone. Horrified, humiliated, she pushed at him. “Sorry. I got caught up in the moment. I’m not very good at this, obviously.” He didn’t budge so she shoved him again. “Excuse me.”

He merely tightened his grip. “Not good at what, exactly?” he asked.

“Really? You need me to say it?”

When he just waited, she sighed. “Attracting men. I’m not good at attracting men. Now if you could please
get off
.”

He lifted his head and cupped the back of hers in one big hand, his eyes glinting with heat. “You first,” he said rough and gravelly, leaving no mistake to his meaning.

She gasped, and he took advantage of that to kiss her, his lips moving against hers until she gasped again, in sheer pleasure this time.

Things went a little crazy then. Ty’s mouth was firm and hungry, his tongue sliding against hers, and God, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be kissed like this, like there was nothing on earth more important than her. That long-forgotten thrill of feeling soft and feminine rushed over her.

Then Ty lifted his head, and she realized she was touching his face, the stubble on his jaw scraping against the pads of her fingers.

“To be clear,” he said, “I’m
very
attracted to you.” And she believed him because the proof of that statement was hard against her hip.

“I think it’s your eyes,” he said.

She was a little startled by the unexpected romance of that. And then she was drowning in
his
eyes, which were smoldering. But then they were kissing again, and she couldn’t think because he happened to be the world’s most amazing kisser. Ever. She lost herself in it for long moments, loving the fact that he didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all, or using the kiss as a means to an end. Kissing her was an act all unto itself, and she was panting for air when he finally broke from it. He shifted to pull away and she reflexively clutched at him. “Wait—We’re stopping?”

Dropping his head, he rubbed his jaw to hers. “Yeah.”

“But…why?”

He let out a low, innately male groan. “Because you’re not the fuck-a-stranger-in-a-storage-room-with-her-boss-waiting type of woman.”

Well, when he put it like that…Damn. Her inner bad girl retreated a little. More than a little.

You don’t think you deserve to be happy
.

Amy’s words floated in her head. No, she’d never been the type to let a stranger into her heart, much less her body.

But this wasn’t about her heart.

And Ty was no longer a complete stranger. He was the man who’d good-naturedly stepped in tonight when she’d needed him. Multiple times. He was the man who’d just given her the most amazing kiss of her life.

She wanted him to also be the man to vanquish her restlessness and loneliness. “I am for tonight,” she said, and wrapped herself around him.

“Mallory.” He stared down at her, the moonlight casting his features in bold relief. “I’m not a long-term bet. Hell, I’m not even a short-term bet.”

“I just want this,” she said. “Here. Now. With you.”

This won her another long look, interrupted by a very rough, very male groan when she undulated against him, trying to sway the game in her favor.

“Christ, your eyes,” he said on a long breath. “Come here then.” Before she could, he pressed her down farther into the couch, his mouth trailblazing a path over her throat and collar bone.

Apparently, he wasn’t one to over-think or second-guess a decision. Good to know. And when he came up against the material of her dress, he wasn’t deterred by that either. A quick tug of his fingers and her straps slid down her shoulders to her elbows, trapping her hands at her sides and baring her breasts all in one economical movement.

Apparently, Ty didn’t waste energy unnecessarily. Also good to know.

“Mmm,” he said, a growl of approval low in his throat. He made his way to her breasts, paying such careful homage to her nipples that she was writhing beneath him by the time he moved down her stomach.

“So soft,” he murmured against her, his breath gently caressing her skin. But there was nothing gentle about him as his work-roughened fingers pushed the hem of the dress up to her waist. He looked down at her black thong, gave another low growl of approval, then slid the tiny swatch of black silk to one side. This bared all her secrets both to the night air and his hot gaze. Lowering his head, he put his mouth on her, using his lips and his tongue, making her arch up into him. She was crying out within minutes, her hands fisted in his hair as stars exploded behind her eyes.

Before she’d even stopped shuddering, he’d shoved off his jacket, then unbuckled, unzipped, and was rolling on a condom. The sight made her moan, and then he was pushing inside of her and she lost her breath. He gave her a moment to adjust to his size, then his mouth found hers again and she could taste herself on his tongue. It was wildly sensuous, and so far out of her realm of experience she could only dig her fingernails into his back and hold on.

He swallowed her cries as he thrust into her, running a hand beneath her knee, lifting her leg up to wrap around him so he could get even deeper.

Deeper worked. Oh, how it worked. He took her right out of herself, and she thrilled to it. He was powerful and primal, and if he hadn’t taken such care to make sure she was right there with him, she might have doubted herself. Instead, she rose to meet him halfway, unable to do anything but feel as he pushed her over the edge again, his hard length pounding into her, his tongue mimicking his body’s movement as he claimed her. And it was a claiming, a thorough one. She was deep in the throes when he joined her, shuddering in her arms, his hands digging hard into her hips as he lost himself in his pleasure.

In her.

The knowledge nearly sent her over again, as did the low, hoarse, very male sound he made when he came. Tearing his mouth from hers, he dropped his head into the crook of her neck, his broad shoulders rising and falling beneath her hands as he caught his breath.

He was still buried deep inside of her when he lifted his head to see her face.

“What?” she whispered.

“Wanted to make sure you’re okay. You’re smiling.”

“Am not.” But she was. God, she so was. It would probably take days to get rid of it. But apparently she’d taken the Chocoholics modus operandi to heart. She’d just had her Mr. Wrong.

In a storage room.

Which just proved exactly how wrong Mr. All Wrong was for her, because she’d never had sex without a commitment in her entire life. She braced herself for the guilt.

None came.

In fact, Mallory felt unexpectedly fantastic. “No regrets,” she whispered.

He gave her a curious look, then that almost-smile. “I like the way you think.”

She ran a finger over the Band-Aid on his forehead, and then along the bruise on his cheek. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “About throwing the phone at your head when I thought you were a bad guy.”

He shook his head, but his almost-smile became a full smile. “I don’t remember that part.”

“Oops. Then never mind.” She heard a thunderous applause from below them and remembered. The auction! “Oh my God, we’ve got to go. You first. Hurry.” She gave him a nudge but he didn’t move.

“I’m not going to just leave you up here,” he said.

“Yes, you are! We can’t be seen leaving here together.” Just the thought brought more panic, and she pushed him again. “Go. Hurry!”

Not hurrying at all, he looked at her for another long moment. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to her damp temple and finally pulled away. He helped her straighten out her clothing before taking care of himself.

She was still lying there with no bones in her body when he disappeared over the edge of the loft, vanishing into the night, giving her exactly what she’d asked for. Just this, here, now.

And now was over.

There is no kiss sweeter than a chocolate kiss.

T
y slept hard that night, and apparently lulled by post-orgasmic glow, he didn’t dream. Sex was the cure for nightmares. Good to know. His morning went pretty much status quo. Matt met him on the beach, and they’d gone several miles when Matt got a cramp and went down.

Ty was too far away, and his heart nearly stopped before he got to Matt and dragged his ass out of the water.

Matt rolled around in agony on the sand while Ty dug his fingers into Matt’s calf and rubbed the cramp out. When he had, he collapsed to the sand next to Matt. “No more.”

Matt was gasping for breath. “You’re right. You’re a fucking animal in the water. No one should be able to swim that long and hard.”

“No, I mean because you nearly drowned yourself.”

“Well,” Matt managed, sitting up with a smile. “Only half drowned, thanks to you.”

“Fuck it, Matt, I’m not kidding. You’re not swimming with me anymore.”

Matt’s smile faded as he studied Ty for a long moment. “You do realize that not everyone’s going to die on you, right?”

“Shut up.”

“What crawled up your ass today?” Matt asked. “You had a good time last night. I saw you actually crack a smile at Mallory.”

Mallory. God, Mallory. Ty pushed upright and despite his trembling limbs, he started walking.

“Good talk,” Matt called out after him.

Ty kept going, heading back to the house. He wanted to run but his leg didn’t have the same want. Brooding about that, he pushed hard, forcing himself to stay at the tide line where the sand was the softest and choppiest because that made the going extra teeth-grindingly difficult.

Difficult worked. He wanted to feel the pain, to remind himself why the hell he was here. Which was
not
to dally with the sweet, warm, giving, sexy-as-hell Mallory Quinn.

Though God, she’d been all those things and more, and she’d revved his engine but good. Every time he thought about how hot she’d looked lying all spread out for him on that couch, he got hard.

Stupid. What he’d done last night had been
beyond
stupid and he knew it. It was also selfish, and he had no excuse other than she’d blindsided him with her open, honest sweetness. He should have ignored the attraction, had fully intended to, but that hadn’t worked out so well for him.

And now he could add being an asshole to his list of infractions. Because taking advantage of Mallory last night had been a real dick move. But she was…well, everything he wasn’t.

Still, she didn’t deserve the likes of him, or what he’d done. Probably she already hated him for it. He told himself this was for the best and took a long, hot shower. He pulled on clothes while eyeballing the empty Vicodin bottle on the dresser. This was a ritual, the stare down. In the end, he shoved the bottle into his pocket as he always did, wanting the reminder close at hand. The reminder to keep his head on straight, keep his mind on the goal—getting back in the game.

With that in his head, he left for his doctor’s appointment.

“Looking better,” Josh said an hour later, eyeing the latest screen of Ty’s leg.

“I feel all better,” Ty said, lying through his teeth. After this morning’s exercise, he hurt like hell.

Not fooled, Josh gave him a long look.

“I’m good for light duty.”

“Uh huh.” Josh leaned back in his chair and studied him. “Lighter duty than what, rappelling out of helicopters, rescuing dignitaries, etcetera?”

This was the problem with having your boss put you on leave until you were medically cleared. Thanks to Frances, Josh knew far too much about him. Ty blew out a breath. It wasn’t Josh’s fault. He was a good guy, and under different circumstances, would even be considered a friend.

If Ty had friends. He didn’t. He’d let his friends die on a mountaintop four years ago.

So what was Matt
, a pesky little voice asked.
Or Mallory
? Accidents, he decided.

“Look,” Josh said, leaning forward, “you want out of here. I get that. You’re getting closer. But let’s give it another week, okay?”

Another fucking week. But reacting badly wasn’t going to help him. He’d use the week to finish Matt’s Jimmy. And the Shelby. He couldn’t leave without the Shelby. “Fine. But
you
tell her.”

“Frances?” Josh smiled grimly. “Gladly.”

When Ty got back to the house, his phone was blinking missed calls. He deleted them without a glance, then went to work on Matt’s Jimmy. Later he switched to his real love, the Shelby, stopping to look up some parts on the Internet. There he got distracted by an e-mail from Matt with a link.

He’d been tagged on Facebook. In fact, on the Lucky Harbor page there was an entire note on him, listing sightings and news. They called him
Mysterious Cute Guy
.

It was enough to give a guy nightmares.

Except he was already having nightmares…

He waited until hunger stopped him and drove into town. Lucky Harbor was nestled in a rocky cove, its architecture a quirky, eclectic mix of the old and new. The main drag was lined with Victorian buildings painted in bright colors, housing the requisite grocery store, post office, gas station, and hardware store. Then there was a turnoff to the beach itself, where a long pier jutted out into the water, lined with more shops, the arcade and Ferris wheel, and the diner.

Eat Me was like something from an out-of-time Mayberry, except in Mayberry he’d probably not have gotten laid at Vets’ Hall, in a storage attic above the entire town.

Noticing the brand new front door, he entered the diner and took a seat at the counter. Amy silently poured him a mug of coffee. This was routine; they’d been doing the same dance for months, rarely speaking. He really appreciated that in a waitress, and he liked her infinitely more than the eternally grumpy diner owner. Jan scared him, just a little bit.

Then Amy dropped the local paper in front of him and cocked a hip tableside.

Ty slowly pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and gave her a level look. Her return look had bad attitude all over it. She wore a black tee with some Chinese symbol on the front and the requisite frilly pink apron that looked incongruous with her short denim skirt, boots, and general kick-ass attitude. She gestured with a short jerk of her chin to the paper, and he took a look.

The headline read:
COUNTY HOSPITAL’S AUCTION—A HUGE SUCCESS.

So far so good, he thought, then read the first paragraph, which credited the success of the auction to the nurses, specifically Mallory Quinn, who along with her new boyfriend had gotten the entire Vets’ Hall on its feet by starting off the bidding with a bang.

Ty reread the article. New boyfriend?
Mysterious Cute Guy
? He graced Amy with his no-nonsense, don’t-fuck-with-me look. It had cowed many.

But Amy didn’t appear impressed or even particularly intimidated.

He set down the paper and pushed it away.

She pushed it back with a single finger.

“Do you have a point?” he asked.

“Several, actually. First, Mallory’s my friend. And I recently encouraged her to make a change in her life. You were that change. Don’t make me sorry.”

Ty wasn’t much used to threats, however sweetly uttered. Never had been. He’d been raised by two military parents who’d taken turns parenting him when one or the other had been on tour overseas. He’d been loved, but weaknesses had not been tolerated. Even his current job added up to a life lived by rules, discipline, sheer wits, and honor.

The honor part was troubling him now.

Somehow in spite of himself and his reclusiveness, he’d managed to find celebrity status in this crazy-ass, one-horse town, and even worse, there was Mallory, wanting him to take her for a walk on the wild side.

Bad idea.

The
baddest
.

He’d done it anyway, fallen captive to those melted chocolate eyes, even knowing he planned on being out of Lucky Harbor any minute now. “She’s a big girl,” he finally said.

Amy stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head and walked away, muttering something beneath her breath about the entire male race being genetically flawed.

Ty was inclined to agree with her. He paid for his coffee and received another long, careful look from Amy.

Message received.

As to whether he was going to heed the warning, the jury was still out. He went straight back to his big, empty house. Cranking the music to ear-splitting levels, he worked on the Shelby. He’d seen the car in the newspaper on his first day in Lucky Harbor had hadn’t been able to resist her.

He’d never been able to resist a sweetheart of a car.

Or, apparently, a sweetheart of a woman…

Mallory sat in a hospital board meeting surrounded by a bunch of administrators that included her boss and her mother, in what should have been the meeting of her life. Instead, her mind was a million miles away. Or more accurately, in a certain storage room.

Memories of that storage room, and what Ty had done to her in it, were making her warm.
Very
warm.

She still couldn’t believe how fast she’d gotten naked with him.

Well, not quite naked, she reminded herself. She’d been in such a hurry that she hadn’t even lost her panties, not completely.

Ty had simply slipped them aside with his fingers.

Just remembering made her damp all over again. God. She’d never gone up in flames so hard and fast in her entire life.

Heaven.

He’d taken her to heaven in seven minutes. A record for her. And she’d do it again, in a heartbeat.

That is, if the man who’d taken her to heaven hadn’t vanished from the auction without a word. That should teach her to have completely inappropriate sex with a man whose name she’d learned only twenty minutes earlier.

But all it’d really taught her was that she’d been missing out. Man, had she been missing out. Worse, she knew the magnitude of her attraction for him now, and she was afraid that the next time she saw him, she was going to shove him into the nearest closet for round two.

And round three.

Mallory took a moment to fantasize about that, about what she’d be wearing the next time. Maybe her little black dress again; he’d seemed to really like it. And maybe next time she’d leave the panties at home—

“Mallory?”

She blinked away the vision of Ty and her panties and came face to face with a
not
amused
Jane.

“The amount?” Jane asked in a tone that said she’d repeated herself several times already.

“Eighteen thousand.” Mallory looked down at the check in her hands, a check she was incredibly proud of—the total of the proceeds from the auction. “You said the board would donate twenty-five percent of it to the Health Services Clinic.”

“There isn’t an HSC,” Jane said. “Not yet.”

Mallory bit back her retort, knowing better than to show weakness. “There will be. We’ve proven need.”

“Have we?” Jane asked.

“Yes.” Mallory forced herself to look the other board members in the eyes as she spoke, no matter how resistant they were. Dr. Scott was there, rumpled and gorgeous as usual. His eyes warmed when he met her gaze. No one else made eye contact. She took a big gulp of air. “The need is obvious. There’s nowhere else in the entire county providing drug programs, teen pregnancy counseling, women’s services, or an abuse hotline. We all know that. The ER is losing money because we’re taking on patients who’d be better served by a Health Clinic.”

“You mean people who can’t, or won’t, pay.” This from Bill Lawson, head of the board of directors. He was tall, lean, and fit, looking forty instead of his fifty-five. He had sharp eyes, a sharper mind, and was all about the bottom line. Always. He
was
listening though, and Mallory appreciated that. This was important to her, had been since Karen had died because she’d had no place to go and get the services she’d so desperately needed.

People rarely talked about Karen and what had happened to her. But Mallory hadn’t forgotten a thing, and she intended to make sure that no other scared eighteen-year-old girl ever felt the helplessness and terror that Karen had.

“We’ve run the numbers,” she said, talking directly to Bill now. The hospital, just outside of Lucky Harbor, serviced the entire county but was private, run by a board of directors who all tended to bow to Bill’s wishes. She needed his support. “A Health Services Clinic is eligible for programs and funding that the ER isn’t. I’ve written the grant requests. If you go with my proposed plan and allow use of the old west wing, then one hundred percent of the HSC revenue will go right back into the hospital’s pockets.”

“It would also mean that the full financial responsibility for the Health Services Clinic would be the hospital’s,” Bill pointed out.

He already knew this. He just didn’t like it. “Yes,” she agreed. “But with the grants and donations, HSC will run in the black, and in the long run, it’ll save your ER losses. We’ve got most of the first year’s funds already.”