Smittened (9 page)

“The shelter. Because real animals know how to show a girl some love.”

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving Mikey not only confused, but confused and lonely.

He really needed to fix that. If only he could figure out how.
 

Chapter Six

DAHLIA WAS beginning to hate the sight of her house. She sat outside in her car, the temperature inside dropping as quickly as the light was fading from the evening sky, staring past the bare brown elm branches at the warm glow coming through the living room curtains.

The empty, burnt shell of Mikey’s former rental house was still a gaping hole in the neighborhood. Tonight it gave her chills from thinking about how lucky he’d been to not be inside sleeping when the fire started.

She hadn’t actually heard anything about anyone speculating on her relationship—or whatever it was—with Mikey, but the rumors said Lindsey
knew
that sort of thing. And Dahlia had thought that maybe if Mikey had heard something, it might give her some clue as to why he’d gotten under her skin.

And if he liked her back, or if he was just amusing himself with her.

If he liked her enough to not care who did or didn’t think they’d make a good couple.

She watched her breath crystallize over the steering wheel. A few snowflakes drifted down from the rapidly darkening sky.

Mikey wasn’t a bad guy. Under all the innuendos and the swagger, he had a sweet side.

He hid it well, but it was there.

She could bring it out of him. He wasn’t asking for money, he didn’t need her to watch his pet, nor did he truly need
her
house to stay at. There was nothing about him that screamed
user
.

He simply needed to be loved.

No,
she
thought that’s what he needed. What he thought he needed, she had no idea. Men were so complicated.

Her front door opened, and the man himself stepped out into the flurries in the fading evening light. He was in a jersey-style black and gray Henley, jeans that did all the right things for his lean hips and long legs, cowboy boots, and the ever-present Billy Brenton ball cap over his shaved head.

Smokin’ hot, put together, and edgy on the outside, hiding a wounded soul in need of saving on the inside.

She dropped her head to the steering wheel.

He’d be even worse than Ted. Because what he took wouldn’t be something replaceable like money.

Mikey knocked on the car window. She rolled her head to the side and popped open one eyeball. His hands thrust deep into his pockets, and he fidgeted on his feet.

The longer she sat here, the colder they would both get. She, at least, had a coat.

She reached for the door handle.

He must’ve taken that as a sign, because he grabbed the handle from the outside and pulled her door open quicker than she could finish herself. “Nice afternoon?” he asked.

His voice was warm and rich, with no hint of innuendo or hidden agenda. Like hot chocolate without the marshmallows, because the hot chocolate had finally figured out it was pretty spectacular on its own and didn’t need the extra filler.

Yep, Dahlia had a problem.

He offered a hand, and even though she was perfectly capable of climbing out of the car herself, she took it. “It was,” she said.

She stood and pocketed her keys.

Mikey didn’t drop her other hand. Instead, he studied her, eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his cap.

Her pulse kicked up.

“Will and Mari Belle saved me,” he said. “From myself. I was a hell of a kid. My daddy worked hard, my momma did her best and spent most of my childhood taking care of my sick grandmama, but I wanted to have fun. Being friends with Will, having Mari Belle fussing over both of us—they got me out of a lot of trouble. Kept me from finding even more. And now I’m watching him do the dumbest thing he’s ever done. This time he knows better, and I want to stop but, but I can’t. Can’t anybody else either.”

Despite the freezing temperatures outside, everything inside Dahlia went soft and melty.

He
did
have a sweet side.

“Mari Belle?” Dahlia said.

Mikey winced, but there was something more there too. Something sad. “His sister. She’d hit this place like a hurricane. Saw it all go down the first time, when Will met her.”

“Lindsey.”

“Yeah.”

Dahlia had speculated as much while she was playing with the kitties at the shelter all afternoon.

“She broke him,” Mikey said. “Met on some spring break trip. Made him think she was falling in love with him, then dumped his ass hard. He wasn’t the same after that. Not for a long, long time.” He slid her a look. “You watch a friend get that tore up over a girl, makes you think twice about not letting yourself be dumb enough to care about somebody who’s gonna let you down.”

She didn’t know why he was telling her this, but her heart went sappy-gooey at the thought that he might think Dahlia was special enough to risk getting hurt over.

She squeezed his fingers. “You can’t find the real highs if you don’t risk the hard falls.”

“Breaking a bone, getting scraped up, having a finger freeze off, that don’t scare me.” He tapped his chest. “But this ol’ heart? It ain’t so tough.”

“It wouldn’t work as well if it were.”

His lips hitched into a lopsided half-grin. “Can’t say I ain’t real suspicious of Lindsey’s motives. Don’t have any need of her butting in on my love life. But you—you’re special on your own. No matter what she did or didn’t say.”

“I didn’t really hear anything. If that helps at all. And you’re pretty special too.”

A snowflake landed on her nose.

And Mikey—tough, swaggering, womanizing Mikey—bent to kiss it.

Dahlia’s heart swelled. Warmth glowed in her chest and chased away the winter cold. She tilted her head up, and his mouth captured her lips.

He dropped her hand to wrap his arm around her, his other hand fisting in her hair. She clutched his shirt and hung on, felt his skin vibrating beneath the thin fabric, the cold of the air, the brush of snowflakes on her skin making his touch even hotter.

His kiss was searing and deep and desperate, as though he needed to kiss her more than he needed to breathe.

It was quite possible she too needed him to kiss her more than she needed to breathe.

He tugged on her. “Inside?” he moaned into her mouth.

“Mm-hmm.” Because when he kissed her and touched her and
needed
her, nothing else mattered.

And it was time she let herself need him too.

IF MIKEY had thought stumbling upon a sleeping Dahlia in an arm chair was a special kind of precious, it had nothing on watching a naked sleeping Dahlia in the dim light of dawn.

He was usually a sneak-out-of-the-room-an-hour-later type guy, but he was also usually fooling around with women who liked him only because he played in a big-name band. Women who expected him to sneak out.

Felt so… hollow, now.

Empty.

Like maybe Dahlia was right. Maybe he did need saving.

Parrot trilled out a funny sound in her sleep and stretched, shoving at Mikey’s knee. The cat had been between the two of them since they’d both collapsed in an exhausted, sexually satisfied heap. Dean was curled up beside Dahlia’s shoulder, and Sam was crouched on Mikey’s pillow.

Waiting to pounce if he did anything to Miss Dahlia, for sure.

Even the guinea pig was making
don’t screw with my momma
glares at Mikey from its perch in its cage.

Mikey needed to figure out what he was going to do about that.

Because all his life, the only woman he’d ever wanted,
wanted
wanted, had been out of reach. And now—now, he had another one, completely different, sneaking into his heart.

He hadn’t told her the whole truth about why he didn’t let people in—the part about Mari Belle. But what he’d said about watching Will get all tore up—that had been true for a long time too. Might be time Mikey was ready to let Mari Belle go.

Felt better than he ever thought it could.

Dahlia made a little noise like Parrot’s.

That big ol’ useless organ in Mikey’s chest ka-thumped like a bass drum.

She bunched her shoulders up to her ears and lifted her arms over her head with another contented sigh, then slowly blinked open those big ol’ seas of blue. “Hi,” she said shyly, her eyes not entirely focused, but beautiful without the obstruction of her glasses.

Mikey suddenly understood what his fellow songwriters meant when they talked about a woman’s smile putting a melody in their heads. Because that simple syllable in her sweet little voice had inspired a symphony’s worth of arrangements.

He stroked her silky hair and smiled back. “Hey.”

He pushed the cats out of the way, rolled her onto her back, and showed her exactly how happy he was to see her this morning.

If her giggles and shrieks that turned to moans and gasps were any indication, she was just as happy to see him.

Mikey Diamond might’ve been the kind of guy to fall in love after all.

THE MILKED DUCK was empty, save for Dahlia’s two part-time helpers, but they were all rushing around, anticipating the first guests for her Risqué Flavor Tasting event any moment now.

The up front freezers were stocked with Chocolate Orgasm, Peachy Passion, Sexual Favors, Mikey’s favorite Cherry Popper and more. She had a case of Sin on a Stick treats ready to go and a temporary menu up on the board behind her. After word had gotten out that Billy Brenton would be stopping by, she’d sold out of tickets.

She’d also prepped a case of pints of various flavors in case anyone wanted to take some home.

Mikey kept insisting he’d buy all of them, usually with suggestions of which of her body parts he’d lick the ice cream from, but she’d already had to wash ice cream out of her sheets twice this week.

She smiled to herself and put her cool fingers to her warming cheeks.

This had been a
very
good week.

And not just for her body.

Mikey Diamond had a sweet side that was utterly impossible for a girl to resist, and he topped it off with being so
not
needy that Dahlia couldn’t quite believe he was real. In fact, she’d even coerced a confession out of him that he’d spent all those days flirting with women in her shop just to bring in business.

And it had worked.

Sales were already up enough that she could pay her rent this month.

The ice cream truck song rang out. She adjusted her Milked Duck apron, checked that her two assistants were ready, and then smiled at the first of her guests coming in from the dark, cold evening. Soon, the coatracks in the corners were full, conversation drowned out the doorbell tune, and sample cups were being passed around, along with speculation about the secret ingredient that made Sexual Favors the early favorite in the crowd.

There was also speculation about when Billy Brenton might arrive.

Dahlia, though, was more curious about when Mikey would arrive. She didn’t know if he were one of those fashionably late people, or if he’d gotten tied up working on a song, or if—or if he’d simply gotten everything he wanted from her already.

How a person could get tired of laughing so much with someone else wasn’t something she could understand. Or how someone could whisper so many secrets and confide so much in another person and then decide it wasn’t worth it anymore.

She shook off her doubts and handed over another sample of Chocolate Orgasm. She needed to slip away and check her phone. Just for a second. In case—

A waft of cold air swept through the room, quickly followed by gasps and whispers.

There he was, all tall grace and easy movements, still in his ever-present ball cap. She didn’t need to see Will—funny how Dahlia thought of him as Mikey’s friend now, even though she’d probably have a heart attack and a half if Will knew her name—to know he was with Mikey. The shift in energy in the room said as much.

Mikey’s gaze landed on hers, and Dahlia smiled.

Let everyone else fuss over
Billy
. Dahlia had a different idea of what made a guy a rock star.

Mikey smiled back, soft and goofy, and Dahlia’s heart did the same thing it had been doing all week—it thudded to the floor with a happy, whimpering sigh.

She was in it deep this time.

He said something to Will, and the two of them moved through the crowd toward the counter.

No, wait—not two of them.

Three of them.

Mikey leaned over the counter to kiss her on the cheek. “Hey, sweet pea. Nice party.” He nudged his friend. “Billy, this here’s Dahlia. She might could solve some of your problems if you take some of her ice cream home.”

Will turned a soft brown-eyed smile on Dahlia. His well-groomed stubble made him look rugged, and his red plaid button-down open over his white T-shirt was classic Billy. “Real pleasure, Miss Dahlia.”

She shook his hand without turning into a slobbering mass of
Ohmigod, I love your songs
—which would’ve been a no-brainer two weeks ago—and then offered Mikey a saucy smile instead. “I don’t know, Mikey. He’s so hot, it would melt before he got it home.”