Undeniable (9 page)

“Who said they were bad?”

“You grew up in a bar, Arwen,” he said, his exasperation evident in the set of his jaw, his tone of voice, his distance.

“With a father who wanted to keep me close.”

He bit off a laugh, lifted his beer. “You think that’s why he brought you here with him?”

She reached into the bag of excuses she’d used as a child. “That, and he couldn’t afford a babysitter.”

“Nothing about him being unable to stay sober?”

“If rumor had it right, he had that in common with your father.” And there she went again. Dragging his family into the fray.

She shoved her hands into her hair, pressed her palms to her temples. “Look. It’s really simple. I stayed because this is where I wanted to be. The opportunity to buy the bar came up and I took it. Crow Hill needed someplace to eat besides the Blackbird Diner. And somewhere to drink that didn’t have Buck Akers hands all over it. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, because obviously he wasn’t quite done. “I mean, you’re using your dad’s old booth from the Buck Off Bar for a kitchen table.”

A reminder, that’s all it was. Of where she’d come from. And where she would never go again. She repeated, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

He held up both hands. “I believe you.”

“Thank you.” And could they
please
not go there again? “Now, can I get you another beer? An order of nachos or wings?”

“Nah, I should get going before anybody sees me,” he said, tugging down on his hat brim until she couldn’t even see his eyes.

“That hat’s not fooling anyone, you know.”

His mouth twisted into half a grin. “Teri Stokes told me the same thing the other morning.”

She stopped with her water bottle halfway to her mouth. “You saw Teri?”

“At the diner.”

“What were you doing at the diner?”

“Waiting for Darcy. Thought I told you that.”

“You know she’s married, right? Teri?”

This time his grin dug dimples into the scruff of his cheeks. “You filling me in or warning me off?”

“Do I need to?”

“I haven’t forgotten our agreement.”

“Agreement?”

“About me being your whore,” he said, and her belly tingled at the memories of him in her tub.

“Good, because I have plans for you.”

“Glad to hear it, but they’ll have to wait.”

And after all that. She pouted her disappointment. The heat of their earlier back and forth had her in the mood to get laid. “You’re not coming home with me?”

“No can do. I’m on probation. Can’t afford to have my pay docked.”

“You get paid?”

“Room and board.”

“So if your pay gets docked—”

“I’ll be sleeping on a straw mattress, using a saddle for a pillow, and if the horses are in a mood to share, eating oats for breakfast.” He held his bottle by the neck, twirled it. “With Remedy calling the shots in the barn, I don’t see that happening.”

There was something about the picture of Dax Campbell relying on the kindness of horses that broke her heart. For the price
of a law degree, he’d have had the world at his feet. What he had instead was a bad reputation and little to show for the past sixteen years.

“My bed’s your bed for as long as you need it.”

She wasn’t even thinking of sex when she made the offer. But the change in their positions… it got to her. The nobody and the someone and the jokes life played.

He lifted his head, pushed on the brim of his hat with his longneck, giving her a better look at the weary defeat taking him on. “You’re hard on a man, Arwen Poole.”

Admitting a weakness—for sleep, for good food, for her—did not make him a weak man. Surely he knew that. “If you come home with me tonight, I’ll see that you get a good night’s sleep.”

“If I come home with you tonight, there won’t be any sleeping done. You and I both know that.”

“I have a spare room. There’s a lock on the door. Go. Now. Set the alarm. Get into bed. You need sleep more than you need…”

“My pipes cleaned?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at her as if waiting for a punch line, but this was all she had, and so she waited. He could stay, or he could go. He could take her up on her offer and see the truth for himself, or he could leave and always wonder.

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “Door’s open. Guest room’s off the kitchen to the left. Full bed, navy comforter. You might have to kick Crush off the pillows.”

“Crush?”

She gave a sheepish shrug. “He’s orange.”

“And he likes pillows.”

“Pillows, feta cheese, and belly rubs.” She circled the end of the bar, spun his stool so he was facing the saloon’s front door,
then rose up close to his ear, pressing her body to his and inhaling deeply. Her breasts grew heavy, and her nipples tightened, and the desire that spiraled white-hot to her core robbed her of the ability to breathe.

This was all she wanted from him. This feeling. Who he’d been in the past and who he was now didn’t matter. And dwelling on either would only get in the way of working him out of her system for good. “This offer expires in the next fifteen seconds. If you’re still here when I get back from pouring my guys another round, be prepared to take your clothes off.”

L
YING ON HIS
back, his hands stacked beneath his head, Dax stared at the ceiling and listened to Arwen’s house breathe. Water pipes clinked in the attic. The a/c kicked on and the windows rattled. Boards popped with the change in the temperature, groaning and old. A branch of the live oak throwing cover from the west gave the roof an occasional scrape.

Home noises. Comfortable noises. Noises only a guest would hear.

No strings. She’d let him into her house, trusted him not to rob her blind. Trusted him with her cat. Trusted him when few in Crow Hill ever had, and when he’d done nothing to deserve her investment.

That had kept him up for a while, trying to figure out what she was thinking, but not for long. He was as beat as he kept hearing he looked, and since he couldn’t do anything about his workload or genetics, the only thing for it was sleep.

He’d set the alarm for five, and a glance at the digital display had him shutting off the clock before its scheduled buzz. He hated to move. The bed was heaven, but then he’d been sleeping on a bunk that had seen better days and the weight of too many bodies.

On the pillow beside him, Crush stretched and glared, obviously not a fan of four forty-five. Dax reached over and scratched the cat’s stomach, his arm going numb from the vibrating purr turning his muscles to mush.

“Gotta go,” he whispered, extricating himself slowly from the sheet and the comforter but mostly from the rumbling cat in case it decided to flex its claws. Wearing nothing but his briefs, he stepped across the hall to the bathroom, took care of business, then went back for his clothes.

He got as far as pulling on his jeans before thinking better of dressing the rest of the way. He had a few minutes to spare, and he owed his hostess a proper—though, granted, a quick—thank-you.

It was when he stopped in the open doorway of Arwen’s room that he changed his mind. Not about showing his appreciation for the use of the guest quarters, but about saying it with more than his mouth.

Truth be told, her bedroom décor was pretty much a bucket of ice water poured down his pants. The pink and cream and lace made him think of his grandmother. Of pigtails and little girls.

It did not make him think about sex, though once he’d focused on what he’d come for, Arwen’s ass in black boy shorts quickly took care of that. She lay on her side, a cotton-candy-colored pillow tucked to her chest.

Her back was bare, her dark hair a tumbled mess around her shoulders, her knees drawn up in the fetal position, her bottom as close to naked as it needed to be for him to forget everything else.

He could slip a finger beneath the fabric of her undies and be inside her before either of them blinked. He could turn her on her back and push into her with his tongue. He could turn her on her stomach and slide his cock deep in her ass.

And yet he found himself wanting to take her to dinner, to go dancing, drinking. To hold her in his arms, her body close to his, and sway to some classic George Strait.

Where that had come from he had no idea, and he didn’t care to find out right now. Not when he was hard and thick, his tip already wet, his balls anxious and heavy.

He set the bundle of his boots and shirt on the floor, dropped his hat on top, shucked down his jeans and shorts and stepped out of them. Then he crawled onto the bed and hovered above her, a palm on the mattress at her back.

Still sleeping, she rolled into his arm, the position lifting her top leg to his liking. He pulled aside the crotch of her shorts, his knuckle grazing her heated skin, then rubbed the head of his cock through her folds, spreading both his moisture and hers.

She shuddered, moaned, and he pushed into her, filling her until his sac bumped her ass.

“Good morning,” he said, and her eyes fluttered open and her tongue came out to wet her lips. “Just wanted to give you a proper thank-you for the use of the bed.”

“I like your idea of proper,” she said, still half asleep, the husky raw note in her voice inviting, as was the play of the moonlight through her windows on her skin.

She was curvy and lush and all kinds of ripe, and he enjoyed a whole lot the way she tightened around him, pulling on his cock, keeping him. He planted his other hand on the bed beneath her tits, trapping her as he thrust, withdrew, thrust again.

Then he stayed deep, grinding against her, losing a little of
himself he didn’t think he’d ever get back. “You should see my collection of improper ones.”

“Show me,” she said, pulling her knees to her chest, and pushing her bottom toward his groin. “Start with hard and fast.”

That he could do, and he only wondered for a moment if she’d picked it because he had to go, or if she wanted to get back to sleep, or if she got off that way best of all. And then the moment was gone and she was twisting her hips—and him, too—doing a mean figure eight with his business.

A match lit deep between his legs, fire eating him up like tinder, burning as he pumped and drove himself home. She grunted each time he hit bottom, and she reached between her legs, using the vee of her fingers to catch at the ridge of his cock with each pass, using her thumb against her clit and writhing.

It was too much, all the noise and the fingering and the way her pussy sucked him in and spit him out. He slammed into her, his balls slapping her, his thighs on fire, his shoulders torched with the strain. He tossed back his head, beat himself against her, his testicles aching, his cock the only thing he knew.

He balanced himself and grabbed her leg, turning her from her side to her back, hooking her knee over his elbow to spread her wide. Then he became the rutting beast she’d asked for, giving her every bit of hard and fast he’d held back in the tub. Held back for years before that because he’d never had a woman ask for it all. And he’d never wanted to let a woman in.

She whimpered, panted, and he knew he was hurting her, but she wouldn’t let him ease up or slow down, and her cries echoed in his head, as did her repeated and breathless, “Don’t you dare stop.”

He didn’t. He fucked her until he saw stars, and somewhere in his head he knew she finished, shuddering beneath him in a
violent wet rush of contractions. But he was shaking, bucking, his muscles beat all to hell by brutal twelve-hour days.

His strength sapped like a weeping willow, he collapsed on top of her, spurted inside of her, rubbed his face in the silk of her hair where it lay in ribbons on her pillow.

“I’m not usually that improper,” he finally found his voice to say. “Seems kinda heathen to rush through something deserving more time.”

“Go to work,” she told him, rolling away. “I’m sleepy.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, though it was twenty minutes before he moved, and even longer until he let himself realize he’d opened up a can of big-time trouble.

H
ENRY
L
ASKO’S BEEN
a client of this firm for thirty goddamn years. If he wants a meeting, he gets a meeting. I don’t give a gold-plated fig if you’re in the middle of wiping your ass. You sit down and hear what the man has to say, or you start walking. Understood?

It had been an hour since those words had exploded down the Campbell and Associates hallway, thundering off the walls like a sonic boom. An hour, and Darcy’s head was still spinning. Part of that was the ringing in her ears, and part was her lack of success at shaking The Campbell’s reprimand.

He’d threatened her position. After all the years she’d spent busting her butt to fill Dax’s boots and earn her place in the family firm, The Campbell had threatened her position. And over Henry Lasko’s ridiculous claim to the lease on the Dalton ranch.

But the rest of her headache was due to the fact that she
had
started walking, and in the last hour she’d perspired through her
panties and her bra, her slip and her hose, her blouse and her suit and her shoes. Not that her condition was much of a surprise.

When she’d passed the First National Bank twenty minutes ago, the marquee had flashed a severe temperature advisory in a big red digital ninety-nine. The longer she walked, the closer the heat would inch to the day’s forecasted one hundred and five. Yet here she was, one foot after the other, unable to stomp out the anger driving her toward heatstroke.

On the morning of her Blackbird Diner altercation with Henry Lasko, The Campbell had—unbeknownst to her—been on his way out of town. He’d heard the news of their run-in, of course, having spies and suck-ups like most men of power. But it wasn’t until this morning and his storming into the office that she’d been treated to the reality of his disdain. The extent of his disregard. His complete disrespect.

Imagine that—asking a client to make an appointment. Though no doubt it was the embarrassing when and where of the request that was the problem. She’d done so in front of an audience of Henry’s peers. And in front of Dax. That, more than anything, had set off The Campbell.