Addicted to You (33 page)

The fact of that matter was, taking on a job implied a state of permanence to her and Rill’s relationship that she wasn’t sure was at all justified.

But the nervousness she experienced when she thought of telling Rill about her new job was nothing in comparison to what she felt when she reached into her purse ten minutes later and drew out what was in the bag from the pharmacy.

“Rill’s going to kill me.”

Her fingers felt rubbery with rising anxiety as she opened the box of the early home-pregnancy test.

Twenty-two

Rill had bought an antenna for the old television set and was
finishing setting it up when Katie walked into the living room.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Katie murmured. “It’s a
color
TV.”

Rill chuckled and fiddled with the channel dial. When he stood and Katie neared, he noticed her expression.

“You okay?” he asked as he came down on the couch next to her. “You’ve seemed kind of out of it this evening.”

“No, I’m fine. It’s just . . .”

“What?”

“We just figured out that old TV set shows color and you picked a black-and-white movie,” she said bemusedly.

Rill laughed. Katie had always cracked him up, ever since he’d first known her. He was glad to know that giving free rein to his monumental lust for her hadn’t diminished his appreciation of her humor.

He reached for her and pulled her against him. He buried his nose in fragrant gold waves. “It’s Hitchcock. You know I never pass on Hitchcock. Besides, I wasn’t really planning on spending much time watching TV,” he informed her. “Seems like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“It was just this morning,” she murmured as she stroked his shoulders and kissed his ear. His cock appreciated not only her actions but her delicious, clean scent. She’d just taken a shower when he’d come home earlier and she’d greeted him in the kitchen. Her long hair had been damp and she’d been wearing a soft-looking yellow and white short nightgown and robe. Her skin had been dewy-looking and her green eyes shone. He’d scowled when she’d casually mentioned Miles Fordham had been there earlier, nosing around.

The guy was a fucking nuisance.

Rill had wanted to haul Katie off to bed instantly, but he couldn’t without giving away his true identity as an asshole caveman since she’d made such a nice meal for them.

She’d seemed distracted during dinner. Her preoccupation didn’t have anything to do with Fordham, did it? Surely not. Katie wasn’t stupid. She’d sidestepped his question about what was bothering her, but he really wanted to ask her about it again, and he would . . . if she stopped kissing him, that was.

He picked up the end of a tendril and squashed a fat curl between his fingers. “Thanks for the dinner. You’re going to spoil me, you know.”

“Have you ever been spoiled before?” Katie asked as she continued to kiss his ear and make him shiver.

“Never.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“I’m too contrary to be spoiled.”

“You’ve got that straight,” she murmured wryly.

She shifted her focus to his face, where she began to rain little kisses on his eyelids and cheeks. Her lips felt warm and soft when she finally landed on his mouth. For a few delicious seconds, he kissed her back, molding her lips to his languorously. Kissing Katie was like a sensual gateway drug . . . heady, intoxicating . . . making him crave the next high making love to her would give him.

He groaned when she pressed her breasts against his chest. He steeled his restraint, something that was starting to be nearly impossible to do when it came to Katie. He became a rabid animal when he was in her presence.

She looked miffed when he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back so he could see her face.

“Something wrong?” he said gruffly.

“What makes you ask that?”

He shrugged. “I told you. You’ve seemed out of it all evening. Did something happen today?”

He saw her swallow. “Not much. I got lost in the woods. A woman who raises chinchillas nearly shot me.”

His eyes widened in amazement. “You ran into the chinchilla lady?”

Katie nodded.

“Getting fed up with Vulture’s Canyon?”

“No,” she replied quickly. “In fact, this place is starting to grow on me. Are . . . are you? Getting fed up, I mean?”

He picked up another curl and rubbed it between his fingers. His cock buzzed pleasantly at the sensual sensation. He wanted to bury himself in the wild mess of Katie’s hair.

“I’m not feeling any need to go anywhere at the moment.” He met her eyes. “But I do wish you’d tell me whatever it is you’re hiding, Katie.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“What do you mean?” she squawked.

“You’re hiding something,” he said levelly. He rolled his eyes when she looked outraged. “Unless Errol moves at the rate of an inchworm, I seriously doubt his rehab appointments last for most of the day. You’re gone all the time. I’m not upset about it; I’m just curious. What the hell are you doing during the day? I mean . . . this is Vulture’s Canyon. What
is
there to do?”

She just stared at him openmouthed. He could almost hear her mind churning out the excuses.

“Katie,” he warned softly.

“Oh, all right. I’ve found a job.”

“What?”

“A
job
. You know, the thing you do to get money and pay the bills. Not all of us are multimillionaire film directors.” She threw him a dark glance, but he wasn’t buying her wounded act.

“Explain, Katie.”

She sat back and began to fidget with one of the couch pillows. He was confused by the way she wouldn’t look at him.
Jaysus
. What had Katie gone and done this time?

“I . . . I took a job with the county working as a financial advisor for people in need.” She glanced at him nervously from beneath long lashes. “You know . . . like, helping people who can’t read file their taxes or giving financial information to people who are considering a land sale or something and can’t afford legal advice.” When he didn’t say anything because he was so busy trying to figure out why she was so anxious, she continued. “Monty told me about the job. They had just gotten a grant from the state to start the service. There are a lot of people in this county who are illiterate, or who might be pushed into doing something stupid thanks to coming into contact with people like Miles Fordham. It’s a much-needed service,” she added defensively.

“I agree,” he replied, taken aback by her fierceness. “It sounds like the perfect job for you.”

She gawked at him.

“What?”
he asked.

“You . . . you think it sounds like the perfect job for me?” she asked shakily.

He shrugged, becoming more bewildered by the moment. “Yeah. It’s a perfect fit. You can use your education, and you always wanted to do stuff for people in need. All those Junior League events you planned for different charities—”

“I hated the Junior League,” she mumbled, although she didn’t seem much aware of what she was saying. She looked transfixed as she stared at him.

“Yeah. You never fit very well with all those other girls. But you always wanted to help people, so—” Air popped out of his lungs when Katie threw herself against him. “What the . . . What’s this all about?” he asked, his confusion rising to concern when Katie started to kiss his jaw, cheeks and lips feverishly and he felt the dampness of her tears on his skin.

“I love you, Rill Pierce,” she whispered in a pressured hiss before she covered his mouth. His mind churned with questions. He patted her back in a bid for her attention but with increasing feebleness as his blood started to boil. Kissing Katie was pure delight, but having Katie kiss him was like being hit by a Mack truck of lust.

His arms closed around her and he submerged himself in her heat. He muttered a protest a moment later when she broke the kiss.

“I thought you’d laugh at me.”

It took him a second to process her meaning as he tried to make the difficult mental segue from horny beast to rational man.

“Why would I laugh? Do you
want
the job?”

“I really, really do,” she said.

“Well, that’s great, then. Congratulations for getting it.” Something occurred to him. “Does this relate at all to why you were tangling with the chinchilla lady this afternoon?”

She nodded. Her smile was infectious.

“And . . . and you’re not upset that I took a job? In general, I mean,” she added, giving him a meaningful look that took him a moment to interpret. His smile faded. He paused before answering, trying to quiet his bout of horniness, because this was important. He chose his words with care.

“I don’t have any claim on your life, Katie,” he said gruffly. When he saw her face fall, he cradled the side of her head. Her solemn expression tore at him. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m just saying that the reasons I came to Vulture’s Canyon are a world away from the reasons you did.”

“I came here for you,” she whispered.

“In part you did. I know that, and I’m grateful. Have I told you that? Well, I am. But you came here for yourself, too. You hated your job. I’m beginning to think you disliked your whole life.” She sniffed, and Rill used his thumb to wipe away a tear from her cheek. “You came here to find yourself, Katie. Me? I came here to get away from myself.”

A spasm of emotion flickered in her face.

“So when I say I don’t have a claim on your life, I just mean I don’t have any say in how you plan your future. Because I think that’s what you’re doing here, Katie. You’re carving out a future for yourself, and it’s going to be
great
. How could it not be, when you have so much to offer the world?” He grimaced when she sobbed softly.

This wasn’t going how he planned at all.

“Aw, Katie,” he murmured regretfully when more tears spilled around his thumb. “I came to this old town and existed like a festering sore up on this hill. You came and lit up the place like a beacon. It’s not wise for you to worry about what I think of your plans, not when your future is so bright, not when you have so much to give.”

“You’re
not
a festering sore,” she snapped between sniffs.

Rill suppressed a sigh of relief. Having her pissed at him was a damn sight better than seeing her looking so sad and lost. He couldn’t stand that. He smiled and dried off the last of her tears with his fingers.

“Thanks to you, I’m not quite so bad. At least I don’t smell like a rancid wound anymore.”

She gave him a forbidding glance for his levity. “You smelled more like a distillery when I arrived. Festering wound, my butt; no variety of infection could have existed in the midst of all that alcohol. Just inhaling your breath was enough to make me tipsy,” she told him testily.

“Thank God,” he muttered under his breath. “I don’t know what to do if you’re not grouchy.”

She bit her lip and took a deep breath. His admiration for her grew as he saw her master her emotions. “Don’t worry,” she grumbled. “I’m not asking you to make a lifelong commitment to me just because I decided to take a job in this godforsaken place.”

He put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted up her face. “I can make you one promise. I will always care about you, Katie. Always.” He pressed his thumb to her plump lower lip when it trembled.

“There’s something else,” he admitted. “Now that you’re in my blood, I have a feeling I’m never going to be free of you.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. A powerful emotion rose in him as she softened beneath his mouth. He didn’t recognize it, and since the feeling coincided with the experience of his cock stiffening into a lead pipe, he assumed it was blinding lust. He’d grown used to having it happen constantly in Katie’s presence, although he had to admit, the feeling seemed to have grown exponentially tonight.

“You know what I’d like?” he asked Katie against her damp lips after a minute or two of slaking his monumental thirst on her mouth.

“Let me guess,” she whispered between soft pants. “You want to tie me up and have me go down on you one or a couple dozen times.”

He grinned. “You do come up with the good ideas.”

“That’s what I’m paid for,” she said, her arch look assuring him she was all for forgetting what he’d just said about not having any hold on her future.

“A couple dozen times?” he mused.

“Are you suggesting I’m not good enough?”

“I’m suggesting
no one
is good enough, even if you traveled back in time and looked me up as a seventeen-year-old. I have to admit, though,” he added under his breath, his gaze fixed to her mouth, “if anyone could make a decent run at it, it’d be you, Katie. No, that’s not what I had in mind, though, as appealing as the idea is. I think I’m in the mood to watch a black-and-white Hitchcock movie on our color TV.”

She rolled her eyes. “You may not be seventeen, but you’re not eighty-five, either, Rill.”

He smiled and reached for the hems of her robe and nightgown. Beneath the two layers, she was wearing a tiny scrap of silk. He wondered for the thousandth time in the past several weeks why Katie even bothered with underwear. He settled her with her back against his chest and slipped his fingers beneath her panties.