Bad Girl by Night (15 page)

Next to her, he took a deep breath, and he looked a little sad before he said, “I know there’s more.”

She just blinked. “More?”

“Look, honey, you don’t become somebody else to have sex unless . . . you think there’s something wrong with the person you
are
.”

The words nearly knocked the wind out of her, and she was glad she was lying down. She barely knew how to respond. Talk about blunt. Maybe that was a cop thing, too. To her surprise, it
didn’t
make her angry at him—but it made her feel a little pathetic. And not very sexy. “That was a statement, not a question,” she replied.

He met her gaze. “All right. Why do you have to become someone else in order to fuck?”

She sat up, leaned against the headboard, staring absently at the quilt now pulled to her waist, and nibbled on her lip.

She knew the answer. Maybe. Sort of. But she didn’t ever think about that—she simply didn’t let herself. She’d never wanted to fully examine how she’d gotten from point A to point B. So she said, “I don’t know. It’s just always been this way.”

“Define always.”

She swallowed. “Since high school. Since my earliest sexual experiences. I . . . just couldn’t do it.”

Now he rolled onto his side, facing her. “What do you mean?”

“I . . . had the urges”—God, had she ever had the urges, as intense as
any
teenager’s—“but whenever I tried to fool around with a guy, even a guy I really cared for . . .”

“What happened?”

She thought back to those awful, almost paralyzing moments. “I . . . froze up, felt dirty, felt sick. I . . . couldn’t let the
good
kind of dirty out of me, couldn’t let anyone see it or even know it was there. It was like there was some invisible wall between the me everyone knows—the town sweetheart and all that—and the sexual part of me. For some reason, I just couldn’t let anyone who knew me see that side. No matter how I tried. It was awful. Painful.” She sighed, remembering
all
of it. “I hurt someone I loved.”

God—Chuck. She hadn’t thought about him—in that way—in a very long time. And she hated remembering it now.

“Chuck was my first—well, my only—love. And everything I just told you is what he had to put up with. I wanted to be with him, but like I said, I just froze up, time after time.”

“So . . . you had sex with him, or it didn’t get that far?”

“Sometimes sex. But it was . . . unpleasant.” She stopped, shuddered, remembering—it had felt . . . like rape. Though she’d never been raped, so she shouldn’t know such a feeling. And it hadn’t been his fault. “It was like there was some heavy weight clamping down on me, making me go completely still, and stiff, when the actual touching and sex happened. It was the worst feeling I ever had. And . . . for the record, that’s kind of how I felt yesterday, up by the tracks when I slapped you,” she added on a thick, nervous swallow. “It . . . it wasn’t logical. It just . . . was.”

He only looked at her, and she couldn’t read his expression, so she decided it was easier to simply keep talking. “But . . . back to Chuck—the guy was a saint, frankly, but I was too caught up in my own issues to realize it at the time. Finally, I broke up with him because I figured if I couldn’t have sex with him the right way, it must mean I didn’t really love him. Only I know now that I did—that the problem really
was
just the sex. Because whenever I started dating other guys after him, the same exact thing happened.”

“Are you still in love with him?” Jake asked.

She shook her head. “But it took a while to get over it. It broke my heart. Especially since it was
my
stupid fault.”

He shrugged. “Sounds like you couldn’t help it much.”

“Anyway, he’s married now, with a daughter, and he runs the canoe livery outside town. When I see him, it’s fine—we wave, or say hi, and occasionally even chat for a few minutes. The whole love thing is long in the past. I just wish it had ended for a different, better reason.”

“What happened after that? I mean, when did you . . . start the Desiree thing?”

She was still embarrassed that he knew her most personal and shocking secret—and yet, the answer to his question made the base of her scalp tingle, just remembering it. Because, like everything related to Desiree, it felt a little shameful—yet exciting. “My best friend, Dana, went away to the University of Michigan, and one weekend when I was twenty-one, I went down to Ann Arbor to stay with her. We went to a party, I got drunk for the first time in my life, and I had sex with a guy I met there. And I was
able
to. I mean, I
enjoyed
it, for the first time ever. I was able to let go, finally let that part of me out. It was . . . liberating.

“And afterward, I realized it must have been because the guy didn’t know me, and so he wouldn’t judge me, at least not as harshly as someone from Turnbridge would. He had no preconceived notions of who I was.”

“You’re really hung up on people judging you,” Jake pointed out. “Mind if I ask why?”

She kept her gaze on the quilt, studying the point where four triangles met. “I don’t know.”

“So . . . any idea why you were able to have really hot sex with
me
a little while ago? We’re in Turnbridge, after all. And I know you’re the town sweetheart.”

She finally looked at him again—and it reminded her how handsome he was, the sensation fluttering all through her. “Maybe it’s because you met that side of me first. The Desiree side.”

“Then maybe it’s good it happened that way,” he pointed out.

“Maybe.” She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Jake Lockhart had turned her world upside down.

When he sat up, announcing he had an early shift and should probably take off, she felt equal parts disappointment and relief. She didn’t really want him to go just yet, but it would be easier, safer, once she was alone again, back in her own private little world where no one was trying to make her think too hard about her problems or get to the bottom of them.

“Can I come back and see you tomorrow night?” he asked before standing up.

She almost lost her breath, not having expected that. In fact, she’d thought maybe the intensity of the sex they’d just had might have . . . gotten her out of his system or something. And that their talk just now might have answered all his questions, given him whatever sense of closure or explanation he’d been seeking from her.

So she bit her lip, feeling unaccountably nervous. “I’m not sure.”

God, she hated how docile she felt with him tonight. The aftermath, she supposed, of letting him fuck her brains out, of letting him see how much she’d liked it. And even admitting it, too. It had left her . . . vulnerable.

“I want to make us both feel good again, honey,” he said, his voice deep, seductive, seeming to reach down inside her and wrap around her beatingtoo-fast heart. “Can I take you out to dinner somewhere? Or . . . we could do anything you want.”

She sensed he was walking on eggshells now, trying to figure out how to please her. Which was . . . nice. Undeniably so. For a guy who hadn’t
seemed
very nice since that night in the bar, it was a welcome change that softened everything inside her even further.

“No,” she said anyway, though, explaining, “I’d rather not have people talking about us any more than they already are after the pie auction.”

He tilted his head. “I’m not sure why it matters.”

“Me neither. But that’s the way it is.”
That’s the way it is, and yet
. . . was she really telling him no, this man who’d given her the most outstanding sex she’d ever experienced and who’d gone to such lengths to see her again? This man who was turning her inside out? “But . . . you can pick up a pizza from Angelo’s on the way if you want.”

His eyes took on a gentle warmth as he said, “Deal.”

“T
ina’s making a big lasagna for dinner tonight,” Tommy said, stopping at Jake’s desk. “Said I should tell you to come over for a home-cooked meal when your shift ends.”

Jake raised his eyes to Tom. “I appreciate the invitation, man, but I’ve already got dinner plans. Next time, though—and thank Tina for me.” Lasagna sounded good, but Carly sounded better.

As Jake might have suspected, Tommy narrowed his gaze suspiciously.
“What
plans? You don’t know anybody here.”

He hadn’t intended to tell Tommy about this, but . . .“I’ve got a date.”

Tom’s eyebrows shot up. “With who?”

“Carly.”

Tommy’s jaw dropped. “You shittin’ me?”

“Nope.”

His friend just gave his head a pointed tilt, still flashing a look. “How the hell did that happen?”

Inside, Jake was reeling from the memories, and the sensations they delivered—but on the outside, he just shrugged. “Turns out that pie led someplace good after all,” he said, then peered back at the paperwork before him, not wanting to extend the conversation.

“Huh,” Tommy said, still clearly shocked. Then he lowered his voice so no one else in the station house would hear. “Well, bud, good for you, but . . . don’t go gettin’ your hopes up about Carly Winters. I mean, don’t expect much. Like sex, I mean.”

Jake simply let out a long, slow sigh. He liked Tommy, but he suddenly didn’t like Tommy talking about Carly and sex anymore. She’d confided so much in him, and even though he didn’t fully understand her hang-ups, he was starting to feel a little protective of her. “How about you just let me worry about that, okay?”

Tommy blinked, clearly catching the slight edge in Jake’s tone. “Uh, sure, bud,” he said, backing off and making a clear effort to sound easygoing and cheerful. “And we’ll give you a rain check on the lasagna.”

 

 

C
arly still felt as if she’d unwittingly stepped into some bizarro world version of her own life. After closing the shop at six, she went upstairs to shower and dress. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a real date and had no idea what to wear. Or what to do with her hair. Given that until yesterday she’d been trying to avoid Jake, it was a strange switch in her thinking to care what he thought, to want to please him now. But she did. That was another thing she could barely remember—caring about pleasing a guy, wanting him to really like her.

She decided on jeans and a pale pink tank top with a band of lace at the hem—after all, they were only having pizza at her place, not going to the opera. She left her hair down, letting it dry on its own so that it curled slightly at the ends. Then she looked in the mirror and wondered how she’d gotten here, with him. Why had she confided in him so much? Why had she become this sweet, trusting girl with him?

Wait. That’s the real you, who you really are. Sweet. Trusting.
So maybe it wasn’t so much that she’d “gotten” somewhere with him—she was actually just being
herself
. She simply wasn’t used to doing that with guys, and certainly not when it came to talking about sex.

When the buzzer rang at eight, her stomach swam with nerves. She felt as if she were sixteen again, as if it were Chuck on the other side of the door, as if all this was new and mysterious to her. But maybe it
was
new and mysterious. If you took Chuck out of the equation, at thirty-two she had less dating experience than the average high school student.
Blegh—don’t think about that. Just answer the door.

Something about the sight of Jake standing on the front steps in faded jeans and a distressed tee, holding a pizza box in his hand, nearly took her breath away.
I want him. I want him like crazy.
She experienced the wild urge to forget the pizza and rip his clothes off right now. To make it like last night, hot and intense and needful. “Hi,” she murmured, heart fluttering in her chest.

Maybe that instant craving was normal after what had happened last night. But it was definitely more than she was used to feeling, even on nights in Traverse City. Because now they’d talked. She’d told him personal things. And he hadn’t passed judgment on her, just as he’d promised he wouldn’t.

“Pizza delivery,” he said with an easy smile as she stood back and let him inside.

Of course, she
couldn’t
rip his clothes off. She wasn’t Desiree. Having the desire and doing the deed were two different things. Carly had
always
felt desire—she’d just never been bold enough to act on it unless she took on that other persona. Just sharing a pizza with him would be challenging enough.

As she led him upstairs, she said, thinking out loud, “I should have picked up some beer, darn it. Sorry.”

But he sounded completely easygoing about it. “I’m not picky. Whatever you’ve got is fine.”

She walked to her fridge and inspected the shelves. “Let’s see—I have Coke, some Sprite, water, and a bottle of white wine.”

“Let’s go with the wine,” he said, and she thought:
Good choice.
It would help her relax a little.

She’d put on some music to fill the air in moments when they weren’t talking; mostly what she thought of as “mellow alternative” from the nineties. At the moment, 10,000 Maniacs were telling her these were days she’d remember, days when something would grow and bloom in her. And she almost felt that. Maybe because something was growing and blooming already. Just seeing him tonight made last night’s strange, stark, wild intimacy feel warmer than it had at the time. They’d shared something. And whether or not it was the sex or the things she’d admitted to him afterward, she already felt a strange, invisible bond stretching between them now. It was thin, tenuous at best—but on the other hand, it was the most profound connection she’d experienced with a man in her entire adult life.

She gave Jake a couple of yellow Farberware plates and instructed him to open the pizza box on the coffee table; then she poured two glasses of wine and joined him.
Here we go. A date. Breathe.