Burned (6 page)

“Hell yes.” He moved behind the bar and started cleaning up. “Lose it while you’re at it.”

“You really don’t like karaoke night, do you?”

“Hate it.”

Vic leaned on the bar, bracing her head on a palm and smiled. Her blouse gaped. “All of it?”

Hauk’s gaze landed on her breasts. He swallowed. Licked his lips. “Not all of it.”

“Then enjoy the parts you can.”

“Are we talking karaoke or sex now?”

She grinned. “Why choose?”

“It’s safer.”

“Safer.” Waving off his reserve, certain he’d choose sex if it came to a choice, she took another drink. “I heard a few people tonight who are quite good singers. I could ask them to sing a few songs.”

“Okay.”

“Reece McGrath has an amazing voice.”

“He won’t do it.”

“He would if his honor was on the line.”

Hauk stopped stacking glasses and narrowed his eyes. “You’re in a scheming mood tonight.”

“It’s for a good cause, though this one is a scheme you would have to pull off.”

“How so?”

“You have a poker game set with him. You just have to win a hand.” She grinned, having a blast with her game. “I never see you lose, so it shouldn’t be too tough.”

“If those are the stakes, Reece will make it tough.”

Vic leaned a little more on the bar, pressing her breasts against the polished wood. “I have no doubt you’ll get the job done.”

“Fine.”

“Super.” She hopped up and rounded the bar with her iPod. Keying up the playlist she wanted, she swapped his iPod for hers in the dock. “Now, for the headliner. There’s a singer on his way up the charts.”

Hauk raised a brow as the first strains of a current hit ballad rolled from the speakers. “You’ll never land Josh Bryan.”

Rolling her hips, Vic walked to Hauk. She took the glass he was holding and set it on the shelf. Placing a hand on his shoulder and the other in his palm, she began moving in a slow sway. “I like how you challenge me, Hauk.”

“A challenge is something you can accomplish.” He curled his fingers over hers.

His second hand moved to rest just at the top curve of her ass. Warmth spread deep through her marrow.

“So little faith.” He was a challenge she was growing more determined to win. Raising her head, she looked into his eyes. He was a little wary, but he wasn’t avoiding her and he wasn’t ready to snap anyone in half anymore. “If you agree, I will get Josh here. And within our budget.”

“Go for it.”

Taking his encouragement as more than he intended, she pushed up and kissed him.

A long sigh of cherished moments, the kiss began as their others had.

Slow.

Warm.

Unlike their others, it spread through his heart like a warm blanket, smothering past pains. A pang pressed against his chest. Rather than thinking about what it could possibly mean, he embraced the idea of the woman in his arms. Tightening his hold, he lifted her so her feet dangled an inch off the floor, then he took the kiss a level deeper.

The song on her iPod shifted to an older song of Clay Walker’s. He sang about being a walking contradiction. About fighting the urge to love because of the empty part of himself. It was a song Hauk could relate to, even as he didn’t want to think about how much.

“I’ve missed you,” Vic whispered against his lips.

“I kept expecting you to show up with ideas on how I should modify the design of the stage.”

“The thought occurred to me.” She kissed a trail down his neck, changing sides when she made a full path down one.

“So, why didn’t you come?”

“Why didn’t you?”

He pulled her back, looked into her eyes and shook his head. Her plump lips pursed, taunted. The things she could do with that mouth. “I’m still not sure we should be doing this.”

“Are you more concerned it’ll mess things up, or that you like it too much?”

“That I like it too much to care how it’ll change things.”

“Change isn’t always bad. But I’ll give you some time to think.” She pushed against him enough to have him letting her go.

“Vic—”

“It’ll give me time to show you my next game idea.” She walked past the iPod dock, flipping off the music as she went. Sauntering to the stage with a laughing glance over her shoulder, she aroused a new fear in Hauk. A fear that Vic was worming too deeply beneath his skin.

Wary and curious, he followed her out from behind the bar. The Vic before him tonight wasn’t like the woman he’d known his whole life. This woman was more bold and brazen and didn’t care that he’d been burned.

Back on the stage where she’d driven him crazy before, she cued up a new song. “A continuation of the singing dating game, I think it would be fun to see lovers tell stories with songs. Whoever tells the best story, as determined by ballots cast by the crowd, wins bragging rights.”

“A singing play? Sounds like a bad version of karaoke to me.”

“It would be.” She smiled and hit play. She chose Reba this time, acting out the lines she could. Gyrating suggestively to the ones she couldn’t.

“But it would be fun and funny.” She winked as she sang about not being able to think straight when he held her.

He understood that. He wasn’t so sure he could agree with the lyric about not doing something he’d regret.

As she sang, belting out the high notes and caressing the low ones, she sashayed back to him. She seemed to be sashaying a lot tonight. When she got to him, she circled him like she had before. Touching and brushing his body when she was behind him. When she was in front of him though…

In front of him, she was touching and caressing herself. Her hips swayed from side to side with a saucy roll mid-move. She cupped her breasts, rubbed her palms over the swells in an upward motion that had her blouse rising.

“I’ll give you something to miss.”

As if her words weren’t enough, as if her fondling herself wasn’t enough, she moved closer. Mischief and pure delight prowled in her eyes as she bent her knees and began lowering herself.

She hiked her skirt enough that her left leg could straddle his right one. She flattened her hands on his hips and ran them down his legs, grazing the sides of his cock with her thumbs. His hips jerked forward, eager for her to strip him and suck him like she had the other morning.

Then she worked her way back up his body, so close, the warmth of her breath as she sang penetrated denim and cotton.

If her story was about how she got him to disgrace himself, fully clothed in his bar, she would win.

She lowered her voice on the closing lines of the song, whispering that she’d leave him with a passionate kiss, giving him something to miss.

The woman was good at her games, but so was he.

Physical need washed logic out to sea until avoidance was impossible. Vic made him feel things he hadn’t felt in—ever. Things he probably should have felt for his wife, or the woman he had almost married, but hadn’t. She knew what made him tick, and obviously the knowledge didn’t end with their friendship.

Swaying to a tune playing only in his head, Hauk held Vic close and moved her into a dance. She flattened her hands on his chest, looking up at him. He settled his onto her hips, memorizing the sensation of the rise and fall of each step she took. Their bodies blended and flowed together more fluidly than perfectly paired liquors. The perfect partner, she followed his every lead.

Ready to lead her down a new path, Hauk squeezed her a little closer with one hand. With the other, he lowered the zipper on her skirt. “You shouldn’t dress like this in here.”

“Why?” She tilted her head to one side and flicked open a button on his shirt. “Don’t you like it?”

“There are more tourists than normal this time of year.” He nudged the skirt over her hips and let it fall to the floor. “You could attract the wrong kind of attention.”

“Are you the wrong kind of attention, Hauk?” She released another button and hummed. “Because you were my goal.”

Still swaying, he grabbed the bottom of her top and pulled it over her head. Braless, her breasts stood alert, ready for attention. He bent to kiss one and then the other, lingering only a moment on either. “I could be.”

“Well—” she tugged his shirt over his head, “—I think I like
this
kind of wrong.” She popped the button on his jeans.

He toed off his shoes, pushed her thong down. While she worked his jeans, he slipped a hand between her thighs, swiped a finger along her wet lips. Chuckling, he flicked her clit. “Clearly.”

She rolled her hips, rubbing herself more fully on his finger. Her hands trembled as she shoved his jeans and boxers to the floor.

Naked, save for his socks and her heels, they moved in a fondling dance, teasing each other mercilessly with quick swipes and flicks of fingers. They exploited every tender, erotic point they’d previously discovered on each other. He found a couple new ones for her.

His favorite was discovering that a single finger run left to right across her lower back had her arching against him. Right to left did nothing. Left to right, though. Every time he repeated the swipe, she half-bucked against him.

He grinned. It stretched his face to the point that his cheek muscles stretched and he could feel the corners of his eyes pinch tight. The power of a single touch, the ability to drive her crazy with want, filled him with…unfettered glee. It was such a foreign sensation for him, such a departure from the seriousness he always felt, but other than recognizing it as something he’d seen in Sophie, he had no other explanation for it. Vic had a way of releasing him from duty.

Turning her back to him, he caressed her breasts and stomach and nibbled at her neck and shoulders until she was writhing against him. Until her ass brushed his cock with every wiggling sway of their dance. Until the hunger to taste her clawed at him. Still, he didn’t want to rush. Rushing would end the pleasure too soon, and after discovering the delights she would deliver, he wanted to prolong the moment.

He flattened his hands on her pelvis, tugged her ass firmly against his cock, and bent her slightly forward. Stooping lower, he kissed a trail along her spine, lingered over her fading hickey, sucked long enough to revive his mark.

Vic squirmed, arched her back. “You do that really well.” She dragged out the word
really
with a purr rumbling below the surface.

“What’s it say about me—” he turned her back to face him, “—that I like seeing my mark on you?”

“The same thing it says that I like having your mark on me.”

Sweeping a thumb across her cheekbone, wondering if the new intensity to her eyes was makeup or something else, he stared. She was different tonight, but it somehow didn’t seem to all be cosmetic.

She raised a leg to rub along the outside of his. Her heels gave her a height advantage she hadn’t had the other morning, so the move also had her pussy rubbing against him. “We’re good together, Hauk.”

“We are.” Rather than think of how far that connection would extend, he walked her to the closest table and lowered her down. Lifting her by the hips, he drove into her waiting sex.

She screamed and raised herself to take him deeper. Her eagerness to have him inside, echoed through his brain. Synapses snapped. Feeling like a predator with his prey in his grasp, Hauk thrust.

Again and again, over and over, in and out, hard and fast. Vic lifted her legs, bracing them on his shoulders. Her hands gripped his hips and encouraged him to go harder and faster.

He drove them higher and higher, stepping forward when the table scraped the floor, shoving chairs aside with it. Her thigh muscles rippled along his chest. Her hands trembled. He vibrated as the building orgasm converged into a fist of need that gripped his groin.

Awakened to a new side of himself, a rough and rowdy side he’d never known he possessed, Hauk worked them both into a sweat before finally releasing control. Attuned to him, Vic’s gaze sought his the moment he surrendered and she tumbled over the edge with him into a convulsing orgasm, her pussy contracting around him as he filled her.

Hauk dug sleep out of his eyes as he walked Sophie to school. He and Vic had stayed in the bar the night before, stealing moments of time, talking and making love until the sky began turning gray with the coming sunrise. They’d been reluctant to split, but they both decided it would be best to keep them a secret for the time being.

In the darkness of morning, before even the fishermen were moving around, he’d helped Vic dress, walked her to the door and given her a long kiss before letting her go. Like a moonstruck kid, he’d shamelessly watched her take what some would consider a walk of shame, which she clearly felt no shame taking, until she turned the corner to her apartment.

“Is that okay, Dad?”

Hauk shook his mind clear of Vic and gave his daughter his attention. “Is what okay?”

“Dad.” Sophie scolded him with eyes too serious for her angelic face. It was a look she’d gotten from her mother, though she wouldn’t know it unless he told her. “You’re not listening.”

“My mind drifted for a minute.” He curled an arm around her shoulders. “I’m all yours now, though.”

“Good. Can I invite someone to family game night tonight?”

Guilt gripped him. He’d been so busy hoping to see Vic again that he’d forgotten about family night. Twice a month, religiously, he turned the bar over to someone else and locked himself in the apartment upstairs with Sophie. They made pizza and watched movies or played games. “I thought we were the dynamic duo.”

“We are. I was just thinking it would be fun to invite Vic.”

The gripping guilt tightened along with something he’d never experienced. Jealousy.

The idea of sharing Vic with his daughter made him jealous while also making him want things he couldn’t, shouldn’t want. He wanted to allow Sophie to invite Vic to family night, he liked the mental image of her always being there, but at the same time he saw the drawbacks.

Sophie would innocently try to turn a one-time visit to family night into a regular thing. Then before long she would be asking him why Vic couldn’t be her new mom, which was an impossible question to answer.

And damn it, he selfishly wanted Vic all to himself. He wouldn’t be able to be near her and not touch her. One touch would lead to another and another until he was carrying her to his bed. That would certainly get Sophie to dreaming about things he couldn’t give her.

His feelings for Vic were shifting into something more intimate. Something that had him wishing he could take a chance at forever. The swelling desire to try for those things was the very thing that drove his need to pull back.

Not even with Vic could he commit to forever.

Especially not with Vic.

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

“Why? We’ve done things together before.”

“We have.” A logical argument wasn’t coming to him, and he hated
because I said so
. “Maybe I just want to be selfish with you for a little longer.”

“What?”

He smiled down at her, filled with love more profound than he’d thought himself capable of when he found out in high school he was going to be a dad. “A time is going to come when you won’t want to hang out with me for family night. Until it does, I want to lock away as many memories as possible.”

“But who are you going to do family night with when I’m not with you?”

“I guess it will become friends’ night.”

Sophie dropped her head and shook it. “I don’t like the idea of you being alone, Dad. You should find the right partner who would ease some of the burden you carry. Someone to be there for you when you get off work at night.”

Byron had said the same thing the first night he’d kissed Vic. Byron, who had a habit of playing matchmaker. Byron, who had promised he hadn’t set his sights on him. But with Sophie spouting the same sentiments, Hauk wasn’t so sure.

“Don’t worry about me, Sophie. I’ll be fine.”

“I want you to be happy though.”

Hauk pulled her to a stop across the street from the school. He knelt down to face her more directly. “Do you think I’m unhappy?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She waved off a friend shouting for her. “I just think you could be happier with…”

“With Vic?”

“Why not? You love her.”

“I do, but as a friend. I couldn’t…” Even as he tried to explain it to Sophie, he wasn’t buying it himself. He wasn’t so sure his feelings for Vic weren’t developing into something a little deeper. Something that if he followed their path would put her in danger.

“Do you lock yourself off because of your past?”

“What?” What had she heard? He’d thought for sure only the adults talked about his past losses.