Hot Wheels and High Heels (17 page)

He grasped her thigh just beneath the feathered hem of her gown, and shivers zoomed all the way to her toes. That was no cliché. Her toes felt as if she’d stuck them in an electrical socket. He moved his palm slowly up her thigh, replacing the shivers with heat that seemed to melt right into her bones.

He pulled away until his lips just brushed hers. “You don’t know what you do to me,” he murmured, his voice a harsh whisper. “God, Darcy, I . . .”

But he didn’t finish the thought. He tilted his head and dove in again at a new angle designed to take even more of her mouth with his.
Ahh,
this was what it was like to be kissed by a man who really knew how, how to hold her, how to touch her, how to drown her with feeling. From day one, every interaction between them had been a power struggle of some kind, but now, as she thought about the fourteen long years she’d spent on the receiving end of ordinary, bland, boring kisses, she decided if John wanted to whack her over the head and drag her back to his cave, she’d hand him a club.

Then a thought sparked to life, deep in the back of her mind.

Power struggle?

You don’t know what you do to me . . .

Slowly Darcy fought her way back to consciousness, just enough to realize what was happening. That age-old feeling surged through her, an underlying power from all her beauty-queen years that was so strong it superseded everything else.

As soon as she had a man sexually, she had him every other way there was.

She melted away from John and opened her eyes, watching as he opened his and looked down at her with a heavy-lidded expression of pure desire.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, the husky tone of his voice telling her exactly where he’d like to go, which was anywhere with a bed. She caressed the back of his neck with her fingertips, leaning in to press her breasts against his chest and turn her lips close to his ear.

“How about some real clothes, John?” she murmured. “Take me someplace nice. Then we’ll go wherever you want to.”

John’s expression faltered. He blinked, as if trying to get his bearings, then backed away a little, his face suddenly clouded with suspicion.

“So that’s the game we’re playing?”

Darcy leaned away. “What?”

“Do you intend to spend the rest of your life begging men to throw you a bone?”

“Throw me a . . .” She yanked herself away from him. “Hey, I didn’t
ask
you to bring me here! And I didn’t ask you to kiss me!”

“But you didn’t ask me to stop, did you?”

“Were you looking for a way to recoup that hundred dollars you offered to spend? For all that stunning generosity, you thought I ought to sleep with you?”

“You know better than that,” John said hotly. “I offered you a hundred bucks with no strings attached, and I meant it. And that was pretty damned generous, if you ask me. What pisses me off is that you’re trying to con me into more.”

“Of course I want more! I feel as if I’ve lost my whole life! And just being in this place makes me feel as if there’s no hope of ever getting it back. I’ve already been humiliated enough for one lifetime, but you’re determined to heap on more!”

“I’m trying to
help
you! You’re the one who humiliated yourself by walking out of here wearing that thing!”

“I swear to God I’ll wear a gunny sack before I take
anything
from you!”

“Right. This coming from a woman who married a wealthy man old enough to be her father. Was that a love match, Darcy? Or did you just like all those expensive things he gave you in return for sex?”

His accusation hit so close to home that Darcy’s cheeks flushed with humiliation. “Get out.”

“Darcy—”

“I said get
out!
”

He glared at her a moment more, then ripped open the door and stalked out of the dressing room. Shaking with anger, Darcy changed back into the clothes she’d worn into the store. He didn’t understand what it was like to have everything, then lose everything. He just didn’t. She hated these clothes. She hated this store. She hated what her life had become.

But most of all, she hated John.

She dumped the pile of clothes onto the counter outside the dressing room. Twyla had returned, and her wide-eyed expression said she’d heard every word of their argument, but the fact that she hadn’t sent for security told Darcy that she took her entertainment wherever she could get it. John stood outside the dressing room waiting for her, but she didn’t even glance in his direction. She just headed for the front of the store.

Without a word, he followed her out to his car. As he stuck the key in the ignition, she ventured a sidelong glance. He wore that stone-faced expression she’d seen dozens of times before, the one that said,
I’m right, you’re wrong, and that’s that
, which made it clear to Darcy that she was getting no apology from him.

All the way to back to the office, she looked out the passenger window, refusing to speak to him until he pulled into the parking lot and came to a halt next to Gertie.

“I’ll see you at work on Monday morning,” she told him. “Assuming, of course, that I decide to come back.”

She yanked open the car door and got out. She pulled her keys from her purse and opened Gertie’s passenger door. John didn’t drive away. He just sat there watching her less-than-graceful crawl over the seat to get behind the wheel, and she felt humiliated all over again. But it wasn’t until she was out of the parking lot heading for her parents’ house that the full extent of the day’s disgrace hit her hard.

Yes, she was mad at him. Furious, to be exact. But she was also mad at herself. She’d made a very big mistake. John had given her a hundred bucks. Why had she asked for more? Shouldn’t she have known that somehow he’d throw that right back in her face?

She’d told him she didn’t know if she was coming back on Monday morning, but in light of this, she didn’t know how she could even consider it.

If she were smart, from now on she’d stay as far away from John Stark as possible.

John sat in the parking lot, watching that god-awful car of Darcy’s sputter down the street. There was nothing about that woman that didn’t infuriate him. Absolutely nothing. But he had to admit that the longer he thought about it, the more his anger faltered.

Yes, she’d asked for more than he’d offered her. Practically threw herself at him to get it. But desperate situations made for desperate people, and Darcy was more desperate than most. And would she even have done that if he hadn’t kissed her in the first place?

He couldn’t believe it. He’d kissed her. Then essentially propositioned her. Had he actually intended to go through with that? He’d never been dumb about women, so what was the matter with him now?

Grow up. You’re forty-two, not seventeen.

The truth was that he’d always felt superior to other men who had no self-control in the presence of a beautiful woman. He was probably the only man on earth who could go into a strip club and come out with dollar bills still in his pocket. Tony—never. He’d convert half his paycheck into thong stuffers.

But Darcy . . . what made her so different?

She was full of sharp edges—the least of which were her sarcastic mouth and her devious mind—but the moment he’d felt her give in and dissolve in his arms, so soft and warm and willing, he’d quite simply lost his mind. He’d felt like a kid who was dying to get laid and didn’t much care what he had to do to make it happen.

But that didn’t mean she was blameless in this situation. After all, he wouldn’t have kissed her if she hadn’t provoked him by wearing that slutty little nightgown. What kind of woman walks around in public wearing practically nothing?

Then again, she wouldn’t have worn the slutty little nightgown if he hadn’t pulled it off the rack in the first place. And he wouldn’t have pulled it off the rack in the first place if he’d just let her pick out whatever she wanted.

Unfortunately, as he played the blame game backward, it all ended up squarely back in his lap.

He’d wanted to teach her a lesson. Knock her attitude down a peg or two. But subjecting her to his scrutiny with every piece of clothing she put on had been taking things a little too far. He could have just given her the hundred bucks and let her buy whatever she wanted to. But no. He had to be a bastard about it to make his point. Amy harped on that constantly. Said it was his tragic flaw. He had to inform everyone else of what was wrong with their lives and tell them exactly how to go about improving them. Because, of course, he was such a genius with his own life.

Well,
crap.

It would probably be best for both of them if he fired her or if she quit and that was the last they ever saw of each other, but still he couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to do something to make this right again. But he didn’t have a clue what that might be.

Chapter 11

M
aybe you need to try Internet dating,” Lyla said. “They say you can search for exactly the kind of man you want. You just tell them you want one with a good job and who makes a lot of money.”

Darcy sighed and muted the TV. “I don’t think Internet dating is as easy as that, Mom. If it were, every woman on earth would be ordering a rich man.”

“Roxanne’s daughter found a boyfriend on the Internet.”

“You mean the one who stole five thousand dollars from her and went back to his ex-wife?”

“She’s a homely girl who dresses funny. That was the best she could do. You have more going for you, as long as you don’t let yourself go.”

Darcy hit the mute button again and brought the sound back up. God forbid she miss one more moment of
Celebrity Makeovers.
And then when this was over at four o’clock, it was time for a
Wheel of Fortune
marathon on the Game Show Network.

She sighed. Saturday in the Dumphries household was a
very
long day.

But what did it matter? She felt so rotten after what happened yesterday with John that she didn’t feel like doing anything else, anyway. She still hadn’t decided if she wanted to go back to work on Monday morning or not. Then again, she wasn’t completely sure that, even if she decided to go back, there would still be a job open.

And then she thought about that kiss.

Her eyes drifted closed as she imagined it all over again. That was just her luck these days, wasn’t it? To find a man who could kiss like that but who was also the most maddening one she’d ever known.

“My God. Darcy!”

Darcy’s eyes snapped open to find her mother leaning close and peering at her hair. Darcy drew back. “What?”

“You have gray showing!”

Darcy sat up straight. “No, I don’t.”

Lyla grabbed Darcy’s chin and turned her head. “Oh, yes, you do. Right there at your temples.”

Darcy put her hand to her head. Surely not. She’d missed her regular appointment to have her hair cut and colored last week—these days she was finding it more difficult than usual to spare a hundred and twenty dollars—but she thought she had a little time before the problem became critical.

“You’re letting yourself go,” Lyla said, panic rising in her voice. “You can’t do that. Men don’t look twice at women with gray hair.”

Darcy ran to the bathroom and peered in the mirror. Her mother was right. She had roots.

She sat down on the toilet lid, her heart thudding, trying not to panic, but it was a hard-won battle. Maybe hats were coming back in style. But even if that were true, she’d have to buy hats. She might as well pay to have her hair colored.

Lyla came to the bathroom door. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, you were right,” Darcy muttered. “What am I going to do? I can’t afford to have my hair done.”

“Color it yourself. I color mine.”

And look how that had turned out.

Her mother had opted for blond at an early age and had never given it up, so getting beneath all the chemicals to discover her real hair color would be like excavating King Tut’s tomb. She had the eyebrows of a brunette, the skin tone of a blond, and the personality of a brassy redhead. But the hair itself?

Maybe the world would never know.

“I am
not
coloring it myself,” Darcy said.

“Well, fine, Miss Snooty Britches. Go gray. See if I care.”

Okay. She had to get a grip here. Since she didn’t have highlights, her hair was all one color. Why couldn’t she color it herself? As long as she picked out something that was close to her natural hair color, how badly could she screw it up?

She ran to the drugstore, bought hair color in a dark ash brown that promised a hundred percent gray coverage or her money back, then came home and locked herself in the bathroom. It wasn’t hard to apply, and thirty minutes later, as she was rinsing it out, she was congratulating herself on this money-saving option. Was it really worth paying a colorist a hundred bucks just to do this? No. Of course it wasn’t.

She towel-dried her hair, went to the mirror, and stifled a scream.

This wasn’t dark ash brown. This was black. Coal black. Midnight black. Goth black. Black-hole black.

She grabbed the blow dryer, hoping her hair would look lighter once it was dry. It did. By about half a shade. But since it was about three shades darker than her natural color, she still looked undead.

She stared at herself in the mirror, tears coming to her eyes, trying to tell herself it wasn’t as bad as she thought. At least not a single strand of gray showed. But that was only because this horrible color had scared away all the surface gray, then seeped into her skull to ferret out any hair that was even
thinking
of looking old.

This was it. Her life was over. She might as well haul out those razor blades. What was the point of going on now? She’d rather be dead than be walking man repellent.

She heard her mother shout from the other room. “Darcy! Come quick!”

“No! I’m never coming out of this bathroom again as long as I live!”

Okay, so she sounded like a thirteen-year-old drama queen, but with hair like this, she was entitled to.

“No!” her mother shouted. “You have to see this!”