She's Gotta Be Mine (17 page)

“Go on.” It was a go-on-if-you-dare tone.

He did go on. He had to keep his original goal in mind, to protect Cookie. “He takes his failings out on her physically.”

“Warren, this is the biggest load of—”

He put his hand on her arm. He had one last card to play. He could only hope it worked.

“She can’t ask for a divorce, Roberta. He’ll kill her before he’ll let her go.”

Chapter Seven

Her stomach hurt so bad, Bobbie just wanted to lay down amongst the flowers and shrivel like last season’s blooms. Maybe the chicken livers had been bad. Okay, okay, it wasn’t the chicken livers. Organ meat didn’t make you want to cry. It didn’t wrap itself around your chest and squeeze like a python. It didn’t sit on your head and pound like a woodpecker. Not unless it was that good old human heart organ.

The Cookie Monster needed Warren to protect her from her husband. Hah. Total doo-doo. Didn’t the way Bobbie had needed him count for anything?
Godammit
. She stamped her foot on the gravel, a sharp pain shooting from her heel straight to her offending heart organ. Now Warren had her cussing like a sailor and hurting herself in the process.

What did the woman want from Warren? Bobbie was sure she had some nefarious plan in mind. Why else had the husband stealer threatened the dumped wife who’d suddenly shown up to throw a proverbial monkey wrench in the works?

“I’m going to find out what she really wants if it’s the last thing I do,” Bobbie whispered. Gosh, didn’t that sound like an embittered, abandoned wife. Maybe. Regardless, Cookie had an ulterior motive, and Bobbie
would
discover what it was.

“Buck up.” Another whispered encouragement as she climbed her porch steps, heels tapping on the wood. The porch swing creaked in the breeze. Except there was no breeze, the air hanging inert and hot in the night. Suffocating.

“Who you talking to, Bobbie?”

She almost screamed, as if Nick really was a serial killer. “What are you doing skulking in the dark?”

“I’m not skulking. I’m waiting for you.”

Warren was right, she should have left a light on. Nick waited on the porch, a hulk in the shadows surrounded by the flowered trellis. She had the urge to high-tail it back to her car and drive away. She didn’t have the energy to face him now.

Okay, focus on the plan. Jeez, she’d forgotten the plan. Oh yeah, show Warren exactly what he threw away through osmosis—i.e., other men making love to her. And here was this prime candidate just waiting for
her
.

Warren was five minutes ago; Nick was now. She clutched her purse to her chest, took a deep calming breath. It succeeded only in elevating her heart rate.

She pasted on a smile, wondering about her lipstick. “So, what brings you here?” There, that was better, nice and bright.

“I taped a couple of
Buffy
episodes off cable for you.”

She finally noticed the box in his hands. “Well, how sweet. But I don’t have a VCR.” Instead, she’d brought the all-important espresso machine and a DVD player.

“I have a VCR.” Obviously.

Interesting. A semi-invitation. Enough to make her forget all about Warren and The Cookie Monster? Almost. “I’d love to watch them sometime.” Now?

“Nice dress you’re wearing.”

Okay, not now. “Oh, this old rag.” She’d almost forgotten how she was dressed, except for the pinch of her shoes and the ache they caused in her ankles. “I haven’t worn it in ages.”

It was new, at least to her, bought at a consignment store. Part of the plan to make Warren
see
her. He hadn’t even noticed. Emotion rose up and grabbed her by the throat. Bad thoughts getting away with her again. She concentrated on Nick’s voice, a pleasant growl she felt along her bare arms.

“Why not?”

Why hadn’t Warren noticed her dress? Because he was too busy being
needed
by the Cookie Monster. “He really isn’t into what a woman wears.”

Nick tipped his head, his brows together in one long line. “Who?”

God. He hadn’t been asking about Warren. He’d been asking why she hadn’t worn the dress in ages. Stupid. “Uh, sorry, nobody.”

His eyes were dark pools without benefit of light. “Out with your husband?”

His words resurrected the anger, at her idiocy for mistaking Nick’s question, at Warren...for just being alive. “Ex. He’s my ex. And I wasn’t out with him.” Nick must have been watching the whole time. How had he known it was Warren? Duh, he’d probably heard the yelling. “We were discussing...property rights.”

Nick raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry for asking.”

Breathe, Bobbie, just breathe. Listen to the crickets. Aren’t they sweet?
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me. We’ve still got a few things to settle.”

“I can see that.” A neutral comment, but said with a hint of sarcasm.

Now what was that supposed to mean? She was spinning out of control again. “Warren’s not important.”

“Yeah. I can see that, too.” He made for the edge of the porch. “
Gotta
go.”

Go? Just like that? She stepped in his path. “What about the tape?”

He shoved it into her hands. “I’m sure your ex must have a VCR you can borrow.”

She felt the slam in her chest. Warren was stealing even this,
her
serial killer. It wasn’t right. “I’d rather watch it on your machine.”

“I taped it for you, what more do you want?”

What more? She wanted him to notice her, that’s what she wanted. She wanted him to stop looking across the street at his house as if it were a refuge. From her. She wanted to stomp her feet, jump up and down, scream and scream and scream until someone paid attention.

She grabbed his T-shirt, ready to shake him, to rattle his brains in his head. Instead she rose on her toes and fastened her lips firmly to his.

Mint tingled against her lips, then sparkled in her mouth. Her body quivered from the tips of her breasts to her thighs, everywhere she touched him. She abandoned his shirt to push her hands through his hair, soft, curling around her fingers.

He put his arms around her, locking her to him, opening his mouth to her assault. Where a moment ago, he was merely stiff, now he turned hard, took over what she’d started. His hand flexed in the material of her dress. His tongue skimmed her lips, then dove in, driving her head back. It was like being devoured by a hungry animal. A zing shot down between her legs when his touch dropped to her bottom and pulled her snug against him, the tape box still in his hands nestled beneath her cheeks. Oh my God, he had a hard-on. For her. She felt warm and creamy on the inside, like chocolate chip cookie dough.
Knead me, need me. Now.

She was absolutely sure he was not thinking about some high school sweetheart named Mary Alice while he was kissing her.

She pulled her lips away, just enough to ask, “You want to come in?”

Big mistake. His hardness fled and the stiffness came back. His hands fell away, and he pulled her arms from his neck.

“No.”

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down. God, there was just something totally debilitating about begging to be touched, to be wanted. A lump in her throat, an ache at the back of her eyes, and a tight band squeezing her chest. With Warren, she’d begged more times than she cared to remember, more times than she
could
remember. It made her sick to her stomach. She wouldn’t do it this time. “All right.”

Nick handed her the tape. She dropped it, the clatter coming back to them in a harsh echo. Neither of them bent to pick it up. Across the street, a door banged. Princess started barking.

Nick wasn’t stupid. She’d kissed him because something her husband did or said in that fifteen minutes they’d sat in his car pissed her off royally. Maybe just being with the guy pissed her off. Women were like that, you couldn’t say or do the right thing. Nick just made the mistake of being on her porch to take the brunt of it.

He was no stand-in, even if her lips did have the sizzle of champagne and her body fit his like a hot summer night.

She made a motion to pick up the tape, and he grabbed her arm. “I’ll get it.” He didn’t want her head anywhere down there. He bent, keeping his eyes on her, fished for the tape, found it.

She hadn’t moved. To get off the porch, he’d have to push her out of the way. He felt one of those difficult, woman-type questions coming on.

“So, I take it you didn’t like kissing me.”

Hell, yes, he liked it. She’d spoken just in time, broken the spell, before he’d put his hands up her dress. Might have been no going back then. “I’m only interested in sex. Recently divorced women are usually interested in more than that.”

She blinked, looked at the tape in his hand, then took a deep breath. Her breasts rose and fell, snagging his attention. “I’m not divorced yet. So ‘just sex’ is fine with me.”

Not. Though she probably didn’t know that. “I’m saving us from the messy stuff by not getting started in the first place.”

“You’re a chicken.”

He laughed, reminiscent of a disgusted snort. “You got that right, lady. You’ve scared me since the day you showed up in my backyard. So, I think it’s the better part of valor to just get off your porch right now.”

She let him go, then got off a final shot before he made it down the path. “Why were you even here in the first place?”

Because she was funny and said the unexpected. Because she didn’t seem to care about the mistakes he’d made. Because she was a little damaged, a little vulnerable, and something about that called to him.

“Hell if I know” was all he said.

If it really had been just sex he wanted, he’d have been the one begging her to let him in her house. There was only one sensible choice here, run like hell.

* * * * *

A sleepless night and morning light made him realize he had to prove himself strong, even if only in his own eyes. That was the reason Nick opened the door to her at just shy of nine o’clock on Sunday. To prove he could resist temptation.

“I take it you’re here for ‘just sex.’” He was sure she wouldn’t pick up the challenge, not after last night.

Bobbie smiled, lips an invitingly hot shade of dark cherry. “I’m here to invite you to church.”

“Church?” He let his gaze roam over her from head to toe. Her black dress two inches too short for Sunday best and her heels two inches too tall, she’d tried to minimize the cocktail-evening-out effect with a pink cardigan sweater. The sweater too small to button over her breasts, one could easily see the bodice of the dress was nipple tight. And she did have a pair of succulent nipples. Tempting, but resistible.

“It’s the only dress I have besides the one I wore last night.” She tugged at the hem, barely bending to do so.

“Very nice. But the earrings are a bit much.” A turquoise Indian pattern, they dangled to just below her ears.

She grabbed her ears, making him want to slick his tongue along the sensitive shell. “Should I take them off?”

“No. It’s a big no-no to have bare ears at church.” As if he’d know a damn thing about it.

“You think so?”

She’d scandalize the congregation. But
Brax
would like the ensemble, and
Brax
was a churchgoer, even if only because he thought it was expected of a sheriff. The thought irritated enough for Nick to say, “You better run along or you’ll be late.”

“Come with me.”

“No.”

She put her hands on her hips, causing the dress to rise an inch up her thigh. “It isn’t polite to give an unequivocal
no
. You’re supposed to make an excuse I can beat down.”

He stroked his unshaven chin, looked down at his paint-splattered shirt and jeans. He had plenty of excuses, none she could beat down. “Did we not have that conversation last night about how I’m only interested in sex and I’m not interested in women on the divorce rebound?”