Sweet Trouble (4 page)

Bailey

My first realization is that I’m not in my room or in my bed. I open my eyes to see a bedside table littered with things I don’t recognize and I draw a sharp breath. In that instant, an immense hand covers my mouth.

“Don’t scream.”

Of course I scream, but the sound is muffled. I can’t see who has their hand over my mouth. A man. And he’s lying behind me. That’s all I know. I lie still. Very still. And wait. I want to thrash and flail but my body won’t obey. Fear freezes me.

“Bailey. You’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you.” He moves his hand and a tug on my wrist tells me I’m bound to him. Handcuffs.

I’m in a bed, handcuffed to a man I can’t see, who doesn’t want me to scream.

“Listen. Here’s how it’s going to go. First, I’m going to take my hand from your mouth, okay?”

I swallow hard. I don’t want to know what this man is going to do after that. Or what he’s done during the night.

“Promise me you won’t scream.”

I nod.

“I’m going to take my hand from your mouth and then I’m going to undo the handcuffs.”

Some memory of last night floats through my mind. Nick dancing with me. Taking me home. Rain and thunder…

“Then I’ll tell you what happened last night. You got me? We’re going to do this nice and calm and then I’ll make you something to eat.”

I nod. Nick. I’m with Nick McKinley. Someone called him Mount McKinley.

He lifts his hand from my mouth and I feel the bed shift as he raises up on one elbow. I see his face in the overcast, morning light. His grey eyes look darker now. Almost blue. And there’s a glimmer of something too, not exactly soft, but less hard and cold than the way he’s been looking at me.

What the hell am I doing in his bed? What happened to me?

“Good morning,” he says.

Good morning? I do a slow scan of my body. Nothing hurts. If he did something to me, I’m sure I would feel it since I’ve never been with a guy. No pain as far as I can tell. I glance down and see that I’m in the same sweater I wore to the bar. I’m praying that I’m still wearing the rest of my clothes. My fear flows out of me like a wave retreating to the ocean and a new wave surges. Anger. Rage.

“Let me go, you overgrown…
bully
.” I should just keep my mouth shut and yet I’m mad at myself for not having a word that’s a little more scathing than bully.

His eyes search my face and his lips curve into a smug smile. “That was quite a night,” he says. “How much did you have to drink, Miss Underage?”

“Fuck. You.”

His brows lift. “You did, in fact, promise me just that three or four times during the night. I had to peel you off me.”

There’s something about being handcuffed to a man who’s bent on tormenting me that infuriates me more than anything else I’ve ever known. If I could, I’d slap that smile off his face.

He leans over, pressing against me as he reaches for something on the table beside the bed.

The weight of his body combined with his masculine scent, shoots a jolt of pleasure across my body. My breasts ache for his touch. Raw need skims up my thighs. I draw a breath and see his lips curve into a smirk.

“Pardon me,” he says softly. Even his voice does things to me and I’m certain he knows.

He plucks a key from the bedside table. First he undoes his cuff, and I wait until he has undone mine. The instant I’m free, some fierce instinct takes over. I jump off the side of the bed, the cuffs clattering to the floor and I launch myself at him. He’s still up on one elbow and I strike him with my fists. He falls back. I think he’s laughing. Wrong move, buddy. Now, I’m even more furious. I hit him with everything I have. Pummeling him, snarling and cursing.

“You son of a bitch. Tell me what happened last night!”

My fists strike everywhere. His shoulders. His head. One glances off his chin right where I stitched his cut. He growls. Good. I hurt him. He’s trying to grab my wrists but I’m too fast. I’m like a ninja or something. I didn’t know I could fight like this. I pummel his chest, and vaguely, I’m aware of how much it hurts to hit his rock hard body, but I keep going. And then I hear a grunt. I’m tossed on my back. He rises up from the bed, swings his leg over me and straddles me.

Snaring my wrists, he pins them to the bed and stares down at me. “You want to know what happened last night?”

His voice is a soft caress, a rumble deep in his chest that travels like molten need across every sense and makes me shudder. I hate him. I want him. Lord help me, for all I know maybe I’ve already tasted every sin he has to offer. He strokes his thumb across the tender skin of my wrist.

“I’ll tell you, Bailey. You were asking me for things. Don’t you remember?”

I want to insult him, hurl a denial at him, but in a sudden and horrifying flash I remember crawling on top of him at some point in the night and telling him how good he smelled. I said something about wanting to climb Mount McKinley. I wriggled around like a cat in heat pressing my slick core against his cock, teasing him to the best of my abilities. Which are pretty bad. Okay, I admit that.

My memories get more cringe worthy. I recall him forcibly removing me, shifting me to the bed beside him. He did that. It happened. All of it. Dear God. I seem to remember him saying I smelled good too. And then he told me to shut up already and go the fuck to sleep.

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t do stuff like that.
Ask
for things.”

His smile widens. That damn smile. I still want to smack it clear off his face. I’ve never wanted to strike another person before in my entire life, not until meeting Nicholas McKinley.

“Maybe not normally, but you did last night, from me. You
asked
for all sorts of things. And all I did was to keep an eye on you, to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.”

It occurs to me that I should say something to him. Tell him thank you, maybe, if everything he’s saying is true, but he’s also sitting on me and pinning my arms down so it seems a little odd to express gratitude right at this moment. Even if your captor is looking down at you with a gaze that’s sexy as sin. He’s waiting. His grey-blue eyes studying me.

The only sound is the rain pouring off the roof and distantly I hear thunder roll across the countryside, a boom of sound that grows louder, deeper and then falls away.

“That was…thoughtful. Thank you.” I draw a deep breath. His weight pressing me down is playing havoc with my thoughts. I’m aware of a wicked restlessness shimmering across my skin. My breasts ache and I want to arch my back and beg for his touch but I set my bad ideas aside, tamp down my slutty whims and forge on. “At what point did you decide to cuff me? Not to appear ungrateful but I did sort of wonder.”

“You kept sitting up in bed and talking about wanting to go somewhere. My sister told me you might get confused and wander away. It’s been raining all night. It’s flooding everywhere and we probably won’t even be able to get out in the truck. I made sure you would stay put, tucked right beside me where I could watch over you.”

“Oh. Okay.” I say, sounding like a genius.

He lowers his head and nuzzles my neck. His short beard abrades my jaw. I close my eyes and relish how it feels. His warm breath makes me shiver.

“I think I know just what you want,” he says.

“Yes…”

“And it’s the exact same thing I want.”

I close my eyes. “Yes.”

“I think you want coffee. And I think you want pancakes.” And with that he nips my neck. Not hard, but not gently either. He releases my wrists, gets up and goes to the door. “You can have the first shower, and when you get out I’ll feed you.”

I nod because I have no response even if I trusted myself to say something half-way intelligible.

He leaves and I’m alone in his bed, confused and aroused. I listen to the clatter of pans in the kitchen and wish he’d forget about breakfast and linger in bed with me for a little longer.

Nick

After a long shower Bailey emerges from my room, dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt. Her hair is tousled, wet and drying in little ringlets. She comes in without looking at me, eyes fixed on her phone, and she sits down on the barstool. She’s engrossed in something, and all I want to do is look at her. Soon I smell burning… my pancakes are getting scorched.

The silence between us is awkward. She glances at me every so often and I know she’s embarrassed about last night. Me? I’m just glad she’s okay. When she jumped my ass in bed, I had to sort of admire her nerve. When I was in prison, hardened criminals kept their distance and I sort of like that she thought she could take me. The way she looks at me makes me want to torment her a little.

I flip a pancake. “How ‘bout you and me just cut to the chase and get married. We can crank out a few kids and fight over what to name them.”

I’m pulling her leg of course, but I have to say I sure enjoyed having her in my bed. Seeing her dressed in yoga pants, a soft t-shirt and sitting in my kitchen does something to me, too. Who gives a shit what her last name is? She’s unlike any girl I’ve ever met.

She looks up from her phone, blinks a few times and shakes her head. “I can’t have kids.”

“Why’s that?”

“I had some health issues when I was in high school.”

“Like what?”

“Like Endometriosis.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means bad stuff and no kids.”

I throw a few pancakes on a plate and set it in front of her. “Okay. We’ll adopt.”

She takes a pancake, rolls her eyes and turns away, heading to the front door of my house. After she steps outside, I hear her talking. Maybe she thinks she’s being discreet by going to my porch, but I hear everything she says.

“No… I’m fine, just staying with a friend. You okay? I didn’t really say bye because you were on the dance floor.”

I pour more batter on the griddle.

“I’m moving out of Susanna’s place,” she says.

“Damn right,” I mutter. Hopefully this girlfriend has a little more sense than the other one.

“It’s really pretty here,” she tells her friend. “It’s out in the middle of nowhere, but nice. Lots of big trees. A few barns.”

I’m glad she likes my place. It is pretty and I like that it’s in the middle of nowhere.

“No, it’s cool. He’s nice, actually.”

Nice? I don’t get that too often.

“Now who’s being the worry wort. There’s no sparring going on. At all. Yes, I know. He’s a black belt.”

I drink my coffee. I have no idea what the fuck she’s talking about and I should stop eavesdropping. Women’s conversations are confusing enough when you can hear both sides.

A few minutes later she comes back in, shaking her head. “The sky is so dark. I think we’re about to get another downpour.”

Almost before she’s finished speaking, a rumble of thunder shakes the house.

She sits on the chair. “I think you’re stuck with me.”

“Looks that way.”

My attention is drawn to her sweet mouth and her full lips. Zero to filthy in two seconds, that’s what she does to me. I imagine biting her neck, running my tongue to her mouth and kissing her hard. A dirty kiss, one that makes her wild with need. She’s looking at me too, but I have no idea what she’s thinking and fuck if she doesn’t make me burn the next batch of pancakes too.

I’m sure she knows just what she’s doing to me. I wonder if she’s feeling it too. I ignore her, trying to focus on breakfast.

When I toss the next decent pancake on her plate she’s got a smile on her face. There’s a magazine open on the counter and she’s leafing through the pages. It’s a sports magazine, sort of… this issue, though, is the one with swimsuit models. Growling, I turn away and run water into the sink.

“That’s not mine,” I say over my shoulder.

“Oh, of
course
not.”

The smile’s gotten a tad wider by the time I fill the sink and cross back to where she’s sitting.

“It belongs to a buddy of mine.”

Mentally I curse the guys who were here last Sunday to watch the game. I don’t know who left it but I have a bad feeling Bailey will gleefully ride my ass about the magazine. I outgrew skin magazines a long time ago and I might have looked at this one once, okay maybe twice, but mostly I’m not one to look at that sort of stuff.

“Your buddy
sure
likes swimsuits.” She pauses at the centerfold, a blonde on her knees in the sand wearing nothing more than a bikini bottom and a wet t-shirt. Giving me a sweet smile Bailey points to the tiny scrap of material, the barest excuse for a bikini bottom. “I love this one.”

I ignore her. Jesus, she’s a pain in the ass. This is the thanks I get for going way the fuck out of my way to help her. I pour extra syrup on my pancakes and take a few bites in between putting away the mess I made. Flour. Sugar. All the crap I dragged out to make Miss Underage some breakfast. For what? To have her insinuate I’m some perv with a porn stash.

“I don’t see anywhere in this magazine where I can order one of these suits,” she says. Her voice is sing-song, a deliberate attempt to provoke me. “Maybe I’ll check online because I sure do like this turquoise one. Everyone says I look good in blue.”

I glance at the picture she’s looking at. A woman faces away from the camera wearing a light blue thong and leaning against a surf board. She’s long and lean and the wind blows her hair away from her bare back.

“It’s hard to find just the right suit for, you know, surfing,” she muses, flicking to the next page.

I shove the flour in the cupboard with a little too much force and the paper bag rips. Flour spills out in a little heap. I slam the cupboard door. “Wear something like that in public and I’ll toss you over my knee and redden your ass with my hand.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, I’ll just bet you’re into all that. I’ve never been spanked in my life. Oh, here’s a red bikini. I wonder if I have to order the tops separate because none of the girls have tops, I’m noticing.”

I snatch the magazine and toss it across the kitchen. It sails through the air and lands in the trash. I turn back to Bailey. “Your daddy should have swatted your ass a time or two. You’d have better sense, and better manners.”

The smirk on her lips fades. I’ve hit a nerve which was not my intention. It dawns on me that her father was David Voss’s brother. I knew that of course, but the fact hasn’t exactly been on the forefront of my mind.

“My dad died before I was born,” she says. “My mom raised me by herself.”

I try to picture the man, but all I can think of is David’s face. The last time I saw him I was driving my fist into his face. Witnesses told the judge I was telling him how I was going to kill him. Slowly. And that I’d kill every member of his family. I shake the memory away.

“How’d your dad die?”

“In Afghanistan. He was a medic.”

She takes a deep sigh and gets off the barstool. I should say something but can’t think of anything. Her dad served in the armed forces which makes me think he was a lot different than David. And the guy was a medic. I wonder if that’s why she decided to become a nurse, to carry on in his footsteps.

She finishes her pancakes and takes her plate to the sink.

“Leave it. I’ll wash up.”

“I feel like I want to crawl back into bed.”

“Go on. Sleep a little. I probably can’t take you home for a day or two. The roads are flooded and more rain is on the way.”

“Thank you for breakfast, Nick. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

She slips out of the kitchen and I hear her footsteps go down the hallway.

“It’s no trouble,” I say softly.