Wicked Flower (12 page)

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she
finally let out.

“You don’t deny it.”

No, she didn’t. He would have
been more correct if he called her an irrational stubborn pain in the ass. But
admitting that to him made her queasy. So did the way her body treated the
man’s presence like he was the gold standard of carrots and she the
malnourished rabbit.

She tried not to look at him
straight on but that didn’t matter. It just sent her nose in search of his
scent.
Cinnamon, again.
She would not think of how
satisfying his taste was.

“You said you had a bone to pick
with me. I’m assuming
you’re wanting
to tell me that
the truck stop incident this morning was a huge mistake. So here’s where I tell
you I already know that. And don’t
worry,
you don’t
have to have dinner with me.” Mistake or not, she still wanted him.

“The bone that needs picking has
nothing to do with that, sweetheart.” His chocolate brown gaze stripped her
bare and stoked the need she was barely able to keep hidden.

So.
Unfair.
That word and the way it made her want to melt into
his chest.

“It doesn’t?” she asked, hearing
her voice hike up at the end. She shouldn’t let that happen again.

“No.
Turns out
that particular bone isn’t as important as I thought.”

“What?
Why
not?”
She wanted to ask him why he’d chased her out here then if it
wasn’t to have this discussion. But oh no, it was just then that he ever so
slightly lifted his ass and reached a hand down underneath it. She went
bug-eyed, then blew out a breath and pretended to see something out her side
window. She wouldn’t look his way.

After a deafeningly silent
minute, she heard him chuckle, low and dark. “Ahem. Read anything good lately?”

“You’re mean.”

“I know. Look at me,” he said.

But Dani just kept her eyes
trained on the rivulets of rain showering her window and what she could now
hear gaining in intensity in the distance and see crackling over the tops of
faraway hills.
Thunder and lightning.
Round four, five or six.
She’d lost count.

“Well, we can talk about this fun
magazine or there’s always the time we got gas together and ended up…”

She cleared her throat and shot
out the first question she could think of to keep him from going there. “What
is it you’re so famous for saying?”
Don’t
fidget. He’s just another man.

“Hmm.
I thought for
sure you’d want to know about the bean bags.”

A tiny line of built up dust
wedged in the cracks of the gear shift console caught her shifting eyes. It needed
cleaning. Why had she never cleaned that before? She ran her fingernail over it,
repeatedly trying to dislodge the bits.
Stop
it.
She pulled her hand back into her lap.

“Fine, what’s the deal with the
bean bags?” she asked, refusing to look at him yet and desperate to hide how
curious she was about the silly things as well. Her imagination brought fresh
waves of color to her neck and face. If the man did what he did in a bathroom
stall, lord only knew what he’d be willing to do on a bean bag. She imagined
him folding her like a pretzel and licking the salt from her sweaty body.

“Jaxon once told some interviewer
that I could play bass anywhere a man could have sex. And then jokingly said I
often engaged in the two at the same time. Somehow bean bags got thrown into
the mix.”

She didn’t want to give in but it
was impossible. “So now you get asked about it.”

“All the time.”

“That must suck.”

He let out a small laugh. “I
could, in fact, perform both acts very well on bean bags but in case you were
wondering, I don’t.”

“I wasn’t curious,” she lied
through tight lips, her pretzel fantasy making her mouth dry.

Stefan was doing something with
his tongue and his teeth inside his
mouth,
she just
had no idea what. Outwardly, his cocky grin gave way to what she could only
describe as sincerity.

“If you think you could stand to
look at my ugly mug, I’d appreciate it.” He laid a hand in her hair and without
thought,
she turned her head all the way. That was no
ugly mug. He was more handsome than any other man she’d ever met. So much so
that his good looks made her nervous. A drop of water fell from the wet skin of
his wrist and landed on her collarbone. It reminded her of the tear that had
fallen earlier today, before she’d met him. She fought to keep her breath even.

“Why do you hold your guitar so
low? It doesn’t look comfortable, at all.”

Something she said made him grin.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothing.
You’re just
very pretty. And I like the way you talk when you’re nervous.”

How dare he point that out right
here in the face of all her nervousness? “So you’re not going to answer me.”

“It looks good in pictures.
Now you.
Why did you let me … kiss you today?” he asked.

Well
that’s one way of putting it.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you
were?” she shot back.

Their eyes locked on each other
and their jaws worked in the same grinding way.

“I could ask you the same thing,
Daniela.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t
tell me what you’re famous for saying and yes, I’d still rather talk about that
than the other thing.”

He muttered something she
couldn’t quite hear and she asked him to repeat himself.

“You, uh, you’re not
gonna
like this. I believe the quote said I wasn’t proud of
it.”

“It said you had regrets about
it.”

Great, now he knew how intently
she’d read.

His chest rose, the pristine
white shirt still showing off that broad, contoured appeal as he breathed in
and out. He rubbed a hand over the muscled parts and Dani ached to lay her head
there, right in the middle. She’d have imagined it even had she not been so
exhausted and tried to decide if his chest was furry or bare. Did he have more
tattoos? Would he let her pet him for hours on end?

He smirked and then ran his hands
through his wet curls. He’d definitely let her have at those with as much as he
touched his hair himself.

She should ask him just to get
that smirk off his face but he spoke up instead.

“My usual response when people
ask if I feel bad about shit I’ve done in the past, is the standard ‘Unless you
and I are fucking, you really shouldn’t care.’”

After digesting his very concise
and in-your-face words, Dani turned in her seat, touched. “And you regret saying
that now? Because I kind of think you might have a point.”

It was as if some invisible
hypnotist snapped their fingers, causing both hers and Stefan’s faces to relax.
He even half-smiled.

“Did you feel that? I’m pretty
sure a miracle just happened. You just agreed with me. Hey.” His voice became
tender, lower. “I wasn’t hiding who I was from you today. You never asked me
for my name and when you saw my license, I didn’t bolt. Now you on the other
hand, could have told me several things. You’re Sandra’s grown daughter, you’re
my mom’s live-in nurse,
you’re
having a baby.” His
voice gentled at that last part of his remark and his eyes went to her stomach.

She tried not to bristle at what
felt like accusations and took a moment to close her eyes then open them again.

“I guess this is where we try to
move on and forget about all those things. I’d sure as hell like to start the
day over,” she said.

“Yeah, about
that.
So what happened this morning? Because I was pretty flattered but I’m seriously
worried if the woman taking care of my mother is out picking up dudes in truck
stop toilets.
Wanna
talk about him?”

Not.
If.
Her.
Life.
Depended.
On.
It.

Chapter Nine

The problem with Stefan Calderon
wasn’t that he could have a woman out of her panties—anytime, anyplace—in under
sixty seconds, it was that he had the same effect on Dani’s thoughts. At this
rate and with him this close, she was going to need a needle and thread for her
mouth. More than she’d ever intended on sharing started spilling from her lips.

“You want to hear about how I was
dumped?”

He nodded and ran his hands
through his hair again. He had to stop doing that. But a curl, heavy and shiny
black from the rain, fell halfway down his forehead and now it was her turn to
smile inside.
Superman.
She pressed her lips, containing her slip. Why did she feel so safe around him?

If she didn’t know better, she’d
say Stefan knew exactly what she’d been looking at. And that half-quirked,
devilish grin yelled he liked it.

His tongue slid along his lower
lip and then it was hidden again. “Let’s start with a name. What do we call
this young man of questionable intelligence?” he asked with a straight face.

She laughed at the absurdity of
her situation. “His name is Thom. You’re
gonna
love this.
He’s a soldier and his specialty is the intelligence field. And before you
crack a joke on him, he’s currently deployed to Afghanistan so…”

“So he’s supposed to be hero
material,” Stefan said gently.

“He is.
Just
not mine.”
Her lip quivered. Dammit.

“How sure are you about that?”
She felt the rough pad of his fingertip settle at the corner of her mouth. It
helped, a little. “I find it hard to believe he’d let you go.”

“As sure as the email he sent me
this morning where he did the stand-up thing and was honest. He told me he fell
in love over there. She’s deployed with him and she’s such a great person that
he knows I’d like her too.”

“But uh, assuming you’re the good
girl I suspect, except for when faced with your one weakness that is—truck stop
johns—you don’t strike me as the type to sleep around. So this guy is your
baby’s father?”

“For the record, I’m not the only
one with that weakness.”

He dipped his head at that and
pressed his lips together. She wished they could kiss again but knew it would
only feel good while they were here. Once they returned to her house, scratch
that, his and his mom’s house, all the wrongness of what they were doing would
come flooding back.

Mrs. C would never approve.

Relationships were sacred. Not to
be taken lightly and only when you were sure the person would love you back
forever. They’d had a few mother-daughter-like talks when Dani’s mom had passed
and Gina had taken her in. Mrs. C’s adamancy about committed loving
relationships was why Dani hadn’t said anything about Thom and the pregnancy
yet. Those would be strikes one and two. Inappropriate relations with Stefan
would be three. And Dani began to realize now, she should have kept her big
mouth shut rather than spill everything to Stefan. Her wrist bones cracked as
she rotated them tightly. What if her secret got out before she was ready? When
would she be ready? Pretty soon she wouldn’t be able to hide it. Never or right
now, either way,
her
stomach flip-flopped.

“So Thom?
He’s the
father?” Stefan asked her, sounding quite thoughtful. There wasn’t a drop of
his playful sarcasm in the question. His warm, heavy hand stopped on her
wrists, just like he’d done to her quivering lip a moment ago. “Stop that,” he
said, the deep baritone vibrating, again undoing her but centering her as well.

“Yeah.
Yes, I mean.
Yes he is.
Definitely the father.”

“And what does he think about
that?”

She stilled for a long couple of
breaths. “I don’t know.” She looked at him like she was searching for
something. “Care if I turn this around on you? You could actually be helpful to
me.”

Playful Stefan smirked. “Bring it
on, sweetheart. Shoot.” He stretched in a way that undid all the careful ties
she’d bound her desire with. They were too close and secluded. Everything about
him was masculine from his cocky attitude to his strong whiskered jaw to that
mouth-watering cinnamon flavor he gave off when he gave out his bossy demands.
Not to mention the way he sat with his legs spread like his lap was made for
seating women day and night. His arm rested up against the Buick’s roof, bent
at the elbow, and muscles hinted at where the white sleeve bunched. She could
have reached over and ran her fingers over his shirt-covered ribs. An inch of
tanned skin near his waist poked from where his shirt hiked up from the
stretch. The nighttime made it dark. She wanted to strain to see him better.
Even if it was just that inch in the shadows.
Why had she
stopped him earlier? This was painful. Maybe it was for him too because he
brought his arm back down and rotated his shoulder.