Longneck in hand, I leaned a hip against my kitchen counter and wedged the receiver between my shoulder and jaw. On a lark, I’d dialed Amber’s number, hoping to catch her in a better mood, but I’d had her on the phone two minutes already and she’d been anything but cooperative.
“You knew I had to get back to work eventually,” she said. “Payroll was due and we’ve got a ton of events this month.”
“So you just up and leave without saying goodbye?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Which are?”
“You. Me.” She paused. “Our sex life. Need I go on?”
Just as I’d suspected. This was about the robot thing. “How do a couple off nights justify your disappearing act?”
“Trust me. You don’t want to go there.”
“Damn it, will you just tell me?”
A long stretch of dead air followed before she said, “You talk in your sleep.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Some people mumble, but you—you talk.” She paused again, for dramatic effect, no doubt. “The morning I left, you were tossing and turning. It was about 5 a.m. so I thought you were having another nightmare. That’s when they usually happen. But this time I couldn’t wake you. So I turned the light on.”
I washed down a swallow of beer. “Is there a punch line?”
“You were smiling.”
“Since when is that a bad thing?”
“You were also hard.”
I rolled my eyes. “For cryin’ out loud. I can’t help what my cock does when I’m asleep.”
“Your dick isn’t the problem. It’s your mind.” Silence echoed for a few tense seconds until she dropped a bombshell. “Trace, you whispered ‘Shannon.’ Then you came.”
Speechless, I sagged against the wall and clumsily set the beer on the counter. Felt like she’d hit me with a knockout punch. An eternity inched by before either of us spoke.
“Look.” Her voice gentled. “I know we have a no strings thing. I’m the one who set the rules up that way. But no woman, no matter how open-minded, could deal with something like this. You’ve got feelings for her. Admit it.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. I’d been wrestling with these ‘feelings’ for weeks and hadn’t a clue what do with them. Shannon was engaged. End of story.
She’d made that clear when she stood me up four days ago. Didn’t even bother to call with an excuse, or at the very least, an apology. And every call I’d made to her cell phone went straight to voice mail. I’d left at least three messages—five if you counted hang-ups.
Calling her office yielded the same frustrating results. Her‘administrative assistant’ Beatrice always answered, claiming Shannon was in a meeting. Or that she’d just stepped out. One time I’d even heard Shannon whisper, ‘Tell him I’m not here.’
I didn’t need a house to fall on me.
“You won’t believe this,” Amber continued, yanking me away from my wandering thoughts, “but your face gets all weird when we pass her billboards. It’s…a predatory look. Reminds me of the face my ex-husband used to make when he’d take me deer hunting.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, I’m serious. I can even tell when you’re thinking about her. Like you were that night I made dinner. Then there was the time I watched the two of you at Home Depot. In the parking lot. Trace, the way you were looking at her—you never looked at me like that. Not once! And I know the hanky I caught you sniffing was hers!”
“Amber—”
“How can I compete with a woman you won’t even admit you want?”
“Nobody’s asking you to.”
“But that’s how I feel! I can’t help it.”
I stared up at the ceiling, expelled an irritated breath. “Do you want to get past this?”
“I don’t think we can, shug. You haven’t been yourself since you left Gainstown. I thought it was the readjustment. But it’s partly because of her too. It wasn’t a big deal at first, but that wet dream was it for me.”
I rolled the back of my head against the wall. Obviously, our relationship meant more to her than she’d let on. I should’ve known something was up when she went all domestic on me—washing my clothes, cleaning the house, making that big Thanksgiving dinner, and a slew of meals after it. Not to mention how she’d ironed creases into the sleeves of my work shirts. Hell, all those fancy Australian boxer briefs she got me should’ve been a dead giveaway.
Yep. She wanted strings and I didn’t. “I’m sorry, Amber.”
“Don’t be. We had some wonderful times in stir. Great sex. Good conversation. It was exciting and dangerous, sneaking around like we did. But nothing lasts forever, I guess.”
I rubbed my eyes. This was going nowhere. “We need to talk. Face-to-face.”
“No, we don’t,” she said in a quiet voice. “I can’t be a substitute for what you really want. I deserve better, and so do you.” She sniffed. “Listen, I need to go. I’ve got dinner in the oven and…well, you be good, okay?”
The line went dead just as my doorbell rang.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hand To Mouth
SHANNON
____________________________
The house looked gray and ominous, matching its infamous reputation. Bars fortified the windows on the outside, while yellowed newspaper shielded the glass from within. Three of the four shutters were missing. The remaining one barely clung to a nail as the howling wind propelled it to and fro. The only thing missing from this dreadful place was a sign bearing Dante’s:
‘ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.’
Hugging myself against a chill, I paced the battered porch. What was I doing? Hadn’t the incident at the club proved we shouldn’t be alone?
Days later, I could still feel the ghost of Trace’s touch. Just the thought of his hands on my body made my nipples harden. I’d barely slept since that night, and the few hours I’d managed to catch were plagued with erotic visions of him…doing things to me.
So why was I here?
Because! I needed his help, that’s why. Given the sorry state of my feeble investigation, I’d run out of options. What choice did I have but to come to his house? Briar was out of the question, and we certainly couldn’t meet in public.
Trace ripped the front door open, flooding the porch with light. There he stood, an unsettling combination of heaven and hell poured into a tight black T-shirt and jeans that hung below his narrow hips in a way Auntie would’ve deemed vulgar.
We stared at each other for half an eternity as Ray Charles crooned, “You Don’t Know Me” from somewhere in the house.
“Take a wrong turn?” he asked, ice dancing in his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw worked. “Four days, two hours, and twenty-three minutes of sorry. You get my messages?”
I nodded in shame. “I just…”
“Got scared.”
My breath escaped in a misty cloud. “I should’ve called.”
“You think?” He studied me in angry silence for a time. “Lose the hood.”
“What?”
“The hood.” He nudged his chin. “Take it off.”
He was testing me. His ‘you’re ashamed of me’ look was unmistakable. So I did as he asked. I tugged it down. “Satisfied?”
Trace swung the door all the way open and his arm formed an arch. I studied the man-made entrance with caution, then ducked beneath it and went inside.
He kicked the door shut.
Unbuttoning my coat, I watched him lean against a wall, arms folded. It may have been my imagination, but he seemed to study me with the same lethal aloofness of a cat watching an unsuspecting mouse—right before the pounce.