Bad Girl Bill (Atlantic Divide) (11 page)

“You never asked how I am.” It sounded more like a plea, and she ducked her head, feeling stupid, not knowing how to tackle this stranger.

“I didn’t need to ask. Kate told me.” He turned, leaned against the car, and his eyes analyzed her as though his emotions weren’t involved, as though a block of ice had frozen all feeling. She hadn’t noticed he was a cold person. Her only experience with him had been restrained fire and passion as he’d tried to persuade her into bed.

“What happened?”

He shook his head slowly.

She’d never humbled herself for a single soul in her life, but she found herself pushing, her throat thickened, her heart raced as she realized what had never actually started was over before it had a chance.

“Michael, what happened? One day you’re digging in my underwear drawer and chasing my half-naked body around my house, and then after a little trip away you don’t even want to know me? What changed your mind? Have you met someone?” He closed the passenger door, and then leaned back on the car, rubbing his hand across his mouth as though trying to come to a decision.

“There’s no one else. There can’t be. I made a mistake, I allowed myself to start…” He crossed his arms over his chest, stared back at her with flat, cold eyes.

“Look, to tell you the truth, I’ve just watched one of my team members, one of my best friends, get blown to shit in a country I can’t talk about.” He sounded so hard and flat. “He left behind a wife and two small children who won’t know what he died for. They’ll be told he had an accident. There was nothing left of his body to send home. They’ll never know he was a hero. He won’t have a flag placed upon his coffin. They’ll never know what he did.”

She couldn’t help the softening of her heart, couldn’t stop her hand as it reach out, touched his chest to comfort. He dropped his head, heaved in a shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry. I really am sorry Michael, but I don’t understand why that means you have to be like this with me.” He took her hand and removed it from his chest, allowed it to drop. His dead eyes looked into hers.

“I was wrong to encourage you. I shouldn’t have let you start to care. You’re going to get hurt. Your boys, they all kept warning me away from you. They said I would hurt you. But I was too wrapped up in trying to get into your knickers and now…” He shrugged, shook his head. “I’d rather just step back now before anything happens between us.”

He pushed himself away from the car, and the small burn of annoyance spread. How dare he assume she was that stupid, that she didn’t know what he was after?

She allowed her temper to rack up as she stepped in close and smacked the flat of her hand against his shoulder, watched the flicker of surprise as she pushed him hard against the car.

“I’m not some weak-willed little female you’re talking to. I’m a goddamned strong woman. I never said I was getting involved with you. Perhaps
I
wanted a little fun, a roll in the sack. Perhaps it was
me
who wanted to fool around. It’s not me who’ll get hurt; it’s you.” She poked a hard, blunt fingernail into his chest. “I’ve never cried a single tear since my daddy died when I was eight. So don’t let anyone tell you I can get hurt. No one can hurt me.”

Blood boiling now, she leaned in close. “Your ego’s too big for words, but I’ll tell you one thing, Michael.”

“What would that be?” His cool, assessing look threw her temper over the edge and down the other side. She knew there was more.

“You can’t deny you want me, and you can’t deny you want this.” One hand grabbed him by his shirt, and the other gave a sharp yank of his blond hair as she jerked him toward her, taking his mouth with hers with a savagery that would have shocked her had she been thinking straight. She plunged her tongue into his mouth, wrapped her arm around his neck, and hauled him in closer. She deepened the kiss, forced his lips apart, and sunk in deeper. She leaned in to him, pressed her entire body against the length of his. She could sense his need. Feel his hunger. Taste his restraint. She knew the moment he let go of the reins.

He responded to her savagery, dragged her as close as he could, leaned into the car, he almost heaved her on top of him, drawing her hips closer, moving them against his own with his hand firmly gripping her bottom.

Not yet beyond sanity, she yanked hard on his hair almost ripping it out of his head as she broke their embrace and stepped free of his arms, holding hers wide. Chest heaving, she swiped the back of her hand across her mouth in disgust, staring deep into eyes, no longer cold and aloof, but turbulent and tormented.

“You’re a fool, Michael.”

She smacked her fist viciously against his chest in frustration, watched him stagger back a step. Silent.

She turned and strode off back down the street in the direction of the sheriff’s office, adjusted her gun, swiped a hand under her nose, and held her head up high.

Sweat trickled down her spine and between her breasts. She’d already completed her warm-ups and stretches and was on the row machine when Ethan arrived with Michael in tow. Wondering what the hell made him think he would be welcome, she mumbled at them and continued.

They set up in the weights corner, and she tried to ignore them. She wiped a towel over her arms and legs, chest, and face, and then paper-toweled the row machine, before she moved over to the bicycle, and turned her iPod up high so she didn’t have to listen to the grunts coming from the corner.

What could she say to him after she’d kissed him like that yesterday? She couldn’t even look at him, and when she did she just wanted to kiss him again. A heat she’d never felt before started to grow inside her, deep inside. A need she didn’t know she had, didn’t want to acknowledge, spread its evil fingers through her body, hot-wiring itself to her heart.

She felt so stupid about her aggression, her seething anger toward him. She was known for her laid-back nature. She was cool. She dealt with volatile situations every day of her life with an ease and mildness that came naturally.

Temper simmered slow and dangerous in her stomach, waiting to erupt into a spitting, seething volcano. How could he have this effect on her and remain so withdrawn himself?

The place might belong to her, but she thought she should just go. Finish this one exercise so that her brother didn’t notice anything. Because God help her if any of her brothers found out she had the hots for Michael. She’d never survive. They’d stepped in between her and every boy and man she’d ever encountered, and the only one who appeared to have been impervious to their protectiveness was Michael.

It appeared he was also impervious to her.

Jaw clenched, teeth grinding, try as she might, she wasn’t going to be able to hold on to her temper.

He thought he was capable of hurting her?

Well goddammit.

He had.

*

Ethan’s cell phone rang, and a moment later he had gone.

Michael watched Bill from the weights corner. She wore a baby-pink oversize T-shirt with a Playboy logo on the front and a knot tied at the waist. If anyone looked less innocent in baby pink, she certainly did. Her black cycle shorts emphasized the flatness of her stomach, and her hip bones were clearly visible, her leg muscles well-defined. He couldn’t take his eyes off her backside as she pedaled with fierce concentration. The same pert little backside that had been pushed firmly into his groin not so many weeks ago.

She hadn’t let up in all the time he had been there. Her energy levels were obscene, her fitness amazing. She probably would have made a great member of his team if she could just leash the fury that pulsed around her.

He took long gulps of air through his nose to prove he could still breathe. His chest was tight and so were his loins. If he had ever seen anyone sexier than Bill, it wasn’t a memory he could drudge up at that moment. He really hadn’t thought tall, limber sweaty women were his thing, but then thinking wasn’t his strong point right now anyway.

He touched her arm gently, and she almost leaped off the bicycle. She snatched her earplugs out and glared at him

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t touch me.” As he backed off he lifted a placating hand.

“I’ve been calling you for the past five minutes. Ethan had to go; he said to tell you he would see you tonight at the game.”

“Uh…thanks. You finished yet?” Snappy and sharp, she checked her watch, climbed down, wiped the seat off, and rubbed herself with her towel. He found he couldn’t move, didn’t want to move. A familiar kernel of lust unfurled in his belly. Her gaze flicked over him again, one dark eyebrow lifted, waiting for an answer.

Blank. His mind was blank. He knew she was waiting for him to say something, but he couldn’t remember the question.

Heat and annoyance bounced of her in waves.

She smelled like cinnamon, sweet and spicy. His senses clamored, his brain clouded. Recalling how she had moved against him yesterday, how she’d demanded a response, she’d awakened his desire for her again with a kick-start like a blowtorch.

He’d wanted her the first time he had ever seen her, when he’d touched her, his hormones had gone into overdrive. He had really thought he could have a quick, robust sexual work out with her. No strings attached. She had given every impression of being interested. She claimed that was what she wanted from him.

Trouble was he already knew it was never going to be that simple between them. She wasn’t quite as worldly as he’d thought. And he wasn’t quite as detached as he’d believed.

He’d spent the last few weeks away distancing himself from her. Knowing the best thing all round was to walk away before he found himself in deep water. Trouble was, all of the convincing, all of the self-belief just bit him in the ass the moment he saw her again. Not quite the very moment her saw her. He’d thought he was doing quite well until she’d grabbed him. Desire had raged through him like an outback wildfire, and when she’d strutted away, he’d damn near run after her.

A bead of sweat trickled lazily from her throat down the line between her neat little breasts. He visualized his mouth there, his tongue tracing a path back up that track. He swallowed.

“Michael?”

With a guilty start, he dragged his attention away from her breasts. “Uh…Uh…Yes, umm. No, just the rowing machine now.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, shot her hip out, and lifted her chin.

“You’re stu-stu-stuttering again.” This time it wasn’t said teasingly but with an impatient lash. He smiled. She might act like a teenager sometimes, but she wasn’t impervious to him.

She strutted across the room to confront the punching bag and started to give it a working over. He sat on the rowing machine to watch her. Her movements were fluid and confident. She was sleek, powerful, and sexy as hell.

Bare-fist fighting. Probably pretending it was his face. He sat back to appreciate her form. Her body weight was evenly distributed, her balance steady, and he admired the way she hit the bag, hard and fast with a straight wrist, relaxed arms and shoulders, belying the clenched jaw and hard eyes. Limber and fleet-footed, she’d have made a great boxer. He watched her leg come up and her foot smash the bag. Possibly a better street fighter.

Despite his resolution to remain distant, he couldn’t help himself.

“Do you want to give that a real go? A one on one?”

She stopped punching and gawked at him as if he were stupid.

“One on one, with you? Do I look like I’d kick a dog?” She replied as he stood up and walked loose limbed toward her.

“I think I could be a good match. One on one.”

She sneered at him her lips pulled back. “You’re so full of shit. You think you can take me on, fuck face?” She angled her body to hit the punching bag again.

He caught it on its backward swing and held it away from her. Tilting her head to one side, she slapped her hands on her hips and glowered at him. He felt the heat of her temper as it rolled off her. Felt it and enjoyed it. It turned him on.

“Now what?”

“Your language is appalling, woman. Your mother should have washed your mouth out with soap when you were little.”

“My mother died when I was a little girl.” If she thought that might gain her a sympathy vote, she was in for a surprise.

It gave him pause for a moment though, and he felt his heart twist as he watched her still, serious face. He wasn’t here to give her sympathy. She knew it; he knew it. So he wiped it out ruthlessly. She wouldn’t want it if he offered.

“Then one of your brothers should have.”

“They tried, the little fuckers. Never managed to pin me down long enough. I’d have kicked their balls through to their throats.”

She smiled, swift and feral. Quick as a flash he returned the smile, knowing she deliberately provoked him with her foul language and aggressive attitude. Mean simply didn’t cover it. She was vicious. Her eyes black and deadly.

“Well then, looks like you missed out on a vital part of your education.” He grinned wolfishly, twitched his eyebrows twice up and down, looking forward to being the one to fill in that gap. “Looks like I’m going to have to rectify that.” He let go of the punching bag, watched it swing back toward her.

She sidestepped it easily, and her flat eyes never left his.

“You and who’s army?”

“C’mon, Bill, you can do better than that. That’s a childish reply.”

He knew he was too close to home with that remark. As a half-smile flitted across her face, she narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew he had her.

*

Bastard. Fury boiled below the surface. Rage at his rejection, anger at his heartless teasing. Resentment at her brothers for allowing her to grow up childish, protected, and unladylike. It had never mattered before, and she couldn’t let it matter now.

She battened it down, lifted her right hand palm upward, and beckoned him toward her with her fingers.

“C’mon then, tiger. See what happens when you try and wash my mouth out with soap.”

He came at her with admirable agility, but she stepped to one side, spun and elbowed him in the stomach as he went past. She heard the
whoosh
of his breath as he doubled over, and grinned with delight. She jabbed her right foot backward into his left knee, swung around, and swiftly followed with a side kick from her left foot into his right thigh. Her lips drew back from her teeth as she bared them at him letting out a low growl from deep in her chest.