Bad Girl Bill (Atlantic Divide) (17 page)

She preferred him clean-shaven but when she’d offered a razor there’d been a remoteness to him and, she gathered he had to grow it for his job. She’d noticed he spent quite a while out in the sun too, and when she’d told him to take it easy, he’d just given her a long, sideways look. Perhaps the darkened skin was part of the work requirement too. She didn’t ask any questions, and he never told her anything further about his job since the night of the fight.

A cool, light breeze skimmed over their bodies as they lay in her bed. The first night-time breeze they’d had in months.

She could hear the gentle snore of her two dogs as they lay in the corner of her room on their shared bed. She felt the slow, deep rhythm of Michael’s breathing as he lay in the dark. She knew he was still awake.

“Are you okay?” She caressed his lean, bearded cheek.

“Yeah.” With a sigh, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, turning his back to her, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

“I had a phone call today. I have to go away.”

“Okay. When?” She tried hard not to sound desperate.

“I have to leave in an hour.”

Shock and fear rippled through her. But he didn’t want to know that.

“When will you be back?” She had no right to ask but had to all the same.

He turned his face to stare at her through the darkness, and then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

She stood on the doorstep and watched his car disappear down her dusty drive and realized she hadn’t said a thing to try and make him stay. Not a word. She knew she couldn’t hold him…if she tried, she’d lose him. Not to another woman, that was never her worry, but his devotion to whatever his work far exceeded the feelings he had for her, and she knew if she made him choose, the choice would be work.

*

From the moment he left her, Michael wanted to be back with her again. He’d never felt like this about any other woman. Had never formed enough of a relationship with anyone before. He’d never minded when he left a woman behind. But Bill had him, with her confusing combination of sexual naïveté, refreshing enthusiastic childishness, and brash toughness, she’d caught his interest from the word go. He knew the worst thing he could do was get involved with her. He also knew it was possibly too late.

He scrubbed at his dirty, dyed-black hair and peered at the men around him. He needed every ounce of his concentration right now, and Bill was encroaching on that. He was sure it wasn’t her fault he kept having visions of her naked body in the shower, but he felt the flickers of annoyance curl through his gut while his mind tried to coldly cut her out of his thoughts.

He leaned forward and started the brief. Planning was everything, and every single man around the table depended on each other for their lives. They all depended on him for his accuracy and planning of the mission. He had no time to allow a woman to wind through his mind. He had no place in his heart for her either. So he cut her out.

* * * *

Ten days he’d been gone and Bill sat on her porch swing thinking about him, and wondered when he would be back. A cloud of dust rose in the distance and as she stood, a Black BMW four-by-four appeared, speeding along her driveway.

As it pulled up in front of her house and her blond god stepped out and slammed the door behind him, she launched herself off the top step of the porch straight into his arms, laughing with sheer joy. He staggered back two steps before he gained his balance, and she smothered his face with kisses, heart racing as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

“You’re back.” She yanked his tie off over his head and dropped it into the dust.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” She ripped open his shirt as he attempted the porch steps. Small white buttons skidded across the wooden deck. Lust raced through her as she bit his neck, wanting to eat him alive. She gurgled as she made his knees buckle, and he almost fell as she writhed against him, an overwhelming flood of hormones rushed through her entire being.

Gaining his feet, he staggered toward the door as her hands, rough and desperate, ran down his ribs and grabbed the front of his trousers. Her fingers fumbled as she tore at his belt, ripped open his button, wrenched at his zipper, and pushed her hands deep inside his pants. As she grabbed his hot, hard penis with her hand, his breath whooshed out of him in a long, lusty groan.

He lost his legs completely at the door, collapsed on top of her, tore her trousers off, and ripped her panties in two. He plunged inside her, her writhing body making it easy for him to hammer into her fast and furious, hot and desperate as she wrapped her limbs around him. Her legs slid up his back and pulled him in close. She bit the lobe of his ear and chuckled wickedly against his neck as she felt the lust in the back of her throat, her chest, her loins. It filled her, overwhelmed her, and he thrust into her, desperate and needy like it was the first time, the last time.

Matching his frantic rhythm she pulled him closer, deeper, harder into her and screamed as he joined her in an explosive orgasm while she bucked under him and took all he had to give.

His breath heaved in and out of his lungs as he collapsed, deadweight, on top of her. She was still wrapped around him, reluctant to let go. She stroked his back with one hand while she ran the fingers of her other hand through his long, silky hair. She chuckled warmly, seductively, into his ear and whispered.

“I think I’ve got a splinter in my ass.”

Nuzzling her ear he replied, “I can’t move yet, but when I can, I’m sure I’ll be able to pull it out with my teeth.” He chuckled, and she felt the vibrations of his laughter deep within her where he still lay embedded. She purred against his neck.

“I love you, Michael.”

There was a moment of utter silence, stillness, before she felt him stiffen in her arms, withdraw. She could have bitten her tongue for saying it, cried out in pain at his response. Instead she lay underneath him, quietly waiting for his reaction.

As he lifted his head and studied her, she knew. His eyes were flat and cold, like an arctic sea, he removed himself, first emotionally, and then physically from her.

“Well,” his coolly polite smile cut through her more deeply than any words possibly could, “that was some welcome. Umm, thank you.”

Pain shot behind her eyes. Breath halted in her throat.

He still had his shoes and socks on, his trousers were around his knees. He stood and yanked them back up, rushing to fasten them as he pushed her jeans toward her with his foot. He straightened his shirt, tried to fasten it, but found only two buttons left. He glanced around for his tie, obviously realized it was still in her front yard.

All the time she sat on the floor, silent and devastated as she stared up at him. A lump formed in her throat, and she hoped to God now wasn’t the time for her to cry for the first time since she was eight.

She swallowed hard, blinked, and tried to think of something to say to make it better. Anything. But all she could think that would make it better would be to take back the words that caused him to freeze over. It was too late. There was no going back, and she was too proud to throw herself at him. No matter how desperate she was.

He searched around for anything else he might have lost in the rush to get his clothes off. He scanned the floor around her, glanced out of the doorway onto the porch. She followed his gaze and saw the scattered buttons winking in the early evening sunlight.

“Can I get you something to eat?” Low and husky, her voice shook as she looked for some sign of thaw in him, found none, just a growing uncomfortable embarrassment.

“No. I told Kate I’d be back for dinner. She’s expecting me. I just called round to pick up some of my stuff.”

Mortified, she sat immobile. She’d literally thrown herself at him, leaped all over him, pulled his clothes off and virtually raped him on her own doorstep and because of three stupid words, he couldn’t wait to get out the door.

“Oh, well don’t let me keep you,” she replied with a weak smile and jerky hand movement. “I wasn’t expecting you anyhow. I’m not sure I would have anything in.” They both knew that was a blatant lie.

He coughed gently as he looked down at her, his eyes never quite meeting hers.

“I needed to pick up some of my things,” he repeated.

“Well then, you better get a move on. I have things to do.” She flicked a hand in the air to indicate for him to go through her house as she sat almost naked on the floor with her knees tucked into her chest.

She thought he was going to say something for a moment as he stared back down at her. She heard him fill his lungs. He turned on his heel and walked through her kitchen.

Panic almost blinded her as she grabbed her clothes, wrenched them on, and pulled them into place, shoving her ripped underwear into her pocket to stand awkwardly, trying to think of something she could say to him when he came back. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to have been delirious to see her. It had been all she had been able to think about ever since he had left.

She wandered out to the porch, bent to pick up five of his buttons, and sat on the swing willing herself not to curl up in a ball of deep humiliation. She rubbed the smooth, white, little buttons while she waited and wondered what she was going to say to him as he left. She wouldn’t cry for him. She would never degrade herself that way. She’d never shed a tear.

*

He made his way into her bedroom, started to pick up things he had accumulated while he’d stayed there. A duffel bag stashed neatly inside her wardrobe, three T-shirts—one lay on her bed she’d obviously been sleeping in while he was away. He picked up a pair of jeans, several pairs of underpants from her underwear drawer and sneakers from under the bed. He wandered into the bathroom, retrieved a razor, aftershave, toothbrush, deodorant. He’d used her toothpaste, shower gel, shampoo.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Sitting on the toilet seat he ran a quick glance around the room.

How had he managed to get here? It had all happened without him realizing. They’d become embedded in each other’s lives without it being a deliberate act, without discussing it.

He’d made it clear at the beginning he wasn’t looking for any attachments, but the lines had become blurred, time had moved on without him, and suddenly here he was, sitting in Bill’s bathroom with a relationship he never asked for, never wanted, falling apart around his ears.

He held his head in his hands. For probably the first time in his life his brain had failed him. It had gone completely blank.

He opened the door and walked through the house carrying his duffel bag.

He paused in front of her. She’d dressed and was sat on the swing seat, her legs pulled up to her chest as she stared out at his vehicle. The dogs lay nearby.

He had no idea what to say.

“I’ll probably see you around then.”

She gave a quick nod, but remained silent.

He walked down the steps and stooped to pick up his dusty blue tie. The dogs had padded down the porch steps beside him, so he gave them both a scratch on the head, and then got in the BMW, swung it round in a circle, and drove away without looking back and with less haste than when he had arrived.

*

Jumping up, she hurtled down the drive after the car.

“Bastard!” she shrieked at the top of her voice and as the pain hit her, her knees gave way and she sank to the dusty ground and clutched at the burning ache in her stomach.

She watched him drive out of sight. The dogs snuffled at her face.

Her jaw clenched as she straightened and picked herself up out of the dirt. Glancing down she flicked the dust off her jeans in disgust and then went downstairs to her gym to kick the shit out of her punching bag.

No tears, she promised herself, never any tears.

He felt like shit. He’d treated her like shit. He’d sat around Kate’s kitchen drinking coffee for two days in virtual silence with his sister sidling around him as though he wasn’t there.

Ops were all set up, and he was practically ready to go. Any day now.

He didn’t know what to do. He’d hurt her. Hell, he must have hurt her. She’d just told him she loved him, and his heart had frozen solid. She’d put the fear of God into him. He’d fooled himself all along if he’d thought he wasn’t going to hurt her. Why the hell hadn’t he taken notice of the warnings he’d been given, from Jack, her brothers? He’d carried on, ignorant of what they were telling him, or oblivious. He’d wanted her, so he’d taken her without a thought.

He had to go back. Make it right with her before he left. Apologize. Perhaps he’d take her some flowers. She’d said no one ever bought her flowers.

He sighed as he watched Kate wipe Gemma’s little rosebud mouth with a white cloth as the baby sat in her high chair.

His sisters knew each time he went, there was the possibility of him never coming back. They accepted it. They got on with their lives, and they had each other and their new husbands. What would Bill do?

“Well?” Kate stood with her hands on her hips and pinned him with one of her looks—his mother’s look.

“Well, what?”

“Well, when are you going to put it right?”

“What do you know about it?”

A sky-blue gaze met a clear green one.

“Nothing. Bill’s saying nothing. You’re saying nothing. So there’s something. Go and sort it out.”

* * * *

He’d removed everything from her house. Even his scent had diminished once she had washed her sheets and towels. The bastard had even taken the T-shirt she liked to sleep in.

She’d finished work and was just about to prepare food, not that she was eating particularly well, but it gave her some routine if she prepared her meals.

She saw his BMW trundle down the track toward her house, slower than it had last time. She decided to let him come to her and turned to face him as he walked in her kitchen.

*

A stream of sunlight reflected off her raven hair, tossing shards of blue light around her head. Her chocolate-colored eyes glowed in a melting pot of sadness, hurt, and anger. Every emotion she had reflected in the depths of her deep, beautiful eyes.