Passion's Fury (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 2) (3 page)

Blinking groggily, Kylie looked around, disoriented, every muscle in her body stiff and aching.  With a deep groan, she pushed herself partially upright, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes.  Wiping the moisture from the corner of her mouth, she reached down and pulled the lever to raise the seat back.  It jerked her upright so fast the bottom of the steering wheel dug into her ribs.  “Owww!”

“Miss, are you all right?  Open the window.  Let me help you.”

She twisted awkwardly in her seat, shocked to realize that it was daylight.  She
had
managed to sleep after all.  And the rain had stopped.

Another tap on her window had her turning her head and she received another shock as she found herself staring at one of the most ruggedly handsome faces she had ever seen, with thick, unruly black hair, blue eyes, and a two-day growth of beard. 
Yum! 
Trying not to drool, she just sat and stared, mesmerized, not wanting to break the spell lest he disappear.

When she still didn’t respond, the man—because all the things that held her in thrall did, indeed, belong to a man, a tall, hard-bodied, very large man—smiled at her and that smile had her heart skipping and leaping and doing somersaults like a demented cheerleader. 
Oh, my.

“Miss, open the window.”  On the off chance she didn’t speak English, he made cranking motions with his hand.

Frowning, she touched the window button.  Nothing happened.  Oh, right.  Electricity.  She turned the key to Accessories and the window came down.

The man smiled and leaned his forearms on the open window and she nearly passed out from the lust that swept through her.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I am,” she said, mustering an answering smile.  “Herkimer’s not.”

“Herkimer?”  He looked puzzled.

“The car.”

“You named your car?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

It took him a second to regroup.  “What seems to be the problem?  Flat tire?”

Her sigh was wistful.  “If only.  Loud, clanging noise in the engine.”

“Uh-oh.  That’s not good.  Pull the hood release.”

She found it and pulled it.  She barely had enough time to take in his lean hips and the well-rounded curves of his ass, outlined lovingly by the worn denim of his tight jeans, before all that male deliciousness disappeared behind the open hood.

“Start it for me.”

“Uhhh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Go ahead.  I just need to hear what it’s doing.”

“Ooookay.”  Wincing, she turned the key. 
Clank!  Clank!  Clank!

‘Okay, okay, that’s enough!  Shut it off.”  He lowered the hood and came back around. His smile was back in place and now her
breathing
was doing crazy things.  Like stopping.  And shuddering.  And stopping again.

He hunkered down beside her door.  “Sounds like you might have blown the engine,” he said, taking a cell phone from his shirt pocket and punching in a number.  “I’m calling Sam Olsen to send his tow truck out here.  He owns the local garage.”  He put the phone to his ear.  “Sam.  Simon Rafferty.  Got a little Honda out here on County Road Seventy-One.  Needs a tow.  Might have a blown engine.”  He looked directly at her.  “What year is this, darlin’?”

She was so flustered she nearly gave him the current year before realizing that he meant the year of her car.  “Um, ninety-three.”

He gave her an incredulous look before turning his attention back to the phone.  “You hear that, Sam?  No,
ninety-
three.  You gonna be able to find parts that old?”  While he listened, he tipped back his Stetson with the pad of his thumb, then leaned his elbow on the roof of the car, two moves that placed his crotch right at Kylie’s eye level and sent both her heart and her breathing going absolutely haywire. 
Holy shit!  This man is so drop-dead sexy I’m creaming my panties
!

Not that it matters, of course,
that prim voice in her head replied. 
You have no business creaming your panties over
anyone
, much less a total stranger.  You need to
avoid
total strangers.  When are you ever going to learn?

She licked her lips, taking stock of her situation.  She had no job, no boyfriend, no home, and now no car.  And a dwindling supply of cash.  She’d already spent part of it on some cheap clothes and personal items at a Walmart she’d passed some time during the night.
Damn it, if only I’d gone ahead and packed my bag the minute I saw that news story last night!  I’d have a suitcase
full
of everything I need and ready access to my money!

Guess again, Ferrell.  If you had been in your bedroom packing your suitcase after the news, you’d be dead.
  So it was probably just as well that she
hadn’t
done that.  But now all she had was a couple hundred bucks, a few cheap T-shirts and shorts, and three changes of underwear.

She’d used Walmart’s rest room to clean up some of the dried blood from all the little cuts she’d sustained on her left arm.  She’d had to wet her bloody socks to unstick them from the deeper cuts on the bottoms of her feet.  Then she’d applied an antibiotic cream to the worst of those, covered them with Band aids, and put on a new pair of thick socks.  Plus she’d stopped at a twenty-four-hour fast food place and splurged on a large burger combo because she was absolutely starving.  But now she was hungry again.  And she needed to pee really,
really
bad.
Shouldn’t have gotten that humongous soda.
  And she desperately needed a place to hide out for a while.  A place where she could
think
, plan out her next move, find a job—a place where she felt
safe, god damn it! 
How could the world be so big and yet have not even a tiny little corner for her to shelter in?

Again, the cowboy leaned down into the open window.  “Sam says it’ll be at least an hour before he can get the tow truck out here.  So get your stuff and I’ll take you into town where you can wait in comfort, get something to eat, and, you know, use the facilities.”

Yes!  Yes, please. 
“Um, no, no, thank you, I wouldn’t dream of troubling you.  I’ll just wait here.”

“Nonsense.  It’s not safe.  My brothers would have my hide for leaving you out here on your own.”

His brothers?  Oh, my God!  There are more of him?  Shouldn’t there be some sort of law against that? 
“How many brothers do you have?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Two.  We’re triplets.  I’m Simon, by the way.  Simon Rafferty.”  He extended his right hand through the window and Kylie took it.

“Kylie Ferrell,” she replied automatically, her eyes widening in horror the instant the words were out of her mouth.  Well, shit!  She’d just given him her real name!  So much for her plans to go off-grid, she thought grimly.  And repairing her car was going to cost more than she had left in cash, which meant she’d have to use her credit card.  Shit!  She might as well take out a full-page ad in the Philadelphia paper with a map of Virginia, an X over the name of whatever town this was, and the words, “Kylie Ferrell is here.  Come and get her.”

Simon Rafferty watched the panic bloom in her eyes and her frantic attempts to tamp it down.  This woman was terrified of something.  He didn’t think it was him, but at this point he couldn’t be sure of anything.  He opened the door for her, watching as she untangled her legs and swung them out.  He hated pants on a woman, because they hid his second-most favorite part of a woman’s anatomy.  Long, shapely, curvy legs.  And he’d bet hers were doozies.

She expected her legs to be stiff from their long confinement in the close quarters of the Honda’s front seat, but she certainly wasn’t expecting them to give out completely.  Nor had she anticipated the pain shooting up through the soles of her feet.  Her knees buckled and she let out a cry.

Just in time, Simon grabbed her under the arms to keep her from collapsing to the ground.

“Oh, my God, you’re hurt!  Wait, hang on, let me help you.”  Still holding her under the arms, he lifted her up and pulled her up against his hard, male body.

She whimpered, but not in pain.  At the arousal racing through her, so powerful it was nearly as painful as her feet.  An arousal that Simon Rafferty also seemed to feel if that rock hard bulge behind his jeans was anything to go by. 
Oh, my.
  Lifting her hands to his broad chest, she tried to push herself away from him, but he kept her firmly in place.  She could feel his gaze on her like a touch, and she was filled with a vast, restless yearning she couldn’t explain. 
Come on, Kylie, get a grip.

“Don’t worry, darlin’, I’ve got you.  I won’t let you fall.”

She bit her lip.  “I-I need to get m-my bags.”

“Just tell me where they are, I’ll get them.”

“They’re in the back seat.”

Simon Rafferty edged around her to pull her keys out of the ignition.  Then, without giving her a chance to protest, he bent, thrust an arm behind her knees and picked her up.  She let out a shriek at finding herself suddenly airborne, making him chuckle.  “Don’t worry, darlin’, I’ve got you, remember?”

And he did.  By some miracle he was able to lift her curvy, voluptuous figure and carry her over to the passenger side of the mud-covered Dodge Ram pick-up parked in front of her little Honda.  And he wasn’t even panting or straining or saying, “Oof!” with every step, like Brad had done the one and only time
he
had tried to pick her up.

“No, really,” she insisted, “I’m much too heavy for you.  Please put me down, Mr. Rafferty, I can walk.”

“Call me Simon.  And you’re not too heavy.  You are the perfect size for a man to carry.”  He set her down on her feet and opened the door to his old, battered pick-up truck.  “Step up.”  She lifted one foot onto the running board, but the step was so high, her knee was practically level with her head.

“This has to be what getting on a horse feels like,” she said, grabbing the hand-hold to try and pull herself up.  She felt a broad hand shaping her bottom and giving her a firm shove up into the seat.  Face crimson with embarrassment, she turned and sat and swung her legs in.

“I’m just gonna go fetch your stuff.  I’ll be right back.”

He returned shortly, carrying her nearly empty gym bag, the two plastic Walmart bags, her laptop, and her purse.  He gave her a baffled look.  “This is it?  You came all the way from Philadelphia and this is all you’ve got?  Where’s your suitcase?”

“How did you know I came from Philadelphia?” she asked, astonished.

He just laughed.  “Pennsylvania license plate.  Dealer sticker on the trunk.”

“Oh.”

He eyed her speculatively.  “Kind of a long way to come for a Sunday jaunt.”

She bit her lip, avoiding his eyes.  How could she possibly explain her lack of belongings to him?  How could she possibly explain
anything
to him?  And yet he gave the distinct impression that he was fully prepared to just stand there and wait until she gave him one, no matter how long it took.  “I-I don’t have a suitcase.  Just that.  I-there—there was a fire.  I managed to get away, but everything else just sort of…burned.”  She shrugged, letting her voice trail off, letting him fill in the blanks however he chose.

“Is that how you got hurt?  Were you burned in the fire?”  He touched her arm, her shoulder, reaching in to lift her hands off her lap, inspecting first one then the other, turning them both over, inspecting her skin, noting all the little cuts on the fingertips of her right hand.  “How did you get these?”

“Um, glass.”

“In your hands?”

He lifted her hand to study the cuts more closely.  So closely that if he stuck out his tongue, he could actually lick her skin.  The heat from his hard, calloused fingers left sparks in their wake.  Kylie’s breathing hitched and she had to force herself not to lean into him and beg him to put his arms around her.  Her need and longing for comfort was so overwhelming she was shaking with it.  And with an arousal so fierce she could feel the liquid heat of it melting her bones and igniting her blood.

“No, no, not there.  On my feet.  I just…kinda…stepped on some broken glass on my way out the door.  Had to pull out a couple of pieces, that’s all.”

One black eyebrow quirked, but he didn’t say anything.  Placing her laptop and purse in her lap, he stowed the rest of her meager belongings behind the seat and went around to the driver’s side.  With practiced ease and masculine grace he swung himself up into the seat.  “Buckle up, sweet thing.  You hungry?”

Starving! 
But she couldn’t afford to eat out.  Repairing her car was probably going to cost more than all the rest of the money she had
anywhere. Including
the bank. 
No, I’ll just eat one of those
English muffins I got at Walmart
. 
Only it would taste
so
much better if it were toasted and dripping with butter…
“Um, no, not really,” she said, her words nearly drowned out by the growling of her tummy.