Sinful Southern Hero: 2 (10 page)

He leaned in, placed a gentle kiss on Lucy’s forehead and
walked out of the room, leaving the door open before descending the steps.

Tucked into the middle of the huge bed, Lucy sighed. Dalton
was downstairs kicking Submissive Barbie the hell out of his house, out of his
life, while Lucy lay tucked into his bed. And, she had to admit, if only to
herself, she liked being there. Damn.

Dalton fumed. What the hell had been going through Rachel’s
head? She’d never done something like this before and now was a piss poor time
to start. He should have cut ties with her, made it clear their arrangement was
over. They didn’t date, they didn’t meet in public and go to movies. They
fucked. Period. Always at his house and always at a prearranged time which they
both agreed upon. His plan had been to not call Rachel and, if she contacted
him, then explain he was no longer available.

Now that he thought about it, it’d been a total asshole
move. It still didn’t explain what went on inside her mind to make the woman
think breaking into his house and waiting on her knees naked for him was a good
idea.

He stopped on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, hand
clenched on the rail. On her knees, waiting for him to come home… Sounded like
a good idea if it was Lucy doing the waiting. Soft, red curly hair tickling her
shoulders, sitting on her heels with knees apart so he had a perfect view of
the tattoo on her thigh…and everything else.

“Dalton?”

Right. He had a problem to deal with, no time for kinky
daydreams. And didn’t that just piss him off more?

Dalton rounded the staircase and stepped into his living
room to find Rachel perched on an arm of his sofa, shapely long legs crossed at
the knee and exposing an indecent expanse of thigh due to the length of the
short black dress she’d donned.

“Is everything all right? Would you like a back rub?” Rachel
stood and moved toward him.

Dalton matched her steps, only moving backward and away from
her. “Stop.” He put a hand up to reinforce the concept for her. Apparently, she
was having trouble understanding things. The not-so-innocent jabs at Lucy’s
weight were edging his mood off of pissed and right into hostile.

“How did you get into my house?”

He studied her, and it struck him that even though they’d
been screwing for quite a while, he didn’t know this woman at all. He knew the character
she played for him, the demure submissive with a wild sexual appetite. They
rarely had real conversation, excepting the first time they’d met and decided
to pursue their arrangement. Dalton had been proud of himself for looking past
her familial affiliation and giving her a chance despite her lying, degenerate
brother.

“Your back door was unlocked. Honestly, I don’t understand
why you’re so upset.”

Naive. He’d been either naive or fucking blind to think
Rachel was the sweet and innocent to her brother’s vile and greasy. Dalton
never, never left his back door unlocked. Not his back door, front door,
windows, he even locked the window over the sink in the kitchen despite the
fact it was too small for a body to crawl through. Clifton was a small town,
but shit went bad, even in small towns.

“However you really found your way inside my house, forget
about doing a repeat.” He stepped into Rachel’s space, her strawberries-and-grass
scent he used to crave now making his stomach turn. “I’m seeing you like to
play games. I thought your brother was just being a dick, acting like you and I
were in something deep, spouting bullshit to Lucy about how we’re a couple. I
see he got the idea from you.”

“No, I—”

“Get out of my house.”

“You’re making
me
leave and letting
her
sleep
in your bed?” Rachel’s tone held so much venom it likely poisoned the air
around her.

“You and I, we had an arrangement, we scratched an itch for
each other, nothin’ more.” He strode to the front door, hearing the clack of
Rachel’s heels on the hardwood floor behind him. He turned to face Rachel, one
hand resting on the door knob and the other pointing up the steps. “That woman
up there, laying in my bed? She’s in my bed because she’s
mine
. To be
clear, she’s mine in all the ways you never were and never will be. Whatever
game you’re playin’, consider it over.”

Dalton pulled the door open and waited.

“You’re making a mistake. I can give you things she can’t.
You and I, we make sense. Look at us and look at her, then tell me which one
doesn’t fit the picture.”

Dalton forced himself to swallow the disgust rising in his
throat at Rachel’s words. Worse, she hid her vile implications behind carefully
selected words and innocent wide eyes. He clenched the doorknob until he heard
it groan under the strain. He kept his voice pitched low so the words wouldn’t
carry up the stairs to Lucy. “If you’re going to insult someone, the least you
could do is say it straight out. Don’t hide behind pretty words like a coward.”
He watched her lips tighten and her spine go stiff. “For the record, nothing
and no
one
makes my dick harder than a woman with a curvy body. Soft in
all the right places. Not a jagged hipbone or sharp shoulder blade. I may not
be able to count Lucy’s ribs through her skin but I know,
I know
when
she’s beneath me and I’m drivin’ into her, she won’t break, she’ll melt.”

Having had her attack smacked down head-on, Rachel sniffed
in disdain but said nothing further. With a harsh light in her eyes and tension
in her step, she moved through the door and Dalton closed it as soon as her
tiny ass crossed the threshold.

Blowing out a breath, he scrubbed a work-roughened hand over
his close-cropped hair and tried to figure out how to smooth things over with
Lucy. No doubt she’d be in a fit and halfway across the county by now if her
injuries hadn’t forced her to stay put. Finding Rachel kneeling naked in his
house and spouting bullshit was the last thing she needed to see today, or
ever.

Pulling out his phone, he thumbed through his contacts and
highlighted his foreman Dez’s number. Dalton needed to make sure his home was
secure first and foremost, which meant switching out the locks on his doors ASAP.
With no idea how Rachel had gotten inside, he’d start with the doors. Keeping
Lucy safe was his number one priority and if Rachel could get into his house,
Lucy’s shithead ex wouldn’t have a problem either.

Dez had been Dalton’s foreman for the six years since the
man had returned to town after a stint in the army. Dalton trusted Dez with his
business and, now, he was the only person he would trust with Lucy’s safety.

“Dez, I need a favor. No, not work related. I need you to
tap into the knowledge base the army gave you. Right. Grab your shit and meet
me at my place.”

* * * * *

Lucy came awake with a start. She found it unbelievable
she’d somehow fallen asleep while the drama unfolded between Dalton and Rachel
downstairs. The stress and trauma of the last day—hell, the last few
years
—had
caught up with her. Shoving the sheet off of her legs, she shimmied her butt to
the edge of the bed and swung her feet down to touch the chilled wood floor.

She stood with slow movements, grateful when the room stayed
still instead of spinning around her like a tilt-a-whirl. Squinting at the
clock on Dalton’s dresser, she found she’d only slept two hours. Still, she
felt about a million times better than she had when Dalton tucked her into his
bed.

On surprisingly steady legs, she shuffled through the
bedroom, into the hall and to the landing at the top of the stairs. With one
hand on the sturdy, polished wood railing, she carefully moved down the steps,
pausing at the bottom and squeezing her eyes shut to quell the dizziness
threatening to sweep in and take over.

A deep, rumbling male voice froze Lucy in mid-step, just as
she was about to round the stairwell and search for Dalton. The voice was
muffled, coming from the back of the house, probably the kitchen, and it did
not belong to Dalton.

Lucy had no idea how she knew for certain this voice was not
Dalton’s, she just knew. Who was in his house? Where was Dalton?

She swallowed a knot of fear trying to lodge itself inside
her throat and craned her neck, waiting, listening.

An answering rumble came from the same direction as the
first, only this time Lucy’s heart sped instead of freezing. Dalton. He
wouldn’t let anything happen to her. As long as he was in the house, she’d be
safe. At the thought, her heart skipped a beat. At this rate, she’d give
herself a heart attack if she didn’t relax and control her reactions. At least
this reaction she understood completely.

Lucy never thought she’d feel safe, especially not with a
man in the house. Damn Dalton for prying open her protective walls and
hammering himself inside. The man had snuck up on her and swept through her defenses—which
were considerable, she thought, before he came into her life.

With one hand to the wall steadying herself, she took a deep
breath and moved toward the sound of the voices.

“This woman means somethin’ to you.” Lucy heard the voice
she didn’t recognize clearly as she came upon the kitchen. After a moment of
hesitation, she stopped before entering. Eavesdropping was an asshole thing to
do, but…

“Shit, man. I didn’t call you over for a heart-to-heart. I
got a woman tucked into my bed with a concussion and an abusive dickwad ex-husband
turned stalker. She does graphic design work for a living, she has to be able
to use the internet, use her email, without worrying this douchebag is gonna
trace her.”

Dalton was already taking care of her, arranging for Lucy to
get her work done without the fear that Ross would somehow use that to find
her. Her insides warmed and she took a step into the kitchen doorway.

Standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his
back partially toward her, Dalton faced a man Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted
helping her with anything.

The man leaned his jean-clad ass against the heavy kitchen
table, the pose negligent but somehow full of barely leashed power. He had his
thumbs hooked into the front pockets of those faded, fraying jeans. Faded and
frayed from use and washes and hard work, not bought that way, Lucy guessed. A
black tee under an equally well-worn leather vest and beat-up black motorcycle
boots completed his look. That is, if you didn’t count the dark-blond hair, too
long for a man but it worked on this guy, pulled back into a queue at the base
of his neck, and the plethora of tattoos nearly covering both arms.

“Abigail and Jed swung by earlier, grabbed her keys, should
be back soon with her laptops. A small, pansy-ass thing I don’t know how she
does anything on, and a big heavy one she uses for work.”

“It’s a netbook, and it isn’t small and pansy-ass. It’s
compact,” Lucy stated, shuffling into the kitchen.

Two heads whipped around at the sound of her voice. Two sets
of harshly beautiful male eyes zeroed in on her, one set searching, curious,
one set looking a little more enraged than she wanted to see.

“What are you doing?” Dalton took a step toward her and she
matched it by taking a step back.

Her eyes hit the unknown man, finding him looking amused,
before snapping back to Dalton. “Umm…”

“Tell me you didn’t walk down the stairs alone.”

This was a strange request, considering it was obviously
exactly what she’d done. He didn’t seem to require a response, so she waited.

“Woman, you could have broken your damn neck.” Dalton
prowled closer.

The warmth that had started in her chest when she heard
Dalton arranging for whatever it was he was having done to protect her and let
her work spread to her veins and cranked up the heat. He was worried about her,
she knew. Still, it surprised and delighted her that he was
this
worried.

“Well, I didn’t break my neck, as you can see.” Dalton’s
gaze moved over her as if checking for confirmation. She licked her lips before
pulling the bottom one between her teeth and nibbling on it, a nervous tic she
had never been able to beat. When he stopped scanning for injuries and his gaze
settled on her mouth, she cleared her throat and took a step toward him, hoping
he’d move out of the way. “Who’s your friend?”

Dalton kept silent. His stare remained on her lips and to
her embarrassment, her nipples hardened and the lacy pink bra he’d helped her
into earlier did nothing to hide the effect his attention had on her body. She
decided escape was the best option and stepped to the side to move around him.

Dalton, of course, did not allow this. He spun and tagged
her with an arm around her waist, his big hand gripping her hip. The man
leaning against the table caught Lucy’s small gasp and one side of his lips
tilted up in a small smile. Dear God but the man was actually scarier when he
smiled. A short scar ran in a diagonal from the side of his nose to his upper
lip, halfway between the middle and the corner.

“Lucy, Dez. Dez, Lucy.”

Why was she not surprised with Dalton’s abrupt introduction?

“Nice to meet you, Dez. You have a very interesting name.”

The man’s smile turned into a grin and she realized he
wasn’t only scary as hell, he was seriously hot too.

She felt Dalton chuckle, the sound vibrating against her
side, which he’d tucked against his own. “Dez is a nickname. His real name is
Desmond Gerrard Walker.”

Lucy’s eyes went wide before she hid her shock. This man did
not look like a Desmond Gerrard Walker. No wonder he used a nickname. Dez fit
his brute biker persona to a T.

“My parents said they wanted to give me a real smart name,
so, that way, I’d grow up and be real smart. Go to college, be a doctor or a
lawyer.”

“That was nice of them.” Lucy could think of nothing else to
say, and really, it was sweet of his parents to try and give him a name he’d be
proud of. Still…

“Too bad for them you grew up not only smart, but a smart
ass.” This was Dalton, clearly comfortable teasing the rough-looking man.

“Well, if you’re gonna work some mojo on my computers and
make it so I can’t be tracked, you must have grown up all right. Smart, too, ’cause
IP addresses and all that crap confuse the heck out of me.”