Twisted Up (3 page)

Ella giggled and the sound slid through him like honey. She pushed out of his arms and took her purse off the table by the door. “You better hope they can change it instead of canceling it or I will be taking it out of your hide.” Pulling her airline ticket from inside, followed by her cell phone, she looked over at him and licked her lips. His knees threatened to buckle at the look in her eyes. She wouldn’t say it out loud, the words the look on her face conveyed. Not yet anyway. But he was hoping by the time she left for New Orleans, she will have uttered those three little words.

“You can put the rope away. I’ll come with you.”

Justin inclined his head in acknowledgement and coiled the soft nylon around his hand before slipping it into his back pocket again. “For now. I’ll put it away for now.”

Chapter Two

Ella stood on the sidewalk holding her carry-on as Justin loaded her suitcase and laptop bag into the backseat of the black extended cab truck. It gleamed in the early afternoon sunshine. From what she could see, it had a dark gray fabric interior with black piping. It fit him. It wasn’t what he’d been driving all these months, but since she hadn’t seen him for the last two or three…

“Okay. Hand me the bag you’re holding.” She held it out to him, and he stowed it with her others. “Anything else?” He asked, looking around.

“Nope. Just me.”

“Come on then. You’re the most important thing.” He gestured for her, and she stepped down and met him at the passenger door. He blocked the opening with his body. “Take your panties off.”

Her eyes widened then narrowed as her brow furrowed. “What? Justin, I can’t do that.”

“You been full of more can’ts today… Why not?”

“Not out here in the parking lot. You should have said something back in the apartment.”

“Would you have done it then?”

She hesitated. Part of her said yes, she would have. Another part of her said no, she wouldn’t. A third part of her didn’t want anything to do with the argument. “I can’t do it out here,” she protested again. “What if my neighbors see?”

“No one can see you at this angle. They can only see your feet, and if you’re quick about it…” He shrugged. “You’re not getting in my truck until those panties are off.”

“When did you get so bossy?” she grumbled, even as she reached under her skirt and started to slide her panties over her hips and thighs. Nervously, she glanced around as she quickly shimmied them down her legs.

“I’ve always been bossy. And I when I want somethin’, I want it.” He knelt before she could move and took hold of the green lace at her feet.

She lifted one foot, then the other. When he stood again, he grinned, brought the panties to his nose and sniffed. The dreamy look was wonderful and the waggling of his eyebrows as he looked her over with lascivious intent made her giggle. She might think this was a very bad idea, going all the way to Texas with him, letting him take her back to his home, his bed, his territory, but she would bet every penny she had that he was going to make every bit of it worth her while and then some.

He moved out of her way, and she took a couple of cautious steps forward before climbing up into the seat. He gave her a little lift with his hands around her waist and helped her settle. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to with that little panties game.”

His fingers deftly unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt and left it gaping open enough that anyone looking in the window, either from the side or from the front would be able to see the edges of her bra and the cleft between her breasts. She should be upset and angry with him, and she sort of was, but not enough to put up a fuss. She wanted him far too much and he’d see right through her. All fight left her the second she’d agreed to spend the next couple of days with him.

She’d spent more than half a dozen weekends with him having the best sex of her life and knew what she was getting into. She’d been friends with him, lovers with him. She trusted him. And that he came for her?

It couldn’t have been an easy decision for him. She’d learned as much about him as he’d learned about her over the months of correspondence. He didn’t chase after women. He’d told her that more than once. He simply let them go when they wanted to leave, despite his comment a few minutes ago about when he wanted something. That didn’t apply to women. Not usually.

The thing was, since their first time together, she never wanted to leave him.

“What do you mean you know what I’m up to?”

Ella looked at him. He was standing between her and freedom. His hair was longer and a bit shaggier than before. His eyes were still the same mercurial shade of green framed by dark brows and lashes. His mouth was still sinfully full, and when he smiled, she was worthless for anything else. He was a tall, very good-looking twenty-nine year old man and it never once occurred to her that she didn’t deserve him, that she was too old or that he was too young, that she was too heavy or that he was too irresistible. He wanted her, and she wanted him.

If her heart had really been in it, before, in the apartment or even now, sitting in his truck, she could say no. She could put her foot down and tell him to go. They both knew he would if he believed she wanted him to. They both knew she wouldn’t be able to convince him with words, anymore than he could convince her with them, when her body and her eyes said something very different than go away.

“You’re trying to strip away my defenses.”

“Your panties are a defense?”

Okay, well, when he put it that way, it sounded kind of dumb because how much of an actual defense was a pair of lace panties? “You know what I mean.”

“No.”

“No?”

“That isn’t what I’m going for here, Ella. Accessible, yes.Flashable, yes. Strong and sexy, yes. But defenseless? No.”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the nose, a sweet little peck that was so out of character for the man he’d been today. The contrast made her smile. “Accessible, huh?”

“Yep. And flashable.”

“Flashable isn’t even a word.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t an idea.” He shut the door, and her gaze tracked him as he walked around the front end of the truck to the driver’s side.

He climbed up and reached across the center console to grip her thigh over her skirt. She watched as his fingers pulled the fabric up, inch by inch. She kept her legs tightly closed and glanced over at him. He only smiled and tugged on her left leg. His strength versus hers…

The second she relaxed against his touch, his hand was gone. “What? Why?”

“I just wanted to see how long you’d resist. I’m not going to force you to give in.” He smiled, slow and wicked. “I don’t have to force you to give in.”

He was right, damn him. He hadn’t forced her when they were upstairs. She put up token resistance, but the second she laid eyes on him standing at her front door, her insides had melted. The previous times she’d been with him had been the most eye-opening sexual experiences of her life. Eye-openingly emotional too. She still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Emotions were messy and hard and hurt.

“How long of a drive is it?” she asked as he cranked the truck and put it in reverse.

“Little over ten hours.”

Ella looked at the clock on the dash. “But, that means you’d have driven most of the night to get here.” It was only just after one in the afternoon.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I wanted to get here as soon as I could. Nothin’ but truckers on the road at three in the morning. Damn good thing I did or I’d have missed you.”

Yes, he would have. She’d been headed out the door when he knocked. He was the last person she expected to see, but she wouldn’t deny how happy it made her to find him there, smiling at her in that lop-sided-tilt-of-the-lips way that she saw in her mind’s eye and in her dreams.

It was time to change the subject. “When did you get the truck?” It was brand new or at least no more than a year old. The shiny red wood of the dash, the plush fabric of the seats gave the interior a feeling of warmth, and even though the center console separated her from him, he was close enough to touch and vice versa.

“Parents and brother went in with me for the truck for my birthday, plus I manage the bar now.”

Silly as it was, that was always one of her favorite things about him. He was a bartender. It gave him an air of wildness. And he was bartender in a Texas bar in a little Texas town. Something about that turned her on. He was a cowboy at heart, running cattle for his family’s ranch, but he’d put himself through college bartending, and right after they’d started seeing one another, he’d put in for training to become a volunteer firefighter.

He was so full of life and energy. She loved that and being around him made her feel full of life and energy and happy. Yet, she was fighting it with every fiber of her being.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. It was an awesome gift. I love it.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and then winked. “Wait until you see the bed in the back.”

So naughty. “Just make sure to put a few blankets down for some padding.”

“Already ahead of you there, baby.”

And…they needed to turn the conversation back to safe ground. “How’s the firefighting going?”

“Luckily, we haven’t had any to put out in a couple of months.”

“You still like it?”

“I do. I love it. Between the bar and the fire department, plus helping out the folks on the ranch from time to time, I stay pretty busy.”

Never too busy for her though. He didn’t say it, but the words hung in the air just the same. “Not enough time to go chasing the girls, huh?” As if he would. She knew he was loyal, devoted to whatever woman he was seeing at any one time, and for the last months, it had been her. Trust in him was something she’d never questioned.

He shook his head. “You know me better than that.”

Yes, she did. “You chased me.” So much for safe topics.

“Yep. I probably know you better than I’ve ever known anyone.”

“That makes it different?”

“Of course it does. You didn’t expect me to chase you. You didn’t expect me to show up. Ever.”

He had her there. “Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?”

“More than you’ll ever know, baby.”

Ella decided that comment was best left alone. She was curious about the things he had up his sleeve, but she was smart enough to know he was stubborn enough not to reveal anything to her. She turned her head to the side and propped her chin on her hand, watching the countryside pass by.

Her apartment was outside the city limits of Birmingham and because she traveled a lot for work, it didn’t make sense to her to pay the higher prices for convenience. Besides, she liked that it was a lot quieter out where she was, less hectic but close to the interstate, grocery stores and a park with walking trails. It was suburbia, and she was a suburbanite without the husband, kids and pets.

“Do you need me to stop anywhere before we get up on the highway?”

Justin’s question tugged her attention back to him “No. I ate just before you showed up. I’m good for a while.”

He smiled at her. “Okay.”

She tried not to stare at him, and it took a few seconds before she was able to tear her gaze away. Looking out the window again, she contemplated him and what was happening, what had been happening the over the past months. Giving into the attraction between them the day her divorce papers arrived had likely not been the brightest idea. Getting involved with him beyond that one night hadn’t been part of her stay-uninvolved-for-at-least-a-year plan, either.

If she believed in fate, she’d swear it and Justin had begun conspiring the first night he walked into the bar. How else did one explain him showing up on trivia night, on the one night of the week she went out with friends? How else did one explain him showing up alone and just as there happened to be someone in her group who had canceled? And for three months, every week, he arrived at the bar, took a seat next to her and worked his way under her skin. That she’d filed for divorce from her husband the day she and Justin met wasn’t lost on her.

Fate.

If she believed in it.

“You’re awful quiet over there. You okay? Having second thoughts?”

“I’m good and no, not having second thoughts.”

“Having third and fourth thoughts, then?”

Ella glanced at him and smiled. “No.”

He smiled back. “Okay.”

“Would it matter if I were having second or third thoughts?” She knew the answer.

“Prolly not.”

He turned the radio on, a local country station, and he started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the Sugarland song that came on. She didn’t know the name of it or the words, but the voice of Jennifer Nettles was unmistakable.

“It’s pretty much a straight shot on I-20 West until we get closer to Dallas.”

“So you mean it’s a pretty boring drive until we get closer to Dallas.”

“Not at all. I have you to keep me company this time and you have me. I’m much better than a boring flight to New Orleans.”

She had no doubt about that. He would make the trip interesting if nothing else, but then there was a whole lot of something else. Lust simmered between them at all times, but there were other things, important things too. Questions that needed answers floated invisibly in the air.. Communicating had never really been a problem for them, at least not in the short-novel-sized letters they would email to one another. They’d been pretty good at talking on the phone too from time to time, whiling away the hours. They’d had their own inside jokes from the bar, but things changed once she was well and truly divorced.

That night was crystal clear in her mind.

“Look who I found wandering around outside in the rain.”

Ella had been a little down that day. Her boss offered her a new position, one that would have her traveling all over, training front desk staff at new hotel properties and her marriage was gone, her divorce final, and loneliness had begun to set in. Then Justin walked in behind one of her friends who was notoriously late to everything. Ella knew right then if she said anything, did anything, that things would be different between them.