While I’m in town. Greeley didn’t like that any better than he had the last time she’d said hello only to tell him she wasn’t staying. He didn’t like that she was so happy and determined to keep everything between them temporary. Always pointed toward the state line, his Merritt. Always running away.
“You can keep telling yourself that,” he told her, and he didn’t care how intense he sounded then. It was still the truth. “You can get pissed about it. It won’t change a thing.”
“I want you to leave me alone.”
“No,” Greeley said, his gaze hard on hers. “You don’t.” He settled back in his seat, his feet hard on the ground on either side of the heavy bike. “Do you want me to make this happen, Merritt? Is that what this is? You want me to chase you down, make you leave with me, then make you come all over me a couple times? You know I will. I’ll play whatever bullshit role gets you naked and in my bed. If you still need someone to blame, I’m your guy. Just say the fucking word.”
He watched the fight go out of her, like a light dimming, and that thing in his gut sank deeper and twisted. Hard. She blinked and looked unsteady on her feet for a moment, but she rallied. He watched her do it. He watched her square her shoulders and stand a little straighter and he opted to ignore the way that made his chest feel tight. Too fucking tight. She lifted that chin of hers.
“I don’t need to blame you. But I do need—”
“If you say you need to strip, we can do that. Believe me, that works. But there’s only going to be one man you strip for.”
“That pretty much defeats the purpose of stripping.”
“You want me to make it rain, babe? I can do that, too. You dance around for me in that fucking outfit, it’ll rain in more than one way. I guarantee it.”
“This isn’t a fundraiser.” She shook her head as if he was deliberately misunderstanding her, that frown of hers that he wanted to get his mouth on etching its way between her brows. “It’s a walk on the wild side. I need to step outside myself.”
“I’m pretty sure that when I make you come screaming a couple times, you’ll be so outside yourself you’ll think I’m a god.” He rubbed his hands over his face because it was that or put them on her and if that happened, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to control himself. He was barely hanging on as it was, and no matter what he said, he didn’t want to give the bouncers here a free show. She wasn’t for public consumption. She was his. “Baby. Enough. Get on the bike. If we’re gonna fight and fuck all night, we might as well do it somewhere without an audience.”
She blinked again, and then she looked away, and for a second he couldn’t read her at all. He started his bike, letting it roar against the night, that Harley power soothing him the way it always did. And when he backed it up she was looking at him again, still frowning like she was figuring something out. He lifted his chin, wordlessly ordering her to climb on behind him—but a part of him hoped she wouldn’t. He wouldn’t mind chasing her down. Hell no. He liked the part of him that was pure Neanderthal.
But instead she stepped closer. He saw the deep breath she took as she reached out and grabbed hold of his shoulder. Then—finally—she swung herself up and slid into place behind him.
He waited until she settled in and wrapped herself around him, and then he took off.
And it felt fucking great. Everything felt right, at last, and he hadn’t realized until now that a whole lot of shit hadn’t felt right all this time. Years, maybe. It was one more thing he didn’t want to think about. But Merritt was plastered against him, her body pressed up against his back and her head on his shoulder. Her arms were wrapped tight around his waist, holding on to him hard. She fit there the way she always had, as if she’d been specifically created to ride behind him and hold on to him like that.
He almost felt like he was the one who’d over-served himself the tequila tonight, a little too close to wild. The spring night was like a cool fist around them as they rode, cutting through the sugarcane fields all alone in the bayou night. And Merritt was right where she belonged at last, on the back of his bike and snug against him, while his dick was so hard he was surprised it didn’t turn into a fucking parking brake.
And he could feel the way it got to her, too, the powerful Harley between her legs and him right there in front of her. She was no more immune to this than he was. She squirmed a little bit as she clung to him, betraying herself the way she always had. He grinned when he felt her shiver, and then grinned even wider when she pressed her mouth against his shoulder like she was working hard to hold back that killer laugh he’d always loved to hear when she was on the bike with him and she was feeling it down deep.
When he pulled up in front of his house she jumped off the moment he stopped, and he was sure he’d have to wade through all her second thoughts and whatever else she threw at him to deny she wanted this. The usual bullshit. She stalked toward the house ahead of him, a gleaming, nearly naked vision in the night, all that exposed pale skin and the stretchy, shiny material that barely covered her. Even her ridiculously high heels gleamed, and he’d never know how she didn’t break a fucking ankle as she walked too fast up to his porch, all stripper sway and sheer determination.
He was right behind her.
But when she turned around at last, right there at his door, it wasn’t regret or second thoughts or any of the usual crap he saw all over her face.
It was hunger.
So Greeley stopped playing.
He didn’t stop when he reached her. He kept going, crowding her against his front door. She let out a small, needy sound and he hauled her up high against him the way he had last night. Then he took her mouth, one hand grabbing hold of her hair, deep and hard and bossy as fuck, and the other getting a fistful of her ass when she wrapped herself around him, arms and legs gripping him tight.
He kissed her hot and hard. Deep and wet. He went fierce and greedy and she met him, angling her head to get that much more of him.
Greeley kicked the front door open and stumbled through it. He didn’t bother with lights. He didn’t lift his mouth from hers for even a second. He carried her down the hall and into his bedroom and he didn’t stop moving until she was on her back in his bed and he was right where he wanted to be between her legs, rubbing up nice and hard against her cunt.
Again. At last. And the club could show up in its entirety at his front door with cries of imminent war and tonight they’d have to fucking wait.
She lifted herself against him, arching to rub against him in that sinuous way that made his eyes cross, and it was too much.
He couldn’t think. He didn’t want to think. He let go of her for the two seconds necessary to tear his fly open. It was too damned long.
It was dark in his bedroom, but he didn’t need light to see her. He would know Merritt in a darkness much thicker than this. In any darkness at all. He would always know her, and who cared how much time had passed. He knew that desperate sound she made in the back of her throat. He knew the way she rocked herself against him, the lift of her hips and the punch of it when she slid her pussy against him. He knew her taste, her smell, the way she fit even better beneath him than she did behind him on his bike.
Because this is where she’s supposed to be, a garrulous voice from deep inside of him growled. Every fucking night.
He didn’t waste time undressing either one of them. He pulled her hot little shorts to one side, shoved the little G-string thing she wore beneath it out of his way, and found her scalding hot and more than ready.
“Hurry!” she threw at him like she was dying. Like she might not make it another second. He felt the same way.
And then finally, finally, Greeley slammed himself into her, deep and hard.
For a moment, everything shuddered to a halt. That sleek, perfect fit. The way she breathed so heavily there, beneath him, as if she was a part of him. Back where she fucking belonged after all this time. After he’d given up on this ever happening again.
“Shit,” he muttered, fighting the urge to flood her then and there.
“Still such a poet,” she whispered. Then she angled herself up and set her mouth to his again.
And everything went white hot and insane.
Greeley held her head in his hands while he took his time with her mouth. Over and over again in an endless, impossible, dirty fucking kiss while he worked his cock in her at last, setting a hard, intense rhythm that should have torn them both apart. Maybe it did.
Maybe he didn’t care if this killed him. It would be a great fucking way to go.
But she clung to him. She met him, every thrust of his cock and his tongue in turn. She worked her hands beneath his cut and his shirt and got them on his skin—one high on his back and one down the back of his jeans to grip his ass.
It was merciless and blistering and crazy. Raw. Hot and hard, but she’d already been halfway there on the bike. And Greeley was always pretty much there when he was around her.
He pounded into her, deep and ruthless, until she was throwing back her head and making those wild, high little noises that drove him crazy. Crazier. She dug her heels into the backs of his thighs and she was lifting herself up to meet every single wild thrust—
And then she started bucking and making even more noise and all that great shit he’d missed. This time was better than the hallway in Doc’s house. This time he was on top of her and she was coming on his cock, shaking and thrashing, spread out beneath him with her cunt gripping him like a fist.
She was his, Greeley thought, the way he always had, and then he was coming, too, groaning it out into the crook of her neck as he pumped himself into her.
Merritt was supposed to be his. He’d claimed her a long time ago and he’d meant it then. He obviously still meant it or he would have kicked back in Petit Joe’s and enjoyed the amateur show she was putting on up there to give the whole damned parish a boner.
She was his. And not just in his bed.
Though he figured it was an excellent fucking start.
Chapter 7
Merritt had no idea how long they sprawled there like that.
Greeley’s weight crushed her into the bed, but she liked it. She liked feeling how big he was, how strong. Maybe she more than liked it. His face was buried in her neck while his breath sawed in and out of him and she got to feel it as if it was moving through her, too. She lowered her legs to the bed but she still had her arms wrapped around him, and it didn’t matter how many times she told herself to stop clinging to him. To release that grip she still had on him before he noticed it. Before he drew the wrong conclusions about what it meant.
But she still didn’t let go.
She didn’t want to let go. Merritt told herself it wasn’t about touching him, necessarily, though there was no denying she enjoyed the simple beauty of holding such a tough, dangerous man so close. It was more that she didn’t want to face the aftermath of this long, odd, first day back home in Lagrange.
There was the whole strip club thing, an idea which had seemed like sheer magic when she’d suggested it to Lanie at some point during their deeply indulgent, carefree day together. Doing such an out of character thing wouldn’t have occurred to her at all had she not spent so many hours laughing so hard with the best friend she’d ever had—something she hadn’t done in so long that at first her laughter had felt strange and put on. But Lanie was magical the way Lanie had always been magical to Merritt, making her feel buoyed and accepted no matter what. Whether it was the killing fields of seventh grade or her ignominious return home with her proverbial tail between her legs, Lanie was there to make it all right. Merritt had decided she wanted to do what Lanie did to see if that was where the magic came from. Because tequila. And also because why the hell not? Merritt had been such a relentless Goody Two-shoes her whole life and what had it ever gotten her except into more trouble?
Then there was the fact that half the town’s male population had seen Greeley bodily remove her from Petit Joe’s, which was somehow far more embarrassing than the fact that she’d been in Petit Joe’s in the first place.
And then there was this, which she’d not only done nothing to stop—she’d pretty much started, if she was honest. He might have hauled her out of the strip club but she’d been the one to climb up on that bike and melt all over him. She’d known exactly what she was doing and what would happen.
The truth was, she’d wanted to end up right here.
She couldn’t help herself when it came to Greeley. It had been like this since that first night five years ago. And maybe it was worse now that she knew the world wasn’t exactly filled with men who could replace him. No one could. He’d listened. When she’d asked him real questions, he’d taken time to think about his answers. He was quick and, when he wasn’t being a hard ass, funny. He’d found her funny, the way only Lanie ever had. And more than that, he’d made her feel as safe as she had in her daddy’s house, but without her father’s distance and judgment.
All that and he was sculpted marble covered in smooth male flesh. He knew what to do with his hands and exactly how to touch her and god, even the way he called her on her shit and confronted her and knew her…She was as powerless around him as she’d always been. Nothing had changed. If anything, it was hotter than she remembered. Better.
And if it got any better than this she thought it might kill her.
Greeley moved then. He pushed himself up on his elbows and she could see him all too well in the gloom of his bedroom. That harshly gorgeous face of his. His gray eyes nearly black and that hard mouth flat behind his dark beard. Oh yes, she could see him—but she couldn’t read him at all. Judging from the glitter in his eyes, Merritt thought that was probably just as well.
He pulled out of her then and she tried to bite back the involuntary little moan at losing his cock, but she knew he heard it. She saw the way his gaze changed. Got moodier, if possible.
“I should have asked you to take me to my father’s house,” she said.
He was still braced there above her, and she had to fight back the urge to push his dark hair back from his forehead, a tender gesture she knew he would misread. Or read correctly, which would be worse.
His voice was gruff. “Why?”
“So you wouldn’t have to do it now.”
Greeley studied her until she thought she might start squirming.
“What makes you think I’m taking you anywhere? That took the edge off, babe, but I’m not done. Not even close.”
She had a lot of things to say as that shivered through her, kicking up new fires and making her breath catch all over again. But her sense of self-preservation kicked in—better late than never, she thought ruefully—and she said none of them.
As if he could see her bite back all those things she knew she shouldn’t let out, Greeley’s hard mouth curved.
He rolled to the side of the bed and he sat there for a moment, his back to her. Merritt pulled herself up so she was sitting more than lying down, her back against his smooth wooden headboard. She tucked her legs beneath her and worked the absurd high heels off her feet, one and then the other.
“Explain to me how you ended up onstage at Petit Joe’s.”
Merritt didn’t know which was more alarming: that he was talking to her in that low, hard way of his that sounded like he was considering heading back to Petit Joe’s to burn the whole place to the ground or that she broke out in goosebumps that suggested she wouldn’t necessarily mind if he did. As if she liked it when he sounded so cranky and possessive at once.
It couldn’t be more different from Antony. His cranky possessiveness had been masked in that creepy concern.
Do you not feel well, Merritt? he’d ask, that flat-edged glare trained on her despite the smile he’d always worn, making her stomach twist. You seem…not yourself.
Because the truth, she’d understood eventually, was that he didn’t like it when Merritt was herself. He liked it when Merritt was his obsequious minion, overawed b
y his wealth and success and generosity—and he made sure she acted that way no matter how she felt inside. That she’d ever truly been that person, that wide-eyed swamp rat unable to believe her good luck with him, made her feel sick.
Greeley wasn’t like that.
Like there’s a difference, she snapped at herself now. Possessive is possessive.
But deep down, she felt safe with Greeley. Physically if not emotionally. The way she always had when she was near him. It was more than a little infuriating.
She scowled at Greeley’s broad, hard back. “I felt like stripping. So I decided to do it. The end.”
He sighed, then shoved a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ, you’re a pain in my ass.”
She scowled harder. “If I feel like stripping every night of the week, guess what? I will. I’m guessing you won’t be available to tackle me and preserve my modesty every single time I step on a stage. So if I want to flash my titties at every man in the parish, you’re not going to stop me. You should probably accept that now.”
His body moved as if he was laughing, though he didn’t make a sound. Which made something edgy skitter all over her skin, reminding her that she was showing a little too much of it, sitting there in her tiny stripper outfit.
“Okie won’t let you dance there again,” Greeley said. “And he’s a lot less approachable than I am, babe, so I wouldn’t try to argue with him. ’Course, if you do, he’s only going to call me to come get your ass. Your choice how you want to run with that.”
“Are you shutting me out of the stripper business?” Her spine stiffened with an outrage that had more to do with Antony’s controlling, smothering bullshit up north than it did with Greeley’s cockblocking of her stripper career—which was currently in the embryonic stage. If that. Still, it wasn’t up to him. “For all you know I’m broke and need the money, asshole. Who the hell are you to interfere?”
He swiveled his head to pin her with a glare. “Do you need the money?”