“You know you don’t have to censor yourself with me.”
“I know.”
It was hard to imagine Starla looking bashful, but she was pulling it off right now. A hint of pink stained her cheeks, and she absently picked at the fingernail tipping one long, graceful, silver-ringed finger. “But?” he prodded, desperate to follow where she was leading with this. She looked as if she had much more to say.
“You’ve been so great to me, and I feel like I’ve been nothing but a foul-mouthed drag every time we’ve seen each other.”
“Not at all. Don’t think that. You can talk to me about any damn thing you need to, and I’ll listen. I’ll even shut up, if you need me to, and let you do all the talking.”
Her brown eyes searched his, though he wondered what she looked for there. Insincerity? He meant every word. Jared didn’t know why this girl had touched him so, but she had. Maybe something in her called to his primal, overprotective tendencies—and God knew he had those—but it was more than that. He wanted to see everything work out for her, yes, and he itched to fix her problems if she’d let him. It ran deeper than those urges. She told him things she’d told no one else. She trusted him that much though she barely knew him, and Jared would bet the farm Starla wasn’t the kind of girl who gave trust easily. He’d bet that her lifestyle—her partying and her impossible crushes and her habit of hooking up with the wrong guys—was all about one thing: keeping people at arm’s length.
But what the hell did he know.
He did know that when she scooted toward him, he watched her advance as his breath hitched in his chest. It was a bit of an awkward journey for her. He didn’t let her make it alone. Leaning forward, sliding the tip of his finger under her chin, he glided in to meet her lips with his. Simply, effortlessly, as if they’d done this a thousand times already…but the feel, the softness, the taste of her mouth was all brand-new. Heat and sweetness and the naughty edge he knew she would bring, sending warmth through his blood. He slid his hands into her hair, holding her head just firmly enough not to let her get control. He caressed her lips with his, kissing one corner of her mouth and then the other. Tasting the full pout of her lower lip as her breath rushed over his skin, as she parted her lips in invitation.
He didn’t accept it, not yet. He waited until her hands, trembling, clenched the front of his shirt. He waited until her short bursts of breath were ragged and desperate. He waited until she’d practically climbed into his lap, until their gazes collided for one brief moment and he saw pure, scalding desire in her dark eyes. Only then did he tease his way inside, savoring the hoarse whimper from her throat, his tongue flickering in at last to taste the deeper, sweeter flavors—
“Ooooooh!” erupted from the hallway.
Jerking away as if she’d been burned, Starla catapulted back to her original position with a barrage of apologies. “Ash, Mia! Back to your room,” Jared commanded. The little blonde head peeking around the corner disappeared. He heard his daughters scamper away in a flurry of giggles.
Starla was still apologizing. “Sorry. Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His heart thudded hard, and he shifted positions to hide the evidence of his arousal straining against his zipper. Jesus. He hadn’t wanted so much in years…
But Starla, still spooked, bolted up to her feet and began collecting the items she’d brought over, still muttering, “Oh my God” as she did so.
He could still taste her. He wanted to taste more. “You’re not going, are you?”
“I think I’d better. I shouldn’t— I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.” Jared climbed to his feet with a wince. “You didn’t—we didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But everything is so crazy and—”
“Listen.” Reaching and gently taking her hands, he easily stilled all her frenetic movements, as if his touch alone made all the fight go out of her. Her eyes met his, glistening in the lamplight, and he was dismayed to think she might actually start to cry. So he didn’t mention it, pretended he didn’t even notice. “Next time, it’s just you and me. I want to take you out. Would you be up for that?”
“I’d love that,” she said softly. “But—”
No. No buts, no way. He wouldn’t let her talk herself out of it. “So let’s do it. Name a time and place. I’ll come get you. I don’t care if you want me to bust up in your workplace and carry you out over my shoulder, I’ll do it. In fact, I might do it anyway just to make a point.”
She laughed, such a beautiful sight, and he relaxed a bit. “Jared, I… Ugh.” Her shiny hair fell forward as she lowered her head and drew a deep breath. “Everything is so complicated.”
“So let’s figure it out.”
“It’s not that easy. You seem to wanna come in and slay my dragons, but…they’re mine. I’ve lived with them for a while now. We’re old friends.” Chuckling sadly, she looked back up at him. “I’m rambling like an idiot.”
“I’m the complication,” he said grimly.
“Yes.”
“I get it. We have baggage. Should we just lie down and let it crush us, though? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been doing that for a long damn time. After meeting you, I feel like shoving it off. If that makes any kind of sense.” Now he was rambling, and he didn’t really know where he was going, hadn’t thought much about the consequences of his words. She made some primal instinct come out in him, and maybe it was all about slaying her dragons, as she put it, but he didn’t think so.
Truth was, he was tired. So fucking tired. He’d lived for Macy, he’d lived for giving Shelly the best life he could, now he lived for his girls. And that was fine. He could keep doing that for Ashley and Mia. But what the hell was wrong with taking what he wanted for a change?
Right now, more than anything else, he wanted Starla.
“Tell me when,” he said, sliding his hands under her hair to gently lift her face. Her deep brown eyes searched his while her bottom lip trembled a little. It made him need to taste it again, but he restrained himself.
“Tomorrow.” The word tumbled instantly from her lips. He liked to think he heard an urgent promise behind it. “Seven. I can take an hour.”
Damn. Only an hour? “Pick you up at work?”
“Yes. Please don’t walk in and throw me over your shoulder, though.”
Laughing, he pulled her to him and hugged her, loving the way she seemed to melt into him as her arms went around him. “I’ll try not to.”
Chapter Ten
She tossed and turned that night. Ordinarily, she was a night owl, and since she didn’t have to be at work until two in the afternoon, she felt she had every right. After getting home from Jared’s, though, she’d been so wound up and so bored without any outlet for that nervous energy, she’d simply gone to bed. Of course, there’d also been Doug’s smirking face to avoid.
This coming week, she would begin the hunt for a new place to live. That decided, she felt better already. Too many times in her life she’d endured undue suffering for no real reason except not wanting to rock the boat.
Well, she was ready to rock it, and rock it hard. New home. Most likely, new job. New boyfriend? The possibility was like a delicious secret she was dying to share with someone, but she didn’t dare. No more oversharing. Not even Janelle would know where things went from here. Janelle knew enough of her secrets.
God help her, Jared’s mouth had been every bit as strong on her lips as she’d suspected they would be. Panty-dropping strong. No weak, mushy kisses here—how she detested those, almost as much as she detested when the guy acted like he was trying to eat her alive. So unsexy. Jared’s, though…slow, thorough, teasing, leaving her wanting more, leaving her to imagine what other devastating techniques he might master. She’d pulsed and throbbed and barely kept from embarrassing herself, from rocking her hips into him, letting him know exactly what she was thinking. Still, an unfulfilled ache lingered, a flower that had bloomed and promptly
wilted at the sound of one little gleeful voice.
Man, trying to get some while kids were around was an entirely new experience. Tomorrow, though—or tonight, rather, since it was past midnight—there would be no one to stop them if it went there. They’d have only an hour or so for dinner, but nothing would stop them from meeting up after she was off for the night. She wouldn’t talk herself out of it this time. Third date was the charm.
She actually couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited. The first time, maybe, but what a painful letdown that had been, like expecting ice cream and getting broccoli. Backseat at a high school football game—so romantic. And then the cops had caught them. Called her parents. What a joy that night had been. They’d been praying for her soul; she’d been praying for them to shut the fuck up and let her crawl under a rock in peace.
Whatever the night held for her and Jared, she sincerely doubted it would be a letdown. No, that wasn’t her worry. Her main concern was that she wouldn’t be able to get enough. Then what? Because, despite their feelings and their plans, how could this really go anywhere? She would be screwed. Again. She would be shattered.
Starla slept in fits and starts, seeing every hour on the clock until five a.m. or so when she finally settled down into a deep sleep until eleven, when a slice of sunlight hit her dead in the eyes.
For once, she didn’t absolutely dread the day ahead.
***
Dressing for a real date was a new experience for her too. “Dating” wasn’t something she normally did. Hanging out, hooking up, or just plain fucking… Those were her terms. She wondered if she should actually wear a dress or some shit like that. Where the hell was he taking her? Because she couldn’t very well wear a dress to work—everyone would know she’d finally lost her mind.
Jeans and a T-shirt it was, then. Only she’d wear her nicest jeans and a cute blingy T-shirt and hope she wouldn’t get ink all over herself. Occupational hazard.
When she arrived at Dermamania that afternoon, paranoia set in. As irrational as it was, she felt as if everyone knew somehow. Ghost barely paid her any attention; Janelle was chipper as usual. Nothing weird on either account there. Brian came in looking tired and said Candace was staying home with Lyric because he’d kept them up most of the night. They all urged him to go back home too, but he had an appointment coming in, and since it should be pretty quick, he said, he didn’t want to cancel. “He’d better show up, though,” he grumbled, chugging coffee. “He already ditched on me once, and I’ll be pissed if I dragged my dead ass up here for nothing.”
Despite everything, it was nice having Brian with them again. He kept morale up just by his presence, and he kept Ghost from being such a twat waffle. Mostly. No, it wasn’t too awful a day for a change. Just long. Jesus. The time crept by so slowly, Starla kept checking her watch to make sure the clock at her station wasn’t slow. It wasn’t. She listened to her clients, made idle chat when they seemed to need it, asked appropriate questions. She tried not to think about tonight at all. Don’t get your hopes up; you won’t be disappointed.
She finished a tattoo around five, repressed a squeal at the awesome tip the guy slipped her, then stepped outside for a smoke. Staring up at the sky, she didn’t pay attention to the black car zipping into the side parking lot until it careened madly toward her and screeched to a halt mere feet from her toes.
“What the fuck!” she shrieked, leaping sideways and losing the remnants of her cigarette in the process. “Max! Are you out of your mind? Stupid motherfucker!” Before he could even get out of the car, she kicked the shit out of the grill, and would’ve kept on, but he threw the door open and bailed out.
“The fuck you been, huh? I send you a dozen fucking roses and can’t even get a thank-you out of your stuck-up ass?” He advanced on her, a look in his icy blue eyes that had her sidling away, afraid not for the first time that he might hit her. She yanked her arm back when he tried to grab it.
“Don’t touch me. You make me sick. Were you watching me?”
“I’ve been sitting across the street for two hours. Didn’t think you could go that long without your nicotine fix.”
She scoffed and pulled another cigarette from her pack, lit it, and blew smoke in his face. “Fuck right off.”
“So it’s like that.”
“Yeah, it’s like that. Leave me alone.”
“Why? You got someone else giving it to you now? I know you can’t go without it. I always had a feeling you were fucking one of those clowns in there.” He slammed his palm hard onto the door to punctuate his words.
“Max. Get in your car. Drive away. Forget my name, forget my number. I don’t give a fuck how many flowers you send—you threaten to kill us driving off a bridge and throw me out of the car? I’m done. You hear me? Done.”
He opened his mouth and took another step forward, but the side door he’d just hit flew out in his face. He had to wheel backward to keep it from smacking him. Starla repressed a chuckle, but when Brian Ross charged out and grabbed Max by both sides of his ratty jacket, she nearly screamed. Oh no, don’t get involved!
“Listen to me, you useless sack of shit,” Brian growled, jerking Max until he was almost nose to nose with him. With no small amount of glee, she noticed he had to talk down to him, but the vicious edge in his voice drowned out any pleasure she felt at the sight and raised the hair at her nape. “If you don’t get in your car and get off this property right now, I’ll drive that piece of shit straight up your ass, you got me?” He gave him a hard shove. Max staggered backward, splaying across the hood of his car, glowering at Brian with murder in his eyes. “Mess with her again, motherfucker. I dare you. I don’t care if she’s on my time or not. I will fuck you up.”
Max pushed himself up, making Starla think of a cat who’d had his fur stroked the wrong way as he smoothed back his hair and snatched his jacket straight. “I see how it is.” He spat on the ground, glaring at Starla and Brian in turn, muttering the sentence over and over as he affected a nonchalant stroll back to the Mustang’s driver’s side. “Yeah. I see how it fucking is.”
He got in. Cranked with a rumble, peeled off in smoke, and laid rubber.
“Thank you,” Starla said, releasing the breath she’d been holding. She shook all over, and her heart was about to beat its way up her throat. “I thought he was—”
Brian turned on her, the look in his eyes almost scarier than Max’s had been. “You can’t run with shit without getting it on you, Starla.” She cringed at his tone, hearing the accusation, the I told you so, the…oh fuck, the disappointment. “Trouble is, it gets on everyone else around you too.” Shame blazed a trail through her as the gravity of his words hit home. Here he was, a family man now, walking the straight and narrow, still fighting her stupid battles with an unpredictable idiot like Max. A year ago, he probably would’ve relished the chance, but now, so much had changed. So, so much.
Tears stung her eyes, but he didn’t hang around to see them. Even as she burst out, “I’m sorry,” he yanked open the door and disappeared inside, muttering curses under his breath. The door swung slowly closed behind him with an anguished squawk, and she stared at it for a good two minutes trying to pull herself together and wondering what the hell to do next. After inhaling two cigarettes’ worth of nicotine into her lungs with shaking hands, she finally made her way back inside with a stop in the restroom to repair any damage her tears had done to her eyeliner.
Business as usual out front. Music, conversation, happily buzzing machines. Either her coworkers didn’t know anything about what had happened, or they were pretending they didn’t. Or, she guessed, they knew and didn’t give a flying fuck. Brian sullenly cleaned up around his station and escaped to his office, where he tinkered for a while and then made his escape home without another word to anyone. Starla only knew he’d left when she heard the side door slam shut. By that point, she was relieved to know he was gone.
As if enough salt hadn’t been poured into her fe
stering wounds, Macy showed up half an hour before Jared was supposed to pick Starla up. Ghost’s grin could’ve lit the room—he looked like an entirely different person when she walked in the door carrying bags of Chinese takeout.
Starla tried not to study the woman who still owned a piece of Jared’s heart—and probably always would—but she couldn’t help it. Long, unbelievably shiny dark ombre hair—the kind Starla often kidded looked like it was conditioned with Jesus’s tears. Always impeccably dressed; hell, she could make sweatpants look classy. Always nice too, if a little reserved. At first they’d all thought she was incredibly stuck up, but it wasn’t so. She gave everyone a friendly greeting but didn’t stop for idle chitchat, as per the norm. Her destination was Ghost, and she zeroed in on him, giving him a quick kiss on the lips before the two of them headed to the break room to eat together.
Jared would see Macy’s car parked out front. That would probably cast a pall over his evening. After the incident with Max, Starla already had storm clouds hovering over hers. Why were they even bothering? She should text him now and tell him—
A flash of red out on the street told her it was too late, unless she wanted to tell him to his face. Through the wide front windows, she watched Jared’s big truck pull easily into the parking lot. For better or worse, this was happening. Sighing, Starla grabbed her purse, told a bewildered Janelle she’d be back in an hour, and went out to meet him.
***
She could tell he knew something was wrong the minute she climbed up into his truck. He didn’t say it, but he studied her a little too closely, took a few too many glances over at her as he drove. She managed to get through the small talk without going to pieces. If he’d noticed Macy’s car, he said nothing about it, and it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.