Certainly, I was happier.
I collected some fresh organic chicken, and some grass fed beef, enough for one small woman and two large men. I still cooked family sized portions, as my boys often showed up for dinner. I hoped that would never change.
They were so good to me. They were as busy as I was, but always made time to check in with their mother. I couldn’t have asked for more.
I was in the checkout line and had just finished piling my items onto the belt when I felt eyes so intently on me that I had to check again.
I glanced behind me and found my eyes meeting icy blue ones.
I quickly looked away. The eye contact had been uncomfortably intense.
I waited a beat, then looked again, assuming the large blond man would have had his fill staring at me by then.
He didn’t, meeting my eyes even more brazenly the second time.
My eyes darted away again, but I’d had enough of a look, with my photographer’s eye, to take inventory.
Tall, blond, tan, big and muscular. Gray T-shirt, dark gray jeans.
Hard jaw, harder eyes.
Smoking hot.
He could have been any age from twenty to thirty, going by his mean, unlined face. The scruff on his hard jaw and his aged blue eyes made it impossible to say.
I instantly wanted to photograph him. If he wasn’t a model, he should have been. There was just so much character in his face. And so much to read in his hard expression.
Aggressive and a touch of something else. Something akin to hostile, though I couldn’t imagine it was directed at me. Just a restless man that hated standing in line for even five minutes, I figured.
I glanced furtively at his single item on the belt, my eyes snapping away, face flushing when I saw that it was a twelve pack of magnum condoms.
Well, shit. Why did that turn me on? It shouldn’t have. The guy was probably a jerk, and off to have sex with what I assumed would be a random woman. Men that good-looking buying condoms generally were.
Tell that to my libido.
We were waiting forever for an old white hippie lady to count out exact change and I didn’t last long before checking him out again, this time my eyes below his belt, the magnum thing making it impossible not to be curious.
I flushed as I looked away again. His jeans weren’t tight, but I’d made out enough of a bulge to embarrass myself.
What was wrong with me? I was not turned on by strangers. Even the idea was ludicrous. I needed more than looks to even consider getting physical with a man.
Finally I paid for my things and carried them out toward my car.
I was nearly there when the sound of something hitting with a splat onto the pavement had me whipping around.
I blinked up at the big blond stranger, who had apparently been following close behind me, then glanced down at the single tomato that had managed to fall from one of my bags and onto the ground.
I lifted the paper bag, brows drawing together at the very neat hole in the corner. It looked like it had been cut, but that was impossible.
“Let me carry that for you, before anything else manages to fall out,” a deep, gravelly voice said to me.
I looked at the stranger.
He was offering to do something nice and polite, but his tone wasn’t even remotely friendly.
It was odd.
“No, that’s all right,” I told him with a shake of my head, balancing both of my bags into one arm, and bending down to collect the ruined tomato, then straightening when I saw that was clearly pointless. It was a goner.
My hair had fallen over an eye when I’d bent down, and without missing a beat, brazen as you please, the stranger reached a hand over and stroked it away from my face, then let it linger there, in my hair, bold as you please.
I just stared at him, a bit shocked. I couldn’t remember a time in my life running into such an aggressive stranger.
His mouth shaped into the barest shadow of a smile as he gripped a light handful of hair at my nape, his big body shifting closer.
He didn’t say a word, but as his eyes moved over the masses of my hair, I felt and knew that he was clearly admiring it.
He didn’t have to say a word. His eyes were the compliment.
“I insist,” he finally said, taking both bags out of my arms before I could protest. His packet of condoms (not in a bag) was held, shameless as you please, in the hand of the arm he shifted my bags to.
My slack jaw snapped shut and I turned on my heel, heading to my car. I’d thought I knew how to handle every kind of man, but this one left me baffled.
I would let him load my bags into my trunk and politely send him on his way. As far as I was concerned, that was the easiest and best thing to do.
I opened my trunk for him, then watched him, and his Mack truck arms, as he shifted both bags into my car.
He straightened and stepped close to me.
He let his eyes run over me, top to bottom, and I just stared up, struck dumb by his unapologetic boldness.
This man had a strange effect on me. I really needed to get a handle on it.
Finally, the once over stopped, lingering on my cleavage. I was dressed up a bit in a sexy white dress that had been meant for another man, one who was not a bold stranger, but this one seemed to appreciate it more than I’d ever intended. Certainly Dair never would have admired my breasts so openly.
My chest swelled out in a shocked breath as he brought a big hand up to lightly finger my collar. It was wide, and cut down from my neck down to the lowest point of the opening, right between my pushed together cleavage.
“You’re a very beautiful woman,” his gravelly voice mused idly, as though he was talking to himself more than me.
His eyes returned to mine as he addressed me directly, “But then, you know that, don’t you?”
I shook my head, at a loss.
“I’m Heath,” he told me, like this was all perfectly normal. “And you?”
“Lourdes,” I told him breathlessly.
His touch was light but very deliberate as he let his knuckles brush directly over my nipple. It swelled and hardened instantly, as though it was trying to return his touch, with or without my consent.
With a ghost of a smile, he pulled his hand away and stepped back.
“I’ll see you around,” he said, tipping an imaginary cap at me.
Without another word, he turned on his heel, and strode away.
I watched him walk away, fascinated with the way he moved, fast and purposeful, with complete confidence.
And that was that.
Or it should have been. If things were normal, and life was still sane, it would have been.
But something had shifted, and it wasn’t a subtle shift.
I’d come to the attention of a man who didn’t play by any normal rules, and my life was about to get very interesting.
I was at the dog park the next morning. It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk from my house. I was letting my blue Great Dane, Tato, run in the park. This was a daily ritual, even in the worst of the Vegas heat. My great beast of a dog needed the exercise.
I threw Tato’s slobbery tennis ball as far as I could, for the umpteenth time, and he took off after it with great bounding strides.
“Morning, Lourdes,” a gravelly voice said just behind me.
I jumped about a foot.
I knew that voice, but what the hell?
I turned, letting my face show how perturbed I was by his unexpected presence.
I wasn’t wearing a scrap of makeup, and my heavy hair was in a heavy, messy braid that I was sure couldn’t have been my best look, not to mention that I was wearing baggy sweats.
Yes, my first thought was vanity. Of course it was. This guy was sex on a stick.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, my tone bordering on hostile.
He smiled, the first full smile I’d ever seen on him.
He liked me hostile. It was twisted.
He indicated the sweats and ru
nning shoes he was wearing. “I was jogging. Imagine my surprise when I spotted you. Nice dog.”
I supposed it kind of added up. The store where I’d met him was pretty close by.
He must live nearby, I decided.
But to be sure . . . “Do you live around here?”
“Not too far,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.
Tato returned with his slobbery tennis ball, and I threw it again.
“What’s your dog’s name?”
“Tato.” I caught his look. “Short for couch potato. My kids named him.”
“How many kids do you have?”
“Two. Well, they aren’t kids anymore. Now they’re grown men, but my youngest was twelve when I first got Tato, and he named him.”
“Both boys?”
“Yes.”
“How old are they now?”
“Twenty and eighteen.”
Even his stoic face couldn’t hide his surprise. “Did you have them when you were twelve?”
I laughed, flattered and a touch chagrined, though I got this a lot. “No. I had my oldest at twenty. I’m forty-one.”
I laughed again when I saw his eyes widen. “What, did you think you were hitting on someone closer to your own age?”
Something in his expression changed, something worrisome that made his nostrils flare. “I never thought about it.”
I let him off the hook. “Don’t worry. I’m not a cougar.”
“Oh, I’m not worried. Let me walk you home.”
What did that mean? And how insane would it be if I let this strange man walk me home?
“I don’t know you that well,” I told him warily.
“So get to know me. Let me walk you home, make me a cup of coffee, and we’ll talk. I’m harmless.” He smiled a sharp smile that illustrated clearly that he just might be the least harmless person I’d ever met.
Why did that harmful smile make me wet?
“You’re not harmless,” I pointed out wryly.
“To you, I am. And look, Tato thinks I’m all right.”
As he spoke, my traitorous dog was nudging Heath’s hand with his nose.
I watched for a minute as he crouched down, petting my dog until he had him on his back, completely submissive.
That was when I decided to let him walk me home. Why not?
Was it dangerous? Yes. But going by my suddenly throbbing body, my tingling thighs, my aching breasts, perhaps I needed a touch of danger in my life.
It had been so long since I’d felt desire like this.
It wasn’t something I wanted to disregard.
It was something I wanted to explore. Thoroughly.
I put Tato on his leash and started to leave the park.
Heath took my arm like it was the most natural thing in the world.
It didn’t feel natural. It did, however, feel good.
I found myself leaning into him. Even with that small contact, of the back of my arm against his chest, I noticed that he felt amazing, so hard and big.
I’d been married young, and never in my life so much as considered having a one-night stand. That seemed suddenly like an oversight. Perhaps I needed to do it once, just to try it out. And Heath was a man who seemed more than capable of making it worth my while.
Rough, dirty, sheet clawing sex fairly radiated off him.
And I wasn’t forgetting for even one millisecond about those magnum condoms.
“Don’t make me regret this,” I told him quietly, stealing a glance at his face.
His mouth quirked up. I was already learning things about him, and one was that he never smiled with his eyes.
They stayed cold, always.
I should have been more worried about that.
“You won’t,” he assured me, voice quiet and steady. “And you won’t forget it, either.”
I took a deep breath, looking ahead, blinking rapidly. He was arrogant. Why did that turn me on so much?
“What do you do for a living?” I asked him, figuring I should know something about him.
“I work in security.”
That could have meant anything, really. “Care to be more specific?” I prodded.
“Not particularly.”
Well, that was to the point.
“What do you do for a living?” he shot back.
“I’m a photographer.”
“Care to be more specific?”
I almost smiled. “Specifically, I photograph everything. People, places, things. I’m freelance, and I basically work at whatever catches my eye.”
“You could say I’m freelance, as well. See how much we have in common?”
Not one thing. Still, it didn’t make me want to turn around.
Or if it did, the slow burn that had started up low in my belly overshadowed it too completely for me to linger on it.
Hopefully this sudden desire I had for a bit of strange wouldn’t blow up in my face.
Something occurred to me. “Maybe we should go to your place, instead.”
It seemed wiser not to let him know where I lived.
Another humorless smile. “It’s not big enough for that dog of yours. Let’s drop him off at your house, first.”
I chewed on that for a bit, but I decided that it didn’t really matter.
More than anything, he seemed like the kind of guy that you had to worry about never seeing again, the opposite of the kind you’d couldn’t keep from staying away.
“How long have you lived in Vegas?” I asked him, still grasping for a bit of common ground.
“Not long at all. What about you?”
“I’ve always traveled a lot for work, but I’ve had a house here for over a decade. I only started staying here full time in the last year or so, though. Been taking a break from traveling, but it won’t last forever.”
I was babbling. Why was I telling him so much? He clearly wasn’t going to reciprocate, and he likely didn’t care about anything I was saying.
“Why were you taking a break?” he asked, as though he was interested.
I’d have figured he was just being polite, but I already knew him well enough to understand that he was never polite.
“I . . . went through an ugly divorce, over a year ago, and I decided to stay in one place for a bit, get my head on straight.”
“Vegas is an interesting place to stay to try to get your head on straight.”
That made me laugh, because it was very true. Still, somehow it worked for me. “My boys enjoy it, and they enjoy staying in one place. I took them everywhere with me when they were kids.”
“Do they live with you?”
“No, but they live close and visit often.”
“So now they hate to travel?”
“No, I think they still love it, I just think they’re more well-rounded than I am. What about you?”
“I enjoy traveling, and I’ve done my fair share of it.”
That was it, nothing else. He wasn’t a sharer.
“Where did you live before Vegas?”
“Here and there.”
“Which was your favorite? Here or there?”
I got a slightly bigger smile for that one. “Here. Right here. Do you have any other pets?”
Hello, random. “No. Just Tator here. How about you?”
“No pets. No kids.”
I’d figured. He didn’t seem the type to have any attachments at all, let alone dependents.
I turned my head slightly and found his eyes on me, full of a disconcerting razor-sharp focus.
It was so disconcerting, in fact, that I began to question what I was doing. This wasn’t me. I’d felt a surprising surge of lust and let it temporarily cloud my judgement.
“Knock it off,” he said lightly, or as lightly as he could with that gravelly, bar brawler voice of his. “Quit thinking so hard. I told you, you won’t regret this. You might be too sore to walk without a limp tomorrow, but you’ll be happy about it.”
Something heady and electrifying
shot through me.
My nostrils flared, and my breath grew short.
He’d guessed what I was thinking. That, and all of the sexy, arrogant things he’d just spouted, had me back to being too turned on to think properly.
A man that knew how to read a woman. That combined with his knockout body, and those magnums, well, I couldn’t help it, expectations were getting very unrealistic.
This was not good. It’d been too long for me, and it had just occurred to me that I was a bit desperate.
I missed penis. I liked penis, and this sexy creature apparently had an impressive one. The inner hussy that I never knew I had wanted badly to see it. See it, and a lot of other things that flashed through my head quite vividly.
Beyond my impeccable instincts, and against my better judgement, I kept right on walking with him, all the way to my front door.
I let him into my house, and he prowled inside.
I followed him, letting Tato off his leash.
Tato bolted straight for the kitchen, then out his oversized doggy door, into the backyard.
Acutely aware of the eyes burning holes into my back, I went into the kitchen and got a pot of coffee brewing.
When I turned to look at him, Heath was leaning against my counter, bulging arms crossed over his chest. It didn’t even feel like my kitchen anymore, with him in it.
The man staked his claim on everything. He owned whatever space he occupied.
That sparked a visual that made me shiver, head to toe.
He just watched me, eyes way too intense, not even a hint of a smile on his mouth.
“Come here,” he said, voice low and guttural.
The most unnerving shock went through me, but I went.
I was standing almost close enough for our chests to touch when he reached up with one hand, gripped my thick braid, and began to wrap it around his heavy fist. He did this until his knuckles were digging into my scalp and then he pulled a little harder.
It stung, but it wasn’t the sort of pain you wanted to shy away from. Not at all. It was the kind you wanted to lean into, to explore to its fullest, because you knew that just on the other side of that pain was intense pleasure.
“How rough can you take it, Lourdes?” he asked, bringing his mouth very close to mine.
I was trying not to pant. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Why don’t you show me what you got?”