Illicit After Dark

CHAPTER ONE

Chrissy

Inever cared about birthdays.

Not since Mom passed and the idea of celebrating without her became inconceivable.

Those few days while the rest of the world carried on, our tradition became a marathon of junk food, bad TV and the biggest, greasiest burgers from Mama May’s Diner.

It was pretending Mom’s spot on the sofa wasn’t empty.

That her shawl wasn’t exactly how she folded it that last day. It was our routine, and it was fine.

For the first several years, we didn’t even bother with a tree.

No decorations.

No gifts.

Dad and I existed in our bubble of grief. Content to cling to each other.

Until Dad went to take Mom’s old rocking chair to get sanded down and repainted, spruced up as a gift for me, and returned ... with a friend.

A gorgeous, six-foot-tall lumberjack with eyes the dark voids of a stormy afternoon and hands big enough to cover my entire head.

He blew into my life with the scent of sawdust, soap and a faint leather that made all my senses aware that this was a man.

Not like the boys at my school who still believed deodorant was an optional step.

He was rugged, sullen and immune to laughter, which only made me all the more determined to see him crack a smile.

At sixteen, he had absolutely zero business noticing me, nor did he. Aside from the polite inclination of his head, his attention barely grazed me. Not that it stopped me from spending every waking hour daydreaming about him the way foolish teenagers do.

But I’m twenty today.

A whole, full adult.

And still, my heart is pounding so loud, I’m shocked it’s not echoing off the walls. My limbs tremble as I take the final steps to the top of the stairway.

I shouldn’t still cling to that silly game, but I do. Every year. It’s mandatory now. But none of the past years ever prepared me for the jittery nerves because this year ... this dress...

While completely impractical for the late January weather, this may be the dress that finally breaks him.

It’s floaty white chiffon, soft and sweet, but the neckline dips scandalously. The back is nonexistent and the skirt sways around my naked thighs like it’s made of water. I know what it does to my body. What’s more, I know exactly what I want it to do to his.

And I am blushing, trembling and nervous the entire way down.

I spot him before I’m even halfway. The open railing overlooks the parlor and kitchen combo, and the two men seated in the sitting area, waiting for me. But I only notice one.

The one perched on the arm of the sofa. The one with the hard, chiseled features, sharp steely eyes, and built like he tosses whole tree trunks around for a living, which, I guess, in a way, he does.

As Jefferson’s only carpenter, he’s the one who builds custom and beautiful pieces of furniture with hands that have played too many roles in my dreams. They’re currently resting on the corded muscles of his thighs. Long, limber legs encased in dark jeans and giant shoes.

Staring at him, I nearly trip over mine as I make the final descent.

He looks up right as I hit the bottom landing and all the calm vanishes from his features. His entire body goes stiff. Still. Immobile in a way that sends a flurry of tingles to all the places I can’t ignore when he’s near.

I shouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do. Shouldn’t want him to run those hungry eyes down the length of me.

Shouldn’t want his nostrils to flare with his unsteady inhale.

But I’m not sorry I do when the muscles in his razor sharp jaw grind and his scarred hands pull into fists.

The very air seems to shimmer with the coiling tension coming off him, a feral sort of heat that flares between my thighs.

I was sixteen the first time I skipped down the stairs in what I thought was a fairly adult dress.

A knee length one piece with thick straps and a square neckline.

Shawn had glanced up from his place at the kitchen island where he’d been talking to Dad.

His gray eyes had stayed on my face. Neutral.

Unimpressed. No more than a flick where he included a slight inclination of his head and a quiet, “Pretty dress.”

And that’s how it began.

At seventeen, I got the same uninterested response with the soft, steel gray wrap-around that matched his eyes.

Eighteen ... eighteen I came down in a black slip that swooped down my frame, hugging everything and pushing my breasts up over the dipping neckline.

The hem stopped three fingers over my knees, and I had added a pair of high, arched stilettos.

I spent the year learning how to do my hair, my makeup for that exact moment.

And Shawn broke off mid sentence. His head jerked up twice in a double take that nearly had me whooping with triumph.

His smile tightened around the edges. The chair under him squeaked with the shifting of his entire body pulling up straight.

The hand around his phone went white around the knuckles.

“That...” He cleared his throat. “That’s a really nice dress.”

That reaction had shot me straight to cloud nine.

I practically floated the entire night. I was painfully aware of his eyes on me throughout dinner.

A possessive and watchful weight that caressed every inch of exposed skin.

Every time I glanced up, I would catch him a split second before he’d look away.

Nineteen, I wore his favorite emerald green dress in crushed velvet.

Tight, with a hem that barely covered anything and a neckline that had my dad’s eyebrows disappearing into his hairline.

He made a comment I didn’t hear over the blood thundering between my ears as Shawn’s pupils went wide.

His nostrils flared. The very aura around him hummed with a predatory vibration that prickled every hair on my body and tightened my nipples to sharp points visible through the fabric.

“Dangerous,” was his low, husky grumble that flooded my cheeks with heat.

Dad made a comment about ‘dangerous all right’ and needing his hunting rifle, but I was locked in with the man staring into my soul like he’d suddenly found his.

Year twenty’s dress was on a window display mannequin of a thrift shop and cost more than I make at my receptionist position in a month, but I knew it was the one.

The dress that would finally get Shawn Miller to stop seeing me as his best friend’s little girl.

The dress that would get him to notice me.

Want me.

Take me.

And the way his jaw is clenched, I think I was right.

“What on God’s green earth are you wearing, girl?”

I think we both jump at the intrusion. Dad is two feet away from Shawn and I completely missed him.

“What’s wrong with it?” I challenge, brushing a hand along the soft material.

Dad snorts. “It’s inappropriate is what’s wrong with it. Everyone and Jesus can see the holy land.”

I want to facepalm, but resign to folding my arms, hoping that stance would be more assertive, not at all expecting the gesture to plump my breasts up over the inclining fabric. But I sure don’t miss the way Shawn’s gaze drops to them.

Lingers.

Too long.

Two whole heartbeats before his throat muscles flex and he looks away.

“I’m twenty,” I remind my dad, voice shaky around the nerves drying up my throat.

“And I’m fifty,” Dad fires back. “Don’t see me running around showing my chest to strangers.”

“Your chest is ugly and hairy,” Shawn mumbles, and stiffens like he hadn’t meant to voice that out loud.

Dad raises an eyebrow at him. “You saying my chest wouldn’t bring all the boys to the yard?”

Shawn isn’t stupid.

He’s quiet. Honestly a very smart man, and he keeps his answer hidden behind the tongue he rolls over his bottom lip and the gaze he averts from me.

But I don’t miss it. The subtle little flick that states very clearly that mine would, and I practically chew a hole into my cheek to keep my grin in check.

“I’m saying we should go if we’re going to make our reservation,” he says at last, already shoving to his feet.

His long strides march to the door and the row of coats hanging off the pegs bolted into the wall.

“So, you think this is appropriate dinner attire?” Dad challenges, waving a hand up and down me.

“I think she ... looks perfect ... fine.”

My heart stutters in my chest and fills my face with fresh warmth.

“Perfect, huh? Let’s see how perfect Jefferson thinks she looks this time next Sunday when she’s the talk at church.”

He’s joking, but he’s not. Jefferson is a goldfish bowl.

Thank God for jackets or I’d be giving the old biddies a heart attack just walking down my driveway.

This is not a Jefferson kind of dress, and I know that.

But for one night, I don’t want Shawn to see me in cute, modest sundresses and skirts.

For tonight — just tonight — I want him to actually notice that I am not that sixteen-year-old he first met.

But that’s why we’re making the four-hour drive out of town for my birthday dinner.

It's the same one I choose every year. A snazzy Italian place with the best spaghetti and meatballs on earth. We’ve been going there every year for five years, but only on my birthday; it’s not the kind of place we can afford regularly, nor would I want to go all the time.

It’s a fun treat. A few hours away from prying eyes where I can pretend to be a grown up and look at Shawn from across a candlelit table.

“I’m going to pack my rifle just in case,” Dad is saying when I return to earth. “This year may finally be the year I use it.”

I force a snort. “We’re going to a classy restaurant. No one’s going to look at me.”

Dad scoffs, but all the fire in Shawn’s eyes turns molten. Dark, unforgiving rage like he hadn’t considered that.

“Maybe Mark’s right,” he mutters. “I don’t want to spend your birthday in jail covered in another man’s blood.”

Unlike Dad’s overprotective teasing, Shawn’s possessive drawl sends tingles scattering across my exposed skin.