Chapter 13
Thirteen
T he truck’s powerful engine rumbled as Clayton Darcy extricated himself from the back seat.
He was drunk off his ass, and they’d probably all hear about it tomorrow from Mia and Annalee, Carter thought.
If anyone had told him that he’d be out drinking with a Darcy, much less with the rest of the Hayes clan with him, he’d have called them a damn liar.
But his mind wasn’t really on Clayton or even on the game they’d just watched while consuming excessive amounts of beer and more than their fair share of shots.
It was her . She was in his fucking head, mixing it all up and making him crazy.
It had been like that from day one, and he was tired of it.
He knew he’d been an ass the other day at the library.
He’d been jealous and mean, jumping to conclusions.
He’d walked out too, and that wasn’t something she’d forgive easily. That was evidenced by the fact that she hadn’t called him, texted, or tried to reach out to him in any way. They were both pouting like overgrown children.
He glanced over toward her house. It was one of the smaller homes in the subdivision where Clayton Darcy lived.
It had been hell sneaking around in that neighborhood and trying not to be seen, but again, that had been her choice.
She was the one who wanted to hide, who wanted to pretend like they were nothing to each other.
The light was on upstairs in her bedroom. Was she in bed reading one of the smutty novels she liked? Or was she watching some sappy TV show while eating ice cream? He knew her habits. He knew so much about her, and yet in public, they’d never shared more than a few words.
Clayton stumbled up the driveway and managed to get himself into the house. Emmitt, the only one of them still sober, shifted the truck into drive. It surged forward but had gone no more than fifty feet before Carter yelled out. “Stop the truck!”
“You puke in here and I’m gonna kick your ass!” Emmitt shouted.
“Just let me out, dammit!” Carter replied.
Bennett shifted forward in his seat, and Carter moved past him through the open door.
He crossed the road and marched toward her front door.
He was done with hiding. She wanted him to be some big secret, something on the side while she played the good girl in front of the whole town. He was done with that shit.
Raising his fist, he pounded on the door. “Josie! I know you’re in there!”
In the truck, Bennett looked at Emmitt. “Did you know about this?”
“Ain’t that Josie Marcum’s house?” Emmitt shot back. “What the hell would she be doing with Carter?”
Bennet raised his eyebrow. “What do all women do with Carter?”
“True enough…but Josie Marcum? Hell.”
They watched him walk up to her door. Bennett asked, “Should we wait for him?”
“Hell, no!” Emmitt said. “I’m not sitting outside waiting for his ass while he gets laid!”
“We don’t know that he’s getting laid,” Bennett protested.
Emmitt made a noise of complete derision. “It’s Carter, and she’s female. Hell, she’ll probably greet him pussy first.”
“Jesus, you’re crude,” Bennett said with a shake of his head.
“Yeah, well, I’m not in love, so I don’t have to pretty it all up,” Emmitt said and eased the truck into drive. “She can drive his ass home when she’s done with him.”
On the porch, Carter was preparing to bang on the door again when the porch light suddenly flicked on. The door opened a crack, and he could see Josie peering out at him.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him.
“Open the damn door, and let me in!” he barked.
“I will not!”
“If you don’t,” he replied, “I will stand out here making so damn much noise one of your uptight neighbors will call the cops. It’ll be all over town by morning, Josie, that I got arrested on your doorstep!”
Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Carter smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly expression. There was none of his usual charm in it. Instead, it was mean and even a little vicious.
“You ought to know better than anybody that there’s not a lot I won’t do. Now open the damn door!”
The door closed, and he heard the lock click and the chain slide free. When she opened it and stepped back, he didn’t hesitate, but just barged in, slamming the door behind him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “Do you have any idea what people will say?”
“The truth?” he asked. “That I’ve been sneaking over here and fucking you for over a month? That I make you scream and beg and say the kind of words that would have everybody at the First Baptist Church praying for your soul?”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Just because I don’t want to trot my business out for everyone in town or be lumped in with all the other women you string along?—”
“String along?” he demanded. He was so angry he wanted to shake her.
Instead, he ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration and annoyance.
“Since I bumped into you in that damn bar in Cincinnati, I haven’t had time for a conversation with another woman, much less the time to string one along!
And if anyone’s doing any stringing here, it’s you! ”
“Me? I don’t think so, Carter Hayes. You’re welcome to walk anytime you want to. In fact, you already did, without a backward glance! Find someone else to have your fun with!”
He laughed at that, but it was a humorless sound.
She continued, all but shouting. “That’s all this has been for you, anyway. Just a little bit of fun, right? Isn’t that what you said? We’d stop when it wasn’t fun for either of us anymore.”
“Oh, yeah. This is so much fun,” he snarked. It was fun like ramming your face into a brick wall.
He started to walk out. Hell, he wasn’t even sure why he came there.
It had been a beer-fueled impulse, and now he wasn’t sure if he regretted it or not.
He glanced back at her. She was clearly mad as hell.
Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her chin was up.
But it was the look of hurt and disappointment in her eyes that made him stop.
He’d known she could hurt him. She had more times already than he could count.
But he’d never thought, not even for a second, that he had the power to hurt her.
“Fuck it,” he whispered and turned back to her.
He grasped her wrist, tugging her forward until she was pressed against him.
She wore nothing or next to nothing beneath the robe she had on.
His hands went to her hair immediately, tugging her head back until she was looking up at him.
Her lips were parted, not in surprise, but in anticipation.
Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her, his lips moving over hers with all the urgency that he felt.
He didn’t want to lose her, but he wasn’t going to take the scraps either.
Sliding his tongue between her lips, the kiss took on a note that was blatantly carnal.
He wasn’t even sure how it happened, but suddenly her back was against the wall, and her legs were wrapped around his waist. His cock was so hard he thought it might literally kill him, and she was moaning into his mouth.
Drawing back, Carter looked at her, at the flush in her cheeks and her kiss-swollen lips.
Without a drop of makeup on her face, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
If he unzipped his pants, he could be inside her in less than ten seconds. And he was going to walk away.
“I’m not doing this with you anymore, Josie. You want to fuck me, then you’re going to have to date me.”
“Excuse me?” she said, blinking at him in confusion.
“You heard me,” he said. “If you want me in your bed, then you’re going to be seen with me…in public.” He stepped back, and her legs unlocked from his waist until she was standing on her own two feet. “You know where to find me.”
“That’s it?” she asked, her brain still clearly muddled from the slightly-more-than-just-a-kiss. “You’re leaving now?”
“I mean it, Josie. I want you. I want you so bad right now it’s fucking killing me. But I’m not going to just be the man you’re sleeping with.”
“What are you going to be, then?”
“If you’d let me, I’d be the man who loves you.”
She said nothing, but her eyes widened, and her jaw went slightly slack. He’d dropped a bomb on her, and he’d just leave it to sink in.
Carter opened the door and walked out into the night. Bennett and Emmitt were long gone. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d walked home, probably wouldn’t be the last, because he didn’t believe for a second that Josie Marcum would ditch her good girl image to slum it with him.
But there was a little spark of hope. It was enough to keep him going.
Josie watched him walk away. She didn’t try to stop him, not because she didn’t want to, but because her body had simply stopped responding to her brain. Stunned, more than a little drunk on the bottle of wine she’d consumed not long before Carter banged on her door, she couldn’t think or function.
There was still some wine left, and she needed it.
Forcing her feet to move, one in front of the other, she entered the kitchen and grabbed the bottle from the counter.
She didn’t even bother with a glass, but just drained it completely as she walked back to the living room and flopped down on the couch, the empty bottle rolling from her hand.
“He didn’t actually say he loved me,” she told herself. “Just that he wanted to.”
Oh, she needed to talk to her mother. But calling her up this late at night, half drunk, and after having Carter banging on the door loud enough for all the neighbors to hear? Actually, her mother was probably already up because one of those neighbors would have called her.
Even as the thought crossed her mind, her cell phone buzzed on the table. Josie fumbled for it, finally managed to close her hand around it, and accepted the call.
“Hey, Mom.” The words were slurred, but not horribly.
“Did that boy get you drunk, Josephine?”
“No,” Josie admitted. “I got myself drunk long before he showed up. He says he wants to date me. Publicly. That he’s tired of sneaking around. He said—” She stopped there. Even drunk, she wasn’t sure she could say that to her mother.
“Josephine, just tell me. Dear heavens!”
Josie lay back down on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. It wasn’t spinning, but it was a little wobbly.
“He said that he doesn’t want to be just the man I’m sleeping with…that he wants to be the man who loves me, if I’ll let him.”
Deborah went silent for a minute, thinking before speaking. “Then you should invite him to church.”
It was such a typical answer from her mother that Josie could only laugh. “He’ll say no.”
“No, he won’t. If he wants your relationship to be public, then there is no better way to say that ‘I am serious about this girl’ than to attend church with her. Ask him and see.”
The wine hit her hard, and all she wanted was sleep.
“Tomorrow,” Josie said. “I’m going to talk to him tomorrow.”