Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Greer spent the next couple of days busting her ass, calling the other two leather toolers Delaney was barely still considering and asking them to return to Prophecy for the competition that would conclude the final stage of the decision-making process.
She also set up a website describing the competition, asking for entries in everything from blacksmithing to quilting to wood carving with chainsaws, explaining the top overall artist would be awarded the grand cash prize, with the next two in line winning a much smaller amount but also a guaranteed spot in the co-op.
In addition to posting the announcement on the major social media sites, she contacted the arts councils in all fifty states and reached out to her contacts closer to home. Within forty-eight hours, she already had thirty artists registered for the competition.
Now, she was on her way to Sweetwater because it was time to show Alex what else she’d accomplished since she’d seen him last. Raylene had told Delaney that he’d kept to himself for the past couple of days, but that when she’d straightened his room she tossed a wastebasket full of drawings she thought were good enough to grace a museum exhibit.
So he was a perfectionist.
Do not think too hard about what that says about his skills in bed.
Greer pulled her car into Raylene’s driveway. When Greer knocked on the front door, Raylene answered with a smile and flour dusting her hands. Her ears looked as if they were getting ready to take a vacation, sporting a tangle of suitcases, passports, and tiny airplanes. “You here for lunch?”
“Only if you’ve got something I can take to go. I’m picking up Alex, then I need to scoot.”
Raylene’s sunny expression soured as though Greer had shoved a grapefruit into her mouth.
“That boy. I swear he’s the most antisocial person I’ve ever met in my life.
Damn shame too with as good-looking as he is.
Old Mrs. Calhoun called yesterday trying to set him up with her newly divorced granddaughter. He wasn’t interested.”
Well, that tidbit warmed Greer’s heart more than a little. Maybe their mouth-to-mouth in front of her brother’s house hadn’t slipped his mind either. “You don’t say?”
“And you know how women are. The more elusive a man is, the more they want him. I’ve had a parade of single ladies traipsing through here with casseroles and baked goods. Baked goods! They’re bringing muffins and cookies and pies into my house.”
“They should be shot.”
Raylene rolled in her lips, but it didn’t cover her smile. “I admit to filching a piece of Sissy Duzsik’s peach pie.”
“Well?”
“Crust needed more butter.”
“Has Alex enjoyed this parade?”
“Damn man locks his door.”
“Well, he is renting the room. He has a right to have it to himself if he wants.”
“If you think you can do better, then good luck to you.” Raylene leaned forward, scrutinized Greer’s face, then sniffed. “You have on makeup and you’re wearing something sweet smelling.” She gave Greer’s sundress an up-and-down scan. “What are you up to?”
“Can’t a girl put on a skirt once in a while?”
“A girl who’s normally a hot mess because she can’t be bothered with fru-fru stuff? There’s a reason you’re wearing a dress. ’Fess up.”
Hmm…so Delaney hadn’t mentioned Greer’s scheme to her aunt. Did that mean Delaney thought Greer would be a big, fat failure, or was she just respecting the process?
Didn’t matter, because Greer had no plans to fail.
“I’m working on a new business idea, and Alex could make me or break me.”
“Break a heart, you mean. Because that looks like a man-snagging dress to me. And with those gorgeous boots, how could anyone resist?”
That was what Greer was hoping, but today wasn’t about persuading Alex to want her as a woman. It was about making him want what she could give him professionally. “That’s not why I’m here. This is business.”
Raylene glanced down at Greer’s prophecy boots again, twirled her finger toward the toes. “Do you think he could be…you know.”
Yeah, her subconscious had been mulling over that soul mate possibility for days now. She was still attracted to him, but he was more Dark Prince than Prince Charming. Not good soul mate material. “I’m not betting on it.”
Because something told her he wouldn’t be an easy man to love.
But something else told her that being loved by him would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He obviously had passion for his art. He was intense. If he put those two gifts together and focused them on one woman.
Well, the survival rate would probably be in the single digits.
Greer grabbed the newel post on the stairs and swung around to the first step. “Wish me luck.”
“He’s in the Thelma and Louise room. If you can get him to open the door, he’ll take one look at that cleavage and you’ll be able to lead him out of here by his panting tongue.”
The image made Greer laugh as she jogged up to the second floor. She knocked twice on his door.
His response was, “Not hungry, Raylene. Can you freeze it?”
Freeze the heat between them? Not in a hundred lifetimes. “I come bearing no Pyrex nor a single foil-covered plate, so will you open the door?”
Something heavy hit the ground on the other side of the door. Seconds later, it swung inward to reveal Alex, backlit by the midday sunshine. His white T-shirt was a stark contrast to his skin. But holy of all holies, it showed off his arms up to his biceps.
The muscles alone were drool-worthy, but that wasn’t what made heat settle low in Greer’s belly.
What affected her was the sight of his left arm, covered by a tattoo sleeve with the serpent she’d spotted a few days ago winding its way tightly up Alex’s forearm, which was just as sexy as she’d imagined, and melding into another design she couldn’t quite make out.
The T-shirt’s neck was stretched out just enough for her to glimpse a flash of matching green and blue ink.
But his other arm was covered with only bare skin.
“Goddammit,” he said in a low tone. He grabbed her by her dress strap, pulled her inside his room, and shut the door behind them. “What is it with you?”
Lord, she was suddenly as horny as a rabbit in a hutch by herself. She had—had—to see the rest of this man’s body. “If I asked you to strip down to the skin right this second, would you do it?”
“That would be an improvement on the forty pans of mac and cheese Raylene’s tried to shove at me.”
“Apparently you’ve made quite the impression on the women in town.” Yeah, including her. And starting this very second, Greer planned to knock any woman interested in Alex upside the head with her blowpipe.
Or maybe a handheld torch.
Ridiculous because she had absolutely no claim on this man.
“This is the first request I’ve had to get naked for someone.”
“Oh, they all want it. They’re just too afraid to ask.”
His expression blanked, but he stepped closer, bringing his cottony scent with him. “What are you afraid of, Greer?” He twined a finger into her hair, wrapped a curl around it.
Regardless of what she’d been telling herself about this man’s soul mate potential, she was afraid of what she could feel for him. He had something tender and painful buried deep inside that tough exterior. As wary as that made her, his talent, the sheer intensity of it, drew her in. “Nothing.”
He tugged, bringing her toward him. “Liar. Everyone’s afraid of something.”
“You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.” That would close him down.
“Does that mean if I strip for you that you’ll do the same for me?”
Greer cut a glance toward the frilly canopied bed in the center of the room. Raylene would know something big was up if they didn’t come down soon. “I would…if we didn’t need to be somewhere.”
“We?”
“I’ve got something to show you.”
The brow that arched up said he wanted her to show him exactly what she had on under her sundress.
Greer smoothed her fingers over his wrist, up his forearm, following the sinuous line of the serpent’s body. When she circled them around his biceps, Alex’s muscles jumped. “As enjoyable as stripping down to the skin with you might be, this isn’t the time for it.”
“Does that mean there will be a time for it?” he asked, his voice husky.
She slipped her hand under his sleeve, stroked his inner arm. “You’re the one who walked away last time.”
“I don’t like to shit where I eat.”
Greer curled her fingers, grabbing strands of his underarm hair in the process. Alex yelped and tried to pull her hand away, but she only tightened her grasp. “You can be a real dick, Villanueva, you know that?”
“It’s just an expression.” He smoothed a thumb over her inner wrist, tickling the sensitive skin until her grip loosened. “But yeah, I am a dick when it comes to relationships. I don’t do Texas. I don’t do long-term. And I don’t do emotions.”
What he meant was he didn’t do love.
“But professionally, I always do what I say I will.”
“Oh, I think you make yourself pretty clear when it comes to the personal stuff too.” That was why he seemed to have a brick wall cemented around him.
Because he told you from the first time you met him that you wouldn’t get to him.
Wouldn’t get to the real Alex Villanueva.
Not unless he wanted you to, and he didn’t.
“Greer, I—”
She held up a hand and stepped back. “Save it. I didn’t come here to talk about going to bed with you, much less starting a relationship. I came to take you back out to the barn.”
“Why? This have something to do with your competition?”
The sound that came from her throat was feral-hog. No other way to describe her gut-deep aggravation with this man. “If you don’t get your ass down those stairs, I will kick you in the knees.”
He dropped his head to look at her boots. “Those are snip-toes.”
“Yup, and I’ll use one to each leg.”
His smile started on one side of his face and slowly encompassed the entire landscape. Damn the man—kick him or kiss him? It was a toss-up. “I need to put on a shirt first.”