Look What You Made Me Do

Chapter 1

1

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE KANSAS – POPULATION 5,238

It had been two years, eight months and twenty-three days since Ella Lucas had last done the horizontal rumba. And even then, it hadn’t been very good.

With the powerful Harley throbbing between her legs, she was acutely aware of every asexual minute. The machine pulsed against her, taunting barren places, reminding Ella of her depressingly sexless existence. Was it possible to orgasm on the seat of a Harley?

Alone?

She revved the engine. Lock up your husbands, Trently, Rachel’s daughter is back in town.

Her red lips twisted in a bitter smile. Seventeen years she’d spent in this speck on the map trying to do the right thing, trying to be her mother’s opposite, playing the good girl. Until she’d cracked under the pressure of it all and just walked away.

Almost two decades later it had taken them all of forty-eight hours to make her feel like that powerless and frustrated teenager again. So today she was determined to give them what they’d always wanted.

Proof. Actual proof.

Something real to gossip about once she’d hightailed it out of this one-horse town. Something to truly damn her. Something for them all to nod sagely over and say, See, we were right, the apple never falls too far from the tree.

And she intended having a damn fine time doing so too.

The sun beat down on her shoulders as she thundered into Trently’s main street, rising off the pock-marked road in a shimmering haze. It could have been any of a hundred main streets in rural Kansas – wide, bordered by barren cracked pavements and brick store fronts that hadn’t changed in decades.

The bank, the pharmacy, the beige austerity of S. J. Levy’s law practice, the realtor, the meat market and the Trently diner – with the same blue-and-white striped awning from her childhood – stood exactly as they always had. It was like entering a time warp. Not even the advent of two-dollar shops had infected the Trently streetscape.

People stopped abruptly on the sidewalk as she passed, their heads turning to track the noisy motorcycle. Business owners stared askance through their shop windows, craning their necks to see if a marauding bikie gang had moved into town.

Ella ignored them all. She was a successful career woman who had long ago cast off the shackles of Trently.

And she was on a mission.

Blood thrummed through her veins as she parked the bike outside The Rusty Nail . Cutting the engine, she kicked down the stand, her reckless mood ratcheting a notch as she dismounted.

The townsfolk still hadn’t moved as Ella took off her helmet and hung the sleek black dome on the handlebars. She shook out her untethered hair and it fell in careless disorder around her shoulders, just like in a shampoo commercial.

She’d always wanted to do that.

Sadly, biker bitch was as far removed from her ponytailed high-school-math-teacher existence as was possible. She was as nerdy today as she’d always been.

But Trently didn’t know that.

Squaring her shoulders, Ella stepped resolutely toward her target. The rasp of her denim-clad thighs brushing together was almost gunshot loud in the preternaturally silent town.

Good. She had their attention.

Scandalized whispers to her right permeated Ella’s focus. Two old ladies she recognized instantly were sitting on a bench that had been located outside the town’s favorite dive bar for as long as anyone could remember.

“Afternoon, Miss Simmons, Miss Aberfoyle,” she said, not bothering to wait for an acknowledgment.

Crossing the sidewalk, she yanked open the bar door, wishing for a second it was one of those old-fashioned swinging doors from the days of the Wild West. She had, after all, ridden into town for a showdown, of sorts.

It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust from the bright, summer day to the cool, dim interior of Trently’s oldest liquor establishment. The patrons inside stopped mid-conversation to stare at Ella. Only Johnny Cash crooning about not taking your guns to town broke the charged silence.

Ironic.

Ella didn’t bother to look around. She knew he was in town – she’d seen him at the funeral yesterday, standing in the distance under the canopy of the giant old cottonwood – and she knew exactly where he’d be. Like his father before him, Jake Prince was behind the bar.

She didn’t know why the famed tight end – known to football fans as The Prince – with two Super Bowl rings to his name was back home in far eastern buttfuck Kansas pulling beers. Ella vaguely recalled seeing or hearing something about an injury a few months back but still, Trently seemed like an odd place to recuperate.

Not that she cared. He was here and – hopefully – a means to an end.

If she could pull it off.

Ella strode the short distance to the bar, placing her elbows on the aged wooden top, as pock-marked as the road into town. He’d changed and yet he hadn’t. Physically he’d matured. Grown into those good looks he’d wielded so indiscriminately back in the day. And there was a polish to him now she didn’t recognize.

Yet he still felt like the Jake Prince of her past.

A beat or two passed as Ella held Jake’s gaze. Despite their situational similarities growing up, she’d barely ever spoken to him. He’d been two years ahead of her at school and already refining his bad-boy rep. The last thing she’d needed was an association with him tainting the good-girl persona she’d tried so hard to inhabit.

And now here she was, about to proposition him.

Publicly.

Neither of them said anything but everyone in the place inched slightly closer, including the gum-chewing, peroxide blonde pulling a beer at the taps.

“Jake.”

Regarding her for a moment, he picked up a glass. “Ella,” he murmured, drawing her gaze to the scruff of whiskers smattering his jawline which seemed more lazy than designer. “I’m so sorry about your mother’s passing.”

Ella nodded, swallowing a sudden lump in her throat. He’d be about the only one. She wasn’t entirely sure she was sorry herself and the harshness of the realization almost sucked her breath away. What kind of a daughter was she?

What kind of human being ?

Disgust with herself intensified her grief and strengthened her purpose. And yet, as her gaze flicked to the side, her conviction wavered. Perched primly on the closest stool, decked out in her standard attire of twin set and pearls, was Mrs. Coleman, Trently’s retired school librarian.

Ella’s plan had seemed simple when she’d come up with it back in her mother’s house, with its memories and a hostile teenage brother goading her into action. But she hadn’t counted on doing this in front of the elegant octogenarian who had taught her how to use the Dewey Decimal System.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Ella gathered the simmering anger around her like an armor.

She wasn’t seventeen anymore.

“Your dad still have an apartment upstairs?”

It came out steady and clear and she was proud of that, even more so because of how it had surprised him. Not obviously – she doubted anyone else picked up the slight falter as he dried the glass or the what the hell widening his eyes .

But she had. She who had spent many teenage moments furtively studying his carefully maintained screw everybody demeanor.

“Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed, barely dropping a beat.

“What do you say? Wanna give everyone round here something real to talk about?”

Ella ignored the gasp from a rapt Mrs. Coleman as her heartbeat thundered through her head. She felt thirteen years old again, as awkward beneath Jake’s scrutiny now as she’d been the night he’d asked her to dance with him at the only homecoming she’d ever attended.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His rugged expression was completely inscrutable now as time seemed to slow. As the silence stretched.

Damn it, say something!

After what felt like an eternity, he put the glass down and, without looking at the blonde said, “Mind the bar, Kel.” Then he gestured toward the door marked private on the far wall and said to Ella, “Ladies first.”

The irritating noise of the barmaid’s gum chewing was suddenly silenced and Ella knew in that moment that every Trently resident inside The Rusty Nail was judging them.

But, when hadn’t they?

Ella’s legs were shaking as she passed the jukebox to one side of the door before she opened it and turned left to head up the stairs. Trently’s reaction vaporized into nothingness as Jake’s gaze seared liked a brand on her ass.

Were things jiggling too much back there? Damn it, why hadn’t she ever used that ridiculously expensive Thigh Master?

The stairs terminated at a door and Jake overtook her at the top, inserting a key into the lock. He pushed it open and stepped into the large open-plan room. Ella briefly noted the two windows that overlooked the street below, a small kitchen area and an unmade Murphy bed pulled out of its cupboard.

“You sure know how to make an entrance,” he said as he turned, shoving his big hands on narrow hips, drawing her gaze to the way his jeans hugged his powerful thighs.

Seeing no point in wasting time on pleasantries, Ella kicked the door shut and launched herself at the wall of his chest, ignoring his slight indrawn breath at her impact. The man was a star football player – he could certainly handle her.

“Ella.”

The pity in his voice was too much to bear as she twisted the fingers of one hand in the soft cotton of his button down and snaked the other around his neck. Lifting on her tippy toes, Ella dragged him down awkwardly, mashing her lips to his. Her fingers moved to his hair, the velvety fuzz of his number-two cut as decadently delicious as the scrape of his whiskers.

With a groan he pulled out of the kiss, holding her at arm’s length. “Don’t let them get to you, Ella,” he muttered, his breath falling harshly between them. “You were always too classy for this town.”

Ella growled in frustration, struggling against his hands, straining to get closer. “Damn it. I’m not a kid, Jake. I know what I want.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.” She pushed against his bonds. “I’m thirty-four years old. I’ve been making up my mind for a long time now.”

“Doing this as some kind of FU because you’re sad about your mom, isn’t very smart.”

He was right, it was a whole lot of dumb, but she was a big girl. “I’m offering you sex. Since when did you give a shit about a woman’s motivation?”

Jake’s playboy jock reputation was a thing of legend – both here and nationally. The man was the definition of a sure thing.

“It’s okay. No one has to know it didn’t happen,” he continued, ignoring her question in his best placatory voice. “We’ll just hang here for a bit then go on down.”

Ella blinked. She could see he was determined to be honorable Jake and couldn’t believe he’d chosen to develop some morals on the one day she needed him to be the one-and-done Jake of tabloid fame.

She gritted her teeth. “I don’t want to hang .” His gentle restraint on her arms was both aggravating and stimulating. “I want you to screw me. Quick and hard.”

Ever the good girl, Ella wasn’t big on crude language, but she wasn’t above using it either, if the situation required.

“And when you’re done with that, I want it long and slow.”

He met her bald statement with a lazy eyebrow quirk. “Little Ella Lucas.” He tutted. “Science geek, math nerd, teacher’s pet. If I’d only known you had such a filthy mouth, we could have been friends all those years ago.”

Ella snorted. As if she could ever have risked that.

“What’s the matter?” she taunted, determined not to be derailed. “Is The Prince too big time for some small-town action? Or is your injury more extensive than first thought? Can you not perform?”

Ella suddenly remembered his injury had been groin related. For a man whose groin (according to the tabloids) seemed to rest very little, it must be a frustrating experience.

Ignoring her first jab, he homed in on the second with a sardonic smile. “I can perform just fine.”

Ella smiled back. “Excellent.”

Sighing, he said, “You’re gonna hate yourself later.”

The absolute certainty in his words brought Ella up short and she stopped struggling. Of course she’d hate herself – she just didn’t do casual sex.

Ella knew he was right.

Hell, she had three university degrees in right. But she wasn’t here for his fortune-cookie advice. She was here for the sex. And from what she’d heard, Jake had a few degrees in that.

“Listen, in the last twenty-four hours, I’ve buried my mother, inherited a teenage brother I never knew existed and discovered that the entire town thinks I ran off with the school principal at the age of seventeen. If I’m going to be damned for my loose ways then you better believe I want to at least reap the benefits.”

“That’s a lot.” His hands fell to his sides. “You’re allowed to be angry.”

“Gee, thanks, ” she said waspishly.

So nice to have permission from the guy who’d been given a get-out-of-jail-free card thanks to a football scholarship. Kick a pointy ball around a piece of grass and the world was your oyster. Work your butt off at school and people accused you of sleeping with the principal.

Another hot surge of rage rose in her chest, swelling to tsunami-like proportions, besieging Ella with the very unreasonable urge to pummel her fists against the solid wall of his chest. She didn’t, but they were close enough for her to put her hands on him so she did that instead, laying her palms flat against his pecs.

“They knew me, Jake. This town. These people.” She bunched the fabric tight, rage still simmering beneath her skin. “They knew me better than that.”

His top button was at her eye level and suddenly her frustration found a more constructive outlet.

“I was a valedictorian,” she muttered, her thumb brushing across the stitching.

Jake placed a hand against hers but she batted it away, a red mist fogging her vision. Focusing all her pent-up hostility, she concentrated on the little plastic disk. “I was top of every class for five years straight.”

Her hands shook as she set about undoing it, fumbling like a two-year-old who hadn’t yet learned the art of undressing. When it finally popped, Ella made a triumphant noise in the back of her throat.

“I tutored kids for free,” she told the next button, having as much trouble as the first.

“Ella.”

He placed his hand on hers again but she shook it off and took a deep, calming breath. “I volunteered at the old folks’ home.” The button popped. “I sponsored a child in Africa.” The last disk fell victim to her steadier fingers. “I still do.”

She eyed him squarely. “I was a girl scout.”

“You think I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a place that ostracizes you for the sins of a parent?” His gaze bored into hers. “How unfair it is? How crazy it can make you?”

Ella knew he knew. Perhaps that was why she was here – because he more than anyone else in this shitty town understood.

“It doesn’t matter what they think, Ella.”

She laughed then. “That’s easy for you to say. You got to become a big famous football star. You can do no wrong around here. I’m still” – she leaned in and whispered in that disparaging tone of voice townsfolk had always used when uttering her mother’s name – “ Rachel’s daughter.”

Overwhelmed by the emotion that’d been building since the funeral, she pressed her forehead against his chest, while she battled for control. His skin was warm and smooth and she inhaled deeply. He smelled like beer.

“Ella.”

His voice was husky and sounded a little strained and she shut her eyes at his hesitation. “You don’t want to have sex with me?” She wasn’t sure she could take that kind of rejection today.

He took a shuddery breath. “That’s not what I said.”

Pulling her forehead off his chest, she peered into his face, trying to read his eyes. “So you… do want to?”

“Ella,” he murmured. “It won’t help.”

“Wanna bet?”

“I think doing this the day after you buried your mother is maybe not the wisest way to cope.”

Ella stared at him. Since when had he become so damn smart? “Why don’t you let me decide what’s the healthiest way to cope with my grief?”

Jake was running out of reasons why he shouldn’t just throw caution to the wind like she obviously had. He was trying really hard to do the right thing but Ella’s mood was heady with seething sexuality. Her anger, frustration and grief had morphed into a raw, sexual cocktail.

She needed to burn off some heat. And he was her explosive choice.

It was a stark contrast to her quiet dignity at the funeral yesterday. The townsfolk had been there in full force, their ghoulish delight at Rachel’s demise barely disguised, but she’d weathered it all with a mellow poise that had called every faux mourner to account.

She wasn’t so poised now, though, her troubled blue gaze still clawing at his gut. How often in the years they’d all but silently co-existed had he related to her torment?

Understood her caged misery?

Not one of the people downstairs understood the demons that drove her. But he did.

Which was why this was a bad idea. Because Ella was different. He didn’t know why. She just was. She always had been. The only girl in his fifteen miserable years in this town that had barely looked at him.

Apart from that one time.

But she’d come a long way since the sweetness of that brief shy press of lips she’d granted him at the end of their particularly memorable dance at homecoming. Hell, she’d graduated with honors in the kissing stakes.

There’d been nothing shy or sweet about Ella’s kiss just now. It’d been hot and hungry. The same with that look in her eyes. Even in the cute little gingham shirt she was wearing showing zero cleavage, there was a directness in her gaze that left him in no doubt what she wanted.

“ Please ,” she whispered.

Sweet Jesus. How was he supposed to resist that streak of raw desperation?

“I… don’t have any condoms.”

Without missing a beat, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a strip of five. They concertinaed down like a pack of magic cards before she threw them at him. They bounced off his chest and fell to the floor.

“That should do us.”

Jake looked at the little packets of temptation. Five? He swallowed as his gaze returned to hers. “Kel’s off shift in an hour.”

“Then why are you wasting time?”

He wished he knew as his gaze returned to the condoms, feeling their lure almost like a physical force.

She gave a frustrated growl low in her throat. “You know, Jake, this wasn’t how I pictured it.”

He laughed. “Oh yeah? How’d you picture it?”

Glaring at him, she grasped the knot at her navel where the tails of her shirt had been tied. In one quick movement she unknotted it then ripped the shirt open. Buttons flew in all directions, pinging on the wooden floorboards as she shrugged out of the garment, flinging it down beside the condoms.

“You weren’t talking, for a start.”

Jake’s laughter cut out. A gentleman may not have looked but there wasn’t one person in Trently who would ever accuse Jake of being a gentleman. So he looked. In fact, he barely stopped himself from licking his lips.

He’d seen a bra like that hanging on the Lucas clothesline when he’d been fourteen. Red lace. D cup. He’d known it was Ella’s – Rachel was smaller and hadn’t ever been big on underwear anyway.

There was a point at which resistance became futile and God help him, he’d reached that point. Lifting his fingers to his mouth, he mimed zipping them closed and throwing away the key.

Then he slid a finger through her belt loop and yanked.