Chapter 4
Mister Good Time
Isaac
Iwas drunk and not because of the alcohol.
Moonlight burned in my veins, crackling along my skin and lighting me up as I swayed with Tara between my arms. Her heady scent thickened in the warmth of the dance floor, overpowering the stink of booze and dirt and diesel. I drank it down, greedy for more.
Too much.
“Look, you’re cute.” She smiled knowingly when we reentered the bar from the front. “But I know your type.”
I arched into her, every predatory muscle gliding toward my prey in a taunt. “What’s my type?”
“Tall, dark, and doesn’t call after a motel quickie.”
“You’re wrong.” I dipped my lips to her ear. “I like to take my time.”
Tara breathed a playful sigh. “I’m sure you do. But I just did my time with a terrible man and I’m only here to celebrate my liberation.”
“Ah, so no redneck rebound for you?”
She laughed, tapping the bar and speaking sweetly to the bartender as she ordered some syrupy shit and a shot of whiskey for me.
A gentleman would have offered to buy the first round, but I wasn’t a gentleman. By ordering my drink, she was pursuing me.
Normally, I was quick to dismiss a woman that wasn’t interested in the aftermath of drinks.
I was good at the fun that happened between the sheets.
The before became a part that I dreaded each time I approached a woman.
After so many evenings in dive bars the banal repeated details of human lives drove me to madness.
I was in the mood for a bit of cat-and-mouse tonight. Tara wasn’t refusing my attention. That was enough.
Doubt whispered through me as the night wore on. My intention was to charm her enough that she begged for me. Let her think this seduction was her doing.
The longer I danced and drank and took in her radiance, the more I realized it was me who was positioned to tumble into her web and become entangled.
Tara was playing me. I didn’t like how much I was enjoying it. Giving ground.
It was dangerous to chase something when you genuinely wanted it. Wanting only led to disappointment. That was why I collected real estate and expensive boots. Why my hobbies were all things I could buy. Money didn’t betray you.
People did. One hundred percent of the time.
My brothers were an obvious exception to that. But I wasn’t thinking of my brothers then. I wasn’t thinking of them most nights.
Maybe I would feel guilty about that when I was sober and alone.
With a glance over my shoulder I took another shot, my grin taking on a wild edge. I was on number seven and buzzed enough that the beast was a background noise, no longer clawing for control. No doubt he was plotting, noticing my weaknesses as I indulged more than I should.
For once, he wasn’t ruining my life, so I would let him have his plots.
Tara was on shot number two and I was definitely cutting her off after this. Her answering smile was tipsy and happy. A real happy, with those crinkled lines around her eyes. Not the polite smiles she’d been flashing those other assholes all evening.
The music was loud and jagged. I pulled Tara back onto the dance floor anyway.
Our bodies moved in a sensuous rhythm, shifting closer with every song until the way we ground against each other was vulgar.
A low rumble vibrated my chest and I started, losing my footing and almost stumbling into a chair.
Not here. Not now. I shouldn’t have let my guard down.
Tara cocked her head, her expression questioning. Had she heard? Had she seen the beast in my eyes?
I should go home. This was beyond reckless.
A monster like me wasn’t fit to be around Tara—or anyone.
Panic, sharp and penetrating, had me rushing for the door. Air. I needed air. This wasn’t right.
I only made it halfway across the bar before my insides lurched. Stunned, I swiveled, staring at Tara as she stood bewildered in the middle of the dance floor.
Cursing my own weakness, I returned to her, taking her by the hand and asking in a husky voice that was barely my own, “Walk with me?”
What the hell is wrong with me? I hadn’t meant to speak those words. I approached with the intent of delivering a clipped farewell to let her know the game was over. We were no longer playing by the same rules, and the risk didn’t feel like a thrill anymore.
Instead, I was towing her by the hand, barreling through the back door for a second time. In a daze that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
The night air would smooth my overactive nerves.
Yes, that was it.
I was overwhelmed and needed a bay breeze. The stars overhead. To clear my lungs of the disgusting miasma of cologne and sweat.
Tara followed me down the boardwalk, her hand in mine. So trusting. I couldn’t help picturing us like characters from some twisted fairytale. She was the lamb and I was the devouring wolf.
I needed to let her go. To send her back to the bar.
Tara didn’t give me a chance to escape. Her grip was firm, taking the lead and dragging me down the stone steps at the edge of the boardwalk that led to the beach below the pier. It was only visible during low tide, the sand thick and damp.
Tipsy and laughing, she stumbled into me as she lost her footing.
I moved instinctively, sweeping her hair behind her ear, unable to resist touching her. I could feel the stirring inside me strengthen, feel a wave of feral energy overcome me.
I should have left her in that bar. Should have vanished back into the night like the darkness I was.
“Did I deliver on that good time?”
“It was good,” she sighed. “I haven’t felt so free in years.”
Her eyes danced to my lips and I purred, “The fun doesn’t have to stop there.”
Her expression turned searching and suddenly I was uncomfortable. I had this feeling like she could see behind my mask and I didn’t like it. “This is the part where we fuck until I have sand in my ass crack and then part ways forever?”
“You really are a romantic, aren’t you?”
“That’s not a no.” But there was a wicked smile on her pink lips and before I knew it I was shoved up against the concrete wall beneath the boardwalk.
Tara fiddled with my belt buckle and unzipped my pants. She didn’t even glance around to make sure we didn’t have witnesses before pulling them down to my ankles and dropping to the ground with them. No hesitation. She knew what she wanted and she was taking it.
I was losing. I never lost.
“This is such a bad idea,” she murmured to herself as she tickled her hands up my thighs. “But damn do I want to be bad tonight.”
Then her hand was fisting me and I almost finished right there.
Her mouth followed a teasing trail up and down. Everywhere she touched me blazed to life. I wanted her so badly it felt like madness.
Finally, Tara sucked the head of my cock and I collapsed. The muscles holding me in place became liquid and I had to choose between focusing on her and staying upright. Satisfaction vibrated in her throat.
I was on the very edge when she stopped. Her mouth came away and the warmth of her breasts between my thighs disappeared. She stepped back in the sand, expression unreadable. Her lips quirked as she glanced at the puddle of pants around my ankles.
Then she ran.
Why would she—
She had to know. She had to. Why else was she turning her back on me? I discarded my pants and took off after her. Ahead of me, Tara’s feet were spraying sand. Her breath was frantic and there was the tiniest hint of fear to her scent. That fear mingling with arousal was too much.
My control snapped.
When I was away from the bayou I never, never let myself out. There was a version of me that humans received and it was not the same as what my brothers saw. Now that careful mask was falling away and I was overcome.
I timed myself perfectly, letting Tara make it under the shadowed privacy of the pier before catching her around the waist. In seconds I had her back to one of the support pillars, her skirt up around her waist.
Her arms were around my neck, teeth leaving delicate marks beneath my jaw as she nipped her way to my lips. I hovered my hand at the hem of her skirt, forcing myself to wait. Silently asking for permission.
I was wild with need, and I wasn’t the only one. Tara hiked her skirt up with one hand. The other guided my wrist, showing me exactly how she wanted to be touched.
I gave in, working her up until she was breathless. Almost incoherent as she gasped, “Condom.”
She handed me a foil packet. The same one that was in my pocket earlier tonight.
“You knew what you were doing.”
“I did.” She smiled. “Now, show me that you know what you’re doing.”
She opened her legs, wrapping them around me. I slid inside her. The pier groaned where I gripped it.
“Did you think I wouldn’t catch you?”
“I hoped you would,” she panted. Tara dropped her mouth to my earlobe and nipped. I had the sudden, insane urge to bite her back. Leave a mark so she couldn’t hide that I claimed her.
Resisting my beastly impulse, I dropped her feet into the sand and pulled out of her. She clung to my neck, a pouty look on her face.
“Turn around.”
I moved her until she was draped over one of the support beams of the pier. I wasn’t as gentle as I should have been when I rammed back into her, but the noises she made didn’t discourage my ferocity.
That animal need to possess her won out, mostly because her core was clenching around me and she was moaning so loudly that everyone on the Gulf Coast was going to hear her.
“Did you think—” My hips pumped faster and faster. “I wouldn’t make you mine?” Then I cupped her neck and pinned her back against my chest, biting down on her shoulder.
“Harder,” she moaned. “Bite harder.”
I obliged her.
Tara shuddered. Her legs gave out. I caught her, sheathing myself deep and growling as I filled her.
For a breath, the world was black and white, save for the beautiful flushed color of Tara’s skin.
I nuzzled the side of her neck, kissing beneath her ear and everywhere I could reach. Even spent, I still wanted more.
There was something about her. Enthralling. Magnetic. I was insatiable and I couldn’t explain it.
There was too much…everything. The sensations where our bodies connected, the luscious scent of her.
I shouldn’t want anything from her now. But I did.
Tara leaned back and dropped her arms around my shoulders, steadying herself as I continued throbbing inside her.
Now was the time to remind her that I wasn’t a nice guy. That I never promised more than this.
Time to walk away.
My feet didn’t move.
I slipped from inside her and Tara turned, a smug, satisfied smile on her face. She kissed my bottom lip, just a peck, and said plainly, “I’m not yours. I don’t belong to anyone.”
Then she readjusted her skirt and started walking down the beach. I watched, frozen in place, as she climbed the stairs and disappeared into the bar parking lot.
I wanted to follow her, the beast in me desperate to chase her down again. To catch her.
To hunt her.
No, that was wrong. I didn’t hunt women the way the beast liked to hunt.
I wanted to tell myself it was only because that was the best sex I’d had all year.
Even as I thought it, my chest rumbled with a growl and I almost jumped in my truck and drove home to talk to Eli. To confess everything to him.
But my brother wouldn’t know what to do, other than worry about me.
I crossed the beach and retrieved my pants, trying to decide what to do. The sun was cresting the horizon before I deemed it safe to wander back to my truck. Once inside I sat dazed on the driver’s side.
Maybe Saul was right. Maybe it was time to grow up and come home.
The idea felt as hollow as the hole inside me.