5. Maryanne #2
“Oh, umm—” My face felt hot at the realization that even though I was covered with his suit jacket, I was hardly wearing anything underneath, and the reality of my life felt like a bucket of ice water tossed right over my head.
Hollis Porter was a respectable man.
A good man.
Everything Jade and Kitty had said about the Porter boys, well, men, was great, but Hollis had political aspirations.
He was going to run for mayor of our small town, determined to make changes happen in his small corner of the world.
It was why he hardly ever went to the Velvet Leopard like the other Porter brothers did.
Hollis didn’t need or want to be seen with some stripper in his car. He was just being a nice guy. A good man. He’d come to my rescue and was taking me home. That was it, and any fantasies of a man coming to rescue me were fucking ridiculous.
“Right.” I half-chuckled, trying to bat away how horrified I felt.
There I was, lusting over the man, and he was getting me clothes so I wouldn’t embarrass him. Whatever I’d thought had been happening was totally and completely off. Get a flipping grip, Maryanne! You know guys like him don’t go for girls like us!
“Umm, you wouldn’t want to be seen with someone like me.
” The words spilled out as I made quick work of pulling the shirt over my head, then shimmying the pants over my legs.
They were too long and fit too big around the waist, but I was sitting down, so it wasn’t like they were going to fall off my body.
I would just need to roll them at the waist.
“Here you go.” I handed him his jacket, hoping I hadn’t smudged makeup on it.
But he didn’t take it.
My gaze bounced from the jacket to him and back to the jacket.
“I wasn’t wearing glitter,” I blurted out. Two little lines formed between his amber eyes.
“What?”
“Your jacket.” I pointed. “I wasn’t wearing glitter, but if you’re worried about that or makeup, I can take it to get dry cleaned.” It would be the least I could do after he defended me.
“Hold up. What?” He asked.
“Your jacket. You didn’t want to take it, so I thought—“
“I’m not worried about makeup or glitter, little flower.
” His hand rose, and this time, there was no hesitation as he stroked the side of my face.
My eyes fluttered shut, and I couldn’t help the way I leaned into his touch.
“I have a feeling if it’s from you, I’d wear ever speck of glitter proudly,” he admitted.
My heart fluttered, “I didn’t take it because I was thinking about what you said.
” I opened my eyes and stared back into his.
“You said I wouldn’t want to be seen with you. ”
“Oh, I mean—“
“I wouldn’t want to kill some fucker for seeing you like that. Even though“—he jerked his head forward, but I knew he didn’t mean wearing his clothes—“you’re fucking stunning wearing that set.”
“You think so?” I asked. Did he lean in closer? Is that mint and coffee on his breath?
“You always look fucking beautiful, Maryanne.” His words felt like a whispered confession, one that rocked my world on its axis.
“Always?” I asked before thinking better of it. “You’ve seen me on stage before?” He blinked once. Twice. His gaze was intense, so much working behind his beautiful eyes.
I thought back to being on stage.
There was a huge spotlight that made it difficult to see everyone in the crowd, but I knew deep down in the marrow of my being I would have remembered him.
Hollis Porter was a memorable man. I remembered seeing him that first time like a milestone.
He was at the gym in the background as Jade, Kitty, and I had worked out.
When I’d headed to the bathroom, he’d looked at me from where he had been standing, and something had come over me and I’d been the one to say hi to him.
But never, not once, had he been at the Velvet Leopard.
Or at least, I hadn’t seen him there.
The girls would talk in hushed whispers about him; I’d overheard them. Especially Gretchen with her group of mean girls, but I had assumed he showed up when I was home since I usually worked earlier in the daytime anyhow.
“Ready to go home?” he asked, bypassing the question completely.
I blinked and swallowed slowly. Disappointment prickled at the back of my neck as I nodded.
Home. The idea of this big beautiful man driving me to my trailer, seeing where I lived after that drunk customer had humiliated me, sat heavy in my gut.
I shook the thoughts away. My gaze dropped to my lap just as he pulled away, taking the heat of his body with him.
It sucked to think about, but this was reality. My reality.
The passenger side door shut, and I didn’t have to look up to know he rounded the vehicle before he opened his door and got in. The deep sound of the engine roared to life before he put it in Drive. I watched out the window in silence, the soft hum of music playing through the speakers.
Deep in my thoughts, it wasn’t until we were pulling into a residential area, his SUV slowing down before it pulled into a long driveway, that I realized we weren’t anywhere close to my place.
“Umm, Hollis—“ He shut the engine off, both his hands still on the steering wheel as he looked straight towards the garage door in front of us.
An oddly comfortable silence fell between us.
I watched as his Adam’s apple rose and fell before he turned to look at me.
I was positive he was about to tell me an Uber would pick me up or something.
I had no idea why I’d assumed when he said let’s go home, he meant my place.
My eyes drifted to the front of the house, and something inside my chest ached.
The house was beautiful.
It had a river rock facade and a wrap-around porch with two chairs and a small table between them sitting on the far end.
A huge elm tree, beautiful and old with green leaves, sat at the front and probably provided great shade for the house during a hot summer day.
Lush green grass surrounded it, and I could almost picture him mowing the lawn shirtless.
I bet his neighbors love that, I thought to myself.
“I should have asked, but would you mind eating dinner with me?” Of all the possible things that had sprung to mind, those had not been it. He turned, our eyes connected, and just like that, the sensible, smart side of my brain went blank.
“If not, it’s okay. I can take you home.
You don’t know me and you had a traumatic night.
” He shook his head and winced. “I should have asked but—“ He took a deep breath, like he had a hard time gathering his thoughts. “I didn’t like the idea of you going back home to be all alone tonight. Not after… not after what happened.”
“Oh.” I sucked in my bottom lip and felt his eyes drop. His hand was suddenly not just up and between us but holding my chin and pulling my lip free with the rough pad of his thumb.
“That’s better,” he muttered to himself. “Let me make you dinner.” The request yet demand made my lips twitched.
“Do you know how to cook?” I asked in a half-suspicious, half-flirty tone. The man was handsome as sin, but by the muscles his outline hinted at under that dress shirt, he also looked like he thrived off protein shakes and green smoothies.
“I do. If you hate it, we can order in. Or we can put a movie on, and I can order in anyhow and just cook you dinner some other time.” His suggestion was so sweet. I wanted to agree so badly, but I knew better.
I should know better.
Just as I was about to turn him down, I noticed it. His cheeks turned slightly pink, and his shoulder did this soft shrug thing I oddly found completely adorable and endearing.
“Let me order us some pizza. We can sit, watch TV, eat, talk… whatever.”
“Talk?”
“About anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Pinky promise.” His hand came between us with his pinky finger extended, and just like that, I melted.
“Okay,” I agreed too easily. “But I’ll pitch in for the pizza. I have some cash in my—“ I started to bend to grab my purse off the floor when he reached and took my hand in his.
I couldn’t help the way my eyes skated down to the way our hands tangled together.
His skin was slightly tanner than my pale one with freckles smattered all over his palm and peppered under his sleeve.
His hands were big and capable. The difference between them was staggering.
Mine ere so much smaller and almost seemed fragile against his.
The sight of them, the clear size difference, should have a big red flag waving in my head.
But that wasn’t the only red flag.
Our size difference was nothing compared to our age difference, not to mention our experience. Looking at him, the way he handled me with care and moved with nothing but confidence, I knew he knew what to do behind closed doors, where I was still not sure if I knew how to kiss right.
“No.”
“No?” I repeated. My brain was fuzzy with all the thoughts about why I shouldn’t go inside his place even though I already agreed and knew I wasn’t going to change my mind.
“I got you,” he reminded me.
“Oh, right.” My lips wobbled at the small sting of rejection. I was being so stupid, making this into so much more than it was. Hollis had promised his brother, that was what this whole thing was about.
But why did it feel like a promise of something so much bigger than dinner?