Tainted Read online

  “I guess so.” Embarrassed, his ears burned. For years the Dogs had teased him about being too pretty for a guy. Secretly, it offended him. He’d grown a short beard just to counteract the prettiness. It did nothing to disguise his delicate features. “Now, about that drink.”

  “Yes, let’s get this party started.”

  He laughed at how awkward those words sounded coming out of her mouth. In all the months they’d spent together, he’d never known her to have more than a glass of wine. At the shop, she drank apple cinnamon herbal tea all day long. “I’m always cold,” she’d told him one time when he’d teased her about her tea addiction.

  In the kitchen he found a bottle of tequila in the pantry. “I don’t have margarita mix, but I have lemonade. Will that do?”

  “That’ll do just fine.” She sat, rather primly, on the oversized chair by the fireplace. That dress. That dress needed to come off.

  “You want to borrow a shirt and a pair of my boxer shorts?” he asked.

  “You read my mind.” She crossed the room in her bare feet over to where he had opened the bottle of tequila and the lemonade carton. “Here, I’ll do this while you fetch me something to wear. This dress is like a cobra around my middle.”

  “I can imagine.” He’d like to be a cobra around her middle.

  When he returned with a soft t-shirt and a pair of his boxer shorts, two glasses of the lemonade tequila concoction waited on the coffee table. She excused herself to change in the downstairs bathroom. Do not think of her naked.

  She returned a few minutes later with her dress over one arm and placed it on the back of a chair. “I just thought of something. You won’t be able to drive me home if we have too many drinks.”

  “It’s too far to walk in the dark. You can sleep in the guest room. No one’s stayed there yet. I figured it would be Kyle’s room, but now he’s married, and I’ll probably never see him again.” He spoke casually, oh so cool, like there was no agenda.

  “Especially with another baby on the way.”

  He looked at her closely. Had her voice quivered when she’d mentioned a baby?

  She grabbed her drink. “I need a straw. Do you have straws?”

  “I do. For when Dakota and Jubie come over. Kids love straws.”

  “I love straws,” she said.

  “I never knew that.”

  “We’ve never had drinks before.”

  He left his drink on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to get her a straw. He grabbed only one. Men didn’t drink from straws. Even nice men.

  She thanked him and stuck it into her drink, then took a long suck as he sank into the corner of his L-shaped couch. “I have something to say.” Her eyes shone in the light from the fireplace. Now that he thought about it, she might have been a little drunk at the party. “Thanks for hiring me to manage the bookstore. I have a purpose I wouldn’t have if not for your generosity.” She cut herself off and raised her glass. “Anyway, to the new year.”

  “To the new year.”

  She curled up in the oversized chair looking comfortable, not to mention sexy as hell, in his shirt.

  “Speaking of the store,” he said. “I closed the books this morning. We made a profit our first month. It’s much better than I expected.”

  “The holidays helped. Next month might be terrible.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist,” he said. “Having trivia night and book clubs and all the other stuff you thought of will bring people in during slower months. Plus, customers love how you help them find just the right book for them.” Every time a new customer had come in looking for a gift, she’d rattled off a few questions and then presented them with several books sure to please.

  “I love finding people the right book.” She was talking faster than her usual measured pace. He worried over how quickly she was downing her drink, but there wasn’t much he could do to stop her. “I looked at my stock account today. How are you making me all this money?”

  “I’ve been pleased,” he said. More than pleased. Over the past few months, he’d increased her wealth by ten thousand dollars. She didn’t have much to start out with, unlike his former clients who invested millions. “I watch the market closely, that’s all.”

  “Not all. You’re a genius.”

  “That’s what my boss used to say.” Back when he was a rising star at the firm. Before he was summarily fired.

  Her glass was almost empty. She wasn’t kidding when she said she was in the mood to have a few drinks.

  He moved to stand by the fire. Her hazel eyes glittered with energy when she met his gaze. And her cheeks were flushed a bright pink. This was not self-contained Mary. Tonight, she was all sexy librarian Mary.

  “How about another?” She uncurled her long legs and got up from the chair, then crossed over to the kitchen. “I made a pitcher.”

  “I’m good for now.” He might have to look after her later. Best to stay sober.

  Moments later, she was back in her spot, guzzling her drink.

  “Be careful,” he said gently. “You’re not much of a drinker, are you?”

  “Not really. But do you ever just get sick of being who you are?”

  “Almost every day.” Definitely today.

  “What would you change?” she asked.

  He rattled the ice around his nearly empty glass. “I’d like to be more like Kyle and Zane. More of an alpha type guy.”

  “You mean because of women?”

  “What else reason would there be? It’s always about a woman.”

  “A woman? Or women?” She pulled a pin from her hair and her hair cascaded around her shoulders. “It has to be the latter if you’re going to be a romance book alpha male.”

  “Do you like that type?” he asked.

  “I have no idea. I don’t think about men. I have no interest in ever letting myself get hurt that way again.”

  “Are you ever lonely?”

  “I didn’t think so.” Indecision played across her features. She was obviously wrestling with what to say next. “Until recently.”

  “How recently?”

  “Tonight. When you kissed me...” She looked up at the ceiling. Her eyelashes fluttered. “Your kiss unsettled me.”

  “Is that good?” Act like it was nothing. He strolled over to the couch and sat with his legs stretched out on the coffee table. Mr. Casual.

  “Yes. Our kiss, to be more accurate. I believe I kissed you back, making it ours.” She crossed her legs. “Which is weird.”

  “Because it was nice?” he asked, a flare of hope in his chest.

  She rested her neck on the back of her chair and stared at the ceiling. “Nice isn’t how I would describe it. More like, hot.”

  He swallowed and gripped his glass in both hands, afraid he might drop it onto his new couch. The ice cubes had melted into slivers.

  “It surprised me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think of you that way. You’re my pal. My best pal.”

  The friend zone. Damn it all.

  “But now I feel a little confused,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “I do, yes.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Are you?”

  “Not in the same way.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I think about you.” How’s that for an understatement?

  “You think about me? Like that?”

  “It’s impossible not to. Given how gorgeous you are. I mean, seriously, that dress tonight. I’m a man, not a zombie.”

  “Oh.” She stared at him for a second, then finished her drink with a noisy slurp and got up for more. Surprisingly, she walked in a straight line all the way to the kitchen. When she returned, she stood near the couch and examined him as if they had come upon each other on the street and she was trying to place where she knew him from. “You’ve surprised me twice tonight. That never happens. People don’t usually surprise me.”

  “Most people are
much more than they appear on the surface,” he said.

  She shook her glass at him. “You’ve taught me that. It’s humbling to hear what you see in others that most people miss. I love that about you.”

  “Yeah?” She loved that about him. She’d narrowed in on this trait. She saw him for who he was.

  She slapped her left knee. “I’m vowing right here and now to make this a better year. I can’t be sad forever. I mean, it’s been six years since I lost Meme and my mother, and my husband left me for that barista skank.”

  Skank. He’d never heard her use that word before. Tequila loosened her tongue.

  Mary slurped up her drink. In hindsight, the choice of a straw might not have been wise.

  “It was like everything was mine one minute and poof it all disappeared in the next.” She waved her hand in front of her face like she was swatting away mosquitos. “But I have to stop being like this. I have to start living.”

  “You suffered a terrible loss. It’s understandable that you withdrew.” What a stupid thing to say. Trite and ridiculous.

  “You want to know something?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Reading novels—my old friends—has been the only thing that gets me through the day. I can get lost in a story and forget for a while. Or, sometimes, the story mirrors something in my own life and helps me cry and grieve and feel less alone. But you know what? I’m not really living. Dammit, my mother would be truly disappointed in me.” She placed her empty glass on the coffee table and wandered over to the bank of windows. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had sex?”

  He almost choked on his drink.

  “The last time was with my husband. Can you believe that? Good old Chad the Cheater.” She giggled as she turned to face him. “Do you know he’s married and has three kids? Three. Can you imagine how that hurts?”

  She’d shared this with him before, but he didn’t remind her. He would let her talk for as long as she needed.

  “I could, yes,” he said.

  “How stupid is it to have an incompetent cervix? I mean, seriously? Of all things. My Meme never had a chance because of my incompetence.”

  He had no idea what to say. She’d gone into labor at only twenty-two weeks. The baby wasn’t developed enough. Despite heroic efforts of the hospital staff, tiny Meme had died in Mary’s arms.

  She turned back to the window. Her breath steamed up the glass as she spoke. “And wouldn’t you know it, life goes on. Unfortunately. So, you just have to get up every single stupid day and pretend like you’re present in the world when all the time you’re just a ghost floating amongst the living. And in the middle of all the soul-crushing grief, you’re pissed as hell too—witnessing all the lucky ones with their precious families and happy marriages—those adorable babies at the supermarket all fat and pink. It all eats away at you until all that’s left is this angry, bitter shell. You hate yourself for it. Honestly, you do. You want to be gracious and graceful and believe that God is good, but you can’t. You rage against Him. You hate all the happy people.”

  Lance joined her by the windows. Her reflection in the glass appeared ghostlike and eerie. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, comfort her, but remained at a distance.

  “Now you know. I’m an awful person,” she said.

  “No. Not awful. Hurting.”

  “Damn, Lance, how are you so good all the time? How do you always know what to say so that I feel understood instead of judged?”

  “I’m not good all the time. You know how I wrecked my life. No one to blame but myself.”

  “I blame the boss’s daughter.” She rested the side of her head against his shoulder. “I could never blame you for anything. You’re too good for this world.”

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  Mary jerked away. “No, I’m not doing this. I’m not ruining our fun night. This is the beginning of a new year. We’re going for broke.” She scurried across to the kitchen and grabbed the pitcher of drinks. “You’ve got to catch up. It’s terrible manners to let a lady get drunk while you remain sensible and sober.”

  “Sensible and sober? God, I sound like an old man.” He fetched his drink from the coffee table and finished the dregs. “Here, give me that pitcher. I don’t trust you.”

  She laughed. “Because I’m drunk?”

  “Yes, and my furniture’s white.” He poured them both a new drink. “I’m worried you’re going to be sick.”

  “No way. I ate a huge dinner. I’m fine.” She fell back onto the couch and planted her legs on the coffee table. Her toenails were painted pink and reminded him of perfect seashells. “My mom always made me come up with New Year’s resolutions. Did you guys do those?”

  “Sure. My mom was always big on making goals. I mean, not that we stuck to them, but yeah.” He took the chair she’d vacated earlier, afraid if he sat by her he might lose it and pull her onto his lap.

  “Do you have any for this year?” Mary asked.

  “Read more.” He grinned at her. “Someone suggested that.” She’d given him a stack of some of her favorite books for a Christmas present.

  “What else?” she asked.

  “I’d like to find someone. The right someone. I guess that’s not a resolution, but a wish.”

  Her voice softened. “Those are different things, yes.” She fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt before she leapt up. “We need music. Something cheery.”

  He found his phone and turned on the Bluetooth speakers. A pop song came on, sexy and up-tempo.

  “Is this the dancing-on-the-table portion of the evening?” He leaned back in his chair like he was ready to watch a show.

  In front of the fireplace, she swayed to the music and flashed him a saucy grin. “What? You think I won’t do it?”

  “I know you won’t do it.”

  “Really? Well, how about this?” She put aside her drink and stepped onto the coffee table. With her arms stretched out above her head, she moved her hips in a circle one way and then the other. Maybe she was right. Librarians knew how to party.

  “Didn’t you say something about underwear?” The comment flew from his mouth without proper evaluation of the consequences.

  Her hip gyration commenced. With an evil glint in her eyes, she gazed at him. “You don’t think I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh, I’m doing it all right. And you have to watch. No turning away now.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m turning away,” he said gruffly.

  She slipped the shorts down her hips and let them drop to the tabletop. Like a professional stripper, she stepped out of them and kicked them across the room to where he sat.

  “Told you I’d do it.” She turned in a circle, displaying her perky bottom in pair of red bikini panties. “Do you like them? They’re red for New Year’s Eve.”

  He swallowed. “I don’t see any dancing.”

  She tossed her hair behind her shoulders. “I’ve decided it’s hot in here with the fire and all. So, I’m upping the game. What do I get if I take off the t-shirt too?”

  “First take it off and then I’ll tell you.”

  She smiled, sexier than any woman he’d ever seen, and lifted her shirt, inch by excruciatingly slow inch, up her torso and over her head.

  The bra was red and lacy and scooped low over her round breasts. Damn, she was gorgeous.

  “The bra matches the panties,” he said. “Nice.”

  “Of course. Bra and panties have to match. Especially on New Year’s Eve.” She tossed the shirt to him. “Now, pay up.”

  “What do you want?” His voice cracked.

  “I want you to dance with me.”

  “With or without clothes?”

  “Your choice.”

  As if planned, a ballad came on the stereo. He unbuttoned his shirt and peeled off his socks. In just his jeans, he moved across the room like an invisible ribbon pulled him to her. When he reached her, he lif
ted her from the table and set her on the floor. He put his arms around her waist. She placed her hands on his neck and drew him nearer. The scent of her perfume made him heady as they swayed to the music.

  After a few minutes, she trailed her fingertips down his torso until she reached his stomach. “You’ve been hiding your abs from me.”

  “They’ve been there.” Waiting for you. He ran his fingertips up the length of her legs. Her skin was silk. His thumbs slipped under her panties and caressed the sides of her hips.

  She sighed against him. “I want you to kiss me again.”

  He pressed his mouth to the nape of her neck before working his way up to her mouth but stopped before he kissed her. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I want all of you.”

  She was drunk. He knew this was wrong. But he had to have her.

  “Do you want me?” she asked.

  “God yes.” He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. “You have no idea how much.” He kissed her, finally, rough and hard. She responded with the same raw passion.

  When they fell apart, breathless, she looked up at him. “I’m on the pill and I’m allergic to latex.”

  “I’m clean. You don’t have to worry.”

  “But this has to be sex only.” She played with the lock of hair that fell over his forehead. “Just tonight. Never again.”

  “Why?” He reached under her bra with an indolent finger, smiling when he felt her shudder.

  “I can’t be with someone nice. We’re a terrible match. I’m mean and bitter.”

  “Maybe I’m not as nice as I seem. The things I want to do to you are definitely not nice.” He moved his hands to brush the bare skin above her tailbone.

  “It’s been so long. I may have forgotten how.”

  “I’d like to say I’ll be gentle, but that’s a lie.” With one quick movement, he wrapped her legs around his waist and shoved her against the wall. He kissed her mouth with increased urgency as his dexterous fingers unsnapped her bra.

  “One night. That’s all it can be.” She groaned as he swept his thumb over her nipple.

  “No more talking.” He tossed her onto the soft rug in front of the fireplace and covered her body with his.