The Other Man(4)

“I . . . went through an ugly divorce, over a year ago, and I decided to stay in one place for a bit, get my head on straight.”

“Vegas is an interesting place to stay to try to get your head on straight.”

That made me laugh because it was very true.  Still, somehow it worked for me.  “My boys enjoy it, and they enjoy staying in one place.  I took them everywhere with me when they were kids.”

“Do they live with you?”

“No, but they live close and visit often.”

“So now they hate to travel?”

“No, I think they still love it, I just think they’re more well-rounded than I am.  What about you?”

“I enjoy traveling, and I’ve done a fair amount of it.”

That was it, nothing else.  He wasn’t a sharer.

“Where did you live before Vegas?”

“Here and there.”

“Which was your favorite?  Here or there?”

I got a slightly bigger smile for that one.  “Here.  Right here.  Do you have any other pets?”

Hello, random.  “No.  Just ’Tator here.  How about you?”

“No pets.  No kids.”

I’d figured.  He didn’t seem the type to have any attachments at all, let alone dependents.

I turned my head slightly and found his eyes on me, full of a disconcerting razor-sharp focus.

It was so disconcerting, in fact, that I began to question what I was doing.  This wasn’t me.  I’d felt a surprising surge of lust and let it temporarily cloud my judgement.

“Knock it off,” he said lightly, or as lightly as he could with that gravelly, bar brawler voice of his.  “Quit thinking so hard.  I told you, you won’t regret this.  You might be too sore to walk without a limp tomorrow, but you’ll be happy about it.”

Something heady and electrifying shot through me.

My nostrils flared, and my breath grew short.

He’d guessed what I was thinking.  That, and all of the sexy, arrogant things he’d just spouted, had me back to being too turned on to think properly.

A man that knew how to read a woman.  That combined with his knockout body and those magnums, well, I couldn’t help it, expectations were getting very unrealistic.

This was not good.  It’d been too long for me, and it had just occurred to me that I was a bit desperate.

I missed penis.  I liked penis, and this sexy creature apparently had an impressive one.  The inner hussy that I never knew I had wanted badly to see it.  See it, and a lot of other things that flashed through my head quite vividly.

Beyond my impeccable instincts and against my better judgement, I kept right on walking with him, all the way to my front door.

I let him into my house, and he prowled inside.

I followed him, letting ’Tato off his leash.

’Tato bolted straight for the kitchen, then out his oversized doggy door into the backyard.

Acutely aware of the eyes burning holes into my back, I went into the kitchen, washed up, and got a pot of coffee brewing.

When I turned to look at him, Heath was leaning against my counter, bulging arms crossed over his chest.  It didn’t even feel like my kitchen anymore with him in it.

The man staked his claim on everything.  He owned whatever space he occupied.

That sparked a visual that made me shiver, head to toe.

He just watched me, eyes way too intense, not even a hint of a smile on his mouth.

“Come here,” he said, voice low and guttural.

The most unnerving shock went through me, but I went.

I was standing almost close enough for our chests to touch when he reached up with one hand, gripped my thick braid, and began to wrap it around his heavy fist.  He did this until his knuckles were digging into my scalp and then he pulled a little harder.

It stung, but it wasn’t the sort of pain you wanted to shy away from.  Not at all.  It was the kind you wanted to lean into, to explore to its fullest, because you knew that just on the other side of that pain was intense pleasure.

“How rough can you take it, Lourdes?” he asked, bringing his mouth very close to mine.

I was trying not to pant.  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly.  “Why don’t you show me what you got?”

He smiled, and this time, it very nearly reached his eyes.  “You asked for it.”

CHAPTER THREE

I thought he was going to kiss me.  I wanted him to.  I wanted that and more.  But he didn’t, not then.

Instead, he let me go, and stepped back, nodding his head at the coffee pot that had just finished brewing.  “I know better than to come between a woman and her morning caffeine.”

I smiled wryly, but as I prepared us both a cup, my hands were shaking so hard that I wondered if I should even drink it.  I was already wound up too tight to contain.

“How do you take it?” I asked, my back to him, my shaking hand on the creamer.

Before he even touched me, I felt him getting closer.  I shivered as he pressed his chest against my back, his taller form folding over me until his hands braced on either side of mine, gripping the counter’s edge.

“I’d rather show you than tell you,” his gravelly voice rasped into my ear.