Set boundaries and be on the right side of the law. To do the right thing. Because doing the wrong thing only got me abandoned.
I couldn’t tell any of them that. No one here in Sparks knew my sordid secret.
“I’m not girlfriend material.”
Indi frowned. “That’s bullshit. You’re a guy’s dream girlfriend.”
Holly nodded.
“Why? Because I’ve got the beauty-queen face?”
“Well, no,” Indi sputtered.
“See, that’s what men think. They take one look at this mug and think they know me. They make up some fantasy girl and slap my face on the top and think they’ve found heaven.” I shook my head. “That’s not me.”
“I think Hayes sees the real you,” Quincy said. “I mean, I don’t think he was looking for the girl next door. My sense is that he likes a strong woman.”
I turned my coffee cup in a circle. Quincy was right. Hayes did see the real me. Which honestly was the part that scared me the most. I’d learned to live without depending on anyone after having both parents leave me high and dry. I wasn’t about to start relying on someone now.
“Maybe,” I said noncommittally. “But I’m not interested in a relationship. Sex is easy. No talking–in English or Spanish–and no feelings get involved.”
Quincy laughed. “Good luck with that. When those men set their sights on something they want–bad guy or hot woman–nothing’s going to get in their way.”
“Amen to that,” Indi added.
Great. I was in really big trouble because my words and my security system weren’t getting in his way.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
MEGAN
I pulled into my garage after work. After my lunch with the girls, there had been a hit-and-run on the highway that ended with two locals in the hospital. That was the downside of law enforcement in a small town. You knew everyone, which meant every tragedy hurt. There was no separation.
Usually, after a shift like this, I wanted a cold beer, a shower, and mindless reality TV. But over the past five days–I’d definitely been keeping count–Hayes had shown up and fucked every thought from my head. I’d even let him be in control because he was able to make me forget everything and only feel.
Boy, did I feel. Hayes was a talented lover. Skilled. Inventive. Completely uninhibited and somehow picked up on every possible thing that made me hot. Dirty talk. Butt stuff. Restraints. I had no idea I had a little kink in me, but in the past five days we’d explored it all.
Not all because the man was really inventive. That made me eager for more.
Wasn’t it also really annoying though? I’d told him just sex. No strings. He’d followed through on that, fucking me into delicious soreness and lethargy then leaving.
Yeah, he fucked and fled, just as I’d wanted.
Except he kept coming back for more.
And more. Just like I’d told the girls, nothing seemed to get him to stop.
He was as insatiable as I was. As eager. And content with nothing more than a string of simple sex.
Except it wasn’t simple, and I craved more. And him. That was the problem. I liked him. His consistency. His breaking into my house, proving that nothing was going to stop him.
I closed the garage door and lifted my hand to turn the knob to my house. Then froze.
The alarm was off-line. My heart skittered, and I couldn’t help but smile. He was here. Earlier than usual. Perfect… because I wanted to be bent over my kitchen counter and taken hard.
I should be pissed that he could bypass my state-of-the-art security system. I’d told him off. Once. But he’d been insulted and told me, “The day I can’t breach an alarm is the day you bury me at sea.”
Since then, I let it go. He wasn’t here to fuck with me. No, he was here to fuck me.
What I found inside wasn’t Hayes with a big dick and a control complex a mile wide.
No, there was a balding man sitting at my kitchen table, sipping on a beer from my fridge.
I pulled my revolver from my holster and aimed it at his head, not because he was a stranger but because I knew him all too well. “I told you not to ever come here.”
My father ignored the gun and my unwelcoming words. “Hey, Meggie.” He looked me up and down. “You look great.”
My upper lip curled. If there was one thing I’d been told far too often in my life, it was how pretty I was. I’d heard it so much it had become an instant piss-off for me.
“You look like shit.” It was true. He had one arm in a sling and cuts and bruises on his face and arms, presumably from the car accident I’d read about. Otherwise, he looked like himself although older. Smoking had made his face more lined.
He was an aging jewel thief who hadn’t thought twice about letting his seventeen-year-old daughter take the fall for the job he pulled her into. It’d been about five years since I’d seen him last. Since the last time he appeared out of the blue like this. He hadn’t lingered then–because I hadn’t given him what he’d wanted–and I would make sure he didn’t do so now.