Addicted to You (18 page)

“
You.
Want to be a social worker?”

Katie straightened her spine and glared up at him in the chair, even though she knew he couldn’t make out her defiance in the dim light. “I want to do something where I make a difference. And yeah . . . social work was one of the fields I was considering,” she said defensively.

“You’d never last,” Monty said bluntly. She heard a metallic sound and knew he’d opened the tackle box she’d seen earlier next to his chair.

“How do you know?” she asked. “You don’t even know me.”

He made a scoffing sound that told Katie loud and clear he thought he knew enough. The cricket’s solo chirps seemed to intensify to a screech in the silent seconds that followed.

“You really want to make a difference?” Monty asked after a moment.

“I really do.”

“Meet me Sunday morning at the diner. Eight o’clock.”

“Okay,” Katie agreed. She waited expectantly, but Monty didn’t appear to plan on telling her anything else. She stood and started to carefully make her way back on the dock when Monty called out to her. A small flashlight blinked on.

“Here. Take this,” the older man said.

Katie accepted the flashlight with a word of thanks. She could tell by his tone that Monty didn’t take much stock in her proposed career plans, but she had to start somewhere, didn’t she? If she was thwarted every time someone gave her an incredulous look or laughed at her, she’d never get anywhere.

Before returning to Rill’s house—something she was definitely dragging her feet about doing—she found the entrance to the co-op. Olive had told her the store would be open for another hour or so. She was amazed at the variety and quantity of food offered on the farm. She stocked up on cartons of fresh vegetables, fruit, rice and freshly baked bread.

Everything was dark and quiet when she pulled up to Rill’s at a little past eight in the evening. Rill’s car was still parked out front, but the house felt empty to her. Where had he gone? He seemed to make a habit out of disappearing into thin air.

She flipped on the light in the kitchen. The warm glow seemed to chase away some of her feelings of alienation and uncertainty. She put away the groceries she’d bought and removed some meat from the freezer. She’d prepared a salad, including some juicy tomatoes from the co-op, and was broiling two large steaks when she heard the back door open and close.

Leave it to the scent of cooking beef to call a man home, she thought wryly.

She was a little nervous by the time she spied Rill’s large shadow moving toward her from the darkened living room, but she was determined not to show it. She put two plates on the counter.

“Hey,” she said, her gaze flickering over him. His dark hair looked windblown. “You been walking?”

“Yeah.”

She had a vivid impression of them both studiously ignoring the chartreuse bull elephant in the room and resisted a hysterical urge to laugh. “I made you a steak. You hungry?”

He shifted uneasily on his booted feet. His expression was guarded, but also . . . pained somehow.

“You okay, Rill?” she asked softly.

“I’m fine.” He came into the kitchen and made himself useful, getting silverware, glasses and napkins while Katie removed the fragrant steaks from the broiler. Feeling awkward but determined, she asked Rill where he wanted to eat. They usually ate separately, but Katie wanted to halt that routine before it became a habit. He shrugged and nodded at the small table situated near the front windows.

The food had been good, but the conversation had been stilted and terrible, Katie reflected as she took her last bite of salad. Each of them tried twice to bring up a safe topic while they ate. Every time, their attempts seemed to be sucked into the vacuum of straining silence.

Katie had to admit, the fact that Rill’d tried, at least, had meant a lot to her.

When the awkward silence continued even as they both cleaned up in the kitchen, Katie decided she’d had enough. She was still hurt by what Rill had said upstairs. Confused. Pissed. Why did
she
have to be the one to offer the olive branch? By the time Rill had scraped the broiler clean and she’d dried it and put it away, Katie’d had enough.

“I’m going upstairs,” she said quietly.

“No, Katie. Wait,” he said, turning around from where he stood at the sink. She froze in her retreat and met his gaze fully for the first time that evening.

“I . . . want to tell you something,” he began gruffly.

“What?” Katie prompted when he winced and glanced away.

“I’m not sure.”

“Fine,” she said abruptly. “I’m going upstairs, then.”

“Wait a second,” he said in a low but insistent tone. “Do you think this is easy for me?”

She looked at him, her eyebrows raised in sarcastic expectation. His jaw moved as though he were chewing on a rock.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as if he’d just spit the rock out of his mouth.

It didn’t satisfy her. Not in the least.

“For what, exactly?” she asked bluntly.

He glanced at her in surprise. “For . . . for letting it happen.”

She turned and started out of the room.

“Wait . . . Katie?” he called out.

“What?” she asked, turning so quickly her long hair whipped into her face. She pushed it back impatiently. “Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t already know, Rill? Jesus. You can’t even put it into words.”

His nostrils flared in anger.

“I’m trying to apologize for ‘putting it into words.’ I shouldn’t have said what I said before. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

“Fine. Apology accepted. If that’s what you want to call it.” Katie added the last under her breath before she turned again and started to head for the stairs.

“Don’t walk away from me, Katie.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked, spinning around once again at his quiet but commanding voice. “You seem to find my presence unsettling somehow. I told you before I knew that. I’m
still
not going. You can apologize all you want. By the way, you should work on that hangdog expression. Pick up some tips from Barnyard, because your acting is
terrible
.”

His eyes flashed dangerously. “I’m not acting, you little . . .”

“What?” she asked aggressively. “Child? Nuisance? Convenient piece of ass?”

He expression went rigid. “I was going to say
idiot
, you little idiot.”

Her chin went up. She crossed her hands beneath her breasts. He inhaled in exasperation when he took note of her defiance.

“Can’t you see this is a mistake? You don’t
belong
here, Katie.”

“Oh, yeah? When’s the last time you got shit-faced?”

His expression flattened. Katie zoomed in for the kill.

“The night I got here, right? You’ve been sober going on two weeks now. So you know what that tells me, Rill? For this moment in time of my life, this is
exactly
where I belong.” She jabbed her finger down at the chipped linoleum floor. Incredulity flickered over his rugged features.

“That’s your plan? To drive me so nuts that I can’t even find any peace in a whiskey bottle?”

“Peace,”
she repeated sarcastically. “The only reason you were so calm is you were too drunk to feel anything else.”

“You’re not my type, Katie,” he bellowed abruptly, startling her. It took a second for the sting from his words to fully settle, but when it did, Katie was galvanized.

“You think you’re telling me something I don’t know? What precisely is it that you find unappealing about me? Come on, don’t be a coward. Just say it!” She stepped toward him in a challenging gesture.

“You want me to say it?” he shouted.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

He glanced down over her, burning her with his gaze. “You’re too obvious, with your short skirts and tight jeans . . . all that hair. Everyone has got to drop what they’re doing when Katie Hughes blows into a room like a sexed-up whirlwind. What are you trying to prove, tempting a man until he goes and does something he’s bound to regret? Why can’t you just give it a rest, Katie?” He made an angry slashing motion with his hand. “I can’t frickin’ think straight when you’re around.”

His words seemed to hang in the air like the vibrations of a struck gong, making her ears ring.

“Oh, I see,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m too much of a slut for you, is that it, Rill? I’m not ladylike enough. I’m not soft-spoken. I’m not
Eden
; isn’t that right?” She spun around, suddenly compelled. She started flinging open drawer after drawer, rattling utensils and tableware.

“I don’t think you’re a slut, for fuck’s sake. . . . What are you doing?” Rill asked from behind her, sounding pissed off and bewildered.

“You think I’m too flagrant, is that it? Well,
fine
,” she spat viciously. Her hands settled on the handles of an aged pair of gardening sheers. She grabbed a handful of curls above her shoulder and opened the scissors.

“Jaysus fucking Christ.”

He grabbed the hand holding the sheers in an iron grip. Katie just moved the hunk of hair over to where the scissors were. Rill cursed lividly and held the wrist gripping her hair, as well. His grip tightened uncomfortably on the hand holding the scissors.

“Let go of them, Katie, or I swear I’m going to turn you over my knee,” he warned in a low, vibrating, thickly accented voice.

She jerked extra hard the wrist of the hand holding her hair and broke free.

“You little . . .” He closed his arms round her, forcing both of her hands down to her sides. She had to let go of her hair, but the scissors were still clutched in her hand a few inches away from her thigh.

“Drop those fucking scissors,” Rill demanded.

“No.” She struggled in his hold, but he held her fast, her elbows pinned to her sides. “
God
, I hate you, Rill Pierce.”

But it was a lie. The realization that it was she—Katie—she loathed at that moment made her growl in pure frustration. She dropped the scissors to the floor and let her leg muscles go slack. Rill let out a stream of curses as they both toppled off balance. He was so large, and she was so small, however, that he almost immediately righted himself. He swung her into the air and began to walk to the living room with a long-legged stride, Katie’s back pressed to his front and her booted feet flaying the air in front of her.

“Put me down,”
she shouted, but Rill’s anger seemed to even exceed her own. She caught a glimpse of his rigid features and fiery eyes when he hoisted her upper body with his arms and draped her thighs in the crook of his elbow. He sat down on the couch, holding her struggling, squirming body in his lap, one forearm holding her down like a steel bar at her middle back.

“I don’t believe you,” he grated out furiously as he pushed her skirt up. Cool air tickled her naked thighs. He smacked the bottom curve of a buttock when she tried to slide off the end of his knees onto the floor, and then hauled her back up onto his lap. Her heart beat wildly in her ears in rising anticipation, and sure enough, his palm came down again, smacking her other buttock.

“Stop it! How dare you,” she squealed when he spanked her again. Her muscles were pulled so tight as she struggled that the smack of skin against skin sounded like gunfire going off in the still room.

“How dare
I
? You were going to
cut off
your fucking hair!” Rill boomed above her. He sounded personally affronted. He made a sound of impatience. Katie went still for a moment when he grabbed both sides of the bikini briefs she was wearing and shoved them into the crack of her ass, exposing her buttocks.

“No!” she cried out when he held her firmly and raised his left hand. Her entire body tightened as he began to smack her bottom repeatedly. The blows weren’t hard, but they stung. She wiggled beneath his hand at her back, trying to avoid the steady reign of spanks by making her ass a moving target. But Rill didn’t seem to mind; in fact, her desperate squirming seemed to amplify the rate of his spankings.

“Stop it!” she screamed finally between pants.

When he did, indeed, cease for a moment, Katie came up on her elbows and spit her hair out of her face. Tears wet her cheeks; not tears of pain, but tears of anger and humiliation.

Her mind kept going back to those blistering moments in the kitchen when Rill had been pointing out her imperfections. Her bottom smarted from his spankings.

The bastard
. Katie could only imagine how pink her ass was.

She’d noticed he’d pinkened it when he’d been eating her last night as well. The memory sent a flush of heat through her pussy, making it tingle nearly as much as her spanked ass.
Everything
started to buzz pleasurably down there.

She started when Rill placed a hand on her burning right buttock. He was so large that he held the whole thing in his hand. Beneath her lower belly, she felt his cock leap and swell in his jeans.

She craned her head around and glanced warily at his face. An intimidating snarl shaped his firm lips. His eyes blazed. Good God. She’d been right in thinking he appeared to be taking her haircutting attempt as a personal affront. He looked as insulted as if she’d just spit in his face. A feeling of shame burrowed into her awareness.

He said nothing, but he lifted his forearm from her back and placed his hand at the back of her head. He pushed until her forehead hit the couch cushion. Katie lay there in his lap, her breath coming in jagged pants, her eyes wide in anticipation as he slid her panties down to her thighs.

He began spanking her again, but this time it was different, and both of them knew it. She didn’t sit still for this, either, but her wiggling wasn’t entirely for the purpose of escape. She found herself waiting for the friction of his popping palm, getting excited by the taut smacking sound and the resulting prickling sensation in her flesh.

Besides, when she squirmed, she traced the contours of Rill’s straining cock with her flesh.

The smacking sounds filled the room as he spanked her again and again. Finally, Rill grew tired of her frantic movements.