Bad Girl by Night (12 page)

“People like traditions,” Tommy said, putting on his voice of great wisdom. “Nobody likes to see one die, especially in a place like this where old-fashioned ideals are appreciated.”

“Next up—” The microphone lady paused. “Oh, look here—it’s our beautiful contest-winning chocolate cream pie by Carly. Now, what do I hear bid for
this
wonderful pie?”

True to form, Barlow opened with a bid of seven dollars.

On the other side of the crowd, Frank Schubert went to eight, and then the guy standing with Carly and her pregnant friend raised it to ten. “That’s Hank—he’s married to Dana there,” Tom said, pointing and confirming Jake’s assumptions.

Then Barlow took the bid to twelve.

And that’s when Jake yelled out, “I’ll go twenty.”

Tommy and Tina just stared. “What happened to this being an outdated tradition?” Tina asked.

“And what happened to taking my advice?” Tom chimed in.

But Jake couldn’t reply because old Barlow had upped the bid to twenty-two, and Jake decided not to fool around here, so he said, “Thirty-five,” and the crowd gasped.

And he met Carly’s horrified gaze across the way.

Next thing he knew, she was elbowing her buddy Hank, clearly prodding him to bid higher, but he was looking at her like she was crazy, and the pregnant woman between them, for some reason, appeared elated by the whole situation.

“Well then,” the emcee lady finally said, sounding a little sly, “looks like Carly’s winning pie goes to our newest police officer, and for a very fine price, too. You two enjoy yourselves, now.”

Next to him, Tommy murmured, “I’m tellin’ ya, pal, not only are you wasting your time, but you just wasted thirty-five damn dollars, too.”

Jake, his eyebrows raised, drew his gaze from Carly to ask his friend, “What—the pie’s no good?”

And Tommy just laughed. “Oh, I’m sure the pie’s good, but you didn’t pay all that money just for pie.” Then he peered down at his petite wife. “Jake here’s got his eye on Carly.”

Tina’s brow knit as she cast him a look of doubt. “Oh, Jake,” she said, her tone one of pity. “Carly’s a real nice girl and all, but . . . she just doesn’t date.”

“That’s what I hear. But no worries, since I didn’t ask her out on one. All I did was buy a pie.” Then he eased upright from where he’d been leaning against the brick to say, “And now, if you’ll excuse me, my shift just officially ended, so I’m gonna go claim my prize.”

 

 

C
arly just sighed—as Beth Anne joined Dana and Hank beside her on the street to smile and elbow her like something wonderful had just taken place, and as Officer Jake Lockhart wove his way to her through the crowd, pie in hand. “This is all your fault,” she muttered to Dana and Beth Anne through clenched teeth.

“And it’s exactly what I’d hoped might happen,” Dana chirped cheerfully.

Of course, she couldn’t expect her friends to understand why she wanted nothing to do with him. She could only imagine the looks on their faces if she blurted out the truth right now:
I had a very nasty threesome with him and his friend one night, and now I’m mortified every time I see him.

And no wonder her friends wanted her to find a nice guy to date. They didn’t know her other truth, either:
I can’t seem to have good sex with anyone except strangers.
Maybe if she lived in a big city where everyone didn’t know everyone else’s business, she would have done something like see a therapist by now, to try to figure out the problem and work through it—but as it was, she’d just suffered alone in silence her whole adult life, and now here she was, paying for it.

Jake greeted her with a big, sarcastic, animated grin, saying, “Hi there,
Carly”
—but only she knew he was actually reminding her he’d once known her by another name. “I bought your pie. It came with everything we need, too,” he said, holding up paper plates and plastic utensils.

Her stomach dropped a little further. Because the sight of him with her pie, right in front of her, brought home the fact that this was real and she had to deal with it. “So I see,” she said. She didn’t return his smile. She tried to look emotionless, in fact, because all her friends were watching, and other townspeople, too, and she felt as if she were on a stage, with everyone taking in her every move, expression, and response.

“And that means you have to eat it with me—right?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Just a slice,” she pointed out.

“Whatever. Come on,” he said, then shoved the forks and knife into his pocket, freeing up one hand, with which he boldly grabbed onto hers and began to walk, tugging her away from her friends. And unfortunately, no one stopped him. Unfortunately, her friends mistakenly thought this was the best thing that had happened to her in years—when it was actually among the worst.

“Where are we going?” she asked as they walked, the crowd around them growing thinner.

He barely bothered to look at her as he said, “I don’t know. Just somewhere away from the festival.”

She sighed and admitted reluctantly, “I know a quiet place.” He’d started up Maple, the street that made a T with Main right next to her building, so she pointed up the slight incline. After a rise of two blocks lay the railroad tracks, running parallel to Main, along with a park bench that faced away from the tracks, toward town.

They walked the whole way hand in hand, and she hated how warm that mere touch made her feel inside, the way she felt it
everywhere
, even in her panties.

As they reached the tracks, Jake said, “Funny place for a bench.”

“Not really. Look the other way.”

Letting go of her hand, he turned to see that the slope had led them higher than he’d probably realized, providing a bird’s-eye view of the meadows and tree lines beyond the town. Much of the general area was flat, so the view made it worth putting a bench here. “Hmm—nice,” he said, his manner making it clear he was still more interested in her and the whole pie-eating thing than in the landscape.

As they took a seat, Jake did the honors, using the plastic knife provided with the pie to cut a couple of pieces, and she held the plates as he maneuvered the slices onto them. God, this was weird. Weirder than weird.
A month ago we’re going at each other like rabid animals—today we’re eating pie two blocks from my home.

Finally, he set the pie plate aside, handed her a fork, and stabbed his own down through the fluffy meringue sprinkled with dark chocolate shavings to the soft pudding mixture below. “I’m sure you’re pissed I bought the pie, but I just want you to talk to me,” he told her. He sounded resolute and a little irate, like a man determined to have his way. And looked like he was getting it, despite her best efforts.

“Why?” she asked. Because the answer could be . . . so many things. She really had no idea why he was bent on talking with her. Did he just want her to own up to what had happened between them? Or was it something more?

“Maybe I don’t like being lied to,” he replied, looking her in the eye. His tone caused her fork to stop in midair. “Maybe I’d feel better if I just knew what that was about.”

She let out a long sigh, thinking, considering her options—few as there were.

God. Maybe it was best to just tell him. To just . . . humiliate herself a little further and spit out the truth.

Here goes.
As he finally shoveled a bite of pie into his mouth, she dropped her gaze to her own slice. “All right, you want to know? Here it is. I wanted sex, and there’s no one around
here
I wanted to do it with, so I went someplace else. Happy now?”

“Good pie,” he said—then raised his eyes from his plate to her. “But no. I’m not happy yet. Why the fake name?”

She took a deep breath, let it back out. More truth. Even if it was embarrassing. She didn’t like admitting this, but the truth was all she had now, and if she gave it to him, maybe he’d finally leave her alone. “It just . . . makes it easier. If I sort of . . . act like someone else.” Her face flushed with warmth at the confession.

He ate another bite and flashed her a matter-of-fact gaze. “For the record, I’d have been just as happy to have sex with the
real
you.”

The words made her flinch slightly; she blinked as she gathered her thoughts. And she glanced down at herself, feeling . . . plain. Like the small-town girl she was. She thought of that night—how handsome and together he’d seemed, how she’d pegged him as a pilot. He might
not
have been a pilot, but he’d felt like someone who was completely out of her league in real life, a guy who could get any girl he wanted. So she wasn’t sure she believed him. “I’m not exactly as alluring as Desiree,” she pointed out.

“You’re just as pretty,” he told her without missing a beat, still seeming serious and annoyed. “Maybe not as nice—the jury’s still out on that one. But damn, you’re nothing if not a woman of mystery, and trust me, that lures me more than I want it to.” After another forkful of pie, he said, “Where’d you get the name?”

Crap. Even before she answered, another hot blush climbed her cheeks. “It’s . . . desire, with an
e
added on. I guess I thought it sounded exotic, foreign or something, not so . . . small town.”

“And why couldn’t you tell me all this before now, the other times I tried to talk to you? Why did it cost me thirty-five dollars to make you be civil to me?” He glanced back to his plate again. “Although I’ll admit this is damn excellent pie.”

Carly released yet another sigh, thinking back, wondering why he couldn’t figure this part out himself, why he had to make her say it out loud. “The first time I saw you here, in Schubert’s, I was too shocked. Mortified, actually.
Horrified
. I’ve been living in fear ever since that you’ll tell everybody and ruin my life.”

“Why would I want to ruin your life?”

“Because I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that what you know about me is a pretty juicy secret, and because guys are . . .”

“Dogs? Yeah, a lot of the time we are. But I wouldn’t do that to you, no matter how snotty you are to me.”

Wow—
that
was a relief. A big one.

But that hadn’t been the only problem. “And even now, it’s . . . hard to face you. It’s hard to know you live here, for God’s sake, and that I have to see you on a regular basis.”

He looked truly perplexed, giving his head a short shake. “Why?”

She let out an irritated breath. “My God—think about it! Think about that night.” But—oh hell—she wished she hadn’t said that, since now they were
both
thinking about it. How wanton she’d been—craving those two rock-hard erections like they were sustenance, like they were giving her life. She’d never been more brazen. “I can’t imagine what you think of me.”

“In what regard?” he asked calmly, but his voice came a little deeper, and she knew he was remembering how dirty she’d been, too—and maybe it was even exciting him a little.

She swallowed around the lump now swelling in her throat. Christ, this was horrible to talk about. And God, how she wished she could make it all go away. “Morally,” she told him, her voice coming too soft, like a sinner confessing in church.

He just looked at her for a minute, and she felt it
all
—the lust, the sin, the regret. Until he said, “Who am
I
to judge, honey? I was there, too.”

“But I was the one who . . .” Oh damn, her voice was getting shaky. She’d had to bring this up, hadn’t she? “The one who . . . suggested it, and who was with . . . you know . . . two people of the opposite sex.” By the time she managed
that
part, it was getting hard to breathe.

“The truth is,” Jake said, his eyes a little kinder now, for the first time, “I thought you were amazing.”

Carly just blinked, not sure what to think, how to take it.

“You were so damn smooth, confident. Not a girl who cared what I thought of her morally, either,” he pointed out.

“Well, that was Desiree,” she explained. “Not me.”

His brow knit. “So it’s not just a name? You’re like . . . a whole different person?”

God, he thought she was weird. And she probably was. She swallowed, hard.

“Something like that,” she managed. “When you grow up in a small town and everyone has this set idea of who you are, and it’s someone who’s
perfect
. . . it’s just hard to let anything else out. Anything . . . sexual, I mean. Until I got the idea of making myself look different. And then came the name.” God, her biggest secret, being spilled between them on a park bench as simply as if they were discussing the weather. No one else knew this stuff—
no one
. Lord. Now, not only did she have sex with strangers—she told them her deepest secrets, too.

“So this wasn’t the first time you’ve done it,” he said.

“No.” Another shameful admission. And none of his business really, yet she’d gotten used to answering him now and the response had just come out. “But it was the only time I was with more than one guy,” she said. It seemed an important distinction to her.

“I’m still not judging you, by the way.”

“People here . . .
they
would judge me.”

He nodded. “I know.”

“They’re good people, but . . . well, that’s the problem here, I suppose—
they’re good people
. With a pretty particular sense of right and wrong.”

He just nodded, then gave her a sideways glance. “In fairness, since you’re telling
me
stuff, I feel like I should tell
you
something, too. So—just so you know—that night was . . . the best sex of my life.”

“Really?” The fact was, she knew she was good. Guys told her. Frequently. But still . . . she figured someone’s
best
came . . . not with a stranger.

He gave a firm nod, his eyes still meeting hers, and she sensed them both remembering again. More of it. And not the parts with Colt. No, now it was the parts with just the two of them rolling hot and heavy through their minds. She didn’t know
how
she knew that, but she just did. Images bit at her. How she’d ridden him on the bed. The way he’d held her down and she’d liked it. The spanking she’d demanded.