Beautiful Scars (17 page)

“Hmmm. Should I stop?”

As he went to pull his hand away, she grabbed his wrist. “No.”

Blood rushed hotly to her cheeks.

“Pull your panties down,” he said.

She swallowed, looking around.

“Nobody is paying attention, Chaili. The windows are tinted. Besides you’d have to be in a truck or something to really see in and be able to tell what you’re doing…what I’m going to do.” He pulled his hand away, slowly, his fingers trailing over her thigh. “But if you don’t want to take them off…”

Groaning, she wiggled around until she could hook her fingers in the waistband of her panties, lifting her hips as much as the seatbelt would allow, working them down. Once she had them off, she went to stuff them in her purse but Marc held out his hand. “I want them.”

She glared at him.

He continued to wait patiently.

Swearing, she pushed her panties into his hand. “We still haven’t had that talk,” she mumbled.

“Have I done anything outside your limits?”

“No.” She almost wished she could say otherwise—wished she could maintain a little bit of distance between them, just to protect herself, because it would be that much easier when the end came, but she couldn’t. It was like she had no brakes with him.

“You know what will make me stop, right?”

Chaili nodded, biting her lip and sinking back into the seat. When he pushed the panel of her skirt aside, she hissed out a breath.

Marc smiled, his lids drooping. “You’re so damned wet for me. I love it.”

A truck blasted by.

She sat up straight, squeezing her legs together, and then gasped as it pushed Marc’s fingers deeper inside. “Oh,” she whimpered.

“Hmmm. Chaili…I want to listen to you come.”

He stroked her, whispering to her all the while. And the entire time, he drove on down the road, navigating through traffic like he wasn’t screwing his fingers in and out of her pussy. “Ride my hand,” he growled. “Take what you need.”

She cried out, clenching her thighs around him, and rocked up, pushing one hand between her legs and stroking her clit, mindless for want of him.

“That’s it, baby…come for me.”

She came apart and it was pure torture not to watch.

But listening to her, feeling it, was a sweet seduction of its own.

She was panting, still gasping for breath a few minutes later when they pulled onto the road that led to his house. Those last few minutes had flown by in a blur and now all he wanted to do was get her to his place so he could have her.

The hard part had gone by easier than he’d thought.

He had a feeling Chaili wasn’t telling him something, but he was going to bide his time there. Once she started the work and he paid her some money upfront, he’d probably pry a little. But he wanted her comfortable enough to start working on the site first.

He’d feel better once he had her at his place, in his bed…

But that fucking talk.

“You’re bad for me,” Chaili muttered.

Stiffening, he shot her a look and saw that she was staring at him from under her lashes, a smoky smile on her lips. “Yeah?”

“Hmmm. I don’t think when I’m around you.” She smoothed her palms down her thighs, then up, dragging the silky fabric of the skirt up. “And I’m fine with that.”

“Thinking is overrated. Open your skirt.” He glanced around. Nobody. His house was in sight now too. He looked over at her, watched as she eased the panel of her skirt aside, revealing the neat curls between her thighs. He could see the gleam of wetness there, the pink of her sex. “I’d like to pull over and fuck you right here. But too many cars pass by. Public sex isn’t my thing.”

She laughed, the sound shaky and soft. “Good. It’s not really mine, either.” Then she caught her lip between her teeth. “Although I can get into watching…”

“Watching, huh?”

He hit the brakes just before he would have shot past his house. “Damn it, you’re the one who is bad for the brain.” He hit the control for the garage and pulled in. “We stay here until we talk because otherwise, I’ll have my dick inside you in five seconds once we’re out of the car,” he said bluntly, turning the car off and hitting the button to lower the garage door.

“Okay…” She stared at him, her lashes low, a feline smile curving her lips.

“One thing…what’s this about watching?”

She laughed. “Well, the whole story might piss you off. You really want to hear?”

“Yes.”

The ruby on her ring glinted at him as she pushed a hand through her hair. “It’s how Tim and I ended up…discovering our compatibilities. I think he knew I was into rough stuff, or was figuring it out. But we were at a party. I’d gone outside for some air. Somebody was smoking pot and I couldn’t stand the smell of it. While I was outside, I heard…interesting noises.” She slid him a sly look and then shrugged. “I followed. Saw a couple of people from the party having a very fun time indeed. And me, being the pervert that I am, stood there, enthralled. Tim came up behind and I was…”

She stroked a hand across her belly, eased it lower. “Very turned on. He figured it out. He didn’t say anything but on our next date, he took me to a club.”

“A club…” Shit. “Blue’s,” he said quietly.

She slanted a look at him. “Yeah. How come I’m not surprised you know about that place?”

“You…” He blew out a breath, told himself he wasn’t going to be stupid with this. Okay, so Chaili had been going to the same fucking sex club he used. He’d seen Tim around there in the years since Chaili’s divorce, but…okay. Dots connected.

“You’ve been to Blue’s,” he said slowly.

“Yeah. Seeing as how you already know it’s a sex club that caters to the kinky crowd, I don’t need to explain. I…uh…well, I didn’t figure that out until we were already inside. He paid for access and took me to the voyeur rooms. Asked me if I liked what I saw…and then he yanked my skirt up.”

Jealousy ripped through him as she bluntly said, “It was the best sex we’d ever had.”

“So you like watching.”

Chaili shrugged. “Sometimes. It was a thing with him. We’d been sleeping together and it wasn’t bad. Just wasn’t…amazing. But after that night, it was better. We were good for a while. We got married. Then he started pushing more. Seemed to think the harder he pushed the better things would get. It didn’t. Then…” She reached up, touched her chest.

Although he couldn’t see it, he knew she was tracing the lines of her tattoo. “Then you found out about the cancer.”

“You know, your sister is the entire reason I found the damn lump,” she said quietly, staring straight ahead, looking at the windshield like it held the answer to life itself. “She’d just had a friend diagnosed…young, like me. I was annoyed with her, because she was constantly yapping about how young women can get cancer too. Breast cancer hits twelve percent of us. It gets
twelve percent
of us, you know that? But it only gets the older women—I was safe until I turned forty. That’s what I thought. She said something over lunch…
do you do those exams, Chaili?
I told her
no
. She kept yammering at me. I thought I was safe,” she whispered again. “But I wasn’t. I told her I’d do the stupid thing if she’d leave me alone.”

She licked her lips and lowered her hands, twisted them in her laps. “I went home to get to work on somebody’s project. It was actually a website for a local young survivor’s group. Fitting, huh? I was putting up a few pictures and suddenly, I just got up, went into the bathroom and took off my shirt. My bra. And I felt it. It was so small, didn’t seem like it should be a big deal.”

She was crying now, silent tears rolling out of her pretty eyes. “I even asked Tim what he thought, but he didn’t even want to mess with it. It kind of freaked him out. Grossed him out too, if you want the truth. I made an appointment…had to do the mammogram and everything. And all the while, I kept telling myself it wasn’t anything to worry about.”

Leaning across the console, he hooked his arm around her neck, hugging her to him. “Chaili, fuck. I didn’t mean to bring this up.”

She laughed. “You didn’t. I did. I didn’t have to go there, it just sorta…I dunno. I think I’m more screwed up over some of this than I thought.”

As she turned her face into his neck and breathed him in, he closed his eyes.
Don’t let me screw this up
. That was all he wanted. Just that. Well, that and her. He was starting to think he wanted her forever, and he had to be careful not to mess this up.

Stroking a hand up her back, he cupped her nape, pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Come on. Let’s go inside, have a glass of wine.”

“No. I shouldn’t. I try not to drink much…it’s not good for me.” She lifted her head to smile at him, pressed her brow to his. “Besides, we’re supposed to have that all-important talk, remember? So you can fuck me as soon as we’re out of the car.”

He closed his eyes. Stroked her back. “I think I need the wine. Or a beer. Or a bottle of bourbon,” he muttered, rubbing his knuckles up and down her spine. She gutted him. Laid him low. The hell she’d gone through…and he’d never known.

He stood in the kitchen, head bowed, an amber bottle in one hand, the other rubbing the back of his neck. She should have kept her mouth shut, Chaili thought morosely. “You want to do dinner another night?” she asked softly.

“No. I want to turn back time and wring your neck for not telling me this three years ago,” he said bluntly, lifting his head and shooting her a dark look. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long drink, then set it on the counter with a heavy thunk. “But that’s not anything we can change, right? And if I’d been around more…”

“Why weren’t you?” The second she asked, she wished she could yank the argument back. “Never mind. That’s none of my business—”

“Lily. My old manager.” He shrugged, a jerky, uneasy motion that said he was a hell of a lot more uncomfortable talking about this than his tone let on. “Her. Another ex-girlfriend before that. Seemed like any time I was here for longer than a few weeks, I got in trouble so I decided I wouldn’t mess with it. It wasn’t just here, though. It was any time I tried to settle in, so I just stopped trying to settle in. And now I’m kicking my ass for doing it. But shit, I was doing that before now. I missed my sister, I missed you, missed my friends…”

I missed you
… Those words hit her. Hard and fast, like he’d punched her. But there was no pain. Just the shock. The surprise.

And it must have shown on her face, because he’d stopped talking and was staring at her. Frustrated too.

Chaili blinked, looking away from him. Now this was just perfect. She’d gone and gotten all emotional. Wasn’t that just lovely?

“Chaili,” he rasped, the growl of his voice stroking over her skin. “Now what did I do?”

“Nothing.” She licked her lips and shrugged, feeling like a fool. “You just said you’d missed me, okay? You…I’ve missed you too.”

There was a pause. Then she heard the soft scuff of his shoes over the tile as he crossed the floor to her. From the corner of her eye, she glanced at him and her breath hitched in her chest. “Did you now?” he murmured, caging her in, one arm on either side of her body.

“Yes.” She turned her head to face him, shivering as he rubbed his stubbled cheek against her. Trying to lighten the moment, she said teasingly, “How could I not? After all, I never get to hear you sing anymore.”

A grin crooked the corners of his mouth upward. “So it’s all about the singing, huh?”

“Nah. Well.” She pursed her lips and added, “Maybe a little. You do bad things to me when you sing, Marc.”

“Hmm. Maybe I’ll do more singing for you…just you.” He leaned in and nipped her ear. “We need to have that talk, though, baby girl. Why don’t we do it while I finish up dinner?”

“Why don’t we do it now…and have dinner later?” She stared at him and stroked a hand down his chest, over the flat plane of his belly. It made her smile inwardly as she felt the muscles jump, then bunch under her hand. But before she got to his belt buckle, he caught her wrist.

“Talk, Chaili. Dinner. Then bed,” he said gruffly. Thick black lashes shielded the gold of his eyes and then he looked at her, his brow pressed to hers. “I need a few minutes to level out, baby. Okay?”

A few minutes. A few hours. A few years.

He’d make do with the time he had between now and the end of the meal, but he had to get himself under control and he had to do it fast. Pressing a quick kiss to her lips, he pulled away and headed over to the fridge where the lasagna was waiting. “Everything’s mostly done—just have to cook the lasagna and while that’s going, we can do a salad, get the bread in the oven,” he told her. “You sure you don’t want some wine?”

She made a face at him. “I’d rather have sex, but you won’t give me that.” Sighing, she settled on a stool at the center island and crossed her legs, reminding him she was deliciously naked under that sexy skirt of hers. “I don’t drink much. I can’t. Well, theoretically, I shouldn’t. I’m genetically predisposed to cancer. Drinking too much is tempting fate. So I don’t.”

Genetically—
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked hoarsely, dropping the glass pan of lasagna down on the counter before he hurled it across the kitchen.