Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1) (9 page)

“What do you call it?” I asked.

“Foreplay.”

I snorted. “Foreplay leads to sex. And I have no intention of having sex with you.”

“I guess we’ll just be doing it accidentally then.”

“I’m not even going to touch that one.”

A loud crash from his end of the conversation cut off whatever further-damning comment I’d been about to make.  There was a clatter as the phone dropped, followed by a somehow-manly yelp, and a string of curses.  Then silence.

“Cutter?” I said loudly, forgetting momentarily that I might wake up Shelby. “Cutter!”

After a long moment, his groan, low and pain-filled, came through the speaker.

“Melissa?”

“Oh, my God! What happened? Are you okay?” I decided not to care if I sounded like a thirteen-year old girl, babbling and repeating myself. “Cutter? Are you still there? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I, uh, fell off a forklift. Knocked some shit off, banged my head pretty fucking good.”

“A forklift? Where are you? I’ll send an ambulance.”

“No!”

“Cutter, you could be seriously hurt.”

“Please, Melissa. I said no.” He sighed, and in an almost sluggish voice that made me worry, added, “I don’t want a goddamned doctor. I’m at work, and I can’t just leave.”

Shit.

Even if I hated the guy – and I had to admit that
my loathing had waned – I couldn’t very well just leave him somewhere, injured and alone.

I took a breath. “Let
me
come there, then.”

“Melissa – “

I cut him off. “Either give me the address, or I’m calling the police, giving them this number, and letting them deal with you. And they’re neither as nice, nor as patient as I am.”

He inhaled, then grumbled out the name of the lumber yard, and hung up the phone. In minutes, I was out the door and easing my two-door coupe down the driveway with the lights off.  It wasn’t until I’d driven four block
s that I realized I’d left my engagement ring in the middle of my dresser.

CUTTER

I hung up the phone, grinned, and I told myself that really – truly -
I
had hooked
her
, and not the other way around.

Even tho
ugh the waiting and the teasing and the holding back had been killing me. The entire time, my balls were tight, and my cock was in a perpetual state of erection.  I refused to take care of it myself.  I’d decided Melissa was going to do it for me, and there was no fucking way I was backing down from that resolution.

In fact, it had been almost too easy to manipulate her.  If I’d been the kind of guy who felt bad about shit like that…Well, who knows?  Maybe I would’ve.  Fortunately for me, I was just enough of a jerk to not have a conscience.

There were a few moments that gave me pause.  Like when she breathed out the word
sinks
in that desperate voice, and all but admitted that she’d been thinking about me.  Or when she’d asked me if I would touch myself.  For her.  In each of those seconds, I’d felt a spiraling, out-of-control sensation.  The same one I’d had when we were in the bathroom and she’d called out my name like she meant it.

And yet you were still willing to drag her here, alone, in the middle of the night?

I pushed down the thought.  I wouldn’t have to worry about self-control once she got there.  She was probably going to be so pissed off she wouldn’t let me get near her with one of the fucking two-by-fours I hauled around all night.  I just wanted to prove that I could make her do what I wanted her to do.

My internal voice piped up again.
Since when do you measure you manhood in terms of pretty girls?

Their thoughts about me didn’t usually matter.  I could take ‘em or leave ‘em.  I was of the opinion that they liked their men strong, opinionated, and cocky as hell (ahem,
me
) or what they really wanted was another woman and were in denial about it.  With Melissa, though…What the fuck was it?

Angrily, I tossed another piece of wood on
to the pallet that needed to be moved from inside the warehouse to the works yard outside.  When I had a good-enough-sized pile on the stack, I hopped onto the forklift and stepped on the accelerator.

What happened next was sheer stupidity on my part.

I was driving too fast.  I didn’t fasten my seatbelt.  I wasn’t expecting her to get there so fucking fast.  And I wasn’t expecting her to look like that.

Holy fuck.

There she was, standing in the middle of the goddamned warehouse, right in my path, dressed in nothing but a mouth-watering, two-piece, satin pajama set and fluffy slippers.  My eyes travelled up her body. The tiny shorts hugged her thighs and hips, leaving little to the imagination.  It was cool in the warehouse, and the outline of her nipples under the thin fabric held my gaze.  I had to force my eyes up, and when I did, my desire didn’t lessen at all.

It was the first time I’d seen her without the ponytail, and I immediately wondered why she ever wore one at all.  The soft wisps of corn silk hair framed her make-up free face, softening her looks and making her seem unrestrained, and a little wanton.  Did she have a wild side?  I sure as hell hoped so, and I sure as hell hoped it involved those pajamas tossed over the top of the forklift and those lean legs wrapped around my waist.

“You asshole!” she yelled.

Her voice snapped me back to reality two seconds too late.  I should’ve eased my foot off the pedal and let the
forklift come to a stop naturally.  For some unknown reason, I jammed on the brake and swerved.  When I realized the machine was going to topple over, I should’ve held on and let myself fall
with
it.  Instead, I let go, and went flying.

As I sailed from the raised seat, I didn’t even have time to consider how fucking r
idiculous of me it was to crash because I was looking at a girl.  I didn’t have time to be embarrassed as the wood boards clattered around me.  I didn’t have time to do
anything
because at the same second, my head hit the concrete floor, a two-by-four smacked me in the temple, and the world went black.

The next thing I remembered was a cool hand on my forehead and the scent of flowers – distinctly out of place in a spot that always smells like raw wood – dragging me into consciousness.  Which was unfortunate because my head fucking hurt.

“Cutter?”

Her voice was gentle
and full of genuine concern.  In my dizzy state, I felt kinda bad that my accident had knocked the sass out of her.  I was also a little pleased that she cared.

“How long was I out?” I asked weakly.

“Thirty seconds, maybe less.”

“Jesus. Felt like longer.”

“This is karmic payback,” she told me.

“If karma’s gonna pick a fight, I don’t think it’s gonna be with me.
I’m too fucking tough for that.”

“Too tough for karma?”

“Yep.”

She sighed like she didn’t believe it. “Do you think you could open your eyes?”

“Nope. That would ruin my clever plan,” I joked weakly.

“Clever plan?”

“To get you alone in the dark.”

“That’s a lame one, even for you,” she replied.

“Give me a minute. I’ll come up with something,” I offered.

She went quiet, and I tried thin
k of something smart.  Something dirty.  Something devastatingly charming.

Too bad you seem to have knocked the sass out
yourself
, too,
I thought disagreeably.

After a few seconds, I
gave up thinking, and reached out and grabbed her ass.  She squealed in surprise, and I managed a chuckle.

“The second I’m sure you’re all right,” she snapped, “I’m going to smack you silly.”

“Don’t get all girlie sensitive on me. I’m fine,” I replied. “Might have something to do with my thick skull.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that. But I’d really feel better if you opened your eyes.”

I cracked them, just a little.  Then they widened all on their own.  Melissa knelt beside me, her loose hair pooled around shoulders.  Her blue eyes, which I’d seen full of tears, full of fury, and even full of lust, were now full of tender worry.  Which was fucking hypnotizing.

“Stop that,” she said.

I cracked a lopsided grin. “Stop what?”

“Looking at me like you want to eat me.”

“You’re the one who wanted me to open my eyes,” I reminded her. “And you’re a little underdressed. Makes it hard
not
to look.”

She crossed her arms.  It had the distracting effect of pushing her tits up even higher, and the irritated look on her face made me want to bite her lip.  Not hard enough to draw blood, but maybe hard enough to make her squeal.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I needed to do something about it.

And why not?
I asked myself.
Isn’t that why you brought her here?

She was just a girl.  If I stripped her down, she’d be like any other.  Did it really matter if she was a rich bitch, country-club-going debutante?  I dragged a heated gaze across her tight package of a body and answered myself.

It doesn’t matter at all. Or at least not enough to stop me from wanting her. And taking her.

“Melissa?” I said softly.

“Yes?”

“I would like – very much – to fuck you. Right now.”

Saying the words out loud heightened my desire.  So did her sharp intake of breath.

“That’s not very nice,” she stated, just above a whisper.

“I’m not after something nice,” I replied. “
I’m
not nice.”

She licked her lips, and her chest rose and fell a little quicker. “I think you hit your head even harder than I originally thought.”

“You’re probably right. If I hadn’t, I’d already have torn off those pretty pajamas of yours. You’d already be beneath me, and I’d be enjoying a very…
un
-nice…ride. Since I’m a little under the weather, though, I’m thinking it’s going to be you doing most of the riding.”

She leaned back, knees parting slightly, and I wished I had the strength to push them apart completely, then drag her to me. 

“Get on top,” I said, midway between an order and a suggestion.

“Like hell,” she replied. “Even
if you weren’t the crudest man I’ve ever met…You’re injured. And I’m in a relationship.”

I noticed she hadn’t
actually
said no.  In fact, there was a hungry look on her face, and her sky blue eyes were almost completely obscured by her dark, dilated pupils. 

Fuck being injured, and fuck her relationship.

“What kind of
nice
girl shows up in the middle of the night in sexy-as-fuck pajamas to help a man like me if she’s satisfied by her boyfriend?”

Her bottom lipped dropped a little.  Even in the dim light, I saw her tongue slick to the edge of that lip, wet it slightly, and leave it glistening.  I couldn’t keep away an image of her mouth, wrapped around my swollen cock, from popping to the forefront of my mind.

“Do you want me to ask you
nice
ly?” My voice was thick with anticipation.

I sat up and reached for her, but as my hand closed on her satin-covered thigh, my head throbbed in protest to the movement.  Melissa noticed my wince right away, and her desire-filled face became concerned
again instead.  She gasped then, but it wasn’t in the way I’d been imagining it.

“Your neck is bleeding, Cutter!”

I brought my hand up and found a jagged splinter of wood lodged just below my earlobe.  I pulled it out and stared at it.  Yep.  Covered in sticky, rust-colored blood.

“Shit.”

“I seriously think I should take you to the emergency room,” Melissa stated.

The determined look on her face finally dampened the mood for me.  There was no way I was going to the hospital.  There was no
fucking
way I was going to call my parole officer, and ask for permission to leave my job because I banged my head.  I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Melissa know that’s what I would have to do to comply with her bossy request.

I forced myself to hold my body
steady as I met her gaze.

“I told you on the phone, I can’t leave work,” I said slowly, working to keep any kind of pain out of my voice.

“That was before you were hurt for real.”

“Doesn’t change a thing
.”

“I’m sure your boss will understand.”

“I’m sure he won’t,” I replied. “I’ve only been here a little over six months. It’s not as easy to get work as you might think.”

Especially for
a convict.

I kept that part to myself.

Melissa jumped to her feet and gave the warehouse a once over. “C’mon, Cutter! Give me a break. This is just a lumber yard. It’s not going to fall apart if you’re gone for a little while!”

Maybe she was just trying to sway me to leave, but her words pissed me off.

I grabbed both her hands and forced her back to the ground.  Her knees hit the cement, probably hard enough to hurt, but I pretended not to care.

“My job here isn’t a fucking joke,” I told her coldly. “I happen to
need
the money I bring in. Badly. If I lose this job, I won’t be able to pay my rent. I won’t be able to eat. I sure as shit won’t be able to afford whatever the going rate is for a girl like you.”

Melissa’s face reddened, and her lower lip even quivered.  I brushed off the guilt with an eye roll.  Was she really going to cry?  Typical.  She didn’t, though.  Instead, she crossed her arms again instead and fixed me with a glare.

“How many personalities do you
have
?” she demanded. “So far I’ve counted at least three. The cocky asshole who thinks it’s okay to trash a girl’s clothes and self-esteem. The
almost
sweet, flirtatious guy on the phone. And this…this…I don’t know what this one is. Some total douchebag with completely misguided anger who refuses to do what’s good for him.”

I bit back a grin.  I kinda liked her all riled up, and I couldn’t resist another dig as I came unsteadily to my feet.

“Sounds as if you’ve got all three of us pegged,” I said. “Unfortunately, though, none of
us
have a rich daddy to fall back on, so if you’ll excuse us, we have to get back to work.”

Melissa put her hands on her hips, and gave me a narrow-eyed glare.

“What makes you think my dad is rich?”

Fuck.
I couldn’t very well admit that I’d web-stalked her.

“You pay for your own membership at that golf club?”

“No.”

“You pay for your own education?”

“No.”

“Because your dad is rich,” I concluded.