Real Men Will (15 page)

As his senses began to return, he realized that a bead of sweat was rolling down his jaw, his knees were killing him and his arm burned where Beth had scratched him. And she couldn’t be too comfortable against the cold tile of the entryway. But she looked like something beautiful and wild, stretched out, her eyes closed, sweat shimmering against her brow as she panted.

Eric leaned down and pressed a kiss to her damp neck. “Hey. You okay?”

“Mmm,” she moaned, not moving a muscle.

He slid out of her body, wincing at the sensation against his overloaded nerves. He winced again when he forced himself up, his knees screaming at the movement. But every twitch of discomfort was a sweet reminder of what they’d done.

After disposing of the rubber, Eric zipped up and crouched down next to Beth. “Come on. I’ll help you up.”

She shook her head, and what the hell could he do but smile with self-satisfaction? She still wore her shiny red heels, and not one other thing except for the finger marks he’d left on her thigh. He touched the marks carefully, but she didn’t grimace.

“You really know how to make a guy gloat, you know that?”

She finally opened her eyes. “You deserve to gloat,” she said as she reached up to his outstretched hand.

“Come on. I’ll tuck you in.”

“Oh.” She blinked, but then nodded and stood up as he tugged her.

“Unless you want me to stay?”

“No, you should go. You’ve had quite the evening, what with that impromptu family dinner.”

“I’ll stay,” he insisted, but she shook her head.

“Go.”

Jesus, he’d really screwed this up. But what could he do? He was still wearing his shoes and jeans. All he had to do was slip on his shirt. And Beth had toed off her heels and was switching off lights. She moved slowly, at least. Deliberately. As if her knees weren’t quite steady.

“I’m off tomorrow,” he said, his heart tripping against his ribs with the risk of putting himself out there. “Let me stay?”

Beth’s hand touched the wall and she held it there as if she needed the support when she met his eyes. “You’re sure?”

Thank God.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“All right then. Come to bed.”

He picked up his shirt and grabbed her clothes as well, then followed her down the hallway that already felt familiar, and his body relaxed as if he were coming home.

S
HE WOKE TO THE SOUND
of a phone ringing. Not her phone. Beth opened her eyes just as she felt the bed dip. The soft slide of fabric against skin was unmistakable in the quiet room.

“Hello?” Eric said in a low voice. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Beth thought she heard the notes of a woman talking on the other end of the line.

“No, I’m still in bed,” he murmured. “Yes, I’m alone. I’m not talking strangely…. Because I have a headache, that’s why.”

He cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder toward Beth. He looked guilty, and Beth was suddenly worried he wasn’t as single as he’d claimed. Maybe that was why he’d lied. Maybe that was why he didn’t want anyone to know.

Eric turned away again. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’ll be there in a few minutes, all right?” He hung up and cleared his throat.

“Trouble?” Beth asked warily.

“Not really.”

Her pulse stuttered before speeding up. Did he have a girlfriend? Was he cheating? Her mind began to replay the conversation in the brewery. There’d been no indication either way, had there?

“My sister,” Eric finally said, sighing. “She thought I was talking like I didn’t want to wake someone up.”

“Oh.” Beth dropped back to the pillow. “So you were.”

“So I was.”

“Eric, you’re not involved with anyone, are you?”

He jerked around to frown at her. “Involved?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No. Of course not. I wouldn’t be here if I did.”

Beth shrugged. “You never know. And considering how all this started, I just suddenly worried that was the reason you’d lied.”

“No. That wasn’t it.”

“Okay.” She looked at the clock and bit back a groan. “It’s almost nine.”

“I’ll go,” he said, his voice still a little distant. But when he glanced back at her, his mouth quirked in a half smile. “Thanks for letting me stay. It was nice.”

It had been nice, lying in her bed together, watching TV in the dark. It had also been way over the line.

He must have seen the hesitation in her eyes, because Eric gave a careful nod and reached for his jeans. “I’ve got to go into work anyway. Problems on the line.”

She nodded as if she knew what he meant. “Thanks for…everything,” she said, stumbling over the last word.

His back tensed. “Sure.”

“I’m sorry again, about my dad.”

He shook his head and leaned over to put his shoes on.

For some reason, Beth couldn’t stand the silence. “Will you call me if something more happens with the investigation?”

Yeah, his back was definitely tense. “Is that the only reason you want me to call?”

Clutching the sheet to her chest, Beth sat up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I guess I don’t know what I mean. Just that this is starting to get…”

“Awkward?” she suggested.

“No.” He yanked hard at his laces, then stood up. Beth forgot that she was having a serious conversation and let herself be distracted by the muscles of his arms. “It’s getting a little intense, and it feels weird that— Hello?”

“Sorry.” Beth forced her gaze up to his eyes. They were smoky blue and pissed. She was a little startled at how intimidating he looked. Hard and nearly cruel. It reminded her of the way he’d taken her on the floor of her living room.

His jaw looked like stone. “All I’m saying is that we’re spending time together. More time. And you don’t even trust me.”

“No, I don’t trust you. I told you that from the start.”

“I know I lied to you.” He paced away. “But I haven’t lied to you since, have I?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “This isn’t about trust. This isn’t a relationship. It’s just…” She tried to think of a word that wasn’t insulting. “Casual.”

“Right. It’s so casual you don’t want people to know about it.”

“What?”
she yelped. “You don’t want people to know, either!”

Eric ran a hand through his dark hair, messing it up even further. “I know. But it’s not that I don’t want people to know, I just…”

She raised a haughty eyebrow.

“I just want this to be private.”

“That’s the same thing, Eric.”

“Regardless, we made that agreement when it was only one night. But now…”

“Then we should stop,” she said quickly.

He crossed his arms and stared down at her as if she were an insolent child.

She shrugged. “What? You’re right. I don’t trust you and I never will. We only meant it to be one night. Then we agreed on two. But it’s getting out of control.”

His eyes slid toward the hallway.

“I like it out of control,” he muttered.

Beth closed her eyes. So did she. She was getting wet just thinking about how bold she’d been last night, and how wild it had made him. And how he’d fucked her on the floor like a beast. They’d barely made it through the front door. “I like it, too,” she admitted. “But I don’t know what you’re asking for.”

He sat down facing the hallway. “I don’t know. Maybe I want to feel like I can call you.”

“Of course you can call me.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I want to call without feeling like I’m intruding on your real life.”

“Yet you don’t want to talk to your sister in front of me.”

“I was trying not to wake you.”

She lay down and stared at the ceiling. “That’s hardly the whole truth, Eric. Don’t pretend it is.”

He cursed softly and she felt the bed shift as he moved closer to her. “All right. Here’s the truth. My sister figured out who you were. Luke and I were talking about you and he said your name. She recognized it and connected the dots. She knows you’re the woman who came into the brewery. The one I…” Beth nodded.

“And as soon as it came out, they were looking at me with different eyes. Wondering what we’d done. Imagining what you might see in me. You’re almost like a celebrity.”

Yeah. She could understand that. Because it had always felt like that on her side, too. Except she lived with it on every single date. At least Eric could walk away if he wanted.

She was suddenly painfully glad he didn’t want to walk away. “It’s the same for me, you know,” she murmured. “It’s the flip side.”

“I get it.”

“You’re nothing to hide, Eric. But I want it to be private. Like you do.”

“Are you still dating other men?”

She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “What?”

“Are you seeing other men?”

“I’ve spent the last two nights with you. I haven’t had time to see anyone else.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“To be honest, I haven’t thought about it.”

His jaw jumped as if he were grinding his teeth together, a pulse of frustration beneath his skin. “I’m not asking to bring this out of hiding. With that column you write…”

She felt a sudden shock of horror. He knew about the column? How? She imagined him reading it and—

“If you could respect my privacy. Not mention me by name.”

“Of course!” she said quickly.

“Everything in my life, everything I do and I am…it’s for my family. My siblings. My father. My name.”

“I understand. I’d never put your name out there.”

“It’s not that I’m embarrassed by you, Beth. You’re amazing. I just… I don’t know what this is. What we’re doing. But I need it. For me. Just for myself. And maybe that’s why I like that no one knows. Does that make any sense?”

She didn’t know why, but it did make sense. It felt…
safe
this way. She nodded.

Eric cleared his throat. “And I guess what I want is to know that when you’re with me, it’s just me. That it’s private. That you’re not seeing anyone else. For however long. A few days. Whatever it is.”

That
was what he wanted? Privacy and exclusivity? As if she needed anyone else’s attention after spending the night with him. As if she had the least bit of interest in another man’s hands on her.

“If that’s not your style, that’s fine, but I can’t read that column and wonder if—”

“Of course,” she interrupted. “Of course I won’t see anyone else right now.”

His shoulders relaxed a little. “Yeah? I don’t want to try to change anything for you.”

“I never see more than one person at a time,” she said with complete honesty.

He arched a startled look over his shoulder. “Never?”

She shook her head, frowning at the disbelief in his voice.

“Okay,” he said.

“And you can call me,” Beth whispered. “You can call and it can still be secret.”

He was quiet for a long time, and since he was facing away from her, she couldn’t read his expression. Was he angry? Offended? Finally he took a deep breath and said, “I’d like that.”

God, so would she. She nodded as he turned toward her. He touched her cheek, then brushed a quick kiss across her mouth before he stood. Her heart made a slow turn in her chest as he left.

She just sat there holding her breath until she heard her front door close.

What the hell was she doing? She didn’t trust him. He didn’t want anyone to know they were lovers. It was all wrong, and yet she felt infatuated.

Was it just the sex? Or was his secrecy the thing she liked?

She had to be at work before eleven, but Beth let herself curl back beneath the covers anyway. They were crisp and cool and she stretched her limbs out, reveling in the feel of her naked body against the cotton.

The sex was reason enough to feel giddy, but maybe it was his reticence that she liked. After all, her heart had been broken by a man who hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut. No, actually, her heart had been mashed into unusable pieces by a man who’d never even intended to keep his mouth shut.

She hadn’t been like the other girls in her high school. She’d been tall and curvy and dark, and it had seemed like ninety percent of the other girls had been slender and sweet. Beth had grown breasts and hips in fifth grade, and from then on, she’d done her best to cover them with baggy jeans and sweaters. Those efforts had kept boys at bay, though that hadn’t been her goal. Not exactly. She just hadn’t wanted them making comments about her boobs.

But her senior year, she’d finally landed a boyfriend. Christopher West. He’d taken her to homecoming. They’d dated for months. She’d fallen in love. And she’d lost her virginity. The sex had been fine. Nothing spectacular, but nothing awful, either. And if she wasn’t that into the sex, she’d certainly been into the idea of a boy liking her. That part had been exhilarating, that a boy she loved would be so desperate to have her. That he’d beg and moan anytime she said no. He’d needed her. He’d loved her. He’d thought of her every moment they were apart.

Beth had suddenly found herself transformed from a girl no one noticed into a girl who could drive a boy to fits of lust. So she’d liked the sex just fine.

During spring break that year, Christopher’s parents had been working, so there’d been lots of sex at his house. And then she’d made the worst mistake of her life. When Christopher had brought out a Polaroid camera and asked if he could take pictures of her, Beth had been flattered he’d want them. She’d thrilled to the idea that he’d thought her beautiful. So she’d said yes.

She burrowed deeper under the covers at the thought. How many hours of her life had she wasted, wishing she could go back to that one stupid moment and change her words?
No,
she’d say.
Not in a million years.

But no matter how hard she’d prayed, the past always stayed the same. She’d posed naked for him. She’d shyly spread her legs. She’d even let him take a picture of her on her knees in front of him.

Whatever his intentions had been at that point, the responsibility had been too much. He had dirty pictures of his girlfriend. His friends had been teasing him about dating the chubby girl for months. He wanted to prove that the chubby girl was just as hot as their girlfriends. Hotter, even.

Or that had been his explanation later.

Whether he’d meant to hurt her or not, he’d shown the pictures to some friends at a party. Then he’d brought them to school. Someone had grabbed the worst of them and passed them all over.

Beth had been ruined.
Ruined.
There was no room in high school for a girl who would let a boy take X-rated photos. She’d worn an invisible scarlet letter that begged for insults and abuse. She’d been lower than garbage. And then her parents had been called to the principal’s office….

When she felt the tickle of tears inching down her face, Beth pressed her hands to her eyes and shook her head. Why was she thinking about this? This wasn’t high school. She didn’t have to answer to anyone.

But it had been there all this time, hadn’t it? Part of her inability to relax with a man was caused by her constant fear that he would talk about it. That he’d describe her and what they’d done. That he’d laugh with his friends. That he would use what they’d done as a trophy, especially now that she was running the White Orchid.

Eric had been right. Being the manager of the store was a little like being a local celebrity. Not that she’d done anything to earn fame, but just working at the store brought infamy. And instead of bragging about it, Eric didn’t want anyone to know. That felt safe, despite his lies. Safe to have sex with him, but not safe to love. She could rely on that, at least.

She let a few more tears fall for that seventeen-year-old girl. Those last months of school had felt like the end of her life. In a way, they had been, because she’d never been that girl again. That Beth had been destroyed.

But she was someone better now, so Beth made herself get up and shower and dress for work. She dressed down because she felt like it. No need to try hard to look sexy when she felt sexy all the way to her bones. So she wore jeans with her heels, and a flowy little black top, and she pulled her hair back in a ponytail. She felt like a new woman and she looked like one, too.

When her phone rang there was only a small bit of hoarseness in her voice to betray her earlier emotions. “Hello?” she answered as she locked her door and started down the steps.

“Ms. Cantrell?” The voice wasn’t familiar, so Beth was cautious.