Sweet Southern Betrayal (14 page)

He shrugged. She wasn’t wrong.

“Like I told you…I’m not cut out for personal and messy.”

“Except for Jack, Lucky, and Beck?”

“Except for them.”

“I’d rather be disappointed once in a while and deal with the messy.” She accented her position with a curt nod of her head. “I think messy is where the good stuff lives.”

Having nothing more to add to that, he held his breath, undecided about whether he should ask the question he really wanted to ask.

“Will you tell me?”

“It’s
messy
.”

“Tell me.”

Risa shifted in his arms until she could look him in the eye, her hands resting on his chest, the warmth of her seeping through the fabric of his dress shirt. She took a big breath and then began. “I was in foster care from age five until I was sixteen years old. My mother died of an overdose when I was barely one. My dad stuck around until one day he just didn’t come back from wherever he went to get his drugs. When I didn’t show up at school for three days, they sent the cops to the house where they found me living on Froot Loops and Gatorade.”

“Jesus.” Teague tightened his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Foster care was better than living with my dad, but I got bounced around a lot because people always want babies. Older kids are harder to place.” Risa twisted a little in his arms, her head resting against his chest, her voice barely above a whisper. “It was fine until I hit puberty and the boys and some of the dads in the house started looking at me. No woman wants a teenage girl with a C-cup rack in her house, and one day when I stood up for myself, no one believed me. So I ran away.”

Teague shut his eyes, not sure he wanted to hear what happened next but knowing he had to see this through. She’d lived it; the least he could do was listen to it.

“I was on the street for six months and it was…it was awful.” Risa paused, her fingers crushing his shirt and pulling him closer. “I became desperate. The shelters were even more dangerous than the streets, and I decided to try my hand at the one thing where I knew I could earn some money. I went to a bar, picked out a guy, and agreed to go back to a hotel with him.” She stalled at this point, her deep inhale made ragged by her obvious emotion. Teague gathered her closer, his cheek resting against her hair. “I got lucky. They guy I picked up was a cop and he took pity on me and placed me with Gloria. She’d taken in other hard-core underage problems and she straightened my ass out. Got me a job working backstage at the Gold Coast show in the casino.”

“The casino?”

“Yeah, she worked there and she could keep an eye on me. It wasn’t typical, but it was more parenting than I’d ever had. I met Pepper, my best friend, there, and the rest is not-so-dramatic history.”

“Where’s Gloria now?”

Risa lifted her head and looked over her shoulder at the water. Her voice was much quieter when she answered. “The Big C took her four years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

They spent the next few moments watching the water, both lost in their thoughts. Risa and her resiliency impressed Teague. She was something else.

“You’re pretty amazing,” he said, her only answer a shake of her shoulders. He reached down and hooked his fingers around a silky red curl.

“No, I’m not.”

Teague dragged his eyes back to her face, trying to find the words to let her know how special she really was. For a man who dealt in words, this was uncharted territory.

“Yes, you are.” He leaned and nuzzled her cheek, kissing just below her ear where he whispered, “I don’t know what fate or fluke brought you into my life, but I’m glad it did.”

“Even with all the trouble I’ve caused you?”

“You’re the only woman I want to wake up with in a scary Elvis motel.”

“You are such a good man. Too good to me,” Risa murmured.

She leaned back against his chest, looking up at him, her smile sweet and a little sleepy. It had been a long day—a long couple of days—for both of them and it was time to head home. But he couldn’t stop looking at her. He’d always thought she was beautiful, but now he knew the strength inside of her and he knew what had drawn him to her that first night. Risa was the real deal, authentic and genuine, something he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

“I want to kiss you,” Teague whispered against her skin.

Moving her face to the side, Risa found his lips with hers and murmured, “I’d like that.”

The kiss was slow and sweet. The heat from her touch started at his mouth and caught fire as it raged through his system. He pulled back a moment, waiting until her eyes opened and he could see the answering passion there, burning him up.

He leaned back in and caught her mouth in a deeper kiss. She tasted of mint. His teeth nibbled on her lower lip before soothing the sting with a warm lick of his tongue. She gasped and he took full advantage, invading her mouth with a slow, teasing thrust. The next time they pulled apart he was breathless and insane with want, but he held back. He’d told her this next step was up to her. He didn’t want her thinking she had to sleep with him to get the money, and he’d meant it. So until she gave him the signal, a kiss was all he would take. Because even though he craved her, for the first time ever he suspected he just
might
want something more.

Something deeper.

Something he couldn’t negotiate or bargain into a little box.

Something messy, personal—and
so not
part of the plan.

Teague couldn’t sleep.

He and Risa had entered his apartment in Northwest DC. The spell of the monuments still lingered in the air and he’d contemplated breaking his promise to her and following through with what had begun with that kiss on the steps. But he couldn’t make his feet take the necessary steps to close the distance.

He needed to know she was with him in this. They’d begun so strangely and each step of their relationship—friendship?—had progressed in this weird limbo they lived in, suspended between reality and some crazy bubble of fantasy. But just when he’d thought she would ask him to kiss her, she went into her room. He had his answer. And a night of tossing and turning in his king-size bed.

It was for the best. Risa was a new revelation around every turn but as much as she shared, he knew in his gut that she hid more. She had a secret and he couldn’t forget that she worked for Big Tony. His brain—cynical and suspicious as always—whispered that all of this was too much to be a coincidence but he couldn’t bring himself to cut her loose. He cared about her. Deeply. Too much for such a short time.

It was as if that embossed sheet of paper from the State of Nevada had latched onto something primal in his psyche when it came to Risa, and while it might only be a temporary arrangement, that claim on her was real and powerful. Nobody fucked with what was his.

And when the hell had he started thinking of her as “his”?

Teague got up and poured a shot of whiskey at the kitchen counter in the luxury kitchen he rarely used except to make coffee or to put takeout containers in the fridge. The air in the apartment was a little chilly on his bare chest, the whiskey warming him from the inside, but the goose bumps were caused entirely by the sound of Risa’s door opening and her feet padding lightly against the hardwood floor. He turned, leaning against the counter, and watching her progress down the dark hallway. His breath caught in his chest with a sharp, almost painful, inhale when she walked into the half-light of the kitchen and he could see her from top to toes. There were no sleep pants and baggy T-shirts for her—Risa was wearing a silky, body-skimming negligee suspended by thin strips of ribbon on her shoulders that extended down until only her hot-pink toenails peeked out from the hem.

“Hi,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

He could almost feel the sweep of her gaze as it traveled over his body, lingering on his chest and groin. His body responded to her, the adrenaline burning off the soothing burn of the whiskey and replacing it with the fire of want.

“Hi.” Teague swallowed hard, his mouth dry even though he’d just taken a drink. “You couldn’t sleep?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Do you want a shot? It might help.”

“I doubt it, but I’ll have one anyway.” Risa took the three steps necessary to stand in front of him, the movement enveloping him in her exotic, womanly scent.

He poured the shot and handed it off to her, watching as she took it down in one quick gulp. He took the glass and placed it on the counter, locking eyes with her in a standoff that got more intense as it extended out into the dark night. He could look at her all night long, so he made no move to change the status quo.

She broke the silence, her voice deeper than usual. “I heard you out here.”

“I’m sor—”

“No, I’m glad. It gave me the sign I was looking for.”

He shook his head slowly, his heart pounding in his chest with the importance of her words. “No, I’ve been the one waiting for a sign.”

“Like this one?” Risa stepped even closer, slowly lifting her hands, her fingers lightly coasting over his bare skin, the mere touch pulling him closer to her. His thigh slid between hers as they locked their bodies together.

“This will do,” he said.

Teague closed his eyes for a moment, his desire for this woman a molten river just waiting below the surface, but ready to erupt at the slightest provocation. He should let her go. He should walk away and spend the rest of her stay in polite, distant, reasonable proximity if he had any chance of escaping with his sanity. He was out of his depth, but it didn’t stop this strange pull inside him to plunge into the deep end and take a chance with her.

“You told me you had no expectations, no demands on me while I am here,” she said, her lips now brushing the line of his jaw, spreading the fire of the words she whispered in his ear. “But I want to know what your demands are. I want to try to meet them.” Her teeth bit lightly on his earlobe, shooting sensations straight to his dick, which was now pressing against the flimsy fabric of his sweatpants. “Tell me what you want.”

He lifted his hands to frame her face, weaving his fingers in her hair to anchor her in place, forcing her to continue looking at him. Damn, she was beautiful and dangerous, a threat to his tenuous hold on his reason. The past year had strung him out and he was at the breaking point.

Fuck common sense.

“I know what I want.”

“What do you want, Teague?” Risa leaned in, brushing her lips against his with the weight of a whisper, and he knew that in spite of his grip on her, she was the one who was in control. “Throw out all your plans. Live in the moment, and tell me what you want. Not for your family or the firm, but
you
.”

Her tongue was wet and warm against his lips, pressing lightly until he allowed her to enter for a slow, sweet kiss that promised him all he desired if he would just say the word. “Tell me what you want.”

For one more night—fuck the plan.

Teague took her mouth wanting, needing, to make her stop talking. She opened to his tongue as he swept inside her, tasting and devouring her breath with every press of their lips. Her hair was like a silken cord wrapped tightly around his fingers and he couldn’t tell if he held her or if she’d captured him. Her moan, deep and low, tore him open like an explosive blast, unleashing everything he’d kept bottled up inside him.

“You make me so goddamn crazy.” He panted against her skin, tasting her sweet desire, soaking in her surrender. “You live so freely, but I know you’re holding things back, pushing me away.” He caught her lips in another kiss, swallowing her cry of passion. “But I can’t seem to shake you loose.”

“What do you
want,
Teague?” She wouldn’t let it go. Risa tracked her hands down his chest, across his stomach, until her fingers curled around the waistband of his sweatpants. Her skin against his belly made him gasp with its heat and electricity. His body was on autopilot, his hips bucking forward until she responded to his silent request with the press of her palm against the hard, aching length of him. “I’ll leave soon and this will be over, but I’m here now. All you have to do is ask and you can have it. Anything you want.”

“I want—” He swallowed hard, the images of what was to come making it difficult to speak with his heart clamoring in his chest. “I want your mouth on me.”

Risa’s eyes flared at his request and his knees gave a little when she licked her lips at his demand. They stayed like that, eyes locked for several seconds, the only sound the ones of the appliances humming in the kitchen, a clock ticking in the entryway.

He loosened his fingers from the tangle of her hair and placed them on her shoulders, pushing her down to her knees in front of him with a firm pressure. Risa went willingly, the silky skin of her exposed neck glowing in the amber light of the nearby lamp. Her hair was like fire, alight with her lust. Her fingers undid the tie, curled around the waistband, and lowered them, exposing his rigid cock to her touch. He was commando and the glide of her cool palm against the fevered skin of his dick shot up his spine and caused him to arch into her grasp.