Author: Nicolette Day

“Jace’s Super Bowl party last year,” he said.

She blinked. “You remember that?”

He uncapped his bottle of water. “You brought your own hummus dip and called the pigs in a blanket barbaric. Kind of hard to forget.”

She managed a smile and popped open her salad, which looked surprisingly fresh for coming out of a place where you could purchase gasoline and a Duck Dynasty T-shirt with your meal. “You’re obviously a meat man.”

“Yes. I eat meat. I’ve even been known to dream about a good steak. Are you disgusted?”

“No. Not disgusted,” she admitted. “I know my culinary preference is not for everyone.”

“And why is it for you?”

She thought back to her childhood and the countless hurt and homeless animals she and her brother had carted home. How many times had a little ball of fur been the only comfort they’d had in their screwed-up world of dysfunctional love? That was the thing with animals. Their love was pure and unconditional.

Unfortunately, some of the humans in her life still didn’t have that one figured out quite yet. She poked at her salad. Make that most of the humans in her life.

She avoided Nate’s probing gaze. “I’ve always loved animals. I just can’t bring myself to eat something with a face, even if it is the logical thing to do,” she admitted, giving her full attention to the cherry tomato she’d speared with her fork. Tomatoes were far easier than memories. “My brother, Sawyer, and I used to adopt all the strays in the neighborhood. Dogs, cats, raccoons. We even brought a skunk home one time, thinking if we gave it a bath it wouldn’t stink so badly.”

Nate choked on his drink, but he was grinning. “Why in God’s name would you do that?”

She shrugged. “Poor thing looked so lonely sitting on the side of the road all by himself.” Her lips tugged up at the memory. “I had a hard time talking Sawyer into that one, but by that time we were nine, and I had him all figured out. All I had to do was cry, and he’d knock down walls to makes the tears stop. It also helped that we were twins. We usually stuck together. If one of us got into trouble, the other usually wasn’t far behind.”

Nate regarded her, a dozen indecipherable emotions warring on his face. In the end, amusement won out. “So what happened next? I can’t imagine this story has a boring ending.”

She laughed, thinking Sawyer would not find this story half as funny as she did. She could picture the pissed-off scowl on his face even now as he’d walked out of that emergency room. “Well, as soon as we got it into the tub and turned on the water, it bit Sawyer and sprayed us both. He had to get rabies shots, and we both had to take baths in every concoction known to man. It took weeks to get that smell out of our house.”

Nate shook his head, laughing out loud with her. “Your brother sounds like he loves you a lot.”

“I think it took him a while to remember just how much, after getting seventeen rabies shots because of me.”

“What about your parents?” Nate asked.

Clearly, the man was unaware of the dangerous waters he was treading in.

When she didn’t respond, he said, “I can’t even imagine the forms of punishment my mom would have come up with for a stunt like that. Hell, she made Jace and me mow every lawn in the neighborhood for a month just for busting a window with a baseball.”

Lilly swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, wondering what it would have been like to have a parent who cared about you that much. Her heart hurt so badly in that moment she wished she could cut it out. Life would be so much easier without the pain such a small but vital organ caused.

“My mother wasn’t around much.” She pressed her lips together, instantly wishing she hadn’t said it. She didn’t want to let Nate in, and yet she felt even in what had started out as an innocent conversation, he was unintentionally worming his way under her skin.

“Are you okay?” He touched her hand across the seat and heat sizzled over her skin where his fingers made contact, causing her breath to catch.

She nodded and pulled away. “I’m fine. Sorry. Just…ignore me.”

He refused to look away no matter how hard she willed him to; the intensity in his eyes was hot enough to burn her. “Not possible.”

“You haven’t had a problem ignoring me for the past year,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her mouth shut and looked away from the pissed-off man behind the wheel. For a moment, she thought he might actually drop the subject, but instead he leaned across the seat to invade her space with his heat and his smell and…oh, God.

“I wasn’t ignoring you to hurt you, Lilly,” he said, his voice low and gruff. “You didn’t…you don’t want me in your life. Trust me. I did you a favor by walking away when I did. I’m not a good guy. I’m not the guy you need.”

She swallowed, remembering what Nate had tasted like the last time they’d kissed. Lemons and mint. Even a year later the taste of him lingered on her tongue.

He held her gaze and inhaled sharply. His fingers brushed her hand resting next to her thigh. A jolt passed through her at that one tender touch of skin on skin. That, and the heated look in his eyes, made her want to run like hell.

Or maybe meet him halfway and crush her lips against his…

Would he still taste the same?

His phone buzzed, breaking the spell, and he leaned back to grab it. His brow furrowed as he read the text message. “Who the hell is Earl and why is he responding to my offer on the bathroom wall of the Flying Pig Truck Stop?”

It took a second for the implication to sink in.

Oh. Shit.

He glanced up at her, and she nearly choked on the tomato she’d just popped into her mouth. He narrowed his eyes and held up the phone. “Really?”

She whipped on her most innocent expression. “What?”

He clenched his jaw, dropped his phone back into the cupholder, and pushed open his door. Oh, God. She’d pushed him too far. Damn that horny trucker! She thought there’d be at least a day before someone responded. Long enough for her to be laughing far away from him and his retaliation. He pinned her with a don’t-even-think-about-running-Princess look through the windshield as he rounded the front of the truck, and apprehension had her cringing back into her seat. She considered locking her door, but he jerked it open before she got the chance.

“W-what are you doing?” she asked.

He grabbed her knees, and in one smooth move, turned her so that he was wedged between her legs. “Retaliating.”

“Wait a min—”

He kissed her, muffling the rest of her sentence…and oh, God, she was in trouble.

The kiss started hard and punishing, almost as if he were tying to keep himself detached, but it wasn’t long before the heat caught up with them both. Her lips parted of their own accord, and the taste of him flooded her mouth. He didn’t taste the same. He tasted…better. Addictive.

A surge of lust drowned out all rational thinking and she found herself kissing him back, flicking her tongue to meet his. He groaned and cupped her jaw, tilting her head, deepening the kiss. His body leaned into hers as if drawn in by magnets. She felt her body respond, arching, searching for contact.

A small, irritating part of her mind whispered that this was the part where she should push him away. Tell him to go screw himself. But what was supposed to be a retaliation was escalating into something hot and uncontrollable, like wildfire burning out of control. When he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth, she whimpered and grabbed on to his shoulders to keep from melting into him.

That seemed to snap him out of it. He broke all contact, breathing hard, looking like he was fighting for control as much as she was.

Oh my God.

What had she just done? How the hell had she let herself get that caught up in the moment? With him?

She reached up and touched her swollen lips, too shocked to find any words. His gaze dropped back to her mouth and he shook his head once, as if forcing himself out of a daze. He cursed under his breath and raked his fingers through his damp hair, then made his way back around to the driver’s side, where he climbed in and slammed the door shut. He started the ignition without looking at her.

“For the record. Every text I get after this, I’m giving them your fucking number.”

Chapter Six

So much for getting ahead of the storm.

Nate flipped the windshield wipers to high and watched a bleary Virginia pass by outside the rain-streaked window. The drizzle they’d been driving through had turned into an all-out downpour now that they were closer to the coast. A gust of wind caught the side of the truck and he tightened his hold on the wheel to keep it steady. At least traffic was almost nonexistent. Most people weren’t stupid enough to be traveling during one of the strongest tropical storms the east coast had seen in years. He checked the light outside, already dimmed from the storm. If he had to guess, they only had a few hours of daylight left at best. Then he’d be knee-deep into Tropical Storm Cindy with only the few feet of visibility his headlights would give him.

Oo-fuckin-rah.

As if he needed the added stress. He’d fucked up. Bad. Losing control like that and kissing Lilly had been a colossal mistake. Because now he couldn’t get her taste out of his mouth. Couldn’t get that sexy fucking half whimper, half moan out of his head. It had taken everything in him to pull away. And now it was taking even more not to pull the truck over and finish what he’d started. That shit was the last thing he needed to be thinking about. He should be preparing for what he was about to walk into—a hornet’s nest of memories that were going to rip him wide open.

He grabbed his coffee and took a scorching swig, trying to burn away her taste.

“You just passed the exit we needed to take.” Lilly looked up from the map on her phone and turned in her seat to peer out at a big green highway sign.

Nate blinked as the sign flew past, then checked the GPS. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes. You did,” she insisted. “I mapped out the fastest route before we left.”

He jerked his gaze back to the road and blew out a breath that did nothing to help the tension coiling in his shoulders. The woman was making him nuts. “We’re taking a detour, so no need to play navigator. Believe it or not, I know what I’m doing.”

“Detour?” She sat up, panic flashing behind her wide eyes. “Hayden didn’t say anything about a detour.”

“Maybe that’s because I don’t give Hayden a play-by-play of my schedule before I plan my day.” Especially since it was a surprise.

The sign for exit 209 to Cedar Springs came into view and a sick feeling brewed in Nate’s gut. It had been nine years since he’d allowed himself to take this exit. Nine years of running from a lifetime’s worth of mistakes. His instincts told him to blow past the off-ramp as if his life depended on it, but he knew in his heart that wasn’t an option. His brother was counting on him to pick up their grandmother’s necklace. God knew how many times Nate had already disappointed Jace in this lifetime, and he refused to do it again.

“What kind of detour?” Lilly sounded worried. “How long will it take?”

“Not long.” Not if he could help it. He didn’t intend to spend a second longer in Cedar Springs than he had to. There were way too many ghosts lurking around every corner. He’d grab the necklace and get the hell out of Dodge. They’d be back on the interstate within the hour.

Flicking on his blinker, he veered to the right to take the exit.

“Watch out!”

He jerked the wheel to take a hard right, frantically looking over his shoulder for the source of Lilly’s meltdown. Judging by the ear-piercing pitch of her scream, anyone would have assumed he’d nearly run down a bus full of kindergartners. Tires skidded as he fought to get control of the fishtailing truck. Lilly yelped. Something sizzling hot and wet spilled down the side of his leg.