Tangled Up in You

Chapter 9

“You’re crazy.”

“It’ll be fine.” Maddie looked over her shoulder at Adele and opened the door to Mort’s.

“Didn’t he say he was going to throw you out on your ass?”

“Technically, we were talk about Hennessy’s.”

They stepped inside and the door closed behind them. Adele leaned close to Maddie and asked above the noise and the music pouring from the jukebox, “Do you think he’s going to care about technicalities?”

Maddie figured that was pretty much a rhetorical question and her gaze scanned the crowd inside the dimly lit bar, looking for the owner. It was eight-thirty on a Friday night and Mort’s was once again packed. She’d had no intention of setting foot inside the cowboy bar again until Mick had told her not to. She had to let him know that he didn’t intimidate her. He had to know she wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid of anything.

She recognized Darla from the last time she’d been in Mort’s and her neighbor Tanya from the Allegrezzas’ party. She didn’t see Mick and breathed a little easier. She wasn’t afraid. She just wanted to get more than three feet inside the bar before he laid eyes on her.

Earlier, she’d curled her hair on big rollers that gave it lots of volume and loose curls. She wore more makeup than usual and a white cotton jersey halter dress and sandals with two-inch heels. If she was going to get escorted out, she wanted to look good on the way. She carried her red angora cardigan because she knew that as soon as the clock struck nine she would freeze without it.

The juke pumped out a song about redneck women as Adele and Maddie wove their way through the crowd toward an empty table in the corner. Adele, with her long curls, tight jeans, and save a horse, ride a cowboy shirt, drew her share of attention.

“Do you see him?” Adele asked as they slid into chairs facing the bar with their backs to the wall.

They’d gone over the plan. It was simple. Nothing risky: just walk into Mort’s, have a few drinks, and walk out. Easy, cheesy, lemon squeezy, but now Adele was kind of acting spooked, casting her big-eyed gaze about as if she expected a SWAT team to swoop in, whip out their AK-47s, and force them spread-eagled on the floor.

“No. I don’t see him yet.” Maddie placed her purse on the table by her elbow and looked out at the bar. Light from the jukebox and bar poured over the crowd but hardly penetrated the corner. It was the perfect spot to see without being seen.

Adele leaned her head close to Maddie and asked, “What does he look like?”

She held up one hand and signaled the waitress. “Tall. Dark hair and very blue eyes,” she answered.

Charming when he wants something, and his kiss could make a woman lose her mind. Maddie thought about the day he’d brought her the Mouse Motel, about his kiss and his hands on her waist, and her stomach got a little tight. “If the women in the bar start flipping their hair and reaching for a breath mint, you’ll know he’s here.”

A waitress with an atrocious perm, butt-tight Wranglers, and a Mort’s T-shirt took their drink order.

“He’s that prime?” Adele asked as the waitress walked away.

Maddie nodded. Prime was a fairly accurate description. He was certainly drool-worthy, and there had been a time or two when she’d been tempted to bite into him. Like when she’d looked up from her salad at the Willow Creek Brewpub and Restaurant and he’d been sitting across from her. One moment she’d been minding her own business, reading her latest notes from Sheriff Potter, then, poof, there was Mick looking extremely hot and incredibly pissed off. Normally, she wouldn’t consider an angry man the least bit hot, but Mick wasn’t a normal man. As he’d sat across from her, working himself up, warning her to stay out of his bar, his eyes had turned a deep, fascinating blue. And she’d found herself wondering what he’d do if she climbed across the table and planted her mouth on his. If she kissed his neck and bit him just below his ear.

“I talked to Clare today,” Adele said and pulled Maddie’s attention away from the contemplation of Mick. The two friends talked about the upcoming wedding until the waitress returned with Adele’s Bitch on Wheels and Maddie’s extra-dry vodka martini. The waitress might have bad hair, but she was damn fine at her job.

“What is up with some of these women’s hair?” Adele asked as the waitress walked away.

Maddie’s gaze scanned the crowd and she figured the ratio of bad hair vs. good hair was about fifty-fifty. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.” Maddie raised her glass to her lips. “Half of them have good hair and the other half are an overprocessed mess.” Over the rim of her glass, she continued her surveillance. There was still no sign of Mick.

“Did I tell you about the guy I dated last weekend?” Adele asked.

“No.” Maddie put on her sweater and prepared for a dating disaster story.

“Well, he picked me up in a souped-up Pinto.”

“Pinto? Aren’t those the cars from the seventies that explode?”

“Yeah. It was bright orange, like a moving target, and he drove like he thought he was Jeff Gordon.” Adele pushed several springy curls behind her ears. “He even wore those fingerless racing gloves.”

“You have got to be shitting me. Where did you meet this guy?”

“At the raceway.”

Maddie didn’t ask what Adele had been doing at the raceway. She didn’t want to know. “Tell me you didn’t have sex with him.”

“No. I figure a guy who drove that fast had to do other things fast too.” Adele sighed. “I think I’ve been cursed with bad dates.”

Maddie didn’t believe in curses, but she couldn’t disagree. Adele had the worst luck with men of any woman she’d ever known. And Maddie had had a lot of bad luck herself.

An hour and three more bad date stories later, there was still no sign of Mick. Maddie and Adele ordered another drink and she began to wonder if he just might not show up at all.

“Hello, ladies.”

Maddie glanced up from her martini at the two guys standing in front of her. They were both tall and blond and very tan. The man who’d spoken had an Australian accent.

“Hello,” Adele said and took a sip of her Bitch on Wheels. Adele might have a lot of bad dates, but that was only because she attracted a lot of men. With her golden curls and big aquamarine eyes, Adele seemed to draw men in like bees to a barbeque. Obviously Adele’s mojo worked on all nationalities. Behind her glass, Maddie glanced at Adele and laughed.

“Would you like to sit down?” Adele asked.

They didn’t have to be asked twice and slid into the two empty chairs. “M’names Ryan,” the guy closest to Maddie introduced himself, flattening his vowels like he was Crocodile Dundee.

She set down her drink. “Maddie.”

“That’s Tom. He’s m’mate.” He pointed to his friend. “D’ya live in Truly?”

“Just moved here.” Good Lord, she half expected him to say “G’day” and “Crickey.” It was too dark to see the color of his eyes, but he was cute. “How about you?”

He scooted his chair closer so she could hear him better. “We’re just here for the summer fightin’ fires.”

Foreign and cute. “Are you a smoke jumper?”

He nodded and went on to explain that the fire season in Australia was the exact opposite of the season in the U.S. As a result, a lot of Australian smoke jumpers worked in the American West during the summer. The longer he talked, the more fascinated Maddie became, not only by what he said but by the sound of his voice as he said it. And the longer he talked, the more Maddie began to wonder if this wasn’t the perfect man for her to fall off the wagon with. He would be in Truly for a short time and then he’d leave. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. She leaned in a little closer and asked, “Are you married?” just to make sure. But before he could answer, two hands grasped the backs her arms and lifted her to her feet. She was turned slowly around until her gaze landed on a broad chest in a black Mort’s T-shirt. Through the dark surrounding them, she recognized the chest even before she raised her gaze up a thick neck, strong chin, and compressed lips. She didn’t have to see his eyes clearly to know they burned an angry blue.

Mick leaned close and said next to her ear, “What are you doing here?”

He smelled like soap and skin. “Apparently I’m talking to you.”

One of his hands slid to hers and grasped her like a hot vice. “Let’s go.”

She grabbed her purse from the table and looked over her shoulder at Ryan, then Adele. “I’ll be right back,” she hollered.

“You sound sure about that,” said the man hauling her through the crowd toward the back of Mort’s. “Excuse us,” she said as she bumped into Darla. He kept a tight grip on her hand as he just kind of moved through the crowd like a linebacker. She was forced to issue a “Pardon me” and another “Excuse us” over the music pouring from the juke. They walked past the end of the bar, down a short hall, and he pulled her behind him into a small room.

He closed the door and dropped her hand. “I told you to stay out of my bar.”

In one quick glance, Maddie’s gaze took in an oak desk, a coatrack, a big metal safe, and a leather sofa. “You were talking about Hennessy’s at the time.”

“No. I wasn’t.” His gaze narrowed and she could practically feel anger rolling off him in waves. “Because I’m a nice guy, I’m going to give you the option of grabbing your friend and walking out the front door.”

Once again, she didn’t fear his anger. Instead, she almost liked the way it turned his eyes kind of fierce, and she leaned back against the door. “Or?”

“I’ll toss you out on your ass.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Then I should probably warn you that, if you touch me again, I have a Taser and I’ll shoot fifty thousand volts in your ass.”

He blinked. “You pack a Taser?”

“Among other things.”

Again he blinked, kind of slow, like he couldn’t believe he’d heard her right. “What things?”

“Pepper spray. Brass knuckles. A hundred-and-twenty-five-decibel screecher alarm. Handcuffs and a Kubaton.”

“Is it even legal to pack a Taser?”

“It’s legal in forty-eight states. This is Idaho. What do you think?”

“You’re crazy.”

She smiled. “So I’ve been told.”

He stared at her for several moments before he asked, “Do you make it a habit of running around pissing people off?”

She occasionally did make people mad, but she never made a habit of it. “No.”

“Then it’s just me.”

“I don’t mean to make you mad, Mick.”

One dark brow rose up his tan forehead.

“Well, I didn’t mean to make you mad before tonight. But I kind of have a little problem with being told what I can and can’t do.”

“No shit.” He folded his arms across his wide chest. “Why do you need all that stuff?”

“I interview people who aren’t very nice.” She shrugged. “They’re usually in belly chains and leg irons and cuffed to a table when I talk to them, though. Or we talk through Plexiglas. Of course, prisons never let me take in my safety devices, but I always get them back when I leave. I feel safer when I’m packing.”

He took a step back and his gaze raked her up and down. “You look normal. But you’re not.”

Maddie didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not. He probably didn’t mean it as a compliment, though.

He rocked back on his heels and looked down at her. “Were you planning on zapping the blond guy coming on to you in the corner?”

“Ryan? No, but if he plays his cards right, I might cuff him.”

“He’s a tool.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was jealous. “Do you know him?”

“I don’t have to know him to know he’s a tool.”

Which made no sense at all. “How can you say someone’s a tool if you don’t know him?”

Instead of answering, he said, “You were practically tongue-kissing him.”

“That’s ridiculous. I haven’t made out with a stranger in a bar since college.”

“Maybe you’re tired of being ‘kind of sexually abstinent.’”

That was an understatement. She was really tired of it, but when she thought of having hot, down-and-dirty, animal sex, she thought of Mick. Ryan was cute, but ultimately he was a stranger in a bar, and she no longer made out or picked up strangers in bars. “Don’t worry about my celibacy.”

His gaze slid to her mouth and lower, down her chin and throat, and got hung up on her breasts. It was past nine, so of course she was cold. “Honey, your body isn’t made for celibacy.” Her hard nipples made two sharp points in the front of her dress. “It’s made for sex.” He raised his gaze to hers. “Lots of rough, sweaty sex that lasts all night long and into the next morning.”

Normally she might have been tempted to Mace a guy for saying that, but when Mick said it, she felt hot little tugs in her stomach and her body urged her to raise her hand to volunteer for sweaty sex duty. “Celibacy is a state of mind.”

“Which explains why you’ve gone insane.”

“Now who’s the tool?” She adjusted her purse to keep it from falling off her shoulder, but her fingers barely touched the bag before Mick pinned her wrists to the door beside her head.

She looked up into his face an inch above hers. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not going to just stand here and let you shoot my ass with fifty thousand volts.”

She tried not to smile and failed. “I was adjusting my bag on my shoulder.”

“Call me paranoid, but I don’t believe you.”

“You really thought I was going to zap you?” Zapping him had been the furthest thing from her mind.

“You weren’t?”

She chuckled. “No. You’re too pretty to get shot with fifty thousand volts.”

“I’m not pretty.” He let out a breath and it touched the side of her face and neck. “You smell like strawberries.”

“It’s my lotion.”

“You smelled like strawberries that day in Handy Man Hardware.” He buried his nose in her hair and she was so shocked, she felt like she’d been zapped. “You always smell so good. It’s been driving me crazy.” He pressed the length of his body into hers. “When I saw you across the bar, I wanted to do this.” He lowered his face to the side of her throat.

“I thought you wanted to toss me out on my ass.” How had it suddenly gotten so hot? A few minutes ago, she’d been cold. Now she felt hot little tingles rushing across her skin.

“I’ll get to that. Later.” He let go of her hands, but his hips held hers against the door. He’d definitely dressed left. He was long and hard and a dull ache settled between her thighs. Harriet had been right. The Hennessy men were blessed. “First I wanted to smell you right here.” He pushed her sweater away and kissed her bare shoulder. “Where you’re soft and taste good.”

“I like soft skin.” She took a shallow breath and closed her eyes. She wanted him to taste a little lower. “I’m kind of a hedonist that way.”

“How can you be a hedonist and celibate?” he asked against her neck.

“It’s not easy.” And becoming more difficult by the second. If she wasn’t careful, her hedonist side would rule her celibate side, and she would go down in a blaze of orgasmic glory. Which didn’t sound so horrible. Just not with him. She lifted her hand to the side of his face and brushed her thumb across the slight stubble of his cheek. “Especially when you’re around.”

He chuckled. A low masculine sound that came from the center of his chest. He raised his face and his gaze had gone all half-mast with lust and his lashes looked very long. Desire shone bright in his eyes and his hands moved to her waist.

“You’re the last man on the planet I can have.” She raised her mouth to his and he lifted his weight. “And the one I want most.”

“Ain’t life a bitch,” he whispered against her lips.

She nodded and rose to the balls of her feet. Her hand slid to the back of his head and she pressed her mouth to his. His hands on her waist tightened, and for several agonizing heartbeats,

he remained perfectly still, his warm palms glued to her waist, his mouth against hers. Then a deep groan sounded low in his throat, and he slid one hand to the small of her back and the other between her shoulders on the outside of her sweater. He brought her against his chest and he kissed her. Soft, sweet. His lips created a delicious suction and he drew her tongue into his mouth, his cheeks sucking lightly.

Maddie’s purse fell to the floor and she moved her free hand up the hard muscles of his arm and shoulder. Heat radiated from him and warmed her breasts where she was pressed against his chest. Maddie had never been a passive lover, and while he sweetly made love to her mouth, her fingers combed through his hair and her free palm roamed the hard contours of his chest and back. If he wasn’t Mick Hennessy, she would have pulled his shirt from his Levi’s and felt his bare skin.

Mick slid his mouth to the side of her throat. “You’re the last woman I should want,” he said between short gasps. “The only woman I can’t stop thinking about.” His hands moved to cup her behind and her hips cradled his erection. “What is it about you that drives me so crazy?” Pressed against her lower belly, he was enormous and so hard the pressure against her pelvis almost hurt.

Almost. She rocked against him as he pushed her sweater down her arms. He tossed the red angora somewhere behind him, but she didn’t need it. She was too hot. Her fingers curled in the front of his shirt and her mouth moved to his neck. He tasted good beneath her tongue. Like warm flesh and aroused man, and she sucked his skin. She grasped handfuls of shirt and swayed against his stiff penis. It had been four years since she’d felt anything so delectable, and she’d missed it. She’d missed the touch of a man’s hands, his hot mouth, and the sounds of arousal deep in his throat.

His fingers found the bow at the back of her neck and he tugged until her halter came untied in his hands. He pulled down the white straps as his lips once again sought hers. This time there was nothing soft or sweet in his kiss. It was all carnal and feeding, with hungry mouths and tongues, and she ate it up. She could have stopped him. She didn’t want him to stop. Not yet. Not when she wanted more. The top of her dress slid to her waist and Mick’s hands cupped her breast through the white strapless bustier. Underwires and metal corseting kept her double-Ds front and center, and his thumbs brushed her nipples through the stiff cotton. She pressed her belly against him, touching the aching places, and he groaned into her mouth. She was so hot, dizzy. Her skin tingled, her breasts felt heavy and her nipples painfully tight. It had been so long since she’d felt such delicious pleasure, and she slid her hand down his chest, over the waistband of his jeans, and pressed her palm against his turgid erection.

“Touch me,” he groaned into her mouth. And she did. While his fingers brushed her nipples through her corset, she slid her hand up and down the length of him, from the bottom of his zipper up the long rock-hard length to the swollen tip. The man had heft, and the wet ache between her thighs urged her to take one of his hands and slide it between her legs, to cup her crotch, and touch her through her panties and…She dropped her hands. “Stop!”

He raised his head. “In a minute.”

In a minute she’d be in the throes of orgasm. “No.” She took a step back and his hands fell to his sides. “You know we can’t do this. We can’t ever have sex.” She kept her gaze on his as she tied her dress behind her neck. “Not together.”

He shook his head and his eyes looked a little wild. “I’ve been rethinking that.”

“There’s nothing to rethink.” He was Mick Hennessy and she was Maddie Jones. “Believe me, you’re the last man on earth I can have sex with, and I’m the last woman you should have sex with.”

“Right now I can’t remember why.”

She should tell him. All of it. Who she really was and who he was to her. “Because…” She licked her lips and swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Sexual tension pulled between them, an almost irresistible hot pulsing force. His neck was red from where she’d marked him, and he looked at her through blue eyes all shiny with lust. The last thing she wanted was to see all that fiery need replaced with disgust. Not now. Later. “Because I’m writing a book about your parents and Alice Jones, and making love to you won’t change that. It will only make it worse.”

He took a few steps back and sat on the edge of his desk. He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through the sides of his hair. “I forgot about that.” His hands fell to his sides. “For a few minutes, I forgot you’re in town to dig up the past and make my life hell.”

Maddie bent down and picked up her purse. “I’m sorry.” And she was, but being sorry didn’t change anything. She almost wished it did.

“Not sorry enough to stop.”

“No,” she said and reached for the door handle behind her. “Not that sorry.”

“How long, Maddie?”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “How long are you going to be in town messing with my life?”

Good question. “I don’t know. Next spring, maybe.”

He looked down at his feet. “Shit.”

She slid her purse on her shoulder and looked across at him, sitting there with his dark hair sticking out from being finger-combed. She resisted the urge to smooth his hair.

He lifted his gaze. “Obviously, we can’t be within ten feet of each other without tearing at each other’s clothes. And since telling you to stay out of my bars is like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, I’m going to ask you to stay the hell out of my bars.”

Her chest did some sort of constrict-and-expand thing, which was not only impossible, but alarming. “You won’t see me in here again,” she assured him and opened the door. She stepped out into the bar, with its loud country music and beer smells, and wove her way toward Adele. When she’d first entered Mort’s she’d wondered if Mick would throw her out on her ass as he’d threatened.

Now she wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if he had.

Mick shut the door to his office and leaned back against it. He closed his eyes and pressed a palm against his aching erection. If Maddie hadn’t stopped him, he would have slid his hand up her thigh. He would have pulled off her panties and had sex with her right there, against the door. He would like to think he’d have had the presence of mind to lock the door first, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

He dropped his hand and circled his desk. Her red sweater was thrown on the floor and he picked it up before sitting in his chair to stare at the safe across the office from him. Earlier, looking across his bar and seeing Maddie sitting at a table, sipping a martini as if he hadn’t told her to stay out of his bars, had shocked the hell right out of him. Shocked him like that Taser she carried in her purse. On the heels of all that shock came a big dose of anger and an urge to smell the side of her neck.

Seeing her chatting it up with the Aussie, he’d felt something else too. Something a little uncomfortable. Something that felt a bit like he wanted to rip the man’s head off. Which was absolutely ridiculous. Mick didn’t have anything against the Aussie, and he certainly didn’t have any sort of relationship with Maddie Dupree. He didn’t feel anything for her. Well, except anger. And raging lust. A burning desire to bury his nose in the side of her neck while he buried himself between her soft thighs. Again and again.

There was something about Maddie. Something other than her beautiful body and pretty face. Something beyond the scent of her skin and her smart mouth. Something that drew his gaze across a crowded bar to a table in a dark corner. Something that recognized her dark outline as if he knew her. Some indefinable thing that made him kiss her and touch her and hold her tight against his chest as if that’s where she belonged, when in reality, she didn’t belong anywhere near him. A fact he tended to forget when she was near him.

He brought the sweater to his face. It smelled like her. Sweet, like strawberries, and he tossed it onto his desk.

A few weeks ago, his life had been fairly good. He had a plan for the future that didn’t include thinking about his past. A past that he’d done a pretty good job of forgetting.

Until now. Until Maddie had driven her black Mercedes into town and run his life off the road.