Bound to the Bounty Hunter (11 page)

Chapter Ten

Sophie downed coffee and forced a piece of toast into her protesting stomach. She’d planned on an hour’s sleep before she hit the park, but Karma wasn’t playing in her sandpit today. Her alarm had failed, or she’d slept through it. The usual sound of Pongo head butting her door then landing on her bed with all the finesse of a shipping container being dropped off a cliff hadn’t happened. Her body had betrayed her by slipping into a coma until sunlight hit her face, and she’d woken with a start.

Ten o’clock had rolled by, and her proposed early start to the day was in the gutter.

The door to Harlan’s room was closed.

Wait.

The door to
her
spare bedroom was closed.

She’d not wanted to hear the front door clicking, the sparkly laughter of a sated woman after Harlan had delivered on his Groupon promise.

She choked on her coffee.

Submissives R Us probably purchased a multipack and they’re getting through each voucher one position at a time.

Her stomach felt like she’d swallowed barbed wire.

God, why do I feel like this?

“Because there’s something wrong with me,” she said to the plate.

And it pisses me off, and I don’t know why I’m pissed off
.

She grabbed her jacket and shrugged it on.

The door to her spare room opened.

“Hey.”

She swiped her phone and keys off the spotless counter and without a backward glance headed out the door.

Harlan’s string of curse words followed her.

She jumped into her car, which started after a couple of thumps. She shot down the driveway with a screech of tires, heading to the park. Her foot hit the accelerator when Harlan’s car came into her rearview mirror. She gripped the steering wheel. “Come on, baby girl, please don’t let me down.”

She threw in a sharp left, Never-Stressed Nancy calculating the fastest route. A black Jeep slotted three cars behind her.

I’ve used up my Karma quota today
.

Twenty minutes later, Sophie roared into the lot, threw her car into park, turned off the ignition, and laid her head against the steering wheel. Her damp hands gripped the wheel, her knuckles white, her heart playing pinball against her ribs.

She’d driven like a teenager on a joyride. In a last ditch effort to lose Harlan and the Jeep she’d sent a prayer upward to anyone listening, made a tight turn, and headed the wrong way down a one-way street, her emergency lights blinking. She’d hogged a lane and by a miracle had emerged at the end of the street bombarded with not-very-nice hand gestures, but intact.

Sophie turned her head, and her mouth dropped open.

On the bandstand elderly couples dipped and swayed to 1940s music. The women wore vintage party dresses, all with matching white orthotic shoes. The men wore shiny suits, their black shoes gleamed, pressed white handkerchiefs in breast pockets. A jazz quartet played in the corner.

Sophie exited her car and made her way to the bandstand. A small sign announced that the
Happenin’ Hits of the Heyday
was in full swing and anyone could join in.

The sun beat down on her neck, the thick cotton of her polo plastered to her body.

She stopped at the steps to the bandstand. An ancient man sat guarding a neat stack of dollar notes.

“Do you want to join in?” The man smiled at Sophie showing veneers so white she was momentarily blinded.

“Thank you.” She pulled her wallet from her back pocket and handed him a twenty-dollar bill.

The man’s eyes widened. “That’s too much, my dear.”

A memory surged into her head. She’d been young. She and her father had stopped at a small town in the Midwest. Farm folk without much to give paying for her father’s prayers to bring rain and good fortune. She remembered the grandfathers and their families flocking to the man who could save them and their farms.

People like the man in front of her.

“No it’s not.” She pushed the words past the lump in her throat and squinted at the wooden post where she’d hidden her equipment. Nothing looked out of place, but it was too hard to tell from where she stood.

“You may have to wait for a lickety-split minute until one of our younger gents comes free.” At Sophie’s bewildered look he continued. “You need a partner. I’d offer, but my hip’s been acting up, and I’m saving myself for the limbo. Got my eye on Gladys.” He winked and Sophie returned the smile.

“That’s okay, I don’t mind—”

“She’s taken.”

Sophie stiffened at Harlan’s words.

No, she is not.

Her blood pulsed through her veins, and her heart kicked it up an extra two notches.

Harlan grabbed a fifty from his wallet and passed it to the man, who looked like he might cry with appreciation. His hand moved to the small of her back, gently propelling her up the stairs.

She dug in her heels.

Even through the thick cotton of her polo and the denim of her jeans, his heat, his touch, seared her
.

When was her body going to get the memo that she didn’t like this man?

“You nearly got yourself killed,” he said, anger vibrating in his voice. He grabbed her hand.

“So did you.” She tried to pull her hand away. She wouldn’t tell him how many times she’d wanted to bust into her spare room and murder him.

“What are you doing here, and why did you ditch me?”

“I’ve come for the dancing and I ditched you because I wanted to.”

He dug his hand through his hair, making it all messy and sexy in an
I’ve had sex all night long
kind of way, which pissed her off even more.

“Let me go,” she said, anger and something she didn’t want to define bubbling in her chest.

“Jesus, Sophie won’t you ever listen to me or do what I say?”

“Well, let’s see.” She cocked her head to one side and pretended to consider his question. “No.”

“I’m doing this to protect you.”

“You are
not
,” she shot back. “You’re doing this for that stupid bet and your Everest-sized ego, thinking you can have me for one night which you cannot.”

She flashed a manufactured smile at an elderly woman who’d stopped dancing to greet them.

“Next up is the Virginia reel. Join in, dears.”

She ignored Harlan and tried to concentrate on counting the number of posts opposite her, which was nearly impossible due to the moving bodies.

She moved away, but Harlan’s fingers pressed into her hip.

Her overactive memory planted a vision of Harlan and a petite blonde at the front of her mind.

She broke free from him and joined a line of dancers facing their partners.

“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m doing the Virginia reel,” she said over her shoulder. She followed the line of women and walked four steps toward her invisible partner. “After that there’s the ‘Come near my house again and you’ll be missing your balls’.” She stepped backward four steps. “I have to say that last one is my favorite, it’s a real jaunty tune.”

Her jaw started to clench when he moved to stand opposite her, but she somehow managed a full-wattage smile in his direction.

She hated that she felt jealous that he’d brought a woman home to her house.
Her
house.

She concentrated on the dance moves of the line of women. Moving toward Harlan and slipping away at the last minute. He stood impersonating a lamppost.

“I don’t know what’s pissed you off.”

“Where were you last night?” she said.

“Working.”

She nodded.

Working off the Groupon voucher with Chanel No. 5
.

“I don’t want you at my house, Harlan. You need to leave. Today.”

His eyes widened then narrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

She held up her hand. “There’s nothing to say, so don’t.” She took two steps forward.

A pair of dancers shuffled down the middle of the line leaving Sophie closer to the pillar she searched for.

Awesome. At this rate I should be at the front of the line in two weeks.

Before she let her bad mood settle over her like a persistent, rainy cloud, she smiled at the woman standing beside her, who’d shuffled down the line of people. Her powdered cheeks were pink, her forehead damp, her green eyes sparkled like polished emeralds.

“He gets better every year, my Frank,” she said to Sophie behind her hand. “I don’t tell him, though. I like to keep him on his toes.”

Sophie laughed.

The tempo of the music changed to a slow waltz.

She looked around for a single gent whom she could shuffle around the bandstand toward the post where her equipment was.

“Hey, what do you think you’re—?”

She got no further. Harlan’s hands were on her hips, dragging her until she was plastered against the long, hard length of him. She placed her hands between them to push him away, settling on his pecs, her fingers brushing against thick nipple rings.

Oh my.

She turned her head to hide the heat pounding into her cheeks.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m waltzing.”

Before she had time to react, he pulled the tie, releasing her hair. He leaned in and buried his face in it.

“Gets me every time,” he said.

“Stop doing that. You—”

“What
exactly
are you doing here?” he asked. “Doesn’t seem your scene,” he said, leading her again across the creaking wooden floor.

She moved left and tried to pull him in the same direction.

“Been on my bucket list for a while,” she said through gritted teeth when he wouldn’t budge. “Next week is knitting coats for cats.”

She went to move left but he went to move right.

“You have to let me lead,” he said, his breath tickling her ear.

She stood on her toes, her lips brushing his earlobe and thought for a moment she’d heard him growl. “No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do.”

His hands tightened on her waist, and with gentle force he moved her in the direction he wanted her to go.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“We’re waltzing.” His fingers pressed deeper.

One hand splayed across the bottom of her spine, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her in tight.

Hip to hip, chest to chest, his unique scent of soap, sweat, and man filling her.

Everyone else melted away.

His pulse steady and slow against her fingertips. His head resting lightly on the top of hers. They moved in time to the slow beat.

“Letting me take control wasn’t too bad.” A smile teased his lips.

The mood broken like a boulder landing in a still pond, she stiffened and pulled back.

His eyes flashed. “Oh, hell no. You all soft against me? I’m not giving that up.” He pulled her against him and touched his lips to her neck.

She fought the heat that traveled down the column of her neck then exploded throughout her body.

And failed.

The music turned into a sultry tango.

Her head whipped left.

A tango
.

A sexy tango when you weren’t sexy, with a man who radiated sex appeal and whose tank was topped up?

No.

She tried to fight her way out of his hold, but he tightened his grip.

All the insecurities of growing up as the too-tall, too-plain girl, growing into the too-tall, too-plain woman, clawed at her insides.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong? I thought you were here for the dancing.” His fingers flexed around hers.

With effort she spun out of Harlan’s arms and into the surprised face of an old man who beamed down at her.

Irish moss aftershave along with the scent of faded roses filled her head as couples moved around them, their faces either smiling or set with steely determination.

“Now this is more like it,” he said, his arthritic fingers lacing with hers, her cheek pressed to his, and she laughed out loud when he marched her across the floor.

The man twirled her into open space.

She landed on a hard chest, hands gently gripping her hips.

Before she could protest, Harlan marched her forward, hip-to-hip, zigzagging around the smiling faces of the older dancers.

“Going to twirl you now.”

“Don’t, please,” she said, desperate.

He twirled her as if she weighed a hundred pounds, which she did not. Her feet tangled, her stomach lurched, training kicked in, and she twisted her body so her shoulder would break her fall. The bandstand floor loomed.

Two strong arms scooped her up and plastered her against an equally strong chest.

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He swept her hair off her face in a surprisingly gentle gesture, one hand now cradling her head, one hand splayed at the base of her spine.

Sweat streaked down her forehead, her polo stuck to her body. Harlan looked as if he were delivering a lecture on climate change to icebergs. No sweat on his brow. No damp shirt for him.

“You’re hot,” he murmured.

“I know. Let me go and I promise not to shake all over you like a Labrador after a bath.”

He chuckled. “No, I mean you’re hot. Panting and flushed face with your chest pressed against mine. Hot.”

He pressed in to her, and his attraction was apparent. Long, thick, and
very
apparent.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

He dragged her hips closer to his, nestling his hand lower on the waistband of her jeans until his hand slipped underneath the denim, his fingers searing her flesh.

When she licked her lips, his eyes blazed, leaving her in no doubt of what he wanted, which didn’t make sense. One minute she thought he wanted her and the next he was barking orders at her. The man was more confusing than a maze.

Sophie needed a distraction. The last two functioning cells in her brain banded together and devised a plan before she melted into him, lost herself, only to find she was locked in a bathroom in her underwear, his laughter trailing her.

The music changed, breaking their connection. She managed to unplaster herself from Harlan’s long, hard body, one part harder than the rest.