Confidence Tricks (22 page)

“Why would I want to escape this?” Asprey asked, meaning it. The rain sluiced down Poppy’s face, dripping over her upper body, which had to be freezing. Her nipples, outlined and erect, seemed to agree with him. “I already told you my safe word—and I’m nowhere close to needing it yet. I trust you, Poppy.”

She leaned in, her lower half pressing more firmly into his groin as her lips came perilously close to his own. Asprey bit back a groan. “You shouldn’t,” she murmured. Her eyes searched his, but he didn’t know what they were looking for. “I’m strong, Asprey, in more ways than you realize. You and your family might have tons of disposable cash, and I might stand in your debt right now, but in a fight—fair or otherwise—I’ll always come out ahead. You need to know that.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

“It’s both.”

A drop of rainwater collected on her lower lip, and it fell to Asprey’s waiting mouth, tasting of the sky. For one long, tense moment, neither one of them moved or breathed, the whole world suspended until an overhead rumble of thunder signaled a kind of starting bell.

Their lips met then, in a furious kiss that Asprey seemed unable to control. There was no finesse about it, no sign of the gentle seduction he normally enjoyed when kissing a woman. She released none of the strength of her grip on his arms as his tongue swept into her mouth, and she ground her hips into his even harder when he refused to reduce any of the urgency.

Poppy might have him pinned to the ground, and the kiss was hers to initiate or break off as she chose, but Asprey yielded nothing.

The kiss continued with that kind of strength much longer than Asprey thought possible, none of the passion spent as she eventually let up her hold on his biceps. The freedom meant he could wind his arms around her body, pull her so close she almost completely protected him from the heavy drops of rain. One hand made its way to the back of her head, forcing her to stay close—to stay his.

The thunder once again rumbled its timeless warning. And once again, they both heeded its call. The abruptness with which they separated was almost painful, leaving him feeling oddly bereft. Still, she remained on top of him, looking down as if waiting for him to respond.

“So,” he said, unable to resist the pleading look in her eyes. They begged him to make this normal, to make this okay. “Lost your virginity here, eh?”

It was the right thing to say. With the same strangled laugh that only he seemed able to elicit, she swatted playfully at his head, which he covered with his hands. She swung her leg over him and helped him to his feet. They were both drenched from head to toe, clothes and hair slicked to the skin. “Don’t get any funny ideas. It wasn’t my most glamorous moment.”

“The first time is always unglamorous,” Asprey protested, glad they were back to normal footing. Well, normal
-ish
. There was no way to undo a kiss like that. “It’s one of the cardinal rules.”

“You think so?” Poppy leaped nimbly up the side of the pit, watching with a smirk as he struggled to do the same. He got up, but not nimbly, the edges slippery in the rain. “Where did you lose yours?”

“Not too much of a departure from this, actually. It was at a pool house with Mrs. Garrison, my friend Peter’s mom. We spent the whole summer doing cannonballs into a pool about the size of this one, Mrs. Garrison watching from her chaise lounge in this tiny gold-and-black bikini.” He paused. “Do you know, I don’t even remember her first name? She was always Mrs. Garrison. Before, after…
during
.”

“That’s disgusting on so many levels.”

“You’re freezing.” He scooped up their jackets, but they were logged with water and cold to the touch. With a glance at the decrepit house, he said, “Do we brave it?”

She shook her head firmly and looked at the house with a kind of loathing that made Asprey long to take her in his arms. “No. Absolutely not. I’d rather die a long and painful death of pneumonia than ever set foot inside there again.”

The path leading back to the motorcycle was slippery and muddied, and more than once, Poppy reached out to grab Asprey’s arm to keep from falling flat on her face. He was happy to be her support—if only for the brief moments of weakness she allowed herself.

“I’m not sure we can ride very far,” he said doubtfully, surveying the road as they approached. “If we don’t slide off into the wooded abyss, we run the risk of turning into human popsicles after about five minutes with this weather and these jackets.”

Poppy frowned as she followed the line of the road, one side leading back to the semi-civilization of Aberdeen, the other going farther up into the wilderness, where bears and hypothermia awaited.

“When I was a kid, there was a bed-and-breakfast about two miles up the road. The lady who ran the place used to call the cops on us at least three times a week.”

At the mention of a bed and food, Asprey felt the full effects of their current state of exposure. It was cold and wet and only growing more so by the second. “You think it’s still there?”

Poppy wrapped her arms around her midsection, hands rubbing her exposed forearms. “I think it’s worth a shot.”

He tossed her the jacket and helmet. “Then suck it up and hold on tight.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Are you here for the Chaucer-Jones wedding?” The woman at the counter looked over the top of her glasses at them, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. She had the worn, kindly look of a grandmother, but Poppy recognized her and knew she was nothing of the sort. Well, she was probably a grandmother, but not a kindly one. More than once, she’d tramped through the forest toward the Pit with a shotgun, shouting statistics about how likely the police would be to believe she’d mistaken a juvenile delinquent for a black bear.

Poppy squirmed in her too-wet, too-revealing clothes. “No. We just need a room. Two rooms,” she hastily amended, refusing to look at Asprey. She’d already made the mistake of following him into the B&B. There wasn’t a dry patch of him left. Even though he wore his signature layers of preppy clothing, it wasn’t difficult to make out each twitch of muscle under his clothes, his dark jeans heavy enough to hang a bit lower on his hips than they normally did. When he’d leaned in to help her off the motorcycle, she could actually see the line of his tan, where golden skin met the chalky whiteness of an ass whose rounded deliciousness she couldn’t stop imagining between her teeth.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to think beyond the body to the meaning below the surface. People in Seattle did not have tans. Asprey Charles, the thieving playboy son of a renowned art appraiser, probably got his sun-kissed glow from jet-setting around the globe on someone else’s dime.

That tan line drew more than boundaries in the skin—it separated worlds.

“Unless you’re with the wedding party, you’re out of luck.” The woman—Norma, she remembered now—tapped at her keyboard, though Poppy was pretty sure she gleefully pushed random letters. “They’ve booked through the weekend. Such a nice young couple.” She stared harder at Poppy, who quickly turned her head to avoid recognition, though she was a far cry from the gangly semi-Goth teen she’d once been. “He’s a doctor, and she works in interior design. Isn’t that lovely?”

Poppy opened her mouth to voice her opinions on interior design as a profession, which in her eyes was almost as bad as being a con artist, but Asprey placed a hand on the small of her back to nudge her out of the way.

She sucked in a sharp breath. What was it with him and that spot? He had to be doing it on purpose—had to be willfully sapping her of her resolve to keep him at an arm’s length.
Remember the rules, Poppy. Never get involved.

“I can’t tell you how much we’d appreciate it if you could find a place to squeeze us in.” Asprey clicked easily into smooth-talker mode even with his soaking wet, muddied clothes and their leather jackets hanging over one arm. Poppy might have been amused if she wasn’t so freaking distracted by his hand. “I know we look like drowned rats, but we got caught on our motorcycle tour of the coast, and could really use some shelter from the storm.”

Norma sniffed loudly. “And if we weren’t hosting a wedding this weekend, I’m sure I’d be delighted to accommodate you. You understand.
Dr.
Chaucer and Miss Jones have requested a private party.”

“Oh, we’ll keep things private, I promise.” Out of the corner of her eye, Poppy saw Asprey wink. What was it with that man and winking? “Surely you have a bat-room hiding around here somewhere. I’d be happy to pay for the privilege of using it.”

“Bat-room?” Norma’s look of disdain only deepened.

Asprey let go of Poppy then, freeing her from the naughty-doe-in-the-headlights position she’d been stuck in. He leaned on the counter, a lock of his dark hair falling into his eye. He couldn’t have oozed sex appeal any harder if he tried.

“It’s not as strange as it sounds,” he said, flashing his signature smile—the one plastered on a hundred Internet photos. “A friend and I once rode our motorcycles up through Glacier National Park—it’s an incredible trip if you ever get the chance—and we got caught in a storm just like this one. The only place to stay was this big, old hotel with no vacancies left.”

“Except the bat-room?” Norma guessed. There was a definite thawing going on over at the other side of the counter. Asprey was using his powers for good. For once.

“Exactly!” Asprey cried. “Apparently, there’s this small opening in the side of the building where bats get in and nest. They never used the room right next to it, since the little buggers fly in and out all night long—sounds like you’re sleeping on a bed of newspapers. No matter how many barriers or traps they put up, the bats always come back. They like it there, and they’ve become something of a fixture.”

Norma smiled.
Smiled
, for crying out loud. “We don’t have any bats up here, mind you. Skunks on the rare occasion, but if there’s one thing we know, it’s how to get rid of pests.”

Easy for Norma to say. She never had to deal with one like Asprey before.

Asprey put his hand over Norma’s. “I think I’m going to like what you say next.”

She let out a sigh they all knew was just for show, and this time when she typed, she pushed actual buttons. “It used to be the woodshed, so don’t expect anything too grand. We had it made up into a cozy room when my husband’s mother, may she rest in peace, came to live with us.”

Asprey beamed. “You’re an angel.”

“I’ll have to bring your breakfast to you in the morning, so you don’t get in the good doctor’s way. There’s no shower or bath in there—just a toilet and sink, and you have to be careful of the hooks in the walls. And there’s only one full-sized bed, but I’d avoid the right side if I were you.”

“It sounds perfect. I’ll pay double,” Asprey promised. “And I don’t want to hear any objections.”

Poppy had an objection—she had several of them, actually, almost all of which stemmed from her dislike of being cast aside while decisions were made for her. But Asprey must have anticipated her mood, because he moved in front of her, effectively shutting her off from Norma’s view as he whipped out a credit card and chatted about airline mileage plans.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Poppy hissed after Norma drew them a quick map to what sounded like a miniature murder-house.

“My first objective was to find us someplace dry and warm,” he returned, lifting a hand. She ducked and weaved out of the way before he could get it near her lower back. “Then I was thinking food.”

She stalked a good three feet ahead of him, following a series of circular path stones into the darkness. “Maybe I don’t want to share a room with you—did you ever think of that? And I’m paying for my half.”

He laughed and jogged to catch up. Thankfully, he’d tucked his hands in his pockets, so there was no imminent danger of an x-spot landing. “You’re worried about giving me a hundred bucks? I don’t know if you remember, but you’re currently in the hole to the Charles family to the tune of around thirty-two thousand dollars.”

She whirled. “That’s kind of a crappy thing to rub in my face right now. When we finish the job, we’ll be more than even—I’ll make sure you and your family get your fair share of the takings. Unlike some people, I have principles.”

“You think I’m worried about my principles?” Asprey let out a soft laugh. “I passed caring about that long before I ever became a thief. You’re going to have to do better if you want to insult me.”

“A miserable thief,” she added helpfully.

He bowed his head. “Of course.” Then, “I think it’s right through here.” He let out a low whistle as the woodshed came into view.

Poppy couldn’t help a laugh from escaping as she peered over Asprey’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of him—rain and leather and the subtle mint of whatever shampoo he used. “She’s got that entire house full of rooms and
this
is where she stashed her mother-in-law? Norma’s worse than I remember.”

He turned, their lips a fraction of an inch apart as they came face-to-face. Poppy did her best not to move, not to let him know how much it affected her.

But it did affect her—even more since she’d brought him to this place, where memories loomed larger than life. She hadn’t been to Aberdeen since her release.

She hadn’t expected to ever come back.

Just as she was about to lean in, he reached around her to open the door to the shed, which wasn’t even locked to protect against invaders. One look at the interior and it wasn’t hard to see why. You’d have to be pretty desperate to call a place like this home.