Gentlemen Prefer Curves: A Perfect Fit Novel (26 page)

“Too bad. We need to dance off some of your aggression. If you get arrested tonight then I’m never going to hear the end of it from my mother.” He pulled her out on the dance floor, grabbing her by her hips to keep her near him.

“Your mother can kiss my ass.”

“You have my permission to tell her that next time we see her.”

She opened her mouth to retort but seemed lost for words. She was fighting the fact that he was coming after her, that he was going to get her back. He was tired of fighting himself, deluding himself. The only time he ever felt right was when he was with her.

“We’ve never danced together before,” he said before she could collect her thoughts. They moved easily together despite her unwillingness. He led, keeping up with the fast-paced tempo of the band. She followed, brushing her sweet little body against his. The dance floor wasn’t crowded. The room wasn’t hot, but his temperature went up.

“I didn’t think you could dance.”

“Why? Just because I come from an uptight, stuffy. WASP family doesn’t mean I can’t dance.”

“I guess not.” She looked up and smiled at him for the first time that night. “You’re actually pretty good.”

“My partner inspires me.” The song ended, the band went into a slower song, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Belinda inched herself closer to him, looping her arms around his neck.

“I’ve never seen you in anything but a suit since you’ve been here.” She studied him for a long moment. “You look good in jeans.”

“Did I just hear you pay me a compliment?”

“Don’t look so shocked. Your ass looks good in them and I’ve always been an ass woman. You don’t have to wear a suit all the time in Durant, you know. This town is laid-back. I think people assume you’re some kind of narc when they see you all buttoned up.”

“You don’t like me in suits?”

“No, it’s not that. When we met you were wearing a suit. I’ve got a thing for men in suits.” She shook her head. “But under the suit and your neat haircut, there’s a bit of a rebel. You’re like an enigma. You confuse the hell out of me.”

“I’m not so confusing and I’m definitely not a rebel. I’ve followed too many rules in my life.”

“You didn’t go into the family business. You married me. You left your high-paying job and moved across the country. You’ve got tattoos.”

He shook his head, unable to agree with her. “You think I’m a rebel? I spent most of my life doing what was expected of me. I let my parents pick my college. I married a woman I didn’t love just to please my parents. I’m not a rebel. I just decided I was done living the life everybody else wanted me to live. I needed to prove I was my own man before I started to hate myself more than I already did.”

“You shouldn’t hate yourself. They guilted you,” she said to him. “That’s what parents do. They guilt you and they bug you and they suck the life out of you. My parents do the same thing to me. I’m their only child. They like to spend inordinate amounts of time with me. They come to my job and show up at my house uninvited. They drive me to drinking but I don’t stop them from being smothering because I feel guilty.”

“What do you have to be guilty about?”

“Oh, lots of things. I ran away from home when I was eighteen. I never got my bachelor’s degree. I moved to the other side of the country and I married you, a man I barely knew, and didn’t tell them about it until two weeks after it happened. Do you know what my mother said when she found out? ‘Oh, Belinda. How could you?’ She never calls me Belinda. Only when she’s upset. My mother who is a fountain of words had nothing else to say about our marriage but that. She had been planning my wedding since birth and I robbed her of that and took myself far away from her, and I feel guilty for that. So I will go fishing and pretend I like beer and listen to my mother blab on for hours about nothing to make up for my mistakes.”

He thought about what she’d just said for a moment. It was his idea to elope. He had asked her to marry him on a whim. He had never thought about robbing her of her dream wedding. He never asked her if she wanted one, because he’d had a big one the year before. His guilt was just as heavy as hers. He needed to make up for it, too.

“Why didn’t you tell them about us right away? Why didn’t you tell your friends about me?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I think I was afraid of us failing. It happened so fast and at times you seemed a little too good to be true. I was scared I was going to wake up one day and find out that you used to be a woman or that you had six wives in four states, and that I would hear nothing but I-told-you-sos and feel like a big fool.”

“And then you found out that I had one former wife and parents who were horrible to you.”

“And I felt like a big fat fool anyway. I guess I should have told them. The outcome would have been the same.”

“I’m sorry, you know.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her eyelids. “I’m so sorry about everything.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“I will.” He kissed her forehead. “When I stop feeling sorry.”

“Carter…” Her eyes teared.

“I think you should know that I haven’t been with anybody else.”

“What?”

“Hey, you two!” Ellis came dancing up. “The song has changed twice already. You two look kind of nutty swaying slowly in the middle of the dance floor while everybody else is shaking their rumps.”

Carter looked around him. Sure enough, everybody else was keeping up with the fast-paced tempo of the song. He hadn’t noticed. He was too wrapped up in her.

“Go away, preggers. We’re talking.”

“Well, excuse me.” She looked back at Cherri. “Shake your tail feather with me, honey. I think we’ve lost her for the night.”

“There’s been no one else? No one? Not a hookup with a colleague. Not a quickie with a client? Nothing?”

“We’re married. I never forgot that.”

“I’ve been dating,” she blurted. “I started right after our anniversary. I’ve never been with anybody else, but I went on a few dates.”

He didn’t like hearing that, but he nodded. What could he say? He had waited so long to come after her. “It’s okay.”

“I know it’s okay. I’m not apologizing. I’m just letting you know. We’re supposed to be getting divorced.”

“I’m not divorcing you, Bell.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I—”

“You should date, Carter,” she cut in. “You should go out and date other women and play the field.”

“Bell.” He shook his head. “I’m don’t want—”

He was cut off again but this time by a man, grabbing Belinda’s upper arm.

“Hey, buddy. Mind if I cut in?”

“I mind, Theo!” Belinda shot back, shaking the guy’s hand off her. “I don’t want to dance with you.”

Carter stiffened, trying to place Belinda away from the man. But she wasn’t having it. She wasn’t backing down, either. She must have known him. He was tall, probably an inch or two taller than Carter. He wore a backward baseball cap, and a
DURANT U FOOTBALL
T-shirt stretched across his substantial gut.

“Why not? You’ve been dancing with this clown for fifteen minutes and you don’t know him. I’ve known you half your life. You can’t dance with me for five damn minutes?”

Belinda rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. Just because we lived on the same street growing up doesn’t mean you have any claim on me.”

“I was the only guy who liked you when you were a fat ugly teenager and now you won’t even give me the time of day.”

The hairs on the back of Carter’s neck went up. His hands balled into fists. “What did you say to her?”

“Stay out of this,” Theo said, his eyes flashing as he looked at Belinda. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you turned into such a stuck-up frigid bitch. It’s no wonder all your friends are married and have families and you are the only one who doesn’t. Come off your perch. You’re not as hot as your mother is anyway.”

Carter stepped forward but he didn’t have a chance to put his hands on the guy because Belinda went after him, grabbing his shirt with one hand, her other hand balled into a fist. She swung at him, not a girlie slap, but a full-on jackrabbit punch. The guy’s head snapped back. Spittle flew from his lips. He stumbled backward.

“I may have been a fat kid, but I was never ugly. And the next time you call me a bitch you’re going to be missing a tongue. Go home, Theo. You’re drunk. And you better hope I don’t tell your mother about this. I know she would hate to have a thirty-year-old disrespectful jackass living in her basement. Let’s face it, Theo, you don’t want her pissed off because you don’t have any other place to go.”

“I can’t believe you hit me, you crazy b—”

She lunged at him. “Say it again.”

Carter grabbed her by the waist and lifted her away from the man and out of the bar altogether.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m getting you out of here before you maim somebody.” He set her down in the parking lot.

“But Theo had it coming. Did you hear what he said to me?”

“I know, champ.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “He had it coming and you clocked him pretty good, but I wanted to hit him. You didn’t even give me the chance.”

“Did you want to hit him?” She lost the aggravated look on her face. “Should I have played damsel in distress and let you beat him up for me?”

“Yes. It would have been nice.”

“Yo, Carter!”

He turned to see Steven rushing out of the bar. “Get her out of here now. That asshole is pissing mad and looking to stir up some more shit.”

“He’s all talk.” Belinda waved her hand dismissively. “He’s not planning on doing anything.”

“You hit him. In a room full of people,” Steven said. “If the cops are called you’re going in.”

“Shit.” She looked back to Carter and then shut her eyes for a moment. “Your mother would just love that. Wouldn’t she? Instead of paying me off, she’ll probably pay to have me offed.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her, but let me take you home just in case.”

“I shouldn’t have hit him. I just don’t like that he thinks he can talk down to me just because I turned him down. I don’t know why he thought it was okay to try to degrade me.”

“It’s not okay. It’s not okay for him to talk to you like that.”

“You guys need to go,” Steven said impatiently. “I’m going to try and smooth things over. Just get her out of here.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll take Belinda’s car. Ellis is getting her stuff out of the coat check. Just get her out of here now! I’ll talk to you later.”

He didn’t hesitate a second longer, he just grabbed Belinda and pulled her toward his SUV.

“He’s not going to do anything. Let me go back in there and talk to him.”

“No. No more arguments. Let me take you home.”

She exhaled, getting into his car without another word.

He started it up and pulled onto the road. “Who is that guy?”

“Theo Wassell. He’s the first guy I ever went out with.”

“Why? He’s an asshole.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “He always kind of was one, but he asked me out. Nobody else had asked me out so I said yes. He’s the kind of guy who goes in for a kiss and tries to suck your brains out. But I went out with him a handful of times, and I let him try to suck my brains out a handful of times. Then the last time I did he wasn’t content to just kiss and grope me. He pulled out a condom and when I said no he got nasty with me. Ever since then he’s been pissed at me. Trying to get with me or back at me at every shot. I shouldn’t have hit him. I know it was wrong but he had it coming. He’s had it coming for a long time.”

“I don’t get it, Bell. If you looked anything then like you look like now, then those boys in your high school were totally fucking stupid. I would have fallen over if you walked through my high school.”

She looked up at him and smiled beautifully. “You went to an all-boys’ high school, baby. I would hope I could have caused a little hiccup there. I was a very awkward teenager and my mother was so damn gorgeous. She still is, but she decided that she was going to take an active role in my education when we moved here. Both my parents worked a lot before we came to Durant, which left them feeling guilty. Which meant they chose to spend every waking moment of my adolescent years with me. My mother was in my school a lot. She volunteered to chaperone dances and she helped out in home economics class during our sewing unit. She ran every fund-raiser, including the car wash. Durant’s high school isn’t that big. Everybody knew who my mother was and everybody couldn’t help but compare me with her. I didn’t survive the comparison.”

“My parents were the opposite. When your parents were smothering you, mine sent me across the country to school. For a time I thought they sent me away because they hated me.”

“And now?”

“I’m not sure much has changed.” He laughed, but it sounded bitter to his own ears.

“That’s not true. They offered a lot of money to keep you away from a gold-digging hussy. If that’s not love…”

*   *   *

Carter pulled into her driveway, put the car into park, and leaned over to kiss her without warning. She closed her eyes and let herself be kissed. He took his time, like she was new to him, like he hadn’t already kissed her a thousand times. Part of her felt like she was sixteen and had butterflies; part of her felt like she was falling in love for the first time all over again. It was how all kisses should be. But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t content to just kiss him anymore. She wanted to lie beside him, to feel him on top of her, inside her. She was tired of all the barriers. Emotional ones. Physical ones. She just wanted to be with him. Doubts be damned.

“I would have slept with him,” she said when he lifted his mouth from hers. “I would have slept with him if he kissed anywhere as good as you.”

“Who? That asshole from the bar?” He grinned at her in that boyish way she was fond of. “I’m glad he didn’t. I want to be the only one who kisses you like that.”

“Come—” His cell phone rang just as she was about to ask him to come inside and spend the night with her.

He glanced at the clock on the dashboard then frowned and pressed the Bluetooth button to answer it. “It might be about Ruby. Hello?”