Sinful Southern Hero: 2 (18 page)

It was Sunday afternoon, a time Dalton knew Lucy wouldn’t
normally be at her office, but he decided to try there first. Abigail and Jed
opened Hart’s Ink from Noon until 5:00 p.m. every Sunday for piercings and
tattoos, so there was a better than good chance Lucy would be there with them
now.

I hope to hell she’s at the shop…

The other two options of her whereabouts if she wasn’t at
the shop made Dalton’s blood pressure jump until he felt a vein throb across
his temple. If Lucy hadn’t come to work with Jed and Abigail, it meant she was
either somewhere alone and unprotected, or she was somewhere alone with Dez
enjoying his “protection”.

Dalton pocketed his keys as he crossed the street in front
of Hart’s Ink. He slung open the glass door and strode straight down the
hallway toward Lucy’s office.

“Whoa!” Dalton palmed the wall to keep from landing on his
ass after colliding chest-to-chest with Jed. The man had stepped out of his
piercing studio and right into Dalton’s path with no room to spare.

“Dalton,” Jed drawled after they’d both composed themselves.

“Jed. Is Lucy in her office?”

Jed scrubbed a hand over his chin, a chin which looked as
though it hadn’t seen a razor in a good two days. “Well, she is and she isn’t.”

Dalton, not in the mood for any bullshit, moved to push past
him but Jed threw his arm up across the hall to bar his way. Taking a calming
breath, Dalton turned back to Jed. “Listen, man, I appreciate everything you’ve
done for her. I consider you a friend and if you ever need something, I’ll be
there.” Dalton leaned closer to Jed, nearly close enough to touch noses. “That
being said, if you don’t get the fuck out of my way and let me see my woman…I.
Will. Break. You.”

The blood rushing through Dalton’s veins felt too hot, the
breath in his lungs too heavy, as he stared down the man standing between him
and Lucy.

“So, that’s how it is,” Jed said, not a question. He gave a
nod, body relaxing as he slouched to lean against the wall, giving Dalton room
to pass. “Don’t hurt her, man.”

“You know I won’t.” Dalton turned to continue down the hall
but halted when Jed kept talking.

“She’s been through some fucked-up shit, but my advice?
Don’t handle her with kid gloves. Gentle but firm and consistent will you get
you where you wanna be, on the right side of her trusting you.”

Dalton thought it was good advice, but he wasn’t going to
tell Jed. “Thanks for the advice, Hillbilly Dr. Phil. I’ll keep that in mind.”

A laugh rumbled from Jed’s chest. “Not Dr. Phil. More like
the horse whisperer. I use the same technique when I start training a skittish
horse.”

Dalton smiled for the first time in days and started walking
toward Lucy’s office. Jed called out behind him, “Hey, don’t go telling Lucy I
compared her to a farm animal!” Jed must have gone back into his studio because
his next words were muffled. “If Abbey hears about it, she’ll be bustin’ my
balls for a week.”

When he reached Lucy’s office, the door was closed and he
debated knocking, ultimately deciding to open the door and walk right in
without giving her a chance to refuse him.

The door being unlocked, he pushed it open, stepped into the
large room serving as Lucy’s office and was immediately surrounded by her
scent. Fuck, he’d missed her scent almost as much as her touch. Like lemons and
sunshine, comforting, clean, exhilarating.

Lucy’s head snapped up, her eyes wide and startled as she
peered at him from behind her desk and over the screen of her laptop. “Dalton.”
She breathed his name so softly he almost didn’t hear it.

Without a word, he turned, closed the door and turned the
lock. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Lucy jump in her seat when the
lock caught—a quiet click that sounded like a gunshot in the silent room.
Turning back to her, he studied his woman.

Her springy red and blonde curls were held back from her
face with a wide headband. He was glad to see she was still letting it down
instead of scraping it back into the messy bun she’d worn constantly when they
first met. She was hot either way, but when those curls were wild and free she
seemed more relaxed and comfortable in her own skin. Her skin was pale and
creamy, her eyes more gray than blue today with dark half-moon shadows
underneath as a testament to sleepless nights.

Dalton did not like seeing the evidence of the stress she
was under etched onto her beautiful face. He hoped he wasn’t responsible for any
part of her unrest, though he knew his fuck-up with Rachel was probably
responsible for a shade or two of those dark circles beneath the wary grays
watching him from across the room.

He walked to the front of her desk, thought better and
walked around behind it to stand next to Lucy. She peered up at him, her chest
rising in quick shallow breaths. Dalton studied her reaction, deciding she was
wary but not scared. Good.

“What are you doing here?”

“You wouldn’t take my calls, darlin’. Wanna tell me why you’ve
been avoiding me?” Dalton watched as anger swept over her features, adding a
blush to her cheeks and blue heat to her eyes. The sight went straight to his
dick.

Lucy stood, coming toe-to-toe with Dalton, hands crossed
over her chest. “How’s your
girlfriend
?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“You’re in the wrong place, asking the wrong person,” Lucy
hissed.

“Darlin’,” Dalton flashed a smile, which only served to piss
her off more if the fierce frown on her plump limps was any indication, “I’m
exactly where I want to be.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, her lips pressed into a tight line
before she spoke. “Last time I checked, my name was still Lucy, not Rachel. I
don’t have time for games, Dalton. In case you were too busy playing ‘The Dom
and the Submissive Barbie’ to notice, I’ve got a lot of shit going on right now
and the last thing I need is another asshole screwing up my life.”

Dalton took a breath, drawing in her scent and hoping it
would work to calm his temper. The last thing he wanted this visit to accomplish
was giving Lucy any more reasons to send him packing. He felt a small spike of
triumph upon the realization Lucy wouldn’t be so pissed off about Rachel if the
woman didn’t have feelings for him. Jealousy wasn’t love, but he’d take it for
a stepping stone.

When Lucy would have spun away, giving him her back, he
placed his hands on her shoulders, enjoying the softness that met his palms and
cushioned his fingers instead of the bony, skeletal shoulders he’d felt on his
previous women. He found lots of women attractive but had always gravitated
toward the tall and thin, like Rachel, like so many others whose names he
hadn’t bothered to commit to memory because they were all copies. When every
woman in his bed had been interchangeable, his lust for control and his passion
for fucking had been fed, but his soul had remained starved, slumbering as if
in hibernation.

He waited until Lucy met his eyes then slid one hand up to
cradle the side of her delicate neck while lifting the other to smooth over her
crazy beautiful tumble of curls. Staring into blue-gray eyes the color of an
approaching storm, Dalton knew.

This woman wasn’t his type. She wasn’t tall. Hell, the top
of her head barely met his chin. Her breasts weren’t a product of surgical
skill but crafted by nature. Her hips flared with a gentle curve and he knew
from experience when he grabbed hold of them for leverage, his fingertips would
sink in just a bit instead of pressing against skin stretched tight over bone.
Lucy wasn’t a piece of polished silver to be brought out to serve a particular
purpose only to be put out of sight and rarely considered between uses.

She was nothing like the sort of women he’d always sought
out.

Lucy was something different.

She was everything Dalton should have been looking for and
hadn’t known existed. Soft but strong, fragile but challenging, sexy but mostly
unaware of her appeal. Lucy was
his
everything.

* * * * *

Dalton’s fingertips drifted over her cheek and trailed over
her temple, causing Lucy to shiver. The way he was looking at her, his eyes
alight as if he’d never seen something so precious, made it hard for her to
hold on to the anger she’d been cultivating all week.

“I didn’t fuck her.”

Lucy felt her eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline. The
bold statement was at odds with Dalton’s featherlight touch and gentle
expression. His words jarred her back on track. “You told me before that you
did
.
Multiple times over the course of months, years maybe.”

His frustrated, mint-scented huff ruffled a few tendrils of
her hair as it washed over her face.

“I mean, I didn’t fuck her that day. The day your parents
were in town. The last day you let me see you. I haven’t touched her since the
moment you walked in my back door and dropped a mess of cookies all over my
porch.”

Lucy’s cheeks heated and she wished she’d never thought to
thank the big jerk with her cookies—which were awesome and he would have
loved.
Walking in on that scene, Dalton standing tall, strong and shirtless over
Rachel’s skinny ass was equal parts mortifying and arousing. “I’m not sure I
believe you.”

“She showcased the goods and offered me everything I’ve
always wanted.”

Lucy flinched, feeling a knot form in her throat making it
hard to swallow the hurt his words fired through her heart. She knew Rachel was
everything a man could want. Fucking Submissive Barbie and her stupid tiny
waist and long legs. Damn it, she knew—

“Rachel rubbed up against me and, yeah, I kissed her.” When
Lucy pushed her hands against his chest to free herself from his embrace,
Dalton held firm. “I was hard, she was ready and I kissed her.” He held Lucy’s
gaze, his unwavering. “And I hated every second of it, which is about how long
it lasted. A few seconds was all it took for me to realize she was all wrong.
Sharp where you’re smooth, fake where you’re honest. Her taste, even her
fucking scent was wrong. Wrong because she wasn’t you.”

Lucy’s heart slammed against her ribcage. “I don’t
understand.”

“I’m in love with you.”

Where her heart worked overtime a second before, now it
paused, stuttered with her breath. “What?” No way had she heard him correctly.

“You don’t have to say it back or even feel it for me right
now but you gotta know, I love you. Please tell me one mistake hasn’t damned me
for a lifetime without the woman I love. That’s all it was. A few seconds, one
giant-ass fuck-up, but if you forgive me I promise to spend the rest of my life
making it up to you. Let me love you, Lucy. You don’t have to give anything
back right now, just let me love you, take care of you, keep you safe. I want
to be the one holding your hand as you face your demons. Let me love you.”

Lucy paused, breath held, and thought about all he’d said
while studying his closely shaved head, earnest blue eyes and the tattoo
licking a trail up his neck from the edge of his shirt. Dalton seemed content
to let her think, simply holding her, watching and waiting.

On one hand, she didn’t want to seem like a pushover. Like
he could run around kissing whomever he pleased and it was no big deal. On the
other hand… She had put up a pretty good fight by uprooting her life, again,
the moment she had become aware of his transgression. Wasn’t a week full of
sleepless nights alone in a strange bed worth something? Hadn’t she spent an
entire week avoiding him at all costs, even enlisting her new friends to run
interference? Hadn’t she fought hard enough?

Lucy was tired of fighting. It felt as though her entire
life to this point had been one battle after another and she was damn
exhausted.

The coarse fiber of Dalton’s jeans rasped against her palms
as she slid her hands to his waist before tucking them in his back pockets. The
man had a fine ass, no argument there. She smirked when he raised one eyebrow
as if in challenge.

She’d been fighting so long for the simple right to exist,
to live and breathe and be free as every human had a right, it was difficult to
back down once she’d taken a stand. Difficult, but not impossible.

Laying her cheek against the firmness of Dalton’s chest, she
inhaled his scent of sawdust and leather and man.

Home.

Even as a child in her parents’ house, she’d never felt at
home as she did while surrounded by Dalton’s arms and scent. With this
realization, the answer was simple.

Lucy pulled back far enough to meet Dalton’s gaze. No one
said taking a leap of faith was easy. Most things worth doing weren’t. “I love
you, too. I didn’t want to, but I do.” When he opened his mouth as if to reply,
she shushed him and had to smile at the sight of his lips clamping shut. “If
you ever touch Rachel again, or any woman, I’ll be gone. I won’t hold what
happened last week over your head, but I also won’t stick around if it happens
again. I’ve had enough bad in my life. I want the good. I love you, kinky Dom
and all. Show me the good.”

She watched as his eyes slid closed and his chest shuddered
as if accepting all she’d said took an actual physical toll on his body. When
those lids opened again, the eyes behind them shone with so much determination
and heat she would have taken a step back if she hadn’t been locked within his
arms.

“Darlin’, Lucy…” Dalton’s words trailed off into a groan as
he pulled her hips closer, pressing the rapidly growing hardness behind his
zipper against her stomach.

With a careless abandon Lucy hadn’t felt in…well, never, she
used the handhold she had inside his back pockets for leverage as she moved
against him. Another groan rumbled inside his chest and vibrated against the
hard peaks of her nipples. Tilting her head back, she met his lips with her
own, giving as good as she got.