Sinful Southern Hero: 2 (3 page)

He lifted his head and glanced to the door off of the
kitchen leading to the backyard. Only the screen was shut, allowing a warm
breeze to sweep into the room. It would also allow anyone to see what he and
Rachel were doing if someone happened to stop by. No one would, but still…

“Yes. The door stays open. Anyone could walk by and see us.
See you, spread out on my table.” He smoothed a hand over her hip before
delivering a sharp smack to one bare cheek. “See the mark of my palm on your
flesh.”

Rachel shuddered and he knew he’d guessed the right answer.

One taboo Dalton had never been into was voyeurism. He liked
to keep his private life just that—private. But what they were doing now wasn’t
actually public. No one would wander onto his back porch at 7:00 p.m. so no
harm would be done by leaving the door open if it heightened the experience for
Rachel. If he focused enough on her pleasure, maybe he’d forget all about the
other woman whose image was flashing in his mind even now.

Lucy drummed her fingers against the steering wheel with
impatient taps and squinted her eyes at the light that had been red for like
ten damn minutes. She pushed a renegade curl behind her ear then glanced at the
clock on the dashboard. 7:00 p.m. She drew in a breath of sweet chocolate-scented
air and tried to relax.

The scent of fresh baked cookies prompted her to study the
plastic-wrap-covered plate currently sitting shotgun in her car and she
wondered for the hundredth time if this was a good idea. The bleating sound of
a horn told her the light had finally turned green.

A few blocks later Lucy held a piece of paper printed with the
directions to Dalton’s house, trying to read the tiny print and determine her
next turn. Holding directions in one’s line of sight while still watching the
road and steering a car was definitely an acquired skill.

“I’m probably the only person in America without onboard
GPS,” she grumbled.

After seeing Dalton at her new office that morning—and
enduring an entire hour of Abigail praising everything from his overtime hours
to his flippin’ hygiene—Lucy had decided she needed to find a way to both thank
him for finishing the job so quickly and work out some of her anxiety over the
hang-up calls she’d continued to receive. Baking cookies served both purposes.

She knew it was terribly “fifties’ housewife” of her but
she’d always turned to baking when she needed to work through something. Since
she’d had plenty to work through every day during her marriage with Ross she
now made the best damn cookies this side of Paula Deen.

Parking on the street in front of Dalton’s house, she
glanced at the clock again and hoped it wasn’t too late to drop in. This would
actually be her first “pop in” ever and she wasn’t sure what the rules were.
Lucy had rarely left the house without an itinerary and an escort when married
so her friendship skills were a bit rusty. Not that she was making friends, she
hastened to remind herself.

It surprised her that Dalton lived in town instead of some
remote cabin in the woods. With that big truck and growly voice, she’d pegged
him for a country boy. She snorted a laugh as she climbed out of her car.
Clifton, Tennessee was pretty much all country, even in the middle of town.

Damn humid, too. She swiped at the sheen of moisture already
collecting on her neck as she climbed the steps to Dalton’s front door with the
cookie platter balanced on her right hand.

Lucy rapped her knuckles against the outer screen door and
frowned. Knocking on the frame of a screen door didn’t make much noise,
certainly not enough to hear if the person inside wasn’t close to the door. She
waited and knocked again, still no one answered though Dalton’s truck was
parked in the drive and she could see lights on inside the house.

She bit her lip, debating whether it was appropriate to open
the screen door and knock on the inner door. It felt weird to take the liberty,
like she’d be invading his privacy. Then her head jerked up and spine stiffened
at the all too familiar sound of flesh hitting flesh.

Lucy felt her eyes widen, her gaze darting around the small
porch as the rumbling sound of Dalton’s voice reached her from what sounded
like the backyard. The sound of another slap was followed by a woman’s groan
and before she realized what she was doing, her feet were carrying her around
the house and through the open gate of Dalton’s fenced-in backyard.

Her heart alternated between beating fiercely and skipping
beats as she moved onto the rear deck. She tried to tamp down the memories but
they came flooding into her mind like an unstoppable slide show.

No one had ever come to help Lucy. Even when she knew damn
well her neighbors must have heard her cries, the sounds of breaking glass,
furniture hitting walls…no one had come. Maybe it had been her fault for
staying, for allowing herself to be abused, but her bad judgment didn’t excuse
all the people around her who had looked the other way.

Inaction could be just as terrible as the crime itself. Lucy
would not stand by and let her nightmare visit someone else. She was obviously
a piss-poor judge of character. First Ross, now Dalton.

Unlike the front door, the back door was wide open with only
the screen in place. Without hesitation, she placed her free hand on the
handle. She’d only pulled the door open a couple of inches before her gaze
found the kitchen table, or rather, the woman bent over it and the man standing
next to it.

Shit. This is worse than I’d thought.

What was she supposed to do? Dear God, he had her tied up!

Dalton was raping a woman. Well, maybe not raping her yet
but it sure looked like it was going in that direction though the man still had
his pants zipped.

Another vicious smack landed on the woman’s already reddened
ass. Having a first-person view of the act made Lucy choke back a gasp. She
could almost feel Ross’ hand landing against her flesh, though he’d rarely used
an open palm and never hit her anywhere that would leave a noticeable mark.

Dalton bent over the woman, his pelvis snug against her ass,
and wrapped the length of blonde hair around his fist before tugging the
woman’s head back.

“How do you want it, Rachel? How do you want me to fuck you?”
Dalton’s voice growled the words but they didn’t register with Lucy. All she
heard was Ross’ taunting voice asking her why she’d made him hit her.

Having had enough, Lucy pushed the door open and had one
foot on the linoleum when the woman spoke.

“You know what I want. Hard and fast, Dalton. I want you to
fuck me hard and fast.”

Lucy froze as she watched a shiver work over the nearly nude
woman and with stark clarity she realized she’d misjudged the situation.
Perhaps a tad too late for a revelation, being that she was standing inside
Dalton’s kitchen and suddenly seemed much more of a voyeur than a savior.

Just as she decided she still had a chance to back out of
the room and disappear without being seen, Dalton straightened and turned,
catching sight of her. His eyes flashed with shock and something that looked
like resignation before his features hardened into an impenetrable mask.

“Lucy…”

The blonde woman whipped her head around to peg Lucy with
startled but beautiful eyes.

Lucy wished for words to make this all go away but found
nothing suitable. Her skin heated and she knew her damnable redhead blush had
flared to life, branding her like a sunburn. “I—”

Dalton took a step forward and the action broke whatever
spell had been holding Lucy in place. She jumped, emitting an undignified
squeak like a startled rabbit, dropped the ceramic platter and cookies on the
floor and spun. She was out the door and halfway to the gate in the fence when
she heard Dalton’s curse and a distinctly feminine voice asking “Who was that
woman?”

The next thing Lucy knew, she was sitting in her parked car
outside of her own apartment, the sky having grown dark. She must have driven
there on autopilot and sat unmoving for some time before coming back to
herself. She wasn’t sure how she felt about what she’d seen now that she knew
Dalton hadn’t been abusing the woman, at least not against her will.

It wasn’t Lucy’s place to judge and she wasn’t exactly an
innocent herself. Still, with her history, the sight of his hand coming down on
the woman’s flesh, the sound of impact, the tangible tension in the air, had
thrown her back into the open arms of memories she wished like hell she could
learn to repress. Healthy or not, repressed memories seemed a damn sight better
to Lucy than memories that stalked and pounced regularly and without warning.

She climbed the steps to her apartment, unlocked the door
and entered, tossing her purse on the small side table inside the door. She
collapsed onto the sofa in the living room and ran a weary hand over her hair,
tugging the band off and loosening the curls. Trying to find a small bit of
peace in one of the most fucked-up days she’d had in the past few months, she
slumped back into the overstuffed cushions.

Her cell phone rang and without thought she answered.

* * * * *

Rachel’s pretty blue eyes turned sharp and cold as she
jerked her dress over her head. She cut her furious gaze toward Dalton and
strangely he couldn’t muster an ounce of regret over the premature end to their
games tonight. Even his dick seemed to agree, now wilted with all the emotional
turmoil Dalton was busy fighting through.

Damn it. Why the hell did Lucy, of all people, decide to
walk up to my back door?
Did she knock and I just didn’t hear her?
Maybe…

“I knew you should have closed the stupid door. Who was that
woman?” Now dressed, Rachel strode forward to stand directly under Dalton’s
nose.

“Just someone I did a job for.” He had no intention of
getting into the whys and hows of Lucy with his fuck buddy.

“Well, someone should teach her some manners.” Rachel huffed
and stomped her foot.

The indignant stomp brought a crooked smile to Dalton’s
lips, though he didn’t find the situation funny in the least. “There’s no need
to be jealous.”

“You’re not sleeping with her then?”

He raised a brow at the question. “You’ve no need to be
jealous because you and I are not exclusive. You’ve always known the rules,
don’t pretend like you’ve forgotten them now.”

A flush worked over the pale ivory of her skin and for once,
it did nothing to stir him. He scrubbed a rough hand down his face, pissed he’d
somehow lost control of the entire evening and worried Lucy was somewhere
thinking God-only-knew-what about the scene she’d walked in on.

“You’re being an ass, Dalton.”

He leaned his back against the wall and crossed his arms
over his bare chest, just wanting Rachel gone already so he could deal with the
aftermath.

“I don’t know why I put up with your crap,” Rachel continued
to rant. Her gaze strayed to the bulge of muscles created by his crossed arms,
down to his hard stomach which was taut from his reclining stance. “But, I’ll
give you one chance to make this up to me. Tomorrow night, six o’clock, my
place. If you’re not there, don’t bother calling me again. We’re through.”

He watched her curvy hips move toward the still open back
door.

She paused before turning to speak over her shoulder. “Oh,
and don’t forget to pick up the cookies Little Miss Prude dropped on her way
out.”

With a smirk, she spun on her ridiculous high heels and
disappeared through the doorway.

Dalton pushed away from the wall and approached the
scattered remains of the cracked ceramic tray and its cookie passengers just
outside his back door. Feeling a knot tighten his throat, he moved toward the
mess with tentative steps more appropriate for sneaking up on a wild animal
than the task at hand. With one hand braced on the screen door to hold it open,
he stared at the broken cookies, failing to come up with a reason why Lucy
would be bringing him anything, especially something she’d made herself.

The sound of Rachel’s car revving and speeding down the road
was an unwelcome intrusion, snapping him into motion. He knelt and began
stacking the mangled chocolate chip cookies onto the largest intact piece of
the ceramic dish. Once he’d gathered all he could fit onto the heavy shard, he
lifted it, intending to carry it to the trash. A flash of neon yellow beneath
the dish made him pause. Balancing the tower of cookies and ceramic on one
hand, he grabbed the post-it and held it up to the light streaming out from the
kitchen.

“Dalton, Thanks for working so hard and getting my new
office done so fast. Love, Lucy.”

“Well, shit,” he muttered, moving into the kitchen.

He sat the note on the table before cleaning the rest of the
mess. Once everything was inside the garbage can, he hooked a heel around the
leg of a kitchen chair and pulled it away from the table. He slumped into the chair
and read the handwritten note again.
Why does this sound familiar?
“…working
so hard and getting done so fast.”

It hit him then, the memory of him asking Rachel how she
wanted to be fucked and her replying she wanted it hard and fast. Damn, he
hoped Lucy hadn’t been standing on his doorstep long enough to have heard that.

Dalton slammed both hands on the table in frustration. How
had his night twisted into something so epically screwed up? He crumbled the
yellow post-it note in his fist, releasing a tempting taste of Lucy’s scent.
Citrus, like lemonade and sunshine and everything heartwarming.

He had to fix this. Somehow…

Standing, he shoved the crumpled note in the back pocket of
his jeans. He took the steps to his bedroom three at a time, swiped a shirt off
his dresser and tugged a pair of cowboy boots onto his feet without worrying
about socks. After jogging back down the stairs, he swiped his keys from the
hook by the front door and raced to his truck.

I’ll just go over there. I’ll go see Lucy and explain…
Well, hell. What can I say? That I wasn’t doing what she thought I was doing?
He huffed a self-deprecating laugh.
Not likely. No, I’ll just tell her how
sorry I am for upsetting her and wait for her to slap me for offending her
delicate sensibilities. Or knee me in the balls. Either way, I’ll let her vent
and then smooth things over. It’ll work. It has to work.

Dalton didn’t entirely understand the reason why he was
doing fifty in a thirty-five-mile-per-hour zone through the small town of
Clifton simply to reach Lucy’s apartment. The curvy redhead sparked feelings
inside of him Dalton was sure he’d stomped out years ago. Thinking about her
never wanting to see him again was… He shook off the unwelcome emotion and
instead, concentrated on driving.

When he pulled into the small gravel parking lot next to the
Victorian house where Lucy lived, he realized he had no idea which apartment
was hers. The house was divided into four units. His eyes narrowed, taking in
the big building. A light was on in a lower unit and one upper unit was lit up
like a Christmas tree. Lucy’s car had been parked in the lot so he assumed she
was inside one of the two apartments which appeared to have someone home.