Nailing Mr. Nasty (Campy Romances Series Book 2), page 7
“Careful there, mon tigresse,” he said, his voice rough around the edges.
She slipped her hand in his and a current of sexual electricity shot up her arm and exploded in her heart. His eyes narrowed and she knew he’d felt it, too. “I need some water.”
He chuckled, and it bristled with naughtiness. “What for? To put you out? Yeah, woman. You’re on fire, that’s for damn sure.”
She made her legs work and went to the table and grabbed her glass of water. She could feel Jack standing behind her, his heat hitting her like an open furnace. Ron gave her a side hug, smiling at her in wonder.
“Damn, girl. You have some hidden talents. That was great!”
“I wish I could dance like that,” Imelda said with a sigh. “That was fun! I felt like I was in a video or a movie!” She snapped her fingers and wiggled her hips, her eyes closing, seductively. “Oh, you nasty boys,” she sang softly, and Ron’s arm slipped off of Sam’s shoulder to embrace his wife.
“Mellie, you’ve got some moves. Let’s get outta here, baby.”
“Ron!” Imelda giggled, got a load of his sexed up expression, and sobered. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Sam glanced around as she clung to the edge of the table. She felt fuzzy-headed and weak-kneed. “I need to . . .” She snagged the waitress. “Where’s the ladies’ room?”
“Downstairs by the kitchen.”
“Thank you.” She took one more swallow of the water, feeling Jack’s gaze on her like it was a licking flame, then grabbed her purse and bolted for the stairs.
In the restroom, she took care of business and then stared at her flushed face in the mirror over the sink. Her hair was ruffled from running her hands through it and her lipstick was gone. She rummaged through her purse, found a tube of sugary pink gloss, and applied it. What had gotten into her? Her head began to clear and her heartbeats slowed to normal. A smile teased the corners of her mouth as she remembered the look of pure sexual attraction on Jack’s face. No way could he deny what he felt for her now, she thought with a snicker. His armor had not only developed some chinks, her performance had melted it off!
“Janet Jackson, it’s all your fault. You’re a sorceress!”
Oh, that had been fun – and freeing. She hadn’t let loose like that since . . . well, high school! The voracious expression on Jack’s face swam across her mind’s eye, evoking a delicious shiver through her. She wanted him to want her. She dreamed of it. Dreamed of him lusting for her, taking her. More than a few mornings, she’d awakened feeling damp and achy from sex dreams about her boss. She hadn’t been certain of his interest in her – until a few minutes ago.
Smiling and feeling like a tigresse –ah, when he called her that! – she waltzed out of the restroom and ran into the nasty man himself. Jack stood by the kitchen door, obviously waiting for her. She glanced around.
“Where is everyone?”
“Heading to another bar or home.”
“Oh. Party’s over?”
“Guess so. I’ll walk you to your car, unless you want me to drive you home. How much did you drink?”
“A margarita. I’m sober.”
“Maybe I’ll just follow you to make sure you get home okay.”
“I’m all grown up, Jack. I don’t get tipsy on one watered down drink.” She headed for the door and he fell into step with her. The parking lot wasn’t as full now. When she’d arrived, it had been packed and she’d ended up parking behind the building. Jack walked with her to her one-of-a-kind vehicle. She unlocked the door and turned to face him. “Thanks. I’m good.” When she said that, his brows dipped, shadowing his eyes even more. She felt rather than saw the shift of his mood. The air around him seemed to sizzle. He lifted his hands and placed them on either side of her against the Thing.
“This is one ugly car.”
“Says you.” It was hard for her to talk past the pulse in her throat. She rested a hand strategically and purposefully on his chest where his heartbeat could be felt. His blue chambray shirt was soft against her fingertips. She looked at him through her lashes and smiled.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.
“What? Touching?”
“This.” He leaned in closer, nuzzling her hair, breathing her in. “I’m your boss.”
“Not now, you aren’t. You’re Jack Nast and I’m Sam Striker out here in the dark. Touching.”
He moved quicker than she thought he would. A guttural sound, almost like a growl, vibrated in his chest and then his mouth was on hers, covering hers, searing hers. She slipped her arms around his waist and tasted peppermint on his lips. He was solid against her palms as she stroked up his back, skimming over his shoulder blades and along the curvature of his spine. She yearned to feel his skin slide hotly against hers. His hands moved to either side of her head, positioning her mouth where he wanted it, his fingers tangling in her long hair. He didn’t dive in with his tongue. Instead, he teased her, lightly painting her lips and nudging the corners of her mouth. She flattened herself against him, needing to be closer, wanting to burrow into him. She felt his arousal, hard as steel, and just knowing she’d done that to him made her smile against the heat of his mouth on hers.
“I want to fuck you into next week,” he rasped against her lips. “I want to go at you long and hard. Take my sweet time. Make you sore.”
Jesus. Could she orgasm just from hearing him say such things to her? She lifted her lashes to stare into his oceanic eyes. “Who’s stopping you?” she challenged him because she was in. All in.
“Not who. What.” He fanned his long lashes slowly and his fingers flexed against her scalp. “Like I said. We can’t be goddamned fools, Sam. I’m your boss.”
“Like I said. You’re not my boss right now. You’re Jack Nas-ty.” She smiled at the reference. “And you are kind of nasty, huh?” She smoothed her hands through the sides of his hair. It was soft and curled around the base of her fingers. “In a good way.”
He tipped her head back, making her look into his eyes again. “You like it dirty, baby? You like it a little rough?”
“Talk’s cheap. How about some action?”
One corner of his mouth lifted and he shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of you. I can’t decide if you’re a risk taker or a prick teaser. Maybe some of both.” He gathered fistfuls of her hair and moved her head back more until it touched the car behind her. “But I get the feeling that if I shoved you into the back seat of this piece of shit car and tried to bury my face between your thighs, you’d stop me.”
A cold finger of trepidation slicked down her spine. Damn it. He was right. She was talking a lusty game, but what he’d described made her back off instead of lunge forward. Oh, she wanted him, but not like that. Not all tawdry and cheap.
“I actually own a bed back at my place,” she whispered, her voice losing some of its previous brass.
He released her hair to drag his fingertips along her jawline and down her neck before settling his hands on her shoulders. “So much for getting down and dirty.” He chuckled. “Tangling limbs with you in that bed would cause me all kinds of trouble. You’re Lucy’s friend and Lucy would pitch a fit about me taking advantage of you. You’re my employee and I know better than to fuck the help. The crew would get wind of it and give me everlasting grief. Yeah. You would cause miles of misery for me. Besides that, you don’t have any business inviting me to your place. You don’t know the first thing about me.” He shoved away from her and reached for the door handle. “You’re right. You’re sober. Go on home, Sam.”
Feeling chastised, rejected, and pissed off, she turned and jerked the car door open. Flinging herself into the seat, she wrapped the seat belt around her with angry movements, all the while feeling Jack’s amused regard. She slammed the door shut and jammed the key into the ignition, firing the engine. Deciding that she wouldn’t let him have the last word, she looked up into his shadowy face.
“I know you well enough to have sex with you.” She let go of a churlish bark of laughter. “It’s not like I want to write your biography, for Christ’s sake.” Then she hit the gas and left him standing in the parking lot, staring after her. “Take that and chew on it,” she grumbled, then sucked in a noisy breath when she felt the burn of tears in her eyes. “No. Nope. I won’t cry about this. He’s not that important. I’m glad he slowed our roll because I don’t want to go to bed with him.” A hot tear escaped the corner of her eye and slipped down to salt her lips. What hurt more than the rejection was that he was right about all of it. A sexual encounter would cause ripples of discontent in some corners and disapproval in others.
He was also right about how she wanted him. A little dirty, yeah. But respectful.
“Your loss, Jack Nast,” she murmured, swiping away the tear track. “You won’t get a second chance with me.”
Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie.
Chapter 6
Shades of Rose
“You like working with a construction company?” Larry Striker asked as he flipped burgers on the backyard grill.
“It’s more interesting than I thought it’d be.” Sam shoved her sunglasses farther up the bridge of her nose and rocked lazily in the metal glider. How long had she been at Nast Construction? Nine weeks! Two weeks since that night at Hurley’s when Jack had kissed her. Since then she had been alone with him exactly three times and then only for a few minutes. It galled her that he’d returned to keeping her at a distance, but what could she do about it? She continued to think of him more than she wanted to and wonder if she should have taken him up on that challenge of a backseat rumble. Better that than bupkis?
She spotted movement near the front of the house. Her mother, sister Becca, and brother-in-law Alfie, came into view. They were bent over, picking up pecans from the leaf-littered ground. A squirrel chattered in the pecan tree branches that spanned across the patio and backyard, drawing her attention back to her father. “Jack reminds me of you, Daddy. He expects a lot from people and isn’t shy about letting them know when they fall short.”
“I reckon you need an iron fist to run a construction crew.”
She closed her eyes as a smile ghosted through her. Yesterday on the job, she’d gotten under Jack’s skin when he’d barked an order at her in front of some of the crew.
“Say ‘please,’” she’d suggested with a sweet smile that had him doing a double-take.
“Say what?” he’d challenged, his eyes sparking with irritation.
“Please,” she’d repeated. “It won’t break your jaw to be polite once in a while and show your appreciation for a job well done.”
“When you get your paycheck, that’s your pat on the back.” He’d braced his hands on his hips, looking all burly and manly. He was damned good at that.
She had wrinkled her nose at him. “Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ once in a while won’t make any of your chest hair fall out or any important parts of you shrivel up.” That had gained her some snickers from the crew that were in earshot. Surprisingly, it had also diminished the irritation in Jack’s expression. He’d run his tongue along the inside of his cheek and had stared down at his steel-toed work shoes. She’d realized he was fighting off a grin. Once he had it all under control again, his eyes had swept up to hers and the glimmer of respect she’d seen in them had made her catch her breath.
“Please,” he’d said, one eyebrow lifting. “Can we get back to work now?”
She’d rolled her lips between her teeth, hiding her own grin of accomplishment. “Sure. Thank you, Mr. Nast.” Then she’d pivoted and strode out to her car, feeling the scorch of his gaze on her backside the whole way.
“Do you know any of Jack’s family, Daddy?” she asked, swinging her attention back to the present.
“Let me think . . . they live in West Tulsa?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I believe . . . now wait a sec.” He glanced up at the sky as if he’d find an answer there. “Seems like they lived in a trailer when those Nast kids were in grammar school.”
“Like in a trailer park or out in the country?”
A toothpick bobbed between his lips as he spoke. “No, in town. Don’t know how I know that and I could be wrong. What does his father do?”
“He’s a machinist.”
He snapped his fingers. “I remember now. A tornado tore through the trailer park back when Jack would have been about six, I guess. Anyway, it was all over the news about how everyone in that park were poor as church mice and left with nothing but twisted metal. Folks donated money and furniture, stuff like that. Your mother and some of her friends had a clothing and food drive for those families. That’s why it sticks in my head, I guess. Oh, and Nast was on television talking about how they’d lost everything and were lucky they weren’t killed. I remember because he was employed by a good company, but it sounded like he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. They didn’t have any kind of insurance, which is criminal, if you ask me. I remember thinking he was a piss poor provider.”
Sam’s mother approached them. She carried a small bucket brimming with hard-shell pecans. A green scarf covered her honey-colored hair. “How much longer on those burgers, Chef?”
“They’re almost done. Another five minutes will do it.”
“Good. We’ll set the table now and I’ll pour the tea.” She sent Sam a smile before going inside the house.
“Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you . . .” Sam’s father kept his back to her. “Are T.L.’s nephew and niece still giving you trouble?”
“A little.” She made a dismissive gesture, not wanting to spoil the day with talk of them. “It’s okay, Daddy. Don’t worry about any of that.”
“Are they taking you to court?” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Can they do that?”
“They can try, but my attorney said not to be concerned because they don’t have any evidence of fraud. They’re just trying to rattle me.”
“They need to shut the hell up. I don’t like them talking smack about you. Making you out to be a gal of loose morals and greed.”
She stood and stretched, her thoughts returning to Jack’s reaction to the letter Brad had sent him. She liked that he was in her corner, no questions asked. Her phone dinged and she pulled it from her back pocket. Chad Kimball’s name flashed on the screen and caused her heart to leap.
“Hey, Chad. What’s going on?”
“Hi. Lucy’s in labor.”
“Ohmygosh!” Sam danced from one foot to the other in a burst of excitement. “Where are you?”
“The hospital. St. John. We’ve been here since early this morning. She didn’t want me to call anyone until she was close. We’re getting there.”
“I’m on my way. You need anything?”
“No. See you soon.”
“Right.” She ended the call. “Daddy, make my burger to go. Lucy’s at the hospital on the verge of becoming a mommy.”
Rose Rachelle Kimball arrived with great fanfare and a long line of people who wanted a personal audience with her. Lying in the hospital bed, Lucy’s smile was part joy and part exhaustion as she watched each person greet her new daughter and wax poetic on her beauty, demeanor, and abundant cap of brown curls.
“Her hair is so soft,” Sam said, running a gentle finger over one shiny curl. “And her lashes are so long! She’s a beauty, just like we knew she’d be, Luce.” She exchanged another speaking glance at her best friend, then at Chad, who was slumped in a chair beside the bed. He, too, looked as if he’d swum the English Channel and was proud and punch-drunk. Lucy’s parents and a couple of her siblings stood in the perimeter of the room, talking softly among themselves. She’d seen Chad’s folks exiting the room when she’d arrived. It was Grand Central Station, obviously. A commotion behind her had her turning to see Jack push into the room. He wore overalls, a white t-shirt, and deck shoes. A Tulsa Drillers ballcap stuck out of his back pocket and his hair was windblown.
As he came closer, she could smell some kind of lotion on him and she noticed that the bridge of his nose was pink like he’d been working outside. His gaze shifted from Lucy to the baby Sam held and gentleness blanketed his strong features.
“Is that her?” he all but whispered, craning forward to get a better look at the infant asleep in Sam’s arms. “Our little Rosy?”
“This is her,” Lucy said, obviously touched by his deference to the child. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m in love,” he murmured, nodding when Sam offered to allow him to hold the swaddled newborn. “Yeah. Let me at her.” He took her easily, confidently, in his big hands and held her closer so that he could examine her button nose and rosebud mouth. “Oh, Lucy. You and Chad have done something extraordinary here. She’ll leave her mark on the world. She’ll make us all proud to know her.”
His surprisingly poetic and encompassing predictions brought a lump to Sam’s throat and she looked from him to Lucy in stunned silence. Lucy beamed, reaching out one hand to Chad, who clasped it in solidarity and acknowledgement.
“Got here as soon as I could,” he whispered, his calloused thumb caressing the baby’s cheek. “I was on Eufaula fishing.”
Ah! Sam nodded, putting it all together. Sunscreen lotion. That’s what she’d smelled. “What were you fishing for?”
He glanced at her and his lips quirked. “Fish.”
Lucy giggled. Sam didn’t.
“Right, smartass. What kind of fish? Bass? Catfish?”
“Crappie.”
She released a long sigh. “My favorite.”
“To eat? Yeah, they’re good eating.”
“To eat and to fish for,” she amended.
He furrowed his brow and stepped past her to let Lucy have her baby, who had made an unhappy face and a fretful noise. “Here, little mama. She wants you.” He turned sideways toward Sam. “You’ve actually fished for crappie before?”
