Beautiful Illusions Page 5

  My heart breaks hearing her talk about her father.

  “Is that what Warren Senior was about? Someone to touch?” My gut wrenches at the thought of what might have happened yesterday if she got the address right.

  “No.” She blows a steady breath over her chest. “It’s a little more complex.” Her hands slip to the inside of her thigh and stay there. “I guess I should get going.”

  “The mountain is closed. All major roads in either direction are locked up until they can clear them.” A quiet smile spreads over my face. I’ve never been so thankful for a snowstorm. Mother Nature couldn’t have timed it better.

  “Judging by that shit-eating grin, you’re in charge of the snowplow.”

  A dry laugh pumps through me.

  “I’m not.” I hold up a hand as if swearing under oath. “But I might have connections. Besides, I wouldn’t mind showing you a day in the life of Loveless.”

  A look of relief swells over her.

  “So what does Loveless have on the agenda today?”

  “I’ve got a truck loaded with wood and about twelve deliveries, all local. The roads I need are perfectly clear. You in?”

  Emmy scours over me with those glowing honey eyes. Her tongue does a quick revolution over her bottom lip as she openly inspects me.

  “I’m in.”

  The lake shines its toothless smile through the vast cover of snow that blanketed the region last night. I’m not really sure if the mountain is closed, most likely it is, but I wasn’t going to entertain the idea it wasn’t if it meant saying goodbye to Emmy. I gave her a brand new Jackson Lumber sweatshirt, and she managed to squeeze into a pair of jeans she brought along. Emmy makes my palms sweat despite the fact they’re almost frozen solid inside my gloves. We’ve already delivered eight loads—the next one up I’m sort of dreading.

  “You could be a model.” I throw it out there as she helps shut the lift gate on the back of my work truck. I like to keep it stocked and parked under the carport, ready and willing to deliver bundles of split wood as far as my tires will take me on most days.

  “A model? As in Playboy?” She flirts as her perfect teeth graze her lips.

  “As in Paris, New York, wherever the heck they’d ship you to grace their catwalks. You’re gorgeous, Emmy. Too gorgeous to be dipping your toe in unholy water.”

  “Says the one who’s outpaced me in the fornication department.” Her voice is playful and light, and I wonder how the hell this could be such a joke to her? If I wasn’t there—if she hit the jackpot and landed with Warren Senior, would she really have gone through with it?

  “I do it because I like it—it happens to be my favorite addiction. Why were you going to do it?” It comes out a little more curt than anticipated.

  The smile drops from her face like a weight. I accidentally landed my finger on a raw nerve, and pressed the shit out of it.

  “I’m dead, Gavin.” Her chest pumps as if she’s freshly pissed. “What you see is just some ghost—a girl parading around like she gives a damn.” She gets in the truck, and I’m right there with her. “I’m hollow. A demon has taken over. I can’t see straight anymore.”

  Shit. I glance up at the Peterson house to see if anyone’s in the vicinity.

  The engine roars to life, and I pump the gas as if I’m ready for a war.

  “Lot’s of people are dead inside, but they’re not selling something that should be sacred. Tell me why you’re really doing it, Emmy, and I swear I’ll drop it. Are you in trouble?” The words come out quiet, as calm as possible, in hopes she’ll give me a straight answer. It’s eating me up, penetrating my every fucking thought. I couldn’t sleep a wink all night just thinking she might try to run out the door, and she’d be on the streets doing God knows what. I pull out and head back onto the main road without making eye contact with her.

  “I just want to feel something.” She turns toward the window, and the glass fogs up with her heavy breathing. “I want to kick-start myself like an old engine and see if there’s anything remotely human left inside.” Her finger glides over the glass creating an uneven heart. “I don’t know. It’s like I’ve lost my mind, and the only way I feel sane anymore is on my back with someone trying to hammer their way into my soul.”

  I wince into the road. I’ve felt that way. Her words burn into me, sink right down to my marrow. She couldn’t have pegged me any better.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, Gavin.” Her voice is lifeless as she gives a catatonic stare out the window. “There have been so many more than I’d ever want to admit.”

  “It’s okay, Emmy.” My chest heaves, and I fight the urge to bawl like a baby. “Sometimes we do things to fill a hole in our lives in the most destructive way.” It takes all my strength to tear my eyes from hers. Emmy and I were made for each other. She just doesn’t know it yet. I back into the McCarthy’s driveway where he has me drop off his usual cord of firewood and kill the engine. My hand finds hers. I chase her eyes down until I’m holding her gaze. “I promise you, I’ve been doing the exact same thing for the exact same reasons for the past few years.” I swallow hard because I can feel it coming. “I lost my parents when I was in high school. Damn near raised Zoey on my own. Not even the cabin felt like home after they died. Any sense of safety and home—my parents took it with them. I know”—I bear hard into her hypnotic, amber eyes—“I know what it’s like to need a body to hold—to have another person to wrap your arms around and love you even if it’s just for one night.” I let out a breath that’s been building in my lungs for the last several years. I give her hand a quick squeeze. We’re carbon copies of one another—crusading our own unholy sexual revolutions. “We’re chasing the exact same thing for the exact same reason.”

  “I guess you’re right.” A smile comes and goes on her perfect lips, and I want to reward her with a kiss.

  “I think we should quit while we’re ahead.”

  “Are you asking me to quit you before we ever begin?” She looks affronted, like I asked her to pluck the ears off a rabbit.

  A part of me wants to laugh because the sex addict in her is still trying to get into my pants, and, believe me, the sex addict in me very much approves, but I swallow down the urge because she just touched my soul in the exact way I was hoping.

  “I would never ask you to quit me, Emmy.” It’s not going to happen for me at least. There’s an urgency in me to protect her. I know for a fact, once I take a hit, I’ll never let her out of my bed.

  A hard knock comes over the windshield, and we look up to find a red-faced, bloated, Warren Senior glaring at us.

  Emmy pulls her hand from mine. Her face bleaches pale as a birch as if I just offered her body up for sacrifice.

  “You don’t have to go in. I can do this alone.”

  “No, it’s okay. I want to. He doesn’t know who I am.”

  We get out, and Emmy helps toss the firewood into the overstock compartment beneath the porch. I load her up with a small bundle, and I take six as we head into the house. A few of my customers like me to line their shelves next to the fireplace, and the McCarthy’s are one of them.

  “Mrs. McCarthy.” I nod at the woman at the counter who looks old enough to be Emmy’s mother—hell, grandmother for that matter. Warren Jr. was a late-in-life child. Some would call him a mistake.

  “Gavin.” Her over-bright lipstick testifies to the fact she’s trying too hard. Her hair is short and a little more lavender than it is blonde. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to do it, not the lipstick or the hair, because her husband is a wandering dog, but then she probably already knows that. Not much on the lake goes unnoticed. “My”—she marvels at Emmy—“your employees sure are looking beautiful these days.” Warren Senior comes in, and she elbows him in the ribs. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  He grumbles before looking up. I hope Emmy has a good view of all three of his gray-haired chins. The dude belongs in a crypt, not anywhere near a bed with Emmy in it.

  “She
looks fine.” He didn’t even glance.

  “I think so, too.” I nod over at the old coot. “Saw you yesterday afternoon. You were at the boathouse. Would you like a some bundles delivered there, too?”

  Emmy stiffens, and, for a second, I think she’s going to bolt.

  “The boathouse?” Mrs. McCarthy turns to the pervert she’s leashed herself to. “What ever were you doing there?”

  He glowers at me from over his glasses. “Wasn’t me.”

  “That’s right.” Mrs. McCarthy’s voice is tight as a wire. “The boathouse has been off limits for quite some time now.”

  And on that note, I file the wood into place and take up Emmy’s hand on the way to the door.

  “Have a nice day.” I practically sing as I usher us out of there.

  Emmy can hardly contain herself as we head back to the truck.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got balls the size of this mountain?” She’s panting and far too impressed with what just happened.

  I want to make some smartass remark that involves the women I’ve bedded but leave it out. I don’t want another body between Emmy and me ever again.

  “Just you darlin’.” I give a quick wink.

  Emmy wraps her arms around me and buries the idea of a laugh in my neck. The warmth of her breath, mingling with the excitement in her voice electrifies me. I close my eyes and soak it in. I pretend we’re alone in bed, very naked, and she’s doing just this.

  A solid week floats by with the storm burying us in snow until finally Mother Nature gives us a reprieve—a crystalline morning with sunshine and clear blue skies, the whole nine yards.

  Emmy has been helping out on the route all week. Ace says she’s cost him his job, and he’s right, but he’s too busy with his new bride to care about sitting shotgun with me anyway.

  A pair of cool hands cover my eyes just as I switch off the bacon. I’ve made breakfast for us each and every morning, and each and every morning, my smile grows a little bit brighter because she’s still here to share it with me.

  “Guess who?” she whispers warm in my ear, and a shiver runs down my spine all the way to my aching balls. It’s been killing me not to have her. Emmy has thrown out the invitation multiple times, and my delirious bout of chivalry is still stomping out the flames. Not one part of me wants to barrel into anything with her. Barreling into sex was the old us, it was who we were, and I want us to reach for something more.

  I spin around and wrap my arms around her tiny waist. Her hair is wild. The sun illuminates her just right from behind, and, for a minute, I think I’m holding an angel because I am.

  “Merry Christmas, Emmy.” I dot her cheek with a kiss and pull back before the lightning she holds in those lips strikes me down. I felt it that first night. It electrified me straight to my bones.

  “Merry Christmas, Gavin.” Her lashes bow with grief for a moment. “I wish I had something to give you. I feel like you’ve given me the world.” She runs her finger down my chest, lower still, and I stop it before she hits the jackpot. “I can think of something.”

  “I can think of something, too. Are you up for taking a drive?”

  “Is that the pickup line you kill all the ladies with?” A dark laugh bubbles from her throat, and I want to catch it, swallow it down. “Wow, these mountain girls are easy to impress.”

  “Who says I’m trying to impress you?” I hold her eyes hostage with mine. Emmy’s chest heaves. “Okay, maybe I’m trying to impress you just a little.” I squeeze my finger and thumb together and squint.

  “You don’t have to try anymore. I’m already there.”

  For a second I consider saying screw it and take her right here. She’s salivating. Her eyes are glazed over with that same stoned out look I get when I go too long without it. And, God knows, my eyes are glossed in the exact same way for the exact same reason.

  “What is it you want to show me?” Emmy steps in and runs her fingers on the inside lip of my boxers. My stomach cinches in response to her cool fingers.

  “It’s out there.” I choke on the words, nodding toward the window.

  “Well, Gavin Jackson”—she lets the band on my boxers snap—“I’m up for seeing just about anything with you.”

  “Perfect. Let’s take a quick ride.”

  She glances down at my jeans as if I just asked her to hop on.

  “Yeah”—her lips part as she eyes my crotch with heavy lids—“let’s do it.”

  I pick up her hand and lay a gentle kiss over the back. We’d better get the hell out of here before we crash into one another like plate glass windows.

  We save breakfast for later and drive out past the marina, past the hiking trails, clear up to the Brim of the Mountain Lookout. The evergreens are so thick, the dirt below is barren of snow. The morning sky has just given its last breath, and the sky is a combination of gray and purple smoke.

  “Oh, wow.” Emmy leans over the dash, and I crack my door and nod for her to head out. We meet up at the front, and I pull her in and hold her near the heat emanating from the hood. Just past the overlook, all of Connecticut lies at our feet. A snow-covered meadow sits below and then it drops to nothing, just a cityscape too microscopic to ever be real. “This is amazing.” A white plume of fog expels from her lips.

  “You’re amazing.” It’s not the view I’m looking at. I can’t take my eyes off this beautiful girl who stumbled into my life.

  She spins into me with a look that says I’ll cut you. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “You’re a quick one.” I give her ribs a squeeze, and her lips curl with the impression of a smile.

  “I am a quick one.” She pinches me right back. “I came in second in my senior class.”

  “I know you’re smart, Emmy. You’ve stuck around with me for a week, so I guess that qualifies you as a genius.” I run my fingers up and down her sides like keys on a piano.

  “Yeah, well you’re a bleeding heart.” That smile flirts with her lips again. “Which makes you unfairly irresistible.”

  I wrap my arms around her waist, and she reciprocates.

  “This feels natural.” I pull her in until you couldn’t fit a pencil between us. I can’t shake the feeling that if I let go she’s going to float away like a balloon.

  “It does feel natural.” She wrinkles her nose and looks adorable as hell in the process. “We feel natural, like a pair of comfy shoes.”

  Yes. She gets it.

  “Like a pair of great fitting sneakers I can’t wait to break in,” I add with a touch too much exuberance. Hell, I can’t control it. I don’t want to. “And, God knows, I’m dying to break the two of us in.” I swallow hard because I just went there, and I’m hoping I can control the rest of my urges. I’ve got the shakes. The drug I need is right here in my arms, ready and willing to give me the best high of my life. “Sorry, I can’t help it. Taking a pretty girl to bed is an old trick for me, and it’s one I happen to like.” Perfect. Mention other women, and see how fast she runs in the opposite direction.

  “So you want to fuck me?” She bites her lip, flirting, teasing, but layered beneath it is sarcasm thick enough to frost a cake with.

  My eyes sear over hers.

  “No, Emmy.” The lie comes out dry without the slightest hint of a smile. I’ve never felt chemistry like this with anyone—palpable, electric. You could practically see the sparks jumping off our bodies. “But when I do—and I will fuck you—I promise you a spacious bed and privacy, unless, of course, you’re an exhibitionist.”

  Her face and neck explode in a deep shade of crimson. I like seeing her like this, so overloaded by my words, my actions, that her body gives away her true response.

  “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been turned down like that before—with a rain check no less.” Her features reconfigure until I think she’s about to cry, hit me, or both.

  “I want that with you, Emmy, but I think it’s acting on who we are rather than who we can be—together. Sex has
always been my go-to response.”

  “We are the exact same person, Gavin, just in different skin.” She touches her fingers over my face as if memorizing my features.

  “Scary, isn’t it?” A dull laugh tries to rattle from me, but I kill it.

  “I think I am afraid.” Her eyes run a quick circle over me. Her breathing picks up as her chest presses into mine.

  “Don’t be. I promise, there’s nothing to fear.” The wind blows in bitter jags, cutting right through my jacket. A series of icy bites fall over the landscape as the snow cranks up again. “We can change who we are. We can do it together. You know, take things slow for once.”

  “Boy, you really know how to kill a party.” Her breathing is on the uptick, and I’m panting right along with her.

  “I’m an idiot that way.” I try to memorize the way she looks with the snow pressed out behind her, the city laying at her feet as if it were venerating her. “So, how about it? You want to hang out in Loveless with me and see where things go? Slow might be the best place for us to start. If we’re going to give this a shot, we might as well try to get it right.” My heart kicks at my chest as if alerting me to the fact I’m thinking with the wrong head. Adrenaline knifes through me because I’m praying she says yes and never goes back to wherever it is she came from.

  Her eyes drift to my lips, her mouth parts with anticipation as she gives a quick nod.

  “But only if I can kiss you,” she breathes the words as snowflakes freckle her cheeks.

  My brows rise, amused. “What happened to slow?”

  She frowns. “We kissed like our lives depended on it behind that tree at the Christmas party. The kisses stay, Jackson. You can’t deny me.”

  A quiet laugh trickles through me. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re bossy?”

  “Only my new controlling boyfriend.” Her dimples dig in. “You complaining?”

  “Never.” I lean in until our mouths are a breath away. Boyfriend. I’m loving the title. “Hell, I couldn’t deny you a thing, Emmy. I’ll give you every damn kiss you ever ask for.”