“Please, put it away….” I begged.

Whether mercy or disgust stopped him, I wasn’t sure. “So this is what my mama saw?” He crushed part of the papers in his hands. “She wouldn’t tell me what was in it. Neither would Cholly or Bev. Now I know why.”

Desperation sharpened my voice. “Whoever wrote this…this filth sent it to your mother for a reason. Stop rolling your eyes! They wanted to inflict as much pain as they could. That’s why they went for her. They knew how much she meant to you. I could never have written those lies. I loved Miss Dottie, too.”

“Sure you loved her. Loved the way she scrubbed your mama’s toilets and polished her floors. Yeah, y’all loved the hell out of her.” He snorted. “Love.”

Spitting in my face would have been kinder. “That is so unfair and—” I blinked and jumped back when he bolted up and flung the pages. Then he kicked the stool hard. It smacked the wall and wobbled until it shuddered still.

Cholly burst into the garage like a herd of buffalo. “What the hell’s going on in here? I can hear y’all out at the pumps.”

Trace swung his head in Cholly’s direction, then looked back at me. “Nothin’. Miz Bradford was just fixing to leave.”

My muscles were petrified. I was grateful when Cholly didn’t offer to escort me. He just shook his head and disappeared behind the metal door, closing it soundly.

Trace sighed, braced the worktable. “I said, get out.”

Frozen with fear and anger, I stared at the floor. “No.”

“No?”

I elevated my chin a fraction. “That’s right…no.”

He twisted around. His expression made a gradual shift from vengeful to predatory. Our eyes battled in silence, then, like a prowling lion, he advanced, and I, his prey, retreated until I’d backed into a wall. When his shadow engulfed me, I had to tilt my head all the way back to stare up at him. The ice had thawed in his eyes, leaving twin pools of lava.

I looked at his mouth and the time I kissed him on his seventeenth birthday came to mind. Thirteen-years-old and smitten with a desperate case of puppy love, I’d snuck up on him as he’d sat asleep in the carriage house.

The second my lips bumped into his, he’d startled awake and promptly put me away from him. He’d delivered a hasty, but genial grin, then wagged a finger.

Instead of giving me the brutal truth—that I was a pathetic little girl—the boy they’d ranked with Satan took pity on me. I was too good for him, he’d said.

But there was no pity in his eyes now as his gaze wandered my body. He may have killed my mother, may have even taken another life in prison, but I wasn’t afraid—not in the least. Dear God, had I become like those wretched women who got turned on by bad boys with blood-splattered pasts?

Fighting it, I looked away. “Please…stop.”

“Stop what?”

I drew a shallow breath. “This. What you’re doing.”

“What am I doin’, Shannon?” He anchored a forearm to the wall above my head. His left arm hung at his side.

I swallowed. “You’re trying to scare me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He looked me over again, and when he spoke, his voice came out deep and gravelly. “Right now, scaring you is the furthest thing from my mind.” He snagged a whiff of my perfume and inched closer. “Way I see it, I’ve politely asked you to leave, but you refused. So I’m left wondering what’s keeping you here. Can’t be my sunny disposition.”

His gaze traveled down my neck, to my chest, a chest that rose and fell in frantic succession. He spent a long time looking there…at my breasts.

I felt my nipples bead, felt my face burn. Embarrassed, I lowered my eyes, but that was a mistake. A full arousal tented his zipper.

He smiled. “See, I think you’re still here ‘cause somethin’s missing.”

“What?” I all but squeaked.

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe lover boy’s not cutting it in bed?”

Fury burned my cheeks. “How dare you.”

“Just an honest question. I’m curious.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“What? Your sex life?” He cocked his head and frowned. “Hell, do y’all even have one?” Before I could tell him to kiss my ass, he added, “Trust me. If he’s not getting it from you, he’s getting it somewhere.”

I seared him with a glare. “Your crudity is astounding.”

“I’m just giving you my humble opinion. Nothin’ more.”

“You don’t know the first thing about humility.”

“Really.”

“Yes, ‘really.’ You’re too full of yourself.”

A slow, wicked grin eased across his lips. “Maybe so. But I’d bet the farm you wouldn’t mind being full of me too.”

Scandalized, I shoved at him, but he just studied me with those piercing hazel eyes. He raised his hand to touch a wayward lock of hair that lay wilted against my neck. A bizarre mesh of outrage and longing stilled my heart while he twined the curl around his fingers. He examined it possessively, as if it were his right, as if he’d done it a million times.

I seized his hand to peel it away, but couldn’t. His electric touch stunned me, just as it had at the hospital and Home Depot. I’d shoved both episodes from my mind, hadn’t even allowed myself to ponder them till now.

Our attention drifted to our entwined flesh; to the golden hair coiled around his fingers; and to the small, slender fingers wrapped around his big hand. I noted the contrast of our skin tones—his dark, mine fair—and the heady sensation the contact elicited. In an instant, our eyes embraced.

Thoughts telegraphed and his Adam’s apple rode his throat. He worked his jaw as he expelled a breath through flared nostrils. I trembled once he licked his lips because there was no question of what had crossed his mind.

It had crossed mine too.

With our hands still linked, he stroked my cheek, then his bandaged knuckles slid from below my ear to my chin. He tilted my face to his and the heat from our mouths meshed together. His lips were millimeters away—so close I could taste the mint of his breath as it beckoned me nearer.

He anchored his free hand on the small of my back, and tugged me closer, causing me to gasp. We fit together like two halves of a torn piece of paper. The concrete bulge between his powerful legs stabbed into my stomach and his thighs were hard against my softness. There was fire in his eyes. Electricity in his touch. Heat in his breath. I was dying.

What are you doing? my mind screamed. Darien, remember?

Sanity returned. I propped a palm on his chest and exerted pressure. He blinked slowly after his gaze fell on my ring, pulling him as if from a trance. The gem caught the light spearing down from the ceiling. Once he untangled my hair from his fingers, I ducked beneath his arm and backed away.

“Damn,” he muttered, attention glued to the wall.

I shoved my bangs off my face. “I don’t like games.”

“You saying you didn’t want me to kiss you just now?”

I wasn’t sure what I’d wanted him to do, and that scared me the most. “You tried to use sex to—”

“Didn’t work though.”

I blinked several times. “So you admit it?”

“That I was seconds away from taking you up against this wall?” He gave a sharp nod. “Hell yeah, I admit it. Are you brave enough to admit you wanted me to?”

The power of speech left me. I didn’t know whose behavior disgusted me more, his or my own. Finally, I said, “Give this some thought. If Mother’s murder and twelve years couldn’t keep me away, why would your pathetic machinations?”

When his shoulders fell, I knew I had him. He hung his head and sighed. “What the hell do you want from me, Shannon?”

SHANNON

____________________________

The fan’s soft buzz echoed in the background for several heartbeats. It would take a while for the sensual haze to ebb, a while before my pulse stopped racing. I could still smell Trace’s minty breath, and his warm touch lingered on my skin. No doubt, these memories would have a long shelf life.