Panty Dropper Page 9

  I was absolutely mesmerized by this woman.

  The first time I’d laid eyes on her, she was sitting at the head of the conference table and I’d been stunned by how drop dead gorgeous she was. The next time I saw her, when she’d walked into the bar, I was rendered speechless by her effortless grace and allure. And now, sitting at my kitchen table, she stole my breath away with the undeniable natural beauty and raw vulnerability she possessed. I was starting to think she was my kryptonite.

  Unable to stop myself from touching her, I brushed a stray strand of hair off of her cheek, and the pad of my thumb ran along her jawline. Her skin was silky smooth. She shuddered beneath my touch.

  “God, you are so beautiful.”

  Her eyes dipped and I dropped my hand to my side before lowering down in the chair catty-corner to her. I chose that one instead of the one across from her because I wanted to be as close as possible to her. She had a magnetic aura about her that every fiber of my being was drawn to.

  She cleared her throat and ran her hand through her hair before looking back up. I watched as she licked her lips. My joystick jumped at the sight of her pink tongue sliding along the seam of her mouth. I imagined what it would feel like, her tongue circling the tip of my dick or running along my shaft as I pumped my cock in and out of her mouth.

  “Thank you, but…” A small grin lifted on her mouth as she reached up and touched the side of her hair where stray hairs fell down to her neck. “I’m a hot mess.”

  “Then hot mess looks damn good on you.”

  She let out a small laugh. “I’m glad you think so, that’s nice.”

  “Darlin’.” My throat was tight causing a deep rasp in my voice. I pushed the words out and they sounded as if they’d been filtered through sandpaper. “There’s nothin’ nice about what I’m thinkin’.”

  Her breath caught and her eyes widened. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to reach across the table and pull her to me, thread my fingers in her hair and claim her in a soul-bending kiss. I wanted to kiss her until she didn’t remember her name and I knew that I could do just that.

  The attraction between us was real, it was palpable, it was combustible. One touch of our lips and we’d go up in flames. But before that happened, I wanted to stoke that flame. I didn’t want to burn out, I wanted to build this up so the heat lasted.

  If it were any other woman sitting in front of me, I’d act on my primal impulses. But something inside of me told me that Reagan was different, and if I had a shot of showing her that, I needed to do things differently.

  We sat staring at one another and the energy between us was thick with anticipation.

  Another loud snore popped the bubble of intimacy that had formed around us. Reagan let out a tiny giggle as she sipped her coffee before setting it down. “Poor thing. I think tonight was a lot for her.” She tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “Did people give her a hard time?” My brotherly instincts might’ve been dormant for twenty years, but they were back with a vengeance now.

  “No.” Reagan shook her head and a stray strand of hair fell over her forehead. “Everyone was really sweet and welcoming. They told her how happy they were that she was home and a lot of them commented that she looked exactly like your mom.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too.”

  “Does she?” she asked, tilting her head to the side in a way that was equally adorable and sexy. The curious look on her face was so open and vulnerable, and the smooth skin on her exposed neck was like a beacon calling me to mark it.

  I cleared my throat as I tried to resist all of the vampire-inspired fantasies that were running through my brain. “I think she does. My memories are a little fuzzy,” I admitted before taking a drink of caffeine I probably didn’t need to be putting into my bloodstream considering how amped up I was already feeling.

  When I set it back down I noticed the concern brimming in Reagan’s deep blue eyes. She set her cup down and leaned forward. “How are you doing with…everything?”

  Since Pop had passed, a lot of people had asked me that question. My responses had been automatic, I’m fine. I hadn’t put any real thought into it. But with Reagan, I didn’t do that. With Reagan I answered honestly. “Today hit me kinda hard.”

  “Were you close to your dad?”

  “No.” A smirk pulled at my lips. “Since I wasn’t a bottle he really didn’t have much use for me or my brothers. But I don’t know…somethin’ about the finality of the will,” I lowered my voice, “and Cheyenne coming back, it really sunk in that he’s gone.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Does it?” I shook my head. “Because I thought I was prepared for this. I mean, to be honest, I thought I’d be relieved. Relieved that I didn’t have to worry about getting a call that he drove his truck off the side of the road and hurt himself, or worse, hurt someone else. Relieved that I didn’t have to worry about making sure he really took his medication and wasn’t lying about it, or worse, selling it on the side. Relieved that I didn’t have to worry about him taking money out of the safe or till to use for poker, or about him and his friends drinking our inventory dry.” I leaned back in my chair, letting out a slow exhale as I ran my fingers through my hair. “But I’m not. I’m not relieved he’s gone.”

  A sad smile lifted on her lips and she tilted her head to the side as her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “People don’t have to be perfect for you to love them.”

  Her words shot a cupid’s arrow straight into my chest. Her understanding and support was indescribable. It wrapped around me like a hot towel after an ice bath, thawing out my frozen heart.

  All my life, people had judged me, my brothers, and my old man. But there was none of that in Reagan’s stare. I’d just told her that Pop was a lying, thieving, alcoholic drug dealer and she hadn’t batted an eye. Maybe it was because she was an outsider, or maybe it was because she was a genuinely decent human being. I couldn’t be sure. Normally I trusted my instincts, but I feared that I couldn’t do that with Reagan. She’d short-circuited all my wires, why else would I be hearing wedding bells and picturing her walking toward me in a white dress and veil every time I looked at her?

  I grinned, trying to mask the depth of emotion she’d exposed in me. “But I don’t want to think about all that. Tell me about you.” I wanted, no needed, to get to know her more than I’d ever wanted or needed anything. In the short time she’d been in my life, I’d become consumed with the dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty sitting at my kitchen table. “What’s your story?”

  CHAPTER 16

  Reagan

  “My story?” I swallowed with a gulp.

  “Yeah, where did you grow up? How many siblings do you have? I feel like I’m at a disadvantage here. You’ve met my family, you’re sitting in my house, you know where I work, where I grew up.”

  “Um…” Considering the way Billy had just opened up to me it felt wrong not to return the favor. The thing was, I was generally a private person. I hadn’t talked to Blaine about my upbringing until we’d been together for over a year. Even then, I’d only given him the highlights, not that he’d ever seemed interested in the novel version. “I’m from a small town in Alabama. No brothers or sisters. It was just me and my mom until I was eight.”

  “Where was your dad?”

  “He was busy being a husband and father to his real family.”

  “His real family?” Billy repeated.

  “That’s the term he used the one and only time I confronted him. I always knew who he was. My mom never tried to keep it a secret. Like I said, it was a small town, so we’d see him in the grocery store, or at the ballpark. And since he was a realtor, his face was on flyers and yard signs. My mom would always point him out. ‘Fancy,’ she’d say, ‘that’s your daddy. And one day he’s going to come live with us and we’re gonna have a real family’. The saddest part is, I think she really believed that he would.”

  As I told Billy the story, I realized for the first t
ime that my mom had used the same term that my father had. Real family. I’d never put that together before.

  Maybe that was why I’d stayed with Blaine as long as I had. Blaine had a real family. He was close to both of his parents, who were still married, and he had an older brother and little sister that he spoke to several times a week. They celebrated every birthday, holiday, and milestone together. The Whitfords had what I’d always wanted. Each other. Someone to depend on.

  A real family.

  “You said you confronted him?”

  “Yeah.” I would never forget that day as long as I lived. I’d woken up and found my mom unconscious on the couch with an empty pill bottle beside her. I was six, but I knew to call 911. When the EMTs got there they had to shock her. I was so scared, I wasn’t sure if she was dead or going to die, so I left and ran to my babysitter’s house.

  I saw Billy’s nostrils flare and his jaw tense. “How old were you? When you confronted him?”

  “Six. I was on my way to my babysitter, Miss Darla, who lived a few blocks away from me. On the way, I saw him. I’ll never forget, it was a bright, sunny Saturday morning; he was wearing a blue suit and a red tie putting out an open house sign in a yard. I walked up to him and introduced myself.” Tears had been pouring down my cheeks, but I didn’t tell Billy that part. I figured I’d spare him, and myself, from revealing the more embarrassing specifics. “He acted like he didn’t know who I was, but growing up Tina Cox’s daughter, I’d developed a bullshit detector at a very young age. She had a proclivity for the dramatic that I learned to filter everything through. I could see that he was putting on a show in case anyone was watching us. I told him that I was his daughter and asked why he’d never come to see me. He said that he didn’t know what my mother had told me but he had a wife and real family that he loved and that I needed to go away.”

  I omitted the part that I’d thought he was going to pull me into his arms and tell me everything was going to be okay. I didn’t share with Billy the humiliating detail that I’d believed, until that day, that my father loved me but just hadn’t wanted to deal with my mother. I kept to myself that it wasn’t until my father looked in my eyes, my red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes and told me to go away that I knew he never had and never would love me.

  By the flare of anger that flashed in Billy’s eyes, I could see that he was affected by what I’d just said, even without knowing all the gory details.

  His jaw was tight as he asked, “What did you say when he said that?”

  “Nothing. I just turned around and walked away.” I ran away, sobbing, but tomayto-tomahto.

  “What an asshole.”

  I nodded, feeling a little lighter for finally telling someone about the encounter. I’d never told anyone about that day before now. Not Blaine, not Nadia, not Hal.

  We sat together in silence for a moment, both drinking our coffee, before Billy asked, “You said it was just you and your mom until you were eight. What happened then?”

  A smile instantly spread on my face. “When I was eight my mom met Hal. She was working at the Marriott in Mobile and he was staying there for a conference on labor and arbitration law. They had a whirlwind romance and were married four weeks later and we moved to New York.”

  “That must’ve been a culture shock. Goin’ from the small town to the big city.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was.” I’d never thought about it like that before. I’d just been happy that I wasn’t the only person responsible for my mom anymore. I didn’t have to worry about taking care of both her, and myself. But I didn’t say any of that. “I remember thinking how tall the buildings looked. And how many people there were. But…I don’t know, it seemed like a fairytale to me.”

  “Are they still married? Your mom and Hal?”

  “They were, until he passed away.” I felt the sting of tears in the back of my eyes. Which was ridiculous, considering who I was speaking to. Hal died over ten years ago and Billy had only lost his dad a few days before.

  His large hand covered mine. “I’m so sorry, darlin’.”

  “No, it’s fine. It was a long time ago. I’m the one who’s sorry.” I sniffed as I slid my hand out from beneath his to wipe the moisture that had formed beneath my eyes. “I should be the one comforting you.”

  “Who says you’re not?” The sincerity in his voice spread through me like hot chocolate on a winter night. He smiled and continued, “So what brought you to Firefly?”

  I thought about just giving him a generic response. Tell him that I needed a change. But it seemed disingenuous to give him a vague answer after I’d just let him see inside my soul.

  Still, opening up about my childhood was different than broadcasting my relationship woes. I wasn’t responsible for my upbringing, or who my parents were. But I didn’t get a pass for the life choices that had resulted in my current situation.

  “The short answer is, work.” I hoped he’d leave it at that.

  He didn’t.

  “What’s the long answer?”

  “Are you sure you want to know the long answer?” I stalled.

  “I want to know everything about you.”

  The scariest part of his response was that I actually believed him. Most people really only liked to talk about themselves. They were always thinking about how a conversation could lead back to them. But Billy wasn’t like that. He seemed genuinely interested in who I was, and getting to know me. I supposed that was what made him such a successful man behind the bar.

  Well, I was sure his dimples, smile, and tight ass didn’t hurt either.

  I took a deep breath. Tonight was just one surprise after another. Nothing was going as I’d planned. Not my time in the bar, and definitely not coming back to Billy’s house. I’d wanted to have a wild night of fun and instead I felt like I was sitting in a therapy session. Oddly enough, talking made me feel more vulnerable and exposed than I would have if we would have just hopped right into bed.

  “Well, I guess it all started last Monday. I stopped by my fiancé’s—”

  “Your fiancé?” Billy sat up straighter.

  “Ex-fiancé, now,” I clarified. “I stopped by Blaine’s office and caught him with his pants down. Literally. And his assistant bent over his desk.”

  “Fuck,” he breathed out as his shoulders dropped.

  “Ding, ding, ding. Yes! That’s exactly what they were doing!” I let out a small laugh. It was pretty ridiculous when I thought about it. “Needless to say, I broke up with him and moved out of our condo. I also had to look for a new job since I worked at his father’s firm. Nadia Carson was my college roommate and I saw a post about a job opening here, asked her about it, and three days later I moved.”

  He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying. It was strange to talk to someone who was not only really listening to me, but also empathizing. It was obvious by his body language that he had emotional reactions to what I was saying. I hadn’t realized it until then, but it was something that was seriously lacking in my life. In the city, and especially in my line of work, there wasn’t a whole lot of empathy.

  Even stranger than Billy possessing it, though, was how damn sexy I was finding it.

  “How long were you and Blaine together?”

  I had to smile at the undercurrent of disgust that was in his voice when he said Blaine’s name. “Eight years.”

  “Can I ask you something?” The intensity in Billy’s milk chocolate stare pinned me in place.

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you come here tonight?”

  A flutter of embarrassment stirred in my belly. The buzz I’d been riding when I’d invited myself back to Billy’s was now gone, thanks to the coffee and our sobering discussions. I could no longer rely on liquid courage to boost my boldness. “Um…”

  “I’m only asking” he said softly but firmly, “because you just got out of a long, serious relationship and you don’t seem like the kind of girl that goes home with random strangers.”


  “I don’t.” As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to take them back. “Well, I do. Obviously. I hate when people do things and then they say, ‘I never do this’, but you’re right. I don’t. I mean, I do, but this is a first for me.”

  Now I was just rambling.

  “So, why did you come here tonight?” he repeated.

  I could sense the weight of how much my answer meant to him. My mind was racing, trying to figure out why. The only thing I could think of was that he was worried I was in a vulnerable place, and was going to think that this night was more than it really was. He probably thought that I was going to get emotionally invested if anything happened between us. I wanted to put his mind at ease…but that would mean truthfully admitting to why I’d come here tonight.

  In the courtroom, or mediation, I was highly regarded for my verbal warfare. I knew exactly what to say, and what not to say to reach the most favorable outcome for my client. But in my personal life, I never spoke up for what I wanted.

  I’d let Blaine take the lead in our relationship, in and out of the bedroom. He decided that I should work for his father, even though I’d thought it would be better if I retained my autonomy professionally. He decided where we lived, even though I’d wanted to move someplace that was ours, that we paid for ourselves. But, no, he insisted that we take the condo his parents had gifted him overlooking Central Park.

  And in the bedroom, he was always the instigator. The few times I’d taken the role as the aggressor, he’d immediately shut me down and told me that he liked the way we “usually” did things. Everything from which movies we saw to what paper towels we used was on his terms.

  Our relationship may have ended because of his infidelity, but in truth it had been doomed from the start. And I had to take some of the blame for its demise. He didn’t know me, and I was solely responsible for that.