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It was a good question and one of the reasons she still blamed herself for how she’d ended things with Jace.She had known long before that night at the football game that she didn’t love Jace.She just hadn’t had the guts to tell him.So she had held it in and held it in until she had exploded like a shaken can of Coke.But she didn’t need to explain anything to Decker.
She went back to cleaning the window.“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
He shook his head.“No, but you owed Jace one.He didn’t have a clue what he’d done to make you stop loving him.”
“He hadn’t done anything.It was me.All me.I told him that.”
He made air quotes.“‘It’s not you, it’s me.’Yeah, we’ve all heard that one before.Jesus, Sweetie.Couldn’t you have come up with something a little less clichéd?”
She straightened.“Like what?What could I possibly have said that would have made him feel better?”
“How about something other than ‘I don’t love you.I’ve never loved you.I just dated you to please my daddy’ in front of the entire town?”
She hated that Decker remembered word for word what she had yelled at Jace.Of course, the shallow, insensitive words were hard to forget.
“You’re right,” she said.“I shouldn’t have said that.It was insensitive and cruel.The only excuse I have is that I was young and stupid and feeling like I didn’t have a choice in my life.”
Decker moved around the car and stood in front of her.“And you think Jace didn’t feel that way?He had all the coaches expecting him to take the Wildcats to another state championship.He had college scouts showing up at every game scrutinizing his every play.And he had the entire town’s hopes that he’d not only give them another state trophy, but also become an NFL superstar.And you were feeling like you didn’t have a choice?”He turned away.“You are so damned selfish.”
She felt her anger rise.“Selfish?I was selfish?I supported your cousin all through high school.I was at every damn game and town pep rally, cheering louder than anyone else—including you.If I remember correctly, you don’t even like football and rarely showed up at the games.But here you are, acting all holier than thou.”She stepped closer and jabbed a finger at him.“Well, let me tell you something, mister.I was a good girlfriend to Jace.A damn good girlfriend.Especially when it wasn’t exactly an easy job.I had more dates than I can possibly count interrupted by people wanting to know how his arm was and how he thought the Wildcats were going to do this year and what college he was planning to play for.I just sat there and smiled through it all until I couldn’t sit there and smile anymore.”
“Like I said.Selfish.You couldn’t stand that he was getting all the attention from the townsfolk and you weren’t.”
She had always had a temper, but over the years she’d learned how to control it.But there was something about her daddy and Decker that unraveled the tight hold she’d kept on her anger and it spilled out before she could stop it.
The ringing sound of her open hand connecting with his face snapped her out of her rage haze, but it was too late.There was no way to take back the vivid red handprint on Decker’s clenched jaw.
In a nanosecond, he had her pushed up against the car with a hard body that gave no quarter.Once again, her stomach took a roller-coaster ride and her breath hung suspended in her lungs as he spoke in that low, sexy, bedroom voice.
“Just because Jace put up with your spoiled tantrums, doesn’t mean I will.You mess with me again and I’ll toss your ass in jail and throw away the key.You got that, Sweets?”
Before she could do more than blink, he was gone and she was left staring at the red taillights of Jace’s truck.
ChapterFive
“So what’s going on with you?”
Decker glanced up from the cup of coffee he’d been staring into.Melba stood in the doorway of his office wearing her usual outfit of tie-dyed Crocs, black yoga pants, and a floral shirt that hurt his eyes.Today, she had added a cartoon-dog-print purse strapped across her body.
“You going somewhere?”he asked.
“Do I ever go anywhere during work hours?Now what’s up with you?You’ve been acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw ever since you walked through the door.Are you constipated?”No subject was taboo for Melba.
“I’d rather not discuss my bowels, thank you very much.And nothing’s wrong with me.I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Because you’re probably constipated.Blockage can do that.”
His sleepless night had nothing to do with blockage and everything to do with him making a big mistake.He should have stayed away from Sweetie Holiday.He’d had no business going to her house.No business taking her to get her car.And no business bringing up the past.
He deserved to be slapped.He should have taken it like a man and walked away.Instead, he’d hadn’t just left with an imprint of her hand on his cheek.He’d left with the imprint of her body.
He could still feel the fullness of her breasts against his ribs, the low strum of her heart echoing the rapid thump of his.He could feel the soft press of her stomach and the hard jab of the button on her jeans.He could feel the curves and hollows of her hips and the long lines of her thighs.
All those feels had kept him up for most of the night.When hehadfinally fallen asleep, his dreams had taken over.In those, he hadn’t just pressed her against the car.He stripped her naked and took her right there on the candy apple-red hood of Mustang Sally.He’d woken up with a hard-on that could pound nails and a boatload of guilt he didn’t know if he could ever get rid of.
What the hell was the matter with him?It was bad enough when he was eleven and lusting after his cousin’s girlfriend.Now he was an adult man who knew the hell that woman put men through.He had no business remembering how she felt.He had no business feeling her at all.He needed to stay away from Sweetie Holiday.
“Does this have to do with Sweetie Holiday coming back to town?
