Playing for Keeps (Hope Valley Book 10) Read online

  Okay, so I really liked the sound of that.

  His eyes darted down just then, taking notice of what I was wearing. “Damn.” His long fingers pressed against my skin, starting at the very base of my throat between my clavicles, and dragged them down, down, down. His fingertips slid between my breasts, then over the shirt, plucking at the buttons.

  Just the softest, quickest touch from him lit me up from the inside out, like I had the sun inside me, and the warm glow was shooting out of my fingertips and pores and the ends of my hair. His touch helped to drive the sadness and shame away. “It looks way better on you than it ever did on me.”

  I grabbed the ends of the shirt and gave it a little tug as a subtle breeze whipped across my legs. “Then you won’t have a problem if I steal it.” I gave him a playful grin that felt more genuine with each passing second. “Because I already planned to, and there’s really nothing you can do about it.”

  He leaned closer, and I took a deep breath, drawing his scent, something incredibly masculine and all Dalton, into my lungs. My hunger for him began to build deep in my belly. I was insatiable. With how we’d gone at each other the night before and into the early morning hours, I shouldn’t need him this badly, but it was like he’d opened a floodgate inside of me, and there was no chance of plugging it back up.

  His lips met mine, and I was just about to suggest we get naked again when my stomach let out a growl so loud I wouldn’t have been surprised if it sent the woodland creatures in our vicinity running in fear. I might have been embarrassed if my sudden desire for food wasn’t so overwhelming.

  Dalton’s chest rumbled as he let loose a laugh that made my knees weak, those straight white teeth flashing from beneath his beard. “Come on, Thumbelina.

  Let’s get you fed before that monster in your belly gets any angrier.”

  He wasn’t going to get any argument from me. Grabbing my coffee mug from the deck railing, I followed Dalton back inside his incredible house so we could go to breakfast, our first official one-on-one date. And I couldn’t wait.

  Dalton and I walked into Evergreen Diner hand in hand. Nearly every table was full thanks to the early morning breakfast crowd, and as people in small towns were prone to do, everyone stopped to look as we came through the door.

  Most of the faces in the place were familiar, but thanks to the almost knowing smiles of some and the unhappy frowns of others, the vibe was much different than usual. The happy cloud I’d been floating on since an un-freaking-believable round of shower sex with Dalton began to dissipate beneath me, sending me crashing back to earth.

  Leaning into Dalton’s side, I spoke out of the corner of my mouth, asking, “What’s going on? Why do I feel like I’m getting smiles and death glares at the same time?”

  He was suspiciously quiet, and when I looked up and over I saw the corner of his mouth trembling, like he was fighting back a smirk.

  “Well, well, well.” Sally, the wife of the husband and wife duo that owned the diner, stopped in front of us, blocking our path. The apron tied around her waist was splattered with food stains, indicating the place had been hopping probably from the moment it opened hours ago. “So it finally happened, huh? Took you guys long enough.”

  Her husband’s bearded face popped up from behind the pass-thru. Sally worked the front of the diner as a waitress, and he worked back in the kitchen, making some of the best stick-to-your-ribs comfort food you could ever eat.

  “What’s goin’ on?” he shouted loudly. “It got real quiet all of a sudden. We bein’ robbed?”

  Sally yelled back in return. “Not a robbery! Just Charlie and Dalton comin’ in for breakfast.” It was known far and wide that yelling through the whole diner was their preferred form of communication, and most of what came out of their mouths was downright hilarious. More times than not, coming in here felt like getting dinner and a show.

  Ralph’s booming voice went up several octaves—which I hadn’t thought was even possible—making the windows rattle in their frames. “Together?”

  My brows shot up at the tone of his voice. What sounded almost like disappointment was the complete antithesis to Sally’s giddy expression.

  “Holdin’ hands and everything. You owe me fifty bucks,” she returned, only adding to my complete confusion.

  “Damn it!” the big man barked loud enough to make everyone in the dining area jump. “First it was the hundred I lost on Hayes and Tempie, now this! I gotta stop bettin’ on these fool young people!”

  “Um . . . what’s happening right now?”

  Dalton’s hand gave mine a squeeze, silently drawing my focus to his handsome face. “They’ve had a bet going a while now on when we’d get together.”

  “Who?” I squeaked.

  “The town,” Sally clarified.

  I blinked slowly a couple times, needing the extra seconds to wrap my brain around what I’d just heard. “The town? Like the whole town?”

  Sensing I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having the entirety of Hope Valley betting on my love life, she quickly began to backpedal. “Well, I’m sure not the whole town. There are probably a few people who didn’t hear about it.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “I been in it since the start,” one of the resident seniors, Joe Silvester, said around his steaming mug of coffee. “Right around the time you got outta the hospital, girly. Was bumped out last month.”

  Ms. McClintock, the surly, blue-haired old lady, and self-appointed town sage, spoke up just then. “I didn’t bother gettin’ in on the action ’til he started showin’ up at that club where she worked. Wasn’t gonna waste my money if it wasn’t a sure thing.”

  The woman had to be around the same age as Ms. Weatherby, but for some reason—maybe a deal with the devil that even he was too scared to cash in on—she was still as spry as someone half her age. She’d been touting her new hip for a while now and loved to go on about how she was putting it to good use with a few “gentlemen friends.” She looked at me just then and shot me a sly wink. “You just paid for my spa weekend in Richmond, darlin’. Me and my gentleman friend thank you.”

  Oh God. Don’t think about old people having sex, Charlie. Don’t’ think about it!

  With no bleach on hand to scrub my memory clean, I decided to shift my focus from her to the big man beside me. “And you knew about this?”

  “I heard rumblings.” It wasn’t exactly an admission or a denial. He was skating the line, and I could see from the way his eyes danced he knew more than he was admitting.

  “Well, who started this whole thing?” I needed a name if I was going to kill them after making them suffer for a very long time.

  “Talk to your girl, Hayden,” Ralph shouted from the kitchen pass-thru. “She’s the one in charge of the signup sheet and who owes what.”

  There was a signup sheet?

  With a frustrated huff, I started for an empty booth near the window and flopped down, pulling my phone from my purse.

  Me: You set up a betting pool with the whole freaking town on when Dalton and I would get together?

  Her response was much faster than I’d expected.

  Hayden: #Sorrynotsorry. I regret nothing. I have a really nice chunk of change coming my way to put toward Ivy’s college fund . . . that is, if she hasn’t dominated the world before then.

  Me: You’re dead to me.

  Hayden: Boo. No I’m not. You’re all talk. Would a quarter of my winnings make you feel better?

  I paused in my response, giving that some thought before looking across the table at Dalton. “Did you put money on that bet?”

  He watched me carefully, trying to gauge my reaction before answering. “Maybe.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Well? Did you win money or lose money?”

  “Depends. Which answer’ll piss you off the least?”

  I felt one corner of my mouth pull up. “I’m currently negotiating Hayden’s way back into my good graces. Ms. M’s mention of a spa
weekend got me thinking. Will a quarter of her winnings pay for us to have a weekend away, or do I need to demand half?”

  His eyes filled with heat that made me squirm as I remembered all the things he’d done to me over the past several hours. “Baby, you forget. I’ve known this was gonna happen all along. I’ve just been waiting for you to catch up.”

  My stomach suddenly felt nice and floaty. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I just won enough on us to cover the cost of a whole week. But you wanna stick it to your girl, you can put that toward a new wardrobe for the trip.”

  Damn, but my man was smart!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charlotte

  The soft rays of early morning sunlight shone into the room through the big picture window across from Dalton’s insanely comfortable bed.

  After working until closing at Whiskey Dolls the night before, I should have still been sleeping, getting a few much-needed hours. But when Dalton woke me with his face between my thighs a while ago, I’d been helpless to resist him.

  Now we were done, both of us sated and run dry, enjoying a nice post-coital cuddle before we were forced to climb from beneath the cozy covers to start the day.

  We’d been an official couple for about a week and a half now, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it seemed to be going.

  During the days while he was working, I’d taken to hanging out with his family, showing them around town and introducing them to Dalton’s and my friends. On the nights I wasn’t performing at the club, I split my time between private evenings with my man and fun, casual dinners with the Prescotts. It had been a blast. There had only been one little bump in our blissful road that had happened a few days earlier.

  I’d woken up with a start after another dream, only this time I’d thrashed around enough to wake Dalton up with me.

  “What’s going on, Thumbelina,” he’d asked into the darkness, clutching me to him as I worked to regulate my heart rate. “What is it you dream about that prevents you from sleeping through the night all the damn time?”

  That one hadn’t been about my sister, but instead, I’d been trapped in that desolate cabin with Greg Cormack, reliving the torture he’d spent hours sadistically doling out.

  “I don’t remember,” I said quietly.

  He’d shifted then, rolling away from me and flipping on the bedside lamp so light streamed across his granite features. “You’re lying.”

  “Dalton, please. Can we just let this go? It’s late, and I’m tired—”

  “You were beggin’ someone to stop, pleading with them not to hurt you. It was about Cormack, wasn’t it?”

  I let out a sigh of defeat and shook my head. “I told you, I don’t remember.”

  His gaze went flinty. “All right then. If you won’t tell me about the dreams, I’ll ask about something you do know the answer to.” I had a really bad feeling about what he was going to say. “Why’d you sneak out that day to meet Cormack?”

  And I was right.

  I felt my whole body lock up tight, and reading the sudden tension in my muscles, some of the aggravation sifted out of him. “Baby,” he started in a much calmer, much quieter voice, but I gave my head a sharp shake.

  “I know you want answers. You deserve them. But all I want to do is forget that day ever happened. It’s not fair to you, and I understand why you’d get impatient, but it’s just not something I can talk about right now.” I looked over to him, my eyes pleading as desperation clawed at my chest. “I’m sorry.”

  His shoulders sank, his frame physically deflating before my eyes. The questions were coming more frequently now that we were getting deeper into our relationship, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my secrets forever, but I just couldn’t force the words out. They were sitting there, right on the tip of my tongue, and still, I couldn’t say them.

  “All right, baby,” he conceded, but I could see it was taking something from him. “I can wait. As long as I have you, I can wait for anything.”

  We’d gone back to sleep, and when we woke the next morning, it was like that late-night conversation had never happened. We were back to us, back to happy and insatiable.

  I couldn’t get enough of him, and judging from the way he was currently holding me glued to his side tight enough that I couldn’t move, I could only assume he felt the same way.

  Man, I hoped he felt the same way.

  “What’s goin’ through your mind, Charlotte?” he asked into the quiet that had filled the air around us after a good half hour of cries and moans and whimpers of pleasure.

  At his husky question, I lifted my head off his chest, twisting my neck so I could see his face. I stacked my hands on his pecs and propped my chin on top of them. “Why do you call me that?”

  His brows arched downward into a V. “Call you what?”

  “Charlotte,” I answered. “I mean, why don’t you call me Charlie like everyone else?”

  The confusion melted from his face, understanding taking its place. He lifted a hand to brush a lock of hair off my forehead on a slow exhale. “I do it for you. Everyone in town calls you Charlie, right?” He waited for my nod before explaining further. “Everyone except the girls at the club. Why is that?”

  He wasn’t asking why the girls at the club called me by my real name because he was confused. I could see from the slight smugness on his face that he already knew the answer and was watching me to see if I was going to give him the truth or deflect.

  “Your intuitiveness is a pain in the ass,” I groused.

  His arms tightened around me in response to my glare, and he hit me with a cocky grin. “And you’re avoiding the question.”

  I rolled my eyes on a huff and finally gave him what he wanted. “They call me Charlotte because that’s how I introduced myself. When I started there, I told myself it was going to be a clean slate for me. Charlie was the girl who made all those shitty choices. I didn’t want to be her anymore. I wanted to be Charlotte.”

  “And that’s why I call you Charlotte,” he said softly. “I might not agree with your reasoning. I don’t think you need to be someone else or run from your past. I think you’re incredible no matter what. That said, I get your desire to do it all the same, so I gave you Charlotte.”

  I didn’t bother trying to keep myself in check as I closed my eyes and face-planted into Dalton’s chest. Spanning my arms around his waist and holding tightly, I let everything I was feeling in that very moment wash over me, and damn did it feel nice.

  I felt his fingers in my hair, dragging through the long, sleep-and-sex tangled strands. “Take it my woman liked that.”

  Once I was sure I wasn’t going to burst into tears any second, I lifted my head and met his gaze. His eyes took on an instant warmth as soon as they locked with mine. “Yeah, honey. I really liked that.”

  His arms got so tight it was hard for me to pull in a full breath as he yanked me farther up his chest so our mouths were only about an inch apart. That warmth turned to a smoldering heat that made my nipples stiff.

  “You realize that’s the first time you ever called me honey?”

  My chin jerked back in surprise. “It is?”

  “Yeah. You gave me cowboy, and I love it, but that was my first honey.”

  His erection pressed hard and insistent into my lower belly, and I had to squeeze my thighs together against that empty ache I felt whenever he wasn’t inside me. My voice went soft as my eyelids lowered to half-mast. “I take it my man liked that.”

  “Fuck yeah, he did,” he growled. He fisted the back of my hair and forced my lips down on his in a hungry, demanding kiss.

  “Uh-uh.” Pulling back and ending that kiss was harder and more painful than the first time I performed in heels at Whiskey Dolls. And that night, I was certain my shoes were filling with blood as I moved across the stage. “We don’t have time to start this up again. You have to get to work, and I’m meeting up with your sister.”

  He rolle
d me to my back, wedging his hips between my thighs, speaking between kisses. “I have an hour, and you aren’t meeting Jolie until later today.”

  Oh God, that was a sound argument. And his teeth scraping the cord at the side of my neck felt amazing.

  “Yeah,” I panted. “But . . .”

  His tongue lashed across my skin. “You were saying?”

  He reached up to cup my breast, dragging his thumb across my nipple. “Hmm? I was?”

  His head came out of my neck, his expression a combination of arrogant and wicked as he grinned down at me. “You were trying to tell me there wasn’t enough time to fuck you into the mattress again before we left.”

  Reaching up, I tangled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled his face close to mine. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”

  Dalton’s chest rattled against mine on a deep chuckle. “So I take it we have time?”

  If it meant he’d keep touching and kissing me, I’d make all the time in the world. “Dalton,” I said against his mouth, flicking my tongue out to trace his lower lip.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Fuck me into the mattress, honey.”

  He didn’t have to be told twice.

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into buying all of this,” I mumbled, looking down at the shopping bags littering the passenger floorboard at my feet.

  “Hey, I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Jolie chided from behind the wheel of her rental car. “I’m the one who just spent the past three hours helping you pick nighties and stuff to wear for my brother.” She twisted her face up in disgust. “Blech.”

  What had started as lunch at El Toro, an incredible Mexican restaurant just outside of town, had turned into an impromptu shopping trip where I spent way too much money on lingerie. I’d gone into the store with the intention of picking up a couple things, only to have my girly senses overwhelmed by all the pretty, frilly silks and lace in a rainbow of colors.