Gerard's Beauty (5 page)

Had he seen her? Had he tried to hit on Trisha too? She frowned, not liking that thought one bit. Worst part of it was she didn’t even know his name. Hottie McHoster? “Ugh,” she moaned.

Trisha grabbed her shoulders. “Look, he’s been here two days.”

“So why haven’t you called the cops yet?” Betty asked.

Trisha’s lips quirked. “Why haven’t you?”

Betty rubbed her nose. Not like she hadn’t threatened it, many times. So why hadn’t she?

Trisha looked over her shoulder and sighed. “He’s not on private property.”

Betty shook her head and stepped away from Trish to go grab her purse and rain coat. “He’s loitering. Probably homeless.”

She was shrugging on her jacket when Trisha flipped the lights off. “Nope,” she said, “not. Have you seen his teeth? Too clean.”

When had Trisha seen his teeth? Betty huffed, she so didn’t care and if she kept telling herself that, maybe she’d eventually believe it.

“But he’s obviously not from here. French accent, crazy clothes... I’ve got it!” Trisha snapped her fingers, her grin huge. “He’s been shanghaied.”

Betty laughed, grabbed her tube of pearl pink lip gloss and refused to analyze why she was primping when she was getting ready to run through rain. “And dropped in the middle of a landlocked state. Makes perfect sense, Trish.”

Trisha snorted. “S’all I got. But whatever he is, or wherever he’s from, he needs help.”

A man dressed in jeans and a gray sweater knocked on the glass. He smiled and waved, exposing a big dimple in his left cheek. Betty jerked her thumb at him. “One of yours?”

Trisha sighed and buttoned up her lime green pea coat. “Young and dumb, just how I like ‘em.” She winked and blew an air kiss at him. “Look,” she turned back toward Betty, “I know men, trust me, he’s a cad. But he’s not dangerous. At least take him to a hospital before he croaks on us.”

Betty shook her head. “I’m not driving that man anywhere. Not alone.”

The guy knocked harder.

“Really?” Betty turned and scowled at him. He jerked as if slapped and pointed to his watch.

“Yes. Yes.” Trisha waved him off and fluffed her hair, applying a quick coat of mascara. “Waterproof, gotta love it.” She winked. “Anyway, he needs a doctor. Call Kelly, he’ll come.”

“Can’t,” Betty shook her head, “he just finished a forty-eight hour rotation at the clinic. He’s sleeps harder than the dead.”

“Trishelle,” the guy’s voice blared through the doors, “movies. Gonna be late.”

Trisha smirked and rolled her eyes, ignoring him. “Call a million times, that’s what big brothers are for, to come to their baby sister’s aid,” she grabbed Betty’s hand, “just please... don’t call the cops. At least give him his dignity.”

Betty bit her bottom lip. Her heart raced at the thought of letting that guy in her car-- that big powerful body cramped into her small sedan. Breathing the same air.

She gulped.

“He’s just a harmless bastard sitting in the rain.” Trisha tapped Betty’s chin. “Have mercy on him. You know where the shelter’s at right?”

Betty lifted a brow. “You know I do. Do you?”

Trisha giggled. “Nope. That’s why you’re the perfect person to go drop him off!” With a wink and a wave, Trisha joined her impatient date. Betty licked her lips.

All day she’d pretended he wasn’t out there, and it was easy to do with work to be done. But now she was going to walk past him and there would be no ignoring him then.

Then don’t look, can’t miss what ya don’t see-- her grandma Nani’s sage words suddenly sprang to mind. Advice she’d given Betty the night she’d wept on her fragile shoulder’s about James dumping her and spotting him shopping for groceries at her grocery store. The last bit of advice her grandmother had given her, she’d died in her sleep two nights later. Betty sighed. 

“Yeah. Won’t look. Totally.” She gripped the strap of her purse like a shield and exited the library, locking the door behind her.

The blast of chilly air up her jacket broke her out in a wash of goose bumps. This morning it’d been sunny without a cloud in the sky. Now, the weather was downright nasty. The unofficial slogan of Missouri: Wait around long enough, it’ll change. And boy had it, it now felt like ten degrees shy of freezing.

Her skin tingled, but not from the cold. He was looking at her. She felt the heated press of his eyes like a hot brand.

“Don’t look.” She kept her eyes down and her head low as she ran down the sidewalk, rain smacked her in the face like tiny needles and she winced. This was a miserable night to be out. Where would he sleep this time?

Betty bit her lip and all her plans went to pot when she glanced over her shoulder. He wasn’t looking at her as she’d expected, instead, he was looking at the old tree and wearing the fiercest scowl she’d ever seen.

He had his arms wrapped around his body and jeez... she just couldn’t do it. She’d never treat a homeless person this way, she wouldn’t do it with him either.

Betty marched back to him, stopping only when she got to the bench. This was so dumb. What if he was a deranged lunatic? People didn’t just sit outside for two days, sleep on a park bench overnight even-- without some serious issues.

“What?” he growled, turning his frosty glare on her. “Come to crow some more?”

Her lips tipped and she held her purse over her head, trying to ward off the rain-- but it was useless, rain ran down the back of her neck and under her jacket. She shivered. “Look, you shouldn’t be out here tonight. Don’t you have some place to go? Somebody to stay with?”

And though his bottom lip was still healing, and looked angry and swollen where it’d been busted, he still had the most sensual lips she’d ever seen. Her stomach fluttered remembering the feel of them this morning.

Betty glanced at the dark green sky. This was tornado country, it wasn’t unheard of to have twisters come down unexpectedly and wreak havoc out of the seeming blue.

That’s when she heard it-- the soft ping of hail hitting asphalt. She winced. They had seconds before they started getting pelted too.

“Dammit,” she grabbed his hand and tugged, “come on!”

She knew he could shake her off if he wanted to, but he didn’t. It was a two hundred yard sprint to her car and by the time they’d made it to her beat up Toyota, she’d already been waylaid by four golf ball sized chunks of ice.

“
Enfer
,” he growled, “what type of sorcery is this? Ice from the sky?”

Betty heard his mutters, wondered at the strangeness of it, and just as quickly dismissed it. The man was nuts and she needed to get him away from here and away from her. The sooner the better. She shoved her key in the lock, wishing yet again for the funds to buy a car with an automatic unlock button and swung her door open just as another cold stone bit into her cheek.

She muttered as she reached over to unlock his side.

His big frame took up all the passenger space and then some. His knees pressed tight to the dash and his arms were bent at the shoulders, large hands in his lap. He looked like a sardine in a tin can, but a sardine had never looked so sexy.

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. It bubbled up from her belly and spilled from her mouth. At first he scowled harder, which of course, only made her laugh harder.

Then his lips twitched. “This is ah... comfortable?”

She snorted and grabbed a napkin out of her purse to mop up some of the wetness dripping from the tips of her bangs. “You look--” She shook her head. “It’s all your fault.”

The stern lines framed his eyes again.

“Who told you to get so big anyway?” she teased.

Once he seemed to realize she wasn’t mocking him, he visibly relaxed and the sexy as sin grin tipped the corners of his mouth, killing her laughter instantly.

Gorgeous. So gorgeous
. Heat settled in her cheeks, and she shifted on her wet car seat, trying to ignore the sudden heat slithering down her belly through her thighs.

Betty distracted herself by glancing in the rearview mirror, pretending to dry off, to try and forget her reckless attraction to the man.

But it was useless, and so was drying off. She needed to get home and change. She tossed the crumpled napkin onto the dash and cranked the car. Blasting the air to heat, she sighed as the warmth penetrated through her chilly skin.

They drove in silence. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but he was looking out the window with a grim set to his stubbled jaw.

Betty licked her lips. Wanting to hear some sort of sound, she clicked on her stereo and groaned when the childish blare of “
I love you. You love me...”
crackled through her speakers.

He curled his nose, his eyes wide with horror, and she giggled. “Umm... oops, Briley’s tape. Forgot he left that here.” She popped the cassette tape out and switched it to FM. Some song about ‘
I want to rock your body all night long
’ came on and she sighed. Not much better. She turned the volume down until it was nothing but background noise.

Betty drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, easing through the empty Leba
non
streets, headed toward her brother’s house. He might not wake up for a phone call, but he’d wake up if she pounded on the door.

“Who’s Briley?” McHotster asked, his voice low and growly.

A crime how sexy that was, and how much she wished she could hear it in the morning. She shook the silly thought aside, shifting gears to slow down for the red light.

She looked at him, he was looking back out the window. “He’s my nephew.” She smiled. “He’s going to be eleven next week.”

He didn’t say anything. Betty bit her lip, tasting the strawberry sweetness of her lip gloss.

“I wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to such infantile music at that age,” he mumbled and she bristled. He didn’t know, and that was the only thing that stayed her tongue.

She counted to ten before she trusted herself to speak. “I don’t even know your name.”

He looked back at her, his eyes wary. “And that’s a problem because?”

Her eyes widened and she gripped the wheel until her knuckles whitened, but she was proud her voice did not betray her shock at his blunt way. She turned left, heading down the tiny two lane country road toward her brother’s one bedroom farm house. Trees, appearing like black specters in the moonlight, framed either side of the road. The rain had trickled down to a fine mist and it felt like driving through a fairy tale. The teal and navy blue sky twinkled with starlight, the full moon filled the sky like a giant golden orb. 

Her heart sped with the driving thought that this was a great place to be abducted and raped. Fear turned her words sharp.

“Look, I’m trying to be a good Samaritan here. I could have just called the cops, but I didn’t. You’ve been loitering on our grounds, scaring away the customers and I just want to know the name of the man who--” Betty gasped, and then paused, realizing her near mistake. What she’d almost said, almost admitted.

The tilt of his head and narrowing of his eyes spoke volumes. She scrunched down on the seat, stepping harder on the gas.

“Who what?” His accent went supersonic gravelly and her nipples hardened. Betty felt like one of Pavlov’s dogs-- ring a bell and it’s time for food-- except in this case it was hear that deep French burr and her body tingled with a hot rush of sexual arousal.
Gah
, she’d never been so turned on by the sound of a man’s voice before.

He shifted his muscular frame and she hated how aware of him she was. His clothes were still the same horrible things from the day before, ripped, tattered, and sexy as hell. She bit her tongue and his eyes danced with light.

“Turned you on,” he said, his finger trailed feather light along the back of her hand and she jerked the wheel hard to the left, the tires squealed as she pulled to the side of the road. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

Perfectly shaped teeth bit his perfectly shaped lips and...

“I could smack you!” Betty parked her car and flicked his hand off. “Do you always have to get so... so, grabby? Ugh!” She wrapped her arms around herself.

Cocky arrogance touched his face and she gnashed her teeth. Had she learned nothing from James?

“Don’t tell me you don’t like my touch,
femme vipere
. I tasted the sweetness of your surrender, you lie to say you do not.”

Angry, ashamed, she panted for breath as her nails dug into her palms. “One, don’t call me a viper. So not the way to get on my good side. Two--”

He raised his brow, seeming more amused by her than offended. She trembled, but she wasn’t exactly sure it was just from rage because he was leaning in again. Absorbing all the oxygen in her bubble, the heat of his body snapped across her skin with the shock of static.

“T... two,” she stuttered and he pushed his finger against her lips.

“Has anyone ever told you, you’ve the voice of a harpy--” Betty sucked in a sharp breath, “but the lips of a succulent sweet fruit?” He said the last with his lips feathering across hers and she was going to slap him.

Any second now.

“I... I.” Was all she got out when his lips pressed hard and firm and with a desperate moan she opened her mouth, hating him, herself, and all of mankind.

His large hands framed her face, so gentle and warm while his mouth plundered hers. His tongue swept in and she tasted him and how he tasted of brandy and cherry pipe smoke, she’d never know and at the moment, could give a rat’s patootie. All she knew was she wanted more.

Betty nipped at his lip and though he hissed, he didn’t pull back and neither did she. What was he doing to her? She wrapped her hands around the back of his head, twining his thick wet hair around her fingers. Now he was running his big hand down her arm and somehow, he’d unbuttoned her jacket and was now stroking the front of shirt. Touching her, molding his fingers around her heavy breasts and she flexed her body, opening up to him.

A sound like a whimper rang in her ears. She struggled to pinpoint where it came from only to start with a jerk when his fingers slipped under the hem of her shirt. His touch burned a path straight to her aching core.