Unbreak Me Read online

  “In your house?” My breathing’s unsteady, my heart pounding.

  He cups my face in one big hand. “Why don’t you run home and get dressed? I’ll take you to breakfast.”

  My jaw goes slack. Who the hell is this guy? Who has brakes that good? “Are you serious? I mean, you don’t want to…” Rarely am I at a loss for words.

  “Sure, I want to do a lot of things. But sweetheart, you don’t know a damn thing about me.”

  “You’re really hung up on that.” I unwrap my legs from around him and run a hand over my eyes.

  Just my luck that I’d pick a bad boy who’s all Mr. Sensitivity and wants to get to know me.

  So be it. That’s a better fit for the New Me plan anyway, right?

  “Good. Because, you know, I’m not that kind of girl anyway.” I wait a beat, but God doesn’t strike me dead. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes?”

  His lip twitches.

  “What?”

  “I’ve just never met a woman who can really get ready in fifteen minutes.”

  I hoist myself out of the water. “I’ll bet breakfast on it. If I take longer than fifteen minutes, I’ll cook for you.”

  Asher runs his eyes over my body, lingering at all my best parts. “Deal.”

  I grab my towel, making no effort to minimize the swish of my hips as I exit through his gate for the first time.

  I pad through the dewy grass back to my mother’s house and slip in the back door. I take a quick shower to wash off the chlorine. After a towel-down and some lotion, I slip into jeans and a tank, and pull my wet hair into a ponytail.

  When I head toward the door again, my mom is blocking it. Her arms are crossed and worry creases her features. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  That old shame slithers up my spine and I immediately imagine she knows what I’ve been up to tonight. The trespassing. The strange man. The lust.

  So many deadly sins, so little time.

  “I don’t live here anymore. I don’t need your permission to go to breakfast with a friend.”

  She looks at her watch skeptically. “It’s 3 a.m.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  She shakes her head. “I want you to think about how important that wedding was to your sister. And then I want you to think about how you can make it right.”

  My jaw drops. “What?”

  She tucks a piece of chestnut hair behind her ear and cocks her head. “We’re a family, Maggie, and we’ll forgive you for your mistakes. But we can’t do that until you own up to them.”

  My fists clench until I feel the bite of my nails against my palm. It’s a lecture I’ve heard so many times I could recite it in my sleep. It’s a lecture I deserved more times than I can count. “I didn’t have anything to do with the stink bomb.” The words are hard and gritty, pushed through clenched teeth.

  “Maggie—”

  I push past her, through the door and into the moonlight, anger and hurt a burning fist in my chest.

  When I finally steady myself and make it to Asher’s, he’s waiting for me on his patio, sipping out of a steaming mug.

  “You lose.”

  I tense, still wound up from my confrontation with my mom. “What?”

  He smiles and points to his watch. “Twenty-five minutes. You lost the bet.” His smile fades. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, right. Yeah.” I wave a hand. “I’m fine.” I let out a long, slow breath and settle into a chair. The moon shines bright and stars sprinkle across that infinite span of darkness. “I’ve missed this.”

  “What? Breakfast? First dates?”

  “The stars. The light is constant in the city. Inescapable. I missed seeing the stars,” I say, more to myself than him.

  Suddenly his words register and I shift my eyes to him. “And this isn’t a date.”

  Asher raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question me. “So you left for a while but now you’re back…for good?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “You still insist on playing the get-to-know-you game?”

  “Absolutely.” He grins at me and leans forward. “I like hiking, seafood, and long walks on the beach at sunset.”

  I can’t help but smile. “You’d think we had a country full of avid hikers,” I say. “Every trail at every national park would be packed if everyone who says they like to hike actually did it.”

  “Your turn,” he says. “Tell me something about yourself.”

  Is this guy for real?

  I steal his mug from his hands and take a long sip of hot, rich coffee.

  “I’m waiting.”

  I let the heat sink to my belly and relax my shoulders. “Well, I should tell you one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I am that kind of girl.”

  His laugh is rich and deep and sexy. “Sure you are.”

  “You don’t believe me? Ask…oh, anyone in this town.”

  Something changes in his eyes. If sadness had a color I’d say I could see it circling his pupils. “I don’t put much stock in the things people say. Anyway, I’d rather hear about you from your lips.”

  He can’t possibly know what that single statement means to me. The silence stretches between us as I consider how to abbreviate my life into a series of simple sentences. He doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t seem intimidated by silence like so many people are. That alone makes me want to share myself with him.

  “I’m just Maggie.” I fight the urge to say too much. Months trapped in a self-constructed prison of silence have left me hungry for a confidant, but sexy Asher isn’t it. “Black sheep. College dropout. Famished. Painfully turned on.”

  He groans, a low, guttural sound that speaks to his own arousal. “Well, I can fix the famished part, but the last will have to wait.”

  But I don’t want to wait. I need to…escape. Forget. “I pay my bets.” I wrap my fingers around his biceps. “Let me cook for you.”

  “You really cook?”

  My eyes flick to the large French doors at the back of his house, but I dismiss the idea, ready to be on my own turf. “Follow me to my place and I’ll show you.”

  I think we both know I’m not the slightest bit interested in food.

  ***

  Asher

  Maggie takes her coffee black. Straight from the pot, no sweetener, no fancy cream. Just coffee. She puts herself out there in the same way—no frills, no pretense, no bullshit. Just Maggie.

  I like that. I like it more than I want to. I like her more than I want to. More than I’ve liked any woman since Juliana fucked me over.

  We’re at her shitty little rental house in New Hope, and our breakfast dishes litter the kitchen table.

  “I’ve decided I’m not going to sleep with you,” she informs me between bites of feta omelet.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, my food is so damn good, I don’t need you to get off.” She takes a sip of coffee. Her tongue darts out to taste her bottom lip after every sip, an innocent gesture that makes me think of mouth and tongue and tasting in a very different context.

  “Hmm,” I say, as if considering. “You make a damn good omelet, but I promise you I’m better.”

  “Are you sure?” She slips another bite in her mouth. “Because I’m bordering on foodgasmic about now.” Her eyes float closed, and she makes a little sound at the back of her throat, tilting her head back a fraction of an inch.

  I put down my fork. In the battle between my throbbing dick and empty stomach, my dick has won. It’s not just that she’s gorgeous. There are plenty of gorgeous women in this world. Maggie is more than that. She’s a study in contradictions and I am an eager student.

  My time in New Hope is coming to an end, and I don’t know what I was thinking when I joined her in the pool tonight.

  That’s a lie. I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking of big smiles and bright green eyes that are so damn familiar I’m sure I’ve seen them before. I was thinking of soft skin and bare, sun-kissed shoulders.

  I was thinking of the way her face looked by the river when the asshole in the tux told her he was marrying someone else. I didn’t understand the conversation. Didn’t need to understand it to know she needed me. To feel it.

  “Do you make a habit of cooking breakfast for strange men?”

  She runs her eyes over me, lingering on my chest and the tat snaking around my biceps. “Only the good-looking ones.”

  Or only when she’s trying to get another man out of her mind. “Are you in school?”

  “Not at the moment.” She pushes her plate across the table. “Do you want any more? I can make you another.”

  I’m used to women trying to tell me their life story, trying to play on my sympathies. I’m used to women who want me to rescue them, but not this one. “Is there a reason that you change the subject every time I ask you a personal question?”

  She leans back in her chair. “I’m a private person.”

  My mind is flooded with images—her hair slicked back from her face, her breasts rounded under the surface of the water. When her tongue darted out to taste my lips and she wrapped those long legs behind my back, I lost sight of all sense.

  Maggie chews on the corner of her lip and my brain paints a picture of those lips working their way down my stomach, opening over my cock.

  “Don’t you want to…” she’d asked.

  “You didn’t seem so private in the pool.”

  “That was just about sex, Asher.”

  Another contradiction. That openness. That in-your-face sexuality matched with complete avoidance of any kind of intimacy.

  And hell, I could use some just-about-sex right now. It’s been too long since I’ve tasted a woman, since I’ve felt a woman’s mouth on my dick and buried myself insi
de her.

  But I’m not about to end my celibate streak with someone as vulnerable as Maggie. Because no matter what she says, what happened in the pool wasn’t just about sex. It was about him. The groom. The man her eyes kept returning to as we danced.

  “You want to meet my little girl?” Her words rip me from my reverie.

  “You have a kid?” Where are all the toys? There are dog toys all over the place, but no signs of a baby doll or Barbie.

  Maggie would probably hang by that thick red hair before she’d let a child of hers play with Barbie dolls. But what about Little People or picture books? I hope she’s not one of those moms who always pawns her kid off on the sitter. That makes me uncomfortable as hell.

  Then, like a fucking genius, I put it all together. “Your little girl is a dog, isn’t she?”

  Maggie hops up from her chair and tugs the back door open. “Come on, baby girl. It’s okay. Lucy! Come say hi to Mama!”

  I love the idea of this rough woman owning a spoiled little dog.

  The image in my mind is turned on its head when one hundred and fifty pounds of Rottweiler runs toward Maggie with the frenzied glee of a ten-pound pup.

  When Lucy reaches Maggie’s feet, she immediately drops to the ground and rolls onto her back.

  “I should have known,” I mutter.

  “What?”

  “I should have known you’d have a big-ass guard dog to match your big-ass guard dog personality.”

  Maggie scoffs. “Lotta good she does me. Lucy’s the biggest coward I’ve ever met. Aren’t you, sweetie?” she coos to the dog, rubbing on her belly. Lucy writhes in pleasure.

  “So you don’t have any kids?”

  Maggie stands and the dog cowers behind her legs. “It’s just me and Lucy here.”

  I drop to my knees and extend a hand. “Come here, sweetie.”

  Lucy howls in half excited whine, half terrified cry.

  “We’re still getting used to each other,” Maggie explains. “I adopted her from the shelter when I moved back to town last month.”

  I’m still waiting with my hand out, but I flick my eyes up to Maggie. “Most people would have gotten a puppy.”

  “That’s why Lucy needed me.” Her eyes go soft as she studies her dog and she adds, quietly, “I needed her too.”

  Finally, Lucy edges toward me.

  Maggie gapes. “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!”

  I shrug. Lucy drops to the floor at my feet, rolling to her back so I can rub her belly. “Dogs like me.”

  “Lucy’s afraid of everyone. Even my mom.”

  “Maybe your mom’s scary.”

  She snorts. “You have no idea.” Then she grabs my hand and pulls me up. “I can’t have her liking you more than me.”

  Her face is inches from mine and something’s nagging at the back of my mind again. Do I know this woman? Maybe I saw her around town during my rare visits to my river house before this year, but the recognition, the déjà vu I feel when I look at her is something more.

  Her skin is fresh and clear. Freckles scatter across the bridge of her nose. And I swear she smells like clean laundry hanging to dry in the summer sun.

  Fuck. I’m in trouble.

  “Let me take you out sometime, Maggie.”

  “I don’t play games.” She says it in a husky whisper that makes me think of lazy Sunday mornings in a warm bed, the sun slanting in on us as we explore each other’s bodies.

  “Who said I’m playing a game?”

  “Isn’t that what dating is?” Her eyes drop to my lips. “If I want something, I take it.”

  “And you think you want me?”

  A smile spreads across her face. “Why don’t you come find out?” She cocks her head and walks toward the hallway.

  I follow like a smitten fool.

  She leans against a doorframe and pulls her tank over her head, revealing creamy skin, heavy breasts in a simple black bra. No lace. No frills. And so damn sexy. I can still feel the weight of them, slick with pool water, her pebbled nipple against my palm, her breath quickening against my neck.

  “Maggie, what are you doing?”

  “I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but I figure we can play it by ear. We have”—she glances over her shoulder to the clock—“approximately five hours before I need to play the good daughter for a family brunch at my mom’s house.”

  The shirt drops from her fingers to the floor, and I groan involuntarily as she moves to the button on her jeans. I stop her hands with one of mine.

  “Oh, sorry.” She looks up, laughter in her eyes. “Did you want to do it?”

  She has no idea. I could do it. I could fuck her today and forget her tomorrow. No one would be surprised. Half the world thinks I’m a selfish asshole, so why not prove them right?

  “I’m not going to sleep with you, Maggie. Not yet.”

  Her eyes narrow. “I told you I don’t play games. I’m not about that.”

  “And I don’t make a habit of screwing women who are hung up on other men.”

  “I don’t see any other men here, do you?” Her lips curve in amusement.

  She shimmies out of her jeans, watching me as she steps out of them. She’s in nothing but her bra and a black scrap of thong. I fist my hands against the temptation to trace the curve of her hip, tighten my jaw against the need to press my open mouth against the flat of her belly.

  Grabbing the doorframe, I take a deep breath.

  “I’m going to jump in the shower.” Maggie pulls the tie from her hair and a thick curtain of red falls around her shoulders. “I’d love some company, but you do what you must.”

  She disappears around the corner and I count backwards from ten.

  Ten. Nine…

  Ancient plumbing squeals and the shower kicks on. I imagine her under the spray, all that soft, pale skin slick with water.

  Eight. Seven. Six…

  It would be so easy to follow her, so easy to pretend I didn’t see that pain in her eyes.

  Five. Four…

  But I’m so damn drawn to her already. She has this magnetic pull on me.

  Three. Two…

  This lust is so powerful it nearly has me snarling with need.

  One. I won’t slide inside of her while her mind is full of another man.

  Been there. Done that.

  Turning around and walking out the door is on my top ten list of hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

  Chapter Three

  Maggie

  My eyes are heavy. Even amidst the constant chitchat of the Thompson family luncheon, I can’t stop yawning.

  Before I left my house for brunch, I found Asher’s number on my kitchen table, a note scribbled under it.

  Call me when you’re ready for that date.

  “Isn’t this fun?” my mom asks me now. People are milling around with low-calorie mimosas and chattering about Krystal’s wedding, but the guest of honor is fashionably late, as always.

  Fun? It is the final day of a torturous three days. Rehearsal dinner Friday, Krystal’s wedding yesterday, and today a lunch at the Thompson house with people so distantly related it would be legal for us to marry in most states. Fun would have been Asher joining me in the shower. I stayed under the spray of the water for a solid twenty minutes before accepting that he wasn’t going to join me. Sadist.

  Mom folds her arms. “I wanted to talk to you about your date last night. Some scruffy bum with piercings is the most respectable man you could find for your sister’s wedding?” She shakes her head. “Where’d you even find him?”

  I shrug. “Just wandering down by the river.”

  “You’re not funny,” she hisses.

  I bite my tongue. I came home to begin Operation New Me, which includes a better relationship with my mother. She doesn’t appreciate my “sass,” as she calls it.

  Gran waddles toward me. The scent of her makes me smile. Lavender soap and whiskey. “I had a vision during my meditation yesterday.”

  Mom nudges Gran. “Your devil games aren’t welcome here.” She produces a tube of lipstick from her pocket. “Just one coat, Margaret. People will think you have no self-respect.”

  Granny slaps at her hand. “Leave the girl alone!”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Maggie,” Granny continues, “your past is going to visit you and bring your future as a gift.”

  I try to look interested. I love Gran, even if I think her brand of spirituality is a little kooky. “That’s…profound.”