Joy Ride by Desiree Holt (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

She was thoroughly sated. Limp. Stretched in the lassitude of complete satisfaction. And the feel of Marc curled around her was so comforting. Despite her best intention, sleep dragged at her even as the need to leave hovered close. One tear slid down her cheek as she closed her eyes.

***

The movement of her body woke Marc, pulling him up from an erotic dream where he was buried deep inside Music Lady. Only this time she was on top, riding him, her breasts offered tantalizingly just beyond his touch. She smiled but when he stretched out his hand toward her, she suddenly began to dissolve in front of him. That was when he realized the woman he’d wrapped himself around had maneuvered herself out of his embrace and was sliding quietly out of the bed. He reached for her but she was already on her feet.

Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he raked his fingers through his hair and attempted to kick his brain into start.

“Hey.” He cleared his throat to rid it of the gravelly sound of someone just awakened from sleep. “Hey, ML.” When she didn’t answer him he said louder, “Music Lady?”

She paused with her jeans in her hand and turned to him. “I have to go. You know why.”

What the hell?

“No. No, I don’t. Why can’t you stay until it’s light out? What’s the big rush?” He was sleep-drugged, cobwebs impeding his ability to think and for a moment, despite his previous good intentions, anger sparked through him as she readied to leave.

“It’s just better this way.”

“Why?” He didn’t understand the fear in her voice. The panic. He swung himself out of bed, stark naked, and put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t want you to go. Doesn’t that matter?”

“I can’t.” She pulled away and reached for her clothes again.

Once again he wondered if she was hiding some terrible secret. Or just using him to take a wild plunge into an unfamiliar world.

You promised yourself to give her time to trust you. Don’t screw it up now.

But swallowing the anger was like swallowing wood chips. Hard to get past the lump in his throat. “Wait. I have a present for you.”

She froze in place, her eyes widening. “A present?”

“Uh huh. Hold on.” He opened the top drawer of his dresser and then handed her a neatly folded T-shirt. “Take a look at it.”

He watched as she shook the T-shirt with Lightnin’s logo on it. She held it up to her body and laughed when she saw it came down to her knees.

She giggled. “It’s a little large.”

“I know.” He took the shirt from her and slipped it over her head. “I was afraid you might not wear it outside your house—wherever that is—but I know women like T-shirts to sleep in.” He gave her a tentative grin. “I wore it once because I wanted you to go to sleep with my scent all over you.” His smile turned tentative, unsure of her reaction. “Okay?”

Please say yes. Please take this small part of me home with you. Please come back and see me again.

For a moment he thought she might pull it off and hand it back to him, but then she nodded.

“Thank you.” She grabbed her clothes. “But now I really have to leave. I just wish you’d try to understand.”

Marc rubbed his face, trying to think of some way to keep her there a little longer. Take her to breakfast. Really talk to her. But he couldn’t seem to find any answers. He just knew this obsession with leaving was driving him nuts. He followed her as she headed out to the living room where she’d left her purse. Again he didn’t bother trying to find anything to put on, simply followed her, nude.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to understand. We have something good going on here. Don’t we? Something really special?”

It was true as far as he was concerned. His feelings for her had deepened and became more complex every time he was with her. He hoped desperately those feelings were returned, even a little.

She turned to him, her clothes and her purse in her arms. “I don’t know what we have, Marc. And I’m really confused. About a lot of things. Maybe if you knew all about me, you wouldn’t like who I really am. I…might not be your style.”

He bit his inner cheek. She was more than special. He wanted to share other parts of his life besides the club and his bed. Wanted to talk about things they liked and disliked. Things they liked to do. How they saw their lives unfolding. What were her hopes and dreams? Was she interested in his? How could they get to that point? All questions he’d never worried about so much with other women in his life now ran rampage through his mind.

Jesus! Why did this all have to be so complicated?

“Impossible. No way could I feel less than I do about you. More, probably.” He brushed his knuckles along her cheek. “I’ll say it again. Don’t you know how very special you are to me? Even in such a short time?”

She glanced away. “I’m not so special. We come from two different worlds, you and I. I wonder if I’m nothing more than a novelty to you.”

Her words infuriated him, and he struggled to contain the anger threatening to rear its head. “Not so different if we learned about each other. And the person I am in the daylight might not be what you think at all. Stay and let me take you to breakfast. Just breakfast. You have to eat anyway, right?”

“I have to go to work.” She headed toward the door.

“Then we can go to breakfast right now. Come on.” He reached for her again.

She stopped and looked up at him. “I just have to go. Okay?”

In her eyes he saw a mixture of stubbornness and fear of…what?

If he