Rebel in a Small Town
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Kristina Knight
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Prologue
Two years ago
“TONIGHT WE ARE going to take this slow?”
Mara Tyler couldn’t find the words to answer, so she only smiled, letting her hands trail over the broad shoulders of James Calhoun—the very last man she should be having a clandestine affair with.
The very last man for whom she should be having feelings of anything but the physical variety. Yet here they were, in Nashville. It had been nearly a week since she logged her last speaking engagement at the securities conference. James was supposed to have returned to their hometown of Slippery Rock, Missouri, three days earlier. He kept making excuses for why he was staying, but to be honest, Mara didn’t care.
They stood at the window overlooking downtown Nashville. Neon signs twinkled in the darkness, and masses of people wandered from bar to bar and lounge to lounge. They’d been down there with the crowd until a half hour before, just like any other couple.
They weren’t any other couple, though. He had been voted most likely to succeed in their high school class, was now a sheriff’s deputy and was next in line to become the sheriff. She had been voted most likely to blow something up, and although she’d changed, no one in their hometown would believe the girl who had broken several laws as a teen was now a respected securities consultant. Or that one of her partners in crime had been the sheriff’s son.
None of that mattered. They were in Nashville, not Slippery Rock, and none of this was real. It was just for fun.
James cocked an eyebrow, the back of his hand teasing the side of her breast.
God, this was so much fun.
“No answer?” he asked. “Then we’ll see how long you can take slow.”
He lifted her in his arms and laid her gently on the bed. Slowly he unzipped one knee-high boot, letting it clatter to the floor, and then the next.
Her hands found his shoulders, urging him up, but James seemed perfectly content between her legs.
With one hand he pulled the zipper of her skirt down, down, and with the other he teased the bit of exposed flesh between her skirt and blouse. Mara’s muscles clenched and she fisted her hands against the soft, hotel room duvet. James pulled the skirt from her hips, tossing it over his shoulder. Her silk cami followed, and she was nearly naked before him. Only the green lace boy-briefs and matching bra covering her.
Mara was torn. She wanted the lace gone, too, but she liked that dangerous look in his gaze. The look that said this was going to last a long time.
She wouldn’t mind if it lasted forever. She could stay in this hotel room or even a desert island forever, just as long as James Calhoun was right there with her.
That thought was nearly as dangerous as the look in James’s eyes, though, because this thing between them wasn’t real. It wasn’t forever. This was a fling. It was hard to remember that when his heat was burning her to the ground.
Time to get this thing between them back on solid, nonthreatening ground.
“When you said slow, I didn’t think you meant glacial,” she said and used his tie to urge him up. James planted a hand on either side of her, grinning.
“You say glacial, I say leisurely,” he said. Then he covered her mouth with his, and his legs tangled with hers.
Mara wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting to hold him here, right here, for as long as she could.
They had done this a hundred times, and still she wasn’t tired of it. Of him. Still, she wanted more of him. Wanted to feel the hardness of his chest against her, wanted the heat from his skin to warm her, wanted to lose herself in him until she forgot that no matter what happened in a hotel room in another city, it didn’t mean anything could ever happen between them in real life.
She didn’t want to go down that road quite yet, though, so she loosened his tie, pulling it from his neck, and then unbuttoned his shirt, letting her hands meander over the wide expanse of his chest for a few moments.
“I can go glacial, too,” she said, before pushing the shirt from his shoulders.
James reached for the buckle of his belt, but Mara put her hand over his and stopped him.
“Slow, remember?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “You were just complaining about the glacial pace.”
True, but now that she thought about it, glacial could be fun. As long as he was on the receiving end, just for a little while. She found the tie on the bed and held it up.
“Maybe you’ve convinced me that glacial has its interesting points.”
Mara pushed against his shoulders until James was flat on his back, and she dangled the tie from her fingertips.
“Hands up, Officer.”
James grinned, but he raised his hands above his head, grasping the spindles of the headboard in his hands.
“That’s ‘deputy,’ ma’am, not ‘officer.’”
“Deputy Calhoun, do you know why you’re being confined?” she asked mildly as she tied the tie loosely around his wrists.
“Speeding?”
Mara chuckled. “The speed limit in this room is ‘leisurely.’”
“And I was going glacially?”
“Something like that.” With his arms secured, Mara reached for the buckle of his belt. She slid the leather from the clasp, and then unsnapped his pants. She kissed his sternum, and couldn’t resist licking her way down his washboard abs.
“You going to—” he was grinning at her “—fine me, Deputy?”
Mara glanced up. His hands were clenched and his eyes were closed.
“Is this your way of asking for a ticket? You don’t want to plead your case?” Mara pushed his pants over his hips, and James kicked them to the floor. He wasn’t wearing boxers, and for a moment, Mara wasn’t sure what to do. She’d been expecting one more slow removal of clothing, and instead she saw him, thick and hard.
“I think I’ll just take the fine.”
Mara swallowed. The fine. The fine. She had no idea what to say next, how to keep this role-playing thing going when all she could think about was taking him in her hands. In her mouth.
Snap out of it, Mar, this is just fun and games.
She unsnapped the clasp of her bra, letting the lace fall to the floor, and then stepped out of her panties. Mara kneeled on the bed, putting her hands on either side of his head and straddling his hips before she took his mouth with hers. Screw the game, she only wanted James.
He pulled her body against his, the hairs on his chest tickling her breasts.
“Hey, I tied you up,” she said between kisses.
“You’d never survive in the wilderness with those knot tying skills. I’ll teach you a simple tie. For next time,” he said, pushing her to her back.
“Next time,” she said, and the words sounded dreamy to her ears.
Every time she met up with James, she told herself it would be the last time, but it never was. He was like that last bit of birthday cake—impossible to resist.
His mouth found her breast and Mara arched her back, wanting more.
“James,” she said, pressing her hips against him, urging him to hurry.
James reached into the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a foil packet. He tore it open with his mouth, and rolled the thin covering over his length.
And then he was inside her. Mara wrapped her legs around his waist, loving the feel of his body against hers, inside hers. This was all she needed.
James Calhoun was everything she wanted, even if she could never be the woman that he needed.
* * *
MARA WATCHED JAMES sleeping soundly on the hotel room bed. The lights were off, but the glow of the neon on the street below was enough to illuminate the room dimly. His mouth was open slightly, his left hand over his heart and his legs tangled in the sheets. The tie draped over the pillow. A lock of hair fell over his eyes. She pushed it back.
This wasn’t just fun.
She swallowed. She wanted to slide under his arm and rest her head over his heart. Wanted to lie there for hours, listening to his heart beating.
God, what had she done?
They’d been meeting like this, in hotel rooms around the country every few months, for nearly three years. Every time it had just been about the sex. Good sex. Excellent sex.
Why did she have to go and let her heart ruin it? This was a great arrangement. He liked his small-town life, and she liked her on-the-road life. They met up for sex, they each went back to their lives, and no one expected anything more.
She took a deep breath. She shouldn’t want more, so why did she? It wasn’t fair. She should have been able to love him and leave him, the way she had every other time they’d met.
Mara pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. James rocked his head slowly to the side, but he didn’t wake.
“I don’t want to mess this up,” she whispered to the man on the bed. The man who had been her best friend for most of her life. The man she should never have fallen in love with. “This will lead to broken hearts and anger, so I’m ending it now without the anger and without breaking anything. It’s better this way.”
She slid off the bed, picked up her satchel and laptop, and quietly left the hotel room. She would arrange for the hotel to pack her things and ship them to her office in Tulsa, because if she waited for him to wake, she wouldn’t be able to leave. She would tell him how she felt about him.
He might tell her he felt the same, but it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t want his kind of life any more than he wanted hers.
More than that, he deserved better.
He deserved someone who wasn’t broken.
