I picked up my bag and walked out of the room, to where Cavan was already in the parking lot, leaning against the car. His familiar figure hit me: jeans, boots, dark gray t-shirt, the easy line of his hips as he leaned with one ankle crossed over the other. He was turned away from me. I could still taste him, could still feel how his body had flexed when he came. My body responded with a rush of heat, low in my belly, making my nipples sensitive against the lace of my bra.
Pleasing myself, instead of others. It was definitely an idea.
I came closer and realized he had his phone to his ear. He was giving someone a set of numbers, and then he paused. “How much do I need?” he asked the person on the other end. “I don’t know. How much money do you think I need to get myself and my woman out of trouble?”
I nearly dropped my bag. My woman. McMurphy’s words. I’d been his woman for seven months. The words made me cold, made my stomach drop.
My woman doesn’t leave me, Dani. It doesn’t happen. My woman doesn’t disrespect me and make me look like a fool.
Cavan wasn’t like that. At all. But still, I fought back the fear that crawled up my throat. God, I needed to get a grip. Get it together.
“Fine,” Cavan said into the phone. “Tell Devon to wait. I have to clear up some things first.” A pause. “Just give him the warning, Max, like I told you. I don’t know if the Black Dog is going to try to get to him, but he needs to know it could happen. And as for me, tell him to wait. I’ll come when I can. That’s all.” He hung up and turned to see me standing there. “Hey,” he said. “Ready?”
I hesitated, searching for words. There was a bruise forming above his eye.
Cavan Wilder was sacrificing for me. He could be on his way to San Francisco right now, to see his long-lost brother and claim his inheritance, but instead he was at a motel on the Nevada border, fighting off bikers. Now he was obviously taking money from his friend Max in order to keep us going, instead of claiming his fortune and buying a closet of custom suits, a Malibu mansion, and a private jet to take to his private island.
“What?” he said to me.
“You called me your woman,” I said. “Just now.”
> His gray eyes swept down me and up again. That one look was devastating, and every part of me went on alert. Fuck, he was the sexiest man I’d ever seen. I wanted to be possessed by him, and I wanted to run away at the same time. I was in horrible trouble.
“You don’t like that?” he asked. And then, as he always did, he surprised me. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “All right, I won’t say it.”
I opened the car door and tossed my bag inside, throwing it harder than I needed to because some traitorous part of me didn’t like how easily he’d given up. God, I was fucked up sometimes. “Thank you.”
“But you’re not going to like it.”
I rounded the car and opened the passenger door. “I’m not going to like what?”
“The next part of the plan.”
I paused. “What plan?”
He smiled at me, and for the first time I noticed that despite the bruise he seemed easier this morning, as if a weight had been lifted off his mind. That smile sliced into me; I was helpless against it. For a second, my knees actually weakened.
“My plan,” he said. “This will be interesting. Let’s go get breakfast.”
We ate at a restaurant on the outskirts of Rio Verde, where the tourist strip thinned out on its way out of town. We hadn’t stopped at a restaurant since we’d been on the road, relying on snacks and fast food to keep us going. Now, with some of the urgency strangely lifted after last night, I found I was ravenous. Bacon, eggs, coffee, toast—I wanted it all. Maybe it was an aftereffect of the panic; maybe it was an aftereffect of a night of incredible sex with the man sitting across from me. Either way, I was hungry.
“Okay, so tell me,” I said to him when I’d devoured half my plate and my stomach had started to settle. “What’s this plan of yours?”
He’d eaten less than me; he was already finished, leaning against the back of the booth, watching me. He opened a small creamer and dumped the contents into his coffee. “First off, we need money,” he said. “I took care of that this morning.”
“I heard you on the phone.”
He nodded. “Max is putting money in my bank account.” He raised his eyes to mine and held my gaze. “A lot of money. And you’re taking some.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think—”
“End of story,” he said. “I heard you. You’re not my woman. That’s clear.”
I put my fork down. It had been a gut reaction, my denial of those particular words. But what was last night? I’d been his woman then, at least while we were naked. What if his plan was to leave me?
Cavan continued, “But you’re still stranded, with no funds and nowhere to go, and you’re taking my money to help yourself out. Conversation over.”
I bit my lip, thinking. The hard truth was that I was broke, and I needed cash to get me by. But as soon as I landed on my feet, I would get a job. I’d treat this as a loan; I just wouldn’t tell Cavan that. “Okay,” I said to him. “Thank you. But money doesn’t solve all of our problem.”