He must be lacking brain cells because, after everything she said and did, he still wanted her. Physically, sure. But in other ways too. Ways he wouldn’t admit. Ways that stayed with him for ten years. Through boot camp, BUD/S, SEAL Qualification Training, two wars, countless missions, multiple battles, early retirement, and many faceless women who’d never known of their competition.
The one woman who owned him, body and soul, then destroyed him.
The woman looking at him now, snorting her amusement at his gall.
“This is my tub now, and you barged in here uninvited. I should have you arrested for trespassing. Breaking and entering, at the least.”
She ran her fingers through the water, splashing delicately to stir up more bubbles. As if the interruption to her nightly soak was no big deal.
“Go ahead and call. But it’ll take them five minutes to get here, and in that amount of time, I can do some damage.” He shrugged, considering his options. “Bodily harm, for sure. Maybe toss a toaster into that tub. Give you and your sex toys a jolt. Property destruction too, but that’d be counterproductive, considering I own this fucking land and everything on it.”
He circled a finger, encompassing the entirety of Maine Lane.
He wouldn’t hurt her physically, of course. His mother raised him better than that. But Chloe’s transgression a decade ago forced him to leave it all behind. This house. His mother, lying at rest in a nearby cemetery, barely cold in the ground at the time. His father, lying next to her now, the churned earth still settling over his fresh grave.
He lost the last ten years of his father’s life because of her.
And so much more.
“First, these aren’t sex toys,” she shot back. “They’re bath bombs hand-milled from the finest soap in France and scented with lavender. They cost nine bucks apiece and honestly, they’re sporting a more impressive package than you are. Sorry, not sorry.”
She paused to take a breath.
“Second, you just threatened to murder me, and that’s a felony. Expect a restraining order first thing tomorrow morning and, hopefully, a conviction that comes with castration as the penalty. Third, I have the deed to Maine Lane, and it’s in my name—”
“Really?” He scoffed.
He was enjoying her tirade, mostly because she was wet and naked, but he needed to call bullshit on that claim.
“Did Daddy buy it for you? I thought Graham was too smart to fall for your simpering selfishness. Must’ve been Mommy, then. Good ol’ Genevieve still bailing out her spoiled little girl when she gets herself in trouble, huh?”
Her mouth dropped open, and she blinked slowly. “What did you say?” An eerily quiet question.
“You heard me.”
She shook her head as if stunned. “When I get myself in trouble?”
“Again . . . you heard me.” Okay, so he did have some fight in him tonight.
Her angry gaze narrowing on him, she stood, water running off her curvy body in floral-scented rivulets.
He could smell it. The lavender soap. The hate.
It was reciprocated.
And there was only one thing he enjoyed more than Chloe’s tits, and that was Chloe’s pussy. Particularly when she bared it to him, albeit in a quick, bubble-covered peek, no intent on her part to tease or tempt. Not a great sight when he was willing away an erection.
“You’re right, Jameson.”
He sucked in a silent breath, his name on her lips after ten long years warming his frozen heart. Which only pissed him off further.
“The deed to this house isn’t in my name,” she continued, grabbing a towel from the bar on the wall, flashing him an ass that complemented those high and mighty tits. “My bank holds the note. But in another thirty years, if I manage to make the mortgage payments every month on this money pit, and if it manages not to fall down around my ears, I will own it. Not you.”
The thin towel covered the vital parts of her dripping body, and once secured, she looked him in the eye. Unlike most, she wasn’t intimidated by his badass Navy SEAL vibe.
“You didn’t want this house, remember?” Something that looked a lot like hurt edged out the fire in her eyes. “There were other things you didn’t want back then either.”
She rolled her lips, then tossed one final jab. “So, they went away, didn’t they? Just like you did.” And then she smiled.
Not a Chloe cupcake smile. The smile that once filled him with hope and happiness, and captured his heart, lock, stock, and barrel. The smile that comforted him when his mom died after a brief but valiant battle with ovarian cancer. The smile that tempted him into taking her virginity when he knew better, their pedigrees vastly different. The smile that nearly made him give up his dream of being a SEAL so he could be something else. Something more important.
This smile? The one she wore right now?
It was savage. And so were her actions.
Why would she buy Maine Lane, a dump by her standard of living? What was her endgame? Hadn’t she hurt him enough?
This reluctant trip to get his father’s affairs in order was quickly spiraling.
He’d been back in town a handful of hours. Broke down the door and been inside the carriage house a handful of minutes. Been on the receiving end of her smile only seconds. And already, she was manipulating.
“Some things never change,” he said, straightening away from the door. “It seems you’re one of them. But I don’t have time for your games anymore. I have a life to get back to.” If you could call working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sixty-some hours a week, with high pay and even higher risk, any kind of life.
But he’d endured enough of her nakedness, and her highhandedness. Hitching his thumb toward the room behind him, he turned to leave.
“Get dressed, and get your fine ass out here. I want answers. Then I want my house back.” When she gave a distinctly sarcastic snort as he retreated, he added over his shoulder, “You can leave the dildos in there.”
“Bath bombs,” she corrected, her voice raised. “And leftover from a bachelorette party. A delusional woman trapped into marriage before she learned as I did—no man is worth it.”
The last part was muffled when he slammed the door behind him.
Taking seven steps, he stood in the center of the carriage house. It was that small. Maine Lane built over a hundred years ago, this virtual shack was meant for the help. Growing up, it was his hideaway.
Turning in a circle, he took in the living room, bedroom, and kitchen encompassing one open space. Nothing had changed.
The kitchenette was tucked along one wall with a small counter, mini-fridge, and decades-old two-burner stove. A stove, still broken, he could tell. A scarred oak drop-leaf table sat under a window, two chairs tucked to it. All the tight alcove allowed. A full-size bed was shoved into the corner, the same since he was a kid and a luxury in such a small space. The nightstand and candlestick lamp were the same, as was the patchwork quilt covering the bed. A quilt made by his mother, and as familiar as the back of his hand.
The sudden ache in his chest wasn’t as familiar.
A loveseat butted against the foot of the bed, the cushions flattened with the passage of time. His gaze skipped over the antique hope chest used as a coffee table, ignoring the precious item tucked inside. And when the ache in his chest intensified, he ignored that too.