The nights were his, too. Those he spent in typical fashion. Exorcising his ghosts by pumping into some willing female body. Only lately, getting laid did not seem nearly so important. At least random hookups weren’t. His sex drive hadn’t diminished. No, he hadn’t lost interest in sex. He’d lost interest in indiscriminate sex.
Now, however, he had to ignore her. She was an itch he would have to leave unscratched. Knowing who she was had changed everything. Fucking her was out of the question. She was trouble. For two years he had managed to avoid trouble. He wouldn’t start looking for it now.
Hale Walters’s hard-eyed face flashed across his mind. This guy went to prison for murder, Faith.
The words were true—and accompanied with such a contemptuous look. It still stung . . . the way her brother had looked at him. The look, however, said it all. He thought North was a worthless piece of shit and he didn’t want such shit anywhere near his sister.
Her father had actually arrested him. He didn’t have a hell of a lot of scruples left, but he figured that made Faith Walters a bad choice as a potential fuck buddy.
North pulled over at the grocery store. With all the overtime this week, he didn’t have anything in his refrigerator to eat and he was sick of takeout.
He grabbed a cart at the front of the store and headed for the produce section, which took him through the deli and bakery. They already had some deli meat sliced in a cooler. He snagged a couple packages of ham and turkey, nodding politely to the girl staring at him from behind the counter. He’d noticed her before. They’d chatted once or twice. Open interest gleamed in her eyes. Clearly she was willing to strike up a conversation with him again. Too bad he wasn’t in the mood.
Scowling, he wondered when he would be in the mood again. He should go over there and flirt with her, find out when she got off work and invite her back to his place. He should do that. It had been a while for him. Too long.
He pushed his cart through the bakery section and tossed some bread into his basket.
By the time he got to the produce, he was almost done. Lettuce and tomatoes went in the cart. It wasn’t fancy, but he could make a decent sandwich. He picked out a watermelon and threw some oranges in the cart. He’d missed fresh fruit in prison. All the fruit they had was usually canned. He hadn’t had fresh watermelon while he was at the Rock. Twelve years without fresh watermelon. Kind of like sex. When he’d gotten out he’d been starving. Fresh fruit and pussy.
Except the desperate hunger he had felt when he was first paroled was worse now. Because he felt it for one woman. A woman he couldn’t have.
Deciding to grab a gallon of milk, he headed for the dairy department.
That’s where he saw her.
Looking very un-Faith-like in a pair of black yoga pants and T-shirt, she was standing in front of the milk section, the door to the refrigeration unit open as she studied the selection. His eyes dropped to her flip-flops. Pink toenails.
With the exception of when he saw her in her robe, she was always polished and put together in her work attire.
Un-Faith-like or not, he was still hit hard with a wave of lust.
Hell, he had already accepted how much he liked the look of her, but this Faith looked young and fresh and far too clean for the likes of him. He wanted this. He wanted to dive into her. He wanted to take her and claim her and mark her as his.
His flight instinct kicked in and he whirled his cart around.
She must have caught the movement. He heard her voice behind him. “North! North, wait up.”
Her cart rolled behind him, wheels whirring over the linoleum. Christ. She was chasing him.
He kept going, fighting the totally irrational urge to run. He turned down the toilet-paper-and-tissue aisle.
“North!” Her hand grabbed his arm, fingers pressing into his skin, and that was a mistake. Touching him was a mistake. It was hard enough forgetting her taste or the sensation of her soft skin, too soft for the rough scrape of his palms. Hard enough not to remember the wet silk of her sex against his fingers.
He didn’t need her touching him.
“What?” he growled.
“I texted you.”
“Yeah.” He’d seen it. He hadn’t replied to the apology. What should he have said? “I know.”
She pulled back, dropping her hand, looking hurt and so young right then. She blinked rapidly and looked down, as though fighting tears. Finding her composure, she looked back up at him.
He sighed and glanced left and right, dragging a hand through his hair. He swallowed back an expletive. The store wasn’t crowded. No one seemed to notice or care about them standing in the aisle. Christ. He couldn’t do this. Not here.
Even in public, it was a battle not to touch her, not to pick right up where they left off the other night . . . even knowing who she was now made no difference to his dick.
“What do you want from me?” He tossed a hand up in the air.