Chapter 7

The second the words left Tourmaline’s mouth, a low, rich vein of laughter jerked from his chest, seeming to catch them both by surprise. Her toes curled inside her socks at the delicious sound, while her face burned with color as she realized what she’d just said.

Wow. I’m so smooth. Why don’t I just shout it to his face that I think he’s hot?

“Come on,” he drawled after his laughter had died down, his mouth kicking up at one corner in the wickedest grin she’d ever seen. “You’re judging me by my looks, and that isn’t fair.”

Maybe not, but Tourmaline still wanted to curse at him for flashing her such an irresistible grin, the dimple in his cheek enough to make her groan. Not to mention the high-voltage sexual energy he was blasting at her, making her head spin. Given her lack of a social life, Tourmaline knew her family and friends probably thought she was still a virgin, but they were wrong. She’d had sex. Not a lot, mind you, but enough times to know what it was all about.

But her experiences had all been with cerebral types who were easily controlled and easily forgotten. She’d never played with a rugged, testosterone-laden male before, and she doubted she’d even know how to if she tried.

Her looks, or lack of them, had always made it easy to avoid charming, oozing-sex-appeal-from-their-pores Neanderthals like this guy, for the simple fact that they ignored her. No, that wasn’t right. They simply didn’t see her, as if she were a ghost. Something they looked right through. Not even a blip on their radar.

But this guy…he noticed. He was staring right at her, that strangely compelling gaze making her feel as if he didn’t want to be looking anywhere else in the world. As if he saw her in a way that no other man ever had, and she resisted the urge to pull her shirt away from her skin, seeking relief from the blistering warmth sizzling inside her, despite the night time chill in the air.

And maybe she was just wasting both their time, keeping the argument going because she liked the look of him. There never had been a time, even when she was in college that she would be able to go out and men would flock around her like she was some kind of a big deal. She was not, never had been and now that she was speaking to a man who looked like this and whose laughter made her toes curl it seemed like the woman inside her did not want to let go that easily.

Who said she couldn’t start her bus, head down the road a ways, wait for them to leave, then turn around and come right back to find some other nearby place to camp for the night? According to the bleary-eyed girl she’d talked to at the strip club down in Wesley, Sapphire had only worked at the club for a couple of days before heading up into these  mountains to stay with her so-called boyfriend. There was obviously a hell of a lot more to the story, but considering this was her only lead, Tourmaline had to go with it. She had always tried help Sapphire get her weird thoughts and tendencies under control, tried to rein her in but then she had let her wisen up.

But that had not happened, unfortunately. She had become even more reckless that she could actually be. Which had landed her here.

She’d tried asking some locals in Wesley for assistance, thinking they could point her in the right direction, but none had been able to help. They knew of some private settlements in the mountains, but couldn’t tell her where they were…or anything about the people who lived there. The whole situation was eerily unsettling, but she couldn’t turn back now. She had to keep searching every small town she stumbled across up here until she found Sapphire, whether these guys liked it or not.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t start with another part of the mountain and work her way back here—hopefully avoiding the gorgeous jackass watching her with those unusual eyes.

“Fine,” she said, blowing out a rough breath of air. “Have it your way.”

Surprise lifted his dark brows. “You’ll leave?”

She allowed her own mouth to curl in a cocky smirk. “Yeah, I’ll leave. But not before telling you how ridiculous you look with that red lipstick smeared all over the corner of your mouth. I hope she was a brunette. A blonde could never have pulled off that color.”

He quickly lifted his hand, wiped at his mouth, then glared at the red smear on his fingertips. “Son of a bitch,” he growled, scrubbing harder at his face. “Hendricks should have told me.”

“It’s all gone now,” she murmured, taking pity on him.

“You’re clear.”

He grunted something foul under his breath, then stepped closer and placed one hand over the window ledge, curving his long fingers over the door frame, as if he could keep her in place with that simple touch. “Where will you go?”

“That’s none of your business,” she said quietly, staring at those dark fingers, imagining them on her body… against her skin. Shaking herself, she set the gun on the passenger’s seat, then turned the key in the ignition…but nothing happened. Just a sad, pathetic wail of sound from the engine, followed by a rapid clicking noise. Gritting her teeth, she turned the key again…and again, but with the same results.

Shit.

Without looking at him, Tourmaline lowered her head to the steering wheel and prayed for patience. Nothing, not a single goddamn thing, had gone her way from the moment she’d started this miserable search. Why? She was trying so hard to do what was right, damn it—trying to help her sister…to get her out of what could potentially be a dangerous situation, especially after the girl at the club had said that Sapphire wasn’t looking too good. So why this? Why was karma, fate or whatever the hell it was that controlled her destiny giving her a kick in the ass with every step she took?