Tempted (The Lottery Winners Book 2) Read online

  “Is he…” Ivy looked down at the forks, setting them on the napkins at a very precise angle. “Is he coming home for a visit anytime soon?” she asked wistfully.

  Daisy’s heart melted for the woman. She had it bad! And Gunner, the jerk, didn’t seem to notice Ivy’s feelings. Which was why Ivy got out of town, not wanting to be ignored by the man who made her heart skip a beat with just a glance. Daisy paused, thinking that was exactly the way Rocco made her feel.

  Was she acting like Ivy did whenever Gunner was around? She looked up at Ivy with renewed understanding and compassion. She’d never understood why Ivy didn’t just talk to Gunner.

  Glancing at Ivy carefully, she carried the bowl of fruit over to the table. “I spoke to him two nights ago and he didn’t mention any plans to head home. But I might head over to Norfolk to see him. Anyone want to come with me?”

  Tony, Daisy, and Marilee watched Ivy as she adjusted the angle of two forks but remained silent.

  Marilee sighed, shaking her head at her friend’s stubbornness. “I’ll go with you.”

  Tony shook his head silently, then turned back to the stove. “I’m heading down to Georgia, but I’d planned to swing by and say hi to him. I spoke to him last week and he thinks he should be around for another two weeks on a training mission, so not out of country.”

  Again, nothing from Ivy. Daisy watched her friend, wondering what had happened between her brother and the beautiful woman the last time he’d come through. Gunner was one of those big, tall, gruff guys who liked to party hard and enjoyed the women. Too much, in Daisy’s opinion. But he only laughed whenever she suggested that he might want to slow down.

  Gunner was an explosives expert for the Navy and one of the SEALs most often deployed because his skills were so useful. Daisy wasn’t surprised when he told her years ago that he was going to be an explosives expert. His entire youth here in LowPoint had been one explosion after another. The Navy hadn’t taught him how to blow stuff up. They’d taught him how to blow stuff up so no one knew what had happened, how to get out of the area without anyone knowing he’d been there, and how to not blow himself up in the process. The only thing she’d been surprised about was how much he loved being a SEAL. Gunner seemed to thrive under the pressure of the missions he went on, getting better and bigger and badder.

  By silent agreement, the four of them sat down to eat and changed the subject to something other than everyone’s love life. Especially since none of them really seemed to have a love life. Tony’s sexual encounters with as many women as possible certainly didn’t count as a love life. Daisy’s irritation at Rocco couldn’t be considered love, by any stretch of the imagination. And Ivy…well, her love life resembled misery more than anything. Marilee, on the other hand, seemed to love life just as she always had. Her eternal optimism was something to be admired, even if none of them could emulate it.

  It was enough to make a person cry, Daisy thought as she helped clean up the dishes that night. Or punch a guy, she corrected. Mainly, Tony, Gunner, and Rocco. They all deserved a good kick in the patootie and she was going to tell at least two of them so tonight!

  Chapter 5

  Rocco stared out at the dark night. LowPoint, population three hundred on a good day, was one of those towns that rolled up the sidewalks at night. The night life here started in July when the lightning bugs began appearing down by the river. And that nightlife was gone by the end of September when the lightning bugs died away.

  On the one hand, he was glad that he’d decided to give up his apartment in Louisville and move here. This old Victorian needed a lot of work and he enjoyed sanding and painting the walls, refurbishing the antique bannister, and doing the assortment of small tasks that the old house needed.

  It also kept him from having to make the half hour commute from Louisville to LowPoint every day. It wasn’t a hard drive, but he’d rather spend his time doing something other than driving.

  Plus, it allowed him to be closer to Daisy.

  On the down side, living here in LowPoint meant that he was closer to Daisy. He knew exactly which house she lived in, had spent many a restless nights walking through the darkened streets just to check on her, to make sure that she was safe.

  It made absolutely no sense, but as he lay there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He loved listening to her, laughed at her cute or silly observations, and…well, hell, he enjoyed her company. Even when she was baiting him, he liked it. She was such a feisty little thing with a sharp wit and…her eyes. Yeah, he could lose himself in her eyes. All the time, he’d be listening to something she was saying but…he got lost in her eyes. Or in watching her lips move.

  He should move back to his old neighborhood. He knew that Lucas, the kid he mentored in the Big Brother program, needed him. But Rocco went into the city every Sunday and spent the afternoon with him, reviewed his grades, went over his homework, and talked to his mother. Lucas was his “adopted brother”. Rocco was a volunteer with an organization that matched up adults who were basically “older siblings” with the inner city kids who were struggling in school or at home, or just kids whose fathers were no longer around and needed a strong role model. Hell, Rocco loved the kid, wished he could do more for him. His mother struggled, but when he offered her money, she refused. When he bought them groceries, he found money in his pockets or mailed to him. Jennifer, Lucas’s mom, was a good woman, but had a lot of pride, which he respected.

  So did Daisy, he remembered, thinking about that stupid flooring she’d been trying to scrape up earlier today. She’d been hurting herself as she’d scraped up the old tile until he’d silently handed her the right tool. After that, it had been a bit easier for her. Why she was trying to remove that old tile, he wasn’t really sure. All she had to do was ask him and he would have assigned one of his guys to do it, but Daisy seemed to enjoy doing tasks like that.

  And damn if he didn’t respect her more for all of her tenacity and grit. Daisy might be pretty as a flower, but she didn’t mind breaking a nail or getting dirty. She could get down and dirty with the rest of the crew, but holy hell when she cleaned up, the woman literally took his breath away!

  With a sigh, he threw off the blanket and stood up. “Might as well finish it,” he grumbled, pulling his jeans back on. He’d showered earlier tonight after getting back from the work site, but he wasn’t getting any sleep and he couldn’t work on taking down the horrendous wallpaper in the lobby area of this old house until he had the right equipment.

  So instead, he dressed, grabbed his keys, and walked out. Besides a young teenage female in one of the other worn out apartments, he was the only one living here at the moment, which wasn’t surprising since the apartments were a mess. The girl, barely a woman, had shown up a few days ago. He knew that she worked as a waitress down at that fancy restaurant which was good, since the bedraggled, too skinny woman clearly needed food. Hopefully, the atmosphere here in LowPoint could help ease that haunted look in her eyes. He wasn’t sure of her name and didn’t bother her since she seemed to skitter away whenever he was around. It was almost as if she were trying to hide from the world, but he wasn’t sure why.

  Other than himself and the girl, no one had rented here in probably twenty years. It was a testament to how well built these houses were that this house was still standing.

  The engine of his truck roared to life, sounding louder in the late night air. He probably should have just walked over to the house, but since he wanted to get some work done, he needed his tools. When he pulled up outside of the house under renovation, he noticed a light coming out of one of the windows. What the hell?!

  “You’re going to give in!” Daisy grumbled. “I’m sick of stupid, stubborn silent men and you’re just one more thing in my life that isn’t going to win!” she vowed.

  Of course, the stupid plumbing didn’t budge. It was rusted closed and, even as she jerked, putting all of her body weight into it, she couldn’t make
the stupid gasket move.

  Standing up, she wiped her forehead, unaware of the smear of dirt left behind. “You’re not going to win!” she growled, staring at the stubborn toilet.

  She looked at the tool box, sifting through the other wrenches. “Aha!” she lifted the extra-large wrench, brandishing it at the rusted pipes. It was heavier than she’d expected, but she smiled as she hefted it towards the belligerent joint. “Now you’re going down!”

  Daisy positioned the giant wrench right over the rusted out joint, tightened the holder and…tugged. Nothing. With a grunt of disgust, she stood up, but was still hunched over in the awkward position between the gutted bathtub and the toilet. “One more time,” she whispered to herself.

  Balancing, pushing her feet out a bit wider for more leverage, she gripped the long arm of the wrench one more time, her tongue darting out to one side, and…pulled, putting all of her weight into it this time.

  For a long moment, nothing moved. But then, she felt it! It was small but…there was the tiniest hint of movement. Tugging harder, shifting her weight to get better leverage, she shoved, tugged, nagged, and…

  With a whoosh, the wrench loosened the joint. “Gotcha!” she sighed, feeling an enormous surge of victory! “I did it!” she yelped victoriously, dancing around a bit. “I did…”

  An abrupt screech echoed around in the empty bathroom and Daisy’s victory dance morphed into a cringe, her arms coming up to shield her face as freezing cold water spewed out of the now-loosened pipe. It was going everywhere!

  He heard her voice and chuckled, knowing that Daisy was in the bathroom. He had no idea what she was trying to do but chuckled at her stubborn words even as he hurried down the short hallway. He didn’t want her to be pulling any of the plumbing apart because they’d turned on the water to fill up the newly renovated bathroom in the master bedroom, needing to show the building inspector that the new shower base was waterproof.

  As soon as he heard the screech, he knew what must have happened and hurried into the bathroom.

  Sure enough, he found Daisy drenched in cold water that was spewing out of the newly loosened pipes.

  Quickly, Rocco reached down and twisted the water shut-off valve. When he turned around, he looked down at a horrified, stunned, drenched Daisy who obviously was trying to figure out what had just happened.

  Valiantly, he attempted to hide the laughter, but by the look morphing from stunned shock to fury, he suspected he was failing. Miserably. “We turned the water back on for the inspector,” he explained weakly.

  Daisy slowly uncurled her body and turned to face him. Rocco watched, fascinated and horrified himself as he noticed that her white tee-shirt was…wet! Wet and basically see-through.

  Damn, he no longer had to imagine what her breasts would look like because the thin cotton did absolutely nothing to hide what was underneath.

  That’s when the blast of fury hit him and he pulled his eyes away from those shockingly enticing breasts.

  “The water was turned back on?!” she snapped, obviously trying to make sense of what had just happened. “And no one bothered to tell me?”

  Hmmm…okay, her anger wasn’t as much of a deterrent for his lust as he’d thought because his eyes dropped back to her breasts, noticing the tight nipples forming dark little buds against the wet material. “We didn’t think you needed to know. I had no idea you’d be coming in after everyone had left so that you could…” he turned to look at the toilet pipes, “well, I have no clue what you were trying to do here.”

  “I was trying to get the toilet out!” she sputtered furiously. She was literally bristling with fury now. “I wanted to get the tiles out of this area tomorrow, so the toilet had to come out!”

  “Hmmm…you should have mentioned your intentions,” he said, moving closer. Her anger was starting to piss him off. “Don’t blame me if you don’t have the patience to follow the schedule,” he growled. Intellectually, he knew that he wasn’t really angry with her. It was just the sexual tension that had been building up over the past two weeks. Well, and her yelling. He didn’t like being yelled at, especially when he’d done nothing wrong other than save her adorable ass!

  “Turning on the water should have been something someone mentioned!” she snapped right back. “You should have told me!” she poked him in the chest with a finger. “You’re the construction manager. You should have told everyone on the team that you were turning on the water!”

  He bent lower, grabbing her wrist to stop her from poking him again. “I did! You weren’t around! You go off doing whatever it is that you do that you don’t tell anyone about. So how the hell was I supposed to tell you?”

  “Cell phones, dude!” she jerked her hand out of his arm, at least, she tried to. He didn’t release her wrist. In fact, his hand pulled her closer. “A simple text would have saved me from…this!”

  He pulled her even closer now, relentlessly. “Perhaps if you’d texted me and told me that you were going to be here late at night, after everyone had shut down for the day, I might have informed you of the water situation.” Even closer, so close that he could see her freckles again. “But then again, I might not have because the fact that the water is turned on is written clearly on the schedule that you and I discussed three days ago!”

  She didn’t want to concede anything. “Oh! And I’m supposed to remember the stupid schedule at eleven o’clock at night?”

  He was sick and tired of her yelling. But even more, he was sick of holding back. He wanted her. She was here. She was beautiful and wet and he could tell that she was just as turned on as he was. “No!” he answered, his voice quiet now. “You shouldn’t even be here at eleven o’clock at night! Why are you here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep! Why waste time not sleeping when I could get something done?”

  His voice softened as he looked down into those brown eyes that he couldn’t seem to resist. “Can’t sleep? Well join the club!” he snapped.

  With that, he jerked her into his arms and kissed her, his hand tangling in her hair, twisting it so that he could pull her head back and deepen the kiss. When he felt her own fingers tangle into his hair, he couldn’t have held back even if the house tumbled down on them. Lifting her higher, he swung her around until she was sitting on the old porcelain sink. Her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands moved from her hair to her hips, pulling her closer, fitting his erection against her body. So closely, he could feel the heat of her through her yoga pants and his jeans. Even as he relished the feeling, he knew it wasn’t enough.

  Lifting his head, he looked down at her, suddenly realizing that his hands were under her wet tee-shirt and her skin was even softer than he’d imagined. And he’d been imagining that a lot! Hell, every night, he’d dreamed about what her skin would feel like under his hands. Now he knew. Now he realized that it was even better!

  “Tell me to stop!” he demanded, but his voice was a low, gravely whisper as he tried to pull back, tried to tell himself to step out of her arms. This was crazy, but it felt so incredibly right.

  “Don’t you dare!’ she gasped and pulled him closer.

  Rocco wasn’t strong enough to resist her urgency and lifted her hips against his, grinding against her and almost roaring with the whimpers he heard.

  “More,” she sobbed, tilting her hips against his, trying to satisfy the need that was pounding through both of them.

  In response, he whipped that wet tee shirt off and over her head, dumping it onto the floor. Rocco almost roared when he felt her soft, tentative hands underneath his shirt, but he was too busy kissing her, tasting her…finally! He paused only briefly to whip his own shirt off and over his head, dumping it on top of her wet tee shirt.

  In the back of his mind, he realized that he was about to make love to Daisy in the bathroom and he didn’t like that. So he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the kitchen. This area was further along, but still a mess. “We need to stop,” he told her, but then her fi
ngers slid along his chest – exactly how he’d fantasized about her doing but again, the reality was one hundred times better.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t stop yet. We’ll stop soon.”

  He could barely see her eyes in the dim light from the moon coming in from the sliding glass doors. But it was enough. He could see the desire in her eyes and it almost matched the need inside of him. “Hold on,” he groaned and moved away from her. The separation was an almost physical pain, but he couldn’t let her do this. Not like this. He walked into the bathroom and grabbed his shirt. A moment later, he was back in the kitchen and he reached behind her, spreading the flannel shirt behind her on the granite counter.

  The smile she gave him with that gesture almost made the painful, aching need inside him better. Not fully, but he was getting there. “Lean back,” he ordered and took her hands to help her lay down on his shirt.

  “But…”

  “Trust me,” he soothed, and ran his thumbs over her fingers. “I want this, Daisy. I’ve wanted you since…well, just trust me.”

  She looked up at him and his gut tightened. If she wanted to stop, he would. He’d never pressured a woman to have sex with him and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pressure Daisy. But he saw the wariness in her eyes and leaned forward to kiss her. A gentle, soothing kiss. That was all it took for the spark to light the fire again. What had started out as a soothing kiss turned into a heated, voracious caress that seemed to last forever.

  When he lifted his head this time, they were both breathing hard. But he took her hands again and guided her back down against the granite island countertop.

  And then he looked at her. All of her! She was gorgeous! His fingers moved along her skin, looking at the tight peaks of her breasts. He couldn’t resist the enticement and leaned down over her, taking one taut bud into his mouth. She hissed and he pulled back, looking up into her eyes to make sure he hadn’t hurt her.