Still Not Into You: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  “Sure is, Miss Szabo. Just call me the last of the Southern gentlemen.”

  “Skylar.”

  He grins slowly, eyes glittering. “Miss Skylar.”

  I – that isn't – he – oh my God.

  “Now you're just fucking with me, aren’t you?”

  A noncommittal shrug, but he’s still grinning. “Might be, might not be.”

  I don’t even want to admit I want to laugh. But he’s making it really hard to be mad at him right now, so I distract myself by flopping against the side of the Dodge and digging into the bag for whatever trash he’s trying to feed me.

  I come up with an egg white, bacon, and cheddar biscuit with hash browns on the side. I blink.

  My favorite, unfortunately.

  “...why did you get this for me?”

  “Eh?” He blinks, and glances at me over the rim of his paper coffee cup. “Just got a double order of my usual.”

  “So your usual is egg white, bacon, and cheddar?”

  “With hash browns.” He laughs boyishly. “I don’t like the yolks. Too runny and weird.”

  “Right.”

  I feel a little weird right now. Dunno why.

  Maybe it’s just the surrealism of having something in common with someone, when I’m so not used to having anything in common with anyone.

  I’ve always been a solitary person, a human cat, just fine with people thinking I’m odd and mean and someone worth avoiding. I’m just...not something other people are easy with.

  So, it's strange that Gabe seems like he was made to be easy with just about everyone.

  I grumble under my breath and lean around him, tossing my bag through the driver’s side window and sending it sailing onto the passenger seat.

  As I do, I brush against his body, that taut, toned slab of his waist, hot through his tight t-shirt.

  Holy hell.

  I have a funny feeling that shirt isn’t tight on purpose. He’s just such a human wall that it was probably the largest one he could find to fit him without the shoulders busting at the seams.

  Those shoulders, two huge mountains, shrug in neutral acquiescence as I bite off, “I’ll eat on the way to my grandma’s. Thanks.”

  He blinks at me blandly. “That big a hurry, huh?”

  “Ever thought maybe I just want to be rid of you?”

  “Kind of hard when I’m the one driving, darli – Skylar.”

  Oh, I caught that. Ass.

  I narrow my eyes. “You're going to stay in the car, Gabe. Park around the corner. Out of sight. I’ll come to you when I’m done and ready. You’re not going anywhere near my family. And you’re going to stop with even the half nicknames. Got it?”

  “Tryin'.” That easy smile again, this time slightly sheepish. “Mighty hard to break thirty years of home training. When everyone’s hon, darlin’, or sugar, remembering names gets real hard, y’know.”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “If I beat my name into you, you’ll remember it.”

  Gabe stills, looking at me oddly, tilting his head, before he grins. A spark lights his hazel eyes, chasing away some of that quiet pall. “You think you could take me?”

  “You think I can’t?”

  “Dunno. Don’t know what kind of training you’ve had. You Army, Marines...Navy?”

  “Naval Intelligence. How’d you know?”

  “Gotta be the way you walk. You move like someone who knows she can hurt somebody. Like somebody who was more than a grunt.” He dips his head. “You walk like me.”

  There it is again – that weird pang. That bizarre feeling of commonality. My whole chest tightens up in the weirdest way.

  I...I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone put into words that feeling that makes me keep people at arm’s length. Double don't think I've ever had anyone do this – whatever this is – to me. I’m all viciousness and poison and spikes.

  If you don’t get close, you won’t get hurt.

  But I’ve been like that since long before I had enough training to knock a six-foot man on his ass in five seconds flat. Gabe doesn’t need to know that, though.

  I jerk my gaze away and land on a hint of a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his shirt, on his bicep. “Army, right?”

  He follows my gaze, then smiles, slowly rolling up his sleeve. His skin bares a downward-pointing inked blue arrowhead with a capital T stenciled in the center. “Third Brigade, Thirty-Sixth Infantry,” he answers ruefully.

  “Afghanistan?”

  “Iraq.”

  I whistle. “You went right out of high school?”

  “Before the ink was even dry on my diploma.”

  What were you running from? I wonder, but bite my tongue and shove the question away. I don’t want to be curious about him.

  I glare away from him, toward the scrub-dotted beach and the rolling, low waves of the tide coming in. “You’re pretty far out of basic, big boy. Bet you couldn’t even stop me before I dropped you on your ass.”

  “That a challenge?”

  “Might be.” I shrug stiffly, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “I was serious. I drop you, you can it with the nicknames. You drop me, you can call me whatever you want. Deal?”

  There's a brutal pause, a silence he fills with yet another of those cocky-and-way-too-adorable smiles. “That’s a dangerous offer, Skylar. I could think of some pretty creative things to call you.”

  I cast him a slit-eyed look. “Don’t get cute.”

  “Damn, ma'am. You already think I'm cute?”

  Oh my God. This is insufferable. The urge to kick that smarmy smirk off his face possesses me like nothing else.

  “…do you want me to kick your ass this badly?”

  “Just might. Just maybe I like it rough.”

  When I realize what he means, my face heats – but he’s still smiling that lazy, confident smile, at once sweet and strangely knowing, like he has secrets I can’t even begin to guess. I growl, saying nothing while he twists to lean into the truck, fitting his coffee into the cup holder, before straightening and brushing past me.

  “C’mon, then. If I’m gonna call you Sunbeam, I’m gonna earn it. Fair and square.”

  “You’re not earning crap,” I mutter, and follow him out onto the sand.

  * * *

  Gabe rolls his shoulders, loosening up that powerful, hulking beast-body of his.

  I’m reminded again of a lion – the great sandy king of the Sahara waking up after a day of drowsing in the sun, coming alive and ready to hunt, kinetic energy hot throughout him. I lift my arms over my head in a quick stretch, rocking on the balls of my toes.

  I’m a master of limbering up fast; when someone comes at you in a dark alley, they don’t let you stop to stretch. And before he’s even done shaking his fingers out, I’m taking up a stance opposite him, braced and defensive, hands raised, fists loosely curled.

  Okay, Goliath. Let's rumble.

  I’m not a puncher. I’m a jabber.

  Quick, flat fist strikes to vulnerable spots, moving fast on the balls of my feet. He looks more like the quarterback type – hard charges and bum rushes intended to overpower with his bulk.

  So, I’m shocked when he takes up a stance almost identical to mine, mirroring me and watching me with unreadable eyes that do nothing to telegraph his movements.

  He’s too big to be this graceful, but he moves with the lightness that can only come with pure, raw strength honed by carrying his own bulk.

  I narrow my eyes, calculating, assessing his guard, as we start to circle. I’m looking for my chance, my opening, but I don’t like to make the first move. Not when offensive play shows me an opponent’s weaknesses. I just have to bait him into –

  Damn!

  He pounces before I even catch him, darting forward during my half-second pause.

  A straight forward jab becomes a sweep of his elbow toward the side of my head, and I barely jerk back, his elbow whizzing past the tip of my nose as I bend backward – then duck und
er his arm, lashing out with my knee – jerking up to ram toward his exposed waist.

  But he’s already moving.

  Almost spinning, melding into his own momentum, then twisting away, I push past him. The shot missed, and I whirl to face him while he’s closing with a low sweep of his leg toward my ankles.

  He isn't throwing anything at me I can't handle. Too bad, so sad, I'm not extending the same favor.

  I stomp down hard on his calf, pinning it, then drop myself to the ground, tangle both my legs around his shin, and twist.

  When he’s got a good two hundred pounds of muscle mass on me, my best bet is to use his own weight against him.

  And Mr. Jolly Green Giant here comes toppling down like a felled tree.

  Hell yeah!

  I’m on him before he can recover and get up, scrambling up in a shower of sand, climbing his body like he’s a human jungle gym.

  I settle over his hips. I should be at his waist, but he’s so tall that any higher and I seriously won’t be able to hook my calves under his thighs to pin them and keep him from trying to get up.

  I can barely even get my legs around him; the breadth of his pelvis spreads me open, making my inner thighs hurt, pushing my jeans tight against my flesh. I ignore the hot, tight feeling pulsing inside me, chalking it up to adrenaline, and push my hand against his throat, just barely holding. His pulse is wild under my palm, a scrape of stubble lashing against my skin with every hot thump.

  “You lost,” I gasp, raking my hair out of my face with my free hand. “No more nicknames.”

  His lips part, but he says nothing.

  His tongue darts over his lips, a red thing leaving behind a hot, glistening sheen, and my gut goes tight. He’s breathing hard, too, his chest heaving under me, lifting me up and down over his hips in rapid rhythm.

  That’s when I feel it: hardness pushing up between my thighs, straining against the denim of his jeans to rub against me. He’s not doing it deliberately, I can tell, but the position and our own panting breaths practically grind him into me in a rough shock of friction that makes ripples of heat flow over my skin.

  My mouth dry, I swallow hard.

  I don’t know what to say.

  I need to move, but I’m just frozen.

  I...I don’t know how to handle this situation. I don’t mind a quick roll to relieve some tension, but I don’t even like to know their names, let alone the small collection of minutiae I’ve picked up about Gabe.

  He’s gorgeous with just enough swagger to be charming, and without enough to be arrogant.

  In another life, he might be my type.

  But not now. Not like this. Not when he’s been forced on me and keeps looking at me like he wants to know me when the only thing he really needs to know is to stay the hell out of my way.

  I can’t look away from his eyes – hazel dark and smoky and glimmering, dilated, watching me with a silent and penetrating intensity. I’m struggling for words.

  When suddenly he bucks underneath me, his massive bulk completely overpowering me in a single hard, flexing movement. Like nothing, he rolls me over and pins me to the sand underneath his weight.

  He’s too heavy. Too hot. Too smothering.

  Surrounding me in maleness, his scent like a curtain falling over me, dark coffee and aftershave and something like sharp, tangy woodsmoke. It’s in my blood like I breathed him in and soaked him into me, and my entire body aches with the fierce pressure of him, with the sheer size of him.

  My thighs are spread open around him. Like I’m just waiting for him to rip my clothes off and slide in deep, to fill my body, my soul, my everything.

  For just a moment, we’re pressed brow to brow, nose to nose, his mouth hovering over mine, parted on shallow breaths. A man his size could completely wreck me.

  Here's a confession: just for a little while, deep down inside, I want to be wrecked.

  But after that single breathless, eternal second, he digs his hands into the sand to either side of my body and pushes himself up, relieving me of his weight. Then he settles on his knees, shifting our positions, until his thighs straddle and pin me, and holy freaking hell I can still feel the hard ridge of his cock through his jeans, hot against my hips and belly.

  He’s a sandy, beautiful mess, and there’s something tight and tense about him. The lion coiled, the king, ready to strike his prey and seize control.

  He takes several slow breaths, but nothing clears that fierce, focused expression on his face.

  There’s a burning, raw edge to his voice as he drawls, “Wanna call this one a draw, Skylar?”

  The way he says my name hits in a hot punch to the gut – like he can taste it.

  Like he can taste me.

  No. God, no. I can’t...I can't...there’s a panic I don’t understand, condensing my heart into a hurting little ball in my chest, and I squirm underneath him. “Yeah. Y-yeah, just get the fuck off me.”

  He’s off me in a heartbeat, sand showering off him as he stands. That wild smolder vanishes, replaced by a searching, worried look.

  “You okay?” he asks, offering me a hand up. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? Shit, Skylar, I –”

  “No.”

  As if I’d ever give someone like him the power to hurt me.

  Ignoring his hand, I stand quickly, brushing myself off and pushing past him, back toward the truck. Whatever.

  We had our little power play, and at least now he knows I can knock his balls off if he gets too annoying. It’s time to stop screwing around and get moving.

  “Let’s just go,” I start moving and don't look back.

  “Sky,” he calls after me, almost pleading.

  If it wasn't for his tone, the cadence in his baritone voice that says, for some ungodly reason, I care...I stop, closing my eyes and clenching my fists.

  “What?”

  He’s silent coming up behind me, but I can still feel him. He's all presence, like that sunlight in his eyes is radiating toward me in vivid rays. He stops, so close I know – I know, without even looking – that if he wanted to he could reach for me, touch me, draw me in.

  “It was just playing,” he murmurs. “I wasn’t gonna touch you or do anything you didn’t want. It was just a sparring match. A tumble.” His voice softens. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. Not now. Not ever.”

  “Whatever, Gabe. I don’t need you to tell me that,” I snarl.

  And then I'm done. Heart still frozen and fist still aching, I pull away from him and shut myself in his truck.

  * * *

  The drive to Grandma’s is silent and tense.

  Gabe’s own silence is almost contrite, which just makes me angrier and angrier and I don’t know why. I think the only reason I don’t curse him out is because I’ve got food to stuff in my mouth, but even that pisses me off when this annoyingly handsome stranger has to go and understand me in weird ways.

  And when he keeps looking at me like this sad puppy, who just wants to help, but knows damn well I’ll kick him in the teeth if he even tries.

  Jerk. Devil. Ass.

  He wasn’t supposed to be so nice.

  Honestly, I can’t afford a distraction like Gabe. And I’m so ready to tumble out of his truck the second he parks around the corner from my grandma’s house. It's tucked in the lovely retirement neighborhood I helped her move into with my Navy pension. Grandma Eva shares a cute little duplex with Monika so she could help with the baby before everything went to hell.

  I don’t think she can see us through the kitchen window looking out over the side street, but I’m still wary for any signs of movement through the curtains as I turn back around. The last thing I need is Grandma seeing me with this beast of a man, and asking questions.

  If you've never been interrogated by a woman who survived communist Hungary fifty years ago, and clawed every bit of her new life out in the States, you don't know the fear.

  You don't have a freaking clue how potent, how real, how heavy it is when the same woman sta
rts asking you about men. Especially after you've sworn your whole adult life you're just too ambitious to ever settle down into the neat, happy married life Grandma always wanted.

  “I’ll text you when I want you,” I tell him. “Just sit tight and stay out of sight. Please.”

  He drapes an arm against the steering wheel, shrugging. “Sure, but I’m happy to chauffeur your whole family around. It’s a big truck. You need me, you holler. Treat me like your own personal Lyft driver.”

  “You’re not my personal anything,” I shoot back a little too quickly. “Look, you don’t want to get tangled up with my family. Our business isn’t yours.”

  “What business?” he asks mildly, his expression just a little too bland.

  “Exactly. ‘What business.’ Let’s keep it that way.” I loosen my belt buckle and point at him sternly. “Sit. Stay. Thanks.”

  That earns me an amused smirk. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dear God.

  I’d scream, if it wouldn’t mean Grandma charging out of the house with her broom hoisted like an AK-47, ready to destroy the source of my commotion.

  I start turning away, but Gabe stops me with a call of my name. “Sky.”

  Biting back a growl, I clench my fists, then turn back, glowering at him. “What?!”

  He reaches out and traces his thumb down my cheek – the callus on his thumb-tip rough, rough enough to make me aware of the contrast of my own skin, making me feel soft when soft isn’t something I know how to be.

  I freeze. I’m on the verge of snapping, of batting his hand away, my chest fluttering, when he smirks and pulls back. Right in the nick of time.

  “Had a little sand left there,” he drawls, before his gaze dips down to my chest. “Might want to brush off.”

  My face burns. I look down. There’s still some sand clinging to my chest, right where my breasts surface above the neckline of my tank top, stuck to the film of summer sweat between.

  Okay. So the jerk's got me, but I can’t help but feel like he’s just using that as an excuse to stare.

  Wrinkling my nose, I turn my back on him before brushing off hastily, lifting my chin, and slipping around the side of the house to the back fence.