Can't Buy Your Love by Tressie Lockwood Read Free Book Online Page A

made damn sure they wouldn’t. None stayed in her life long enough since dating wasn’t an option. Over the past couple of weeks, she and Owen had spent day and night with each other, shopping, eating together, taking walks, just hanging out. How had she let this happen? How could she forget her unspoken rules and get so lax that he fell in love?
    In love…with me? That’s not possible. She closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands. Of course someone loving her was possible. Aunt Ella told her every time they spoke on the phone, and Vanity believed her. Logic said Vanity was not some ogre incapable of striking love in the heart of a man, and yet this one, this amazing person?
    “I don’t know what I feel,” she murmured.
    He raised her chin and kissed her. “It’s okay. I’m not asking you to feel or say anything. I only wanted you to know. Now you do, and we can leave it there for the time being.”
    “Owen.”
    “Stay the night with me.”
    “But Jamie’s here.”
    “Stay. Please.” He held his hand out to her, and she put hers in his. They walked to the stairs together and headed up to his room. While Owen shut the door, she unbuttoned the fastenings on her dress and pulled it over her head, She slipped out of her shoes and removed her underwear. Owen appeared arrested by the sight of her naked body. For a few frozen moments, he didn’t move from his spot at the door. He dragged his T-shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor. When he pinched open the button on his pants, Vanity was the motionless one.
    As if she hadn’t seen his perfect, male form a dozen times, she stared as he undressed. When he was done, he crooked a finger at her. “Come here, baby.”
    The less forceful command didn’t ignite nervous excitement as it did all the other occasions he took charge. This time, the emotions roiling to life in Vanity’s heart were a reaction to his tenderness, as if he communicated he would care for her, even while she feared him.
    Vanity steeled herself against the butterflies taking flight in her belly. “How about a bubble bath together?”
    He smiled. “I don’t have bubbles, and I’m not letting you out of my sight to go get some.”
    They found bath gel she left at his place and softened the warm water with a scent of country flowers. Vanity climbed in with her lover, and he washed her back. She lay between his legs, enjoying the feel of his chest and the embrace he wrapped her in.
    Owen picked up the washcloth and poured bath gel into it. He worked the material until suds formed, and then he ran the warm rag over her skin. A tingle of pleasure arrowed down between her legs. She leaned up and kissed his chin. “Owen?”
    “Hm?”
    “Why are you so good?”
    The sad smile surprised her. “I’m not good. I’m not perfect, Vanity. I have my shortcomings. Granted, I’m not the kind of man who will run around on the woman I’m with. I’m not likely to get into a drunken bar fight.”
    She sighed in relief of that one. When she was small, her father had come home with many a bruise or a blackened eye. He had anger issues, and any little thing set him off on a tirade. She thanked God at least neither she nor her mother had ever been physically abused.
    “My vice would be that I believe too much. I care too much for the one I’m with. I want to fix everything, and I won’t turn away even when all hope is gone. Maybe that makes me a pussy.”
    She gasped. “I never would have thought that about you. You’re not a pushover, I don’t think. I see another side to you, especially when we make love.”
    “Make love,” he repeated. “I’m glad you said it that way because I am making love to you tonight, baby.”
    She squirmed in his hold, but she wanted it. Somehow the declaration of his feelings put them on another level, and she dared to hope. Even if that hope was no more than a tiny spark, she welcomed it.
    “Do you mind me asking what happened between you and