I felt my lips part and I kept staring at him.
Darn it all, he had me there too.
His arm left my back so his hand could curl around the side of my neck.
“This is what we got. You got burned by that asshole ex of yours and I got played by Neeta. We hooked up after that, for me right after that, and here we are. So what’re we gonna do?” he asked.
“I…” I cleared my throat, “I don’t know.”
The pad of his thumb pressed my jaw up as his head tilted down and his face got close.
“I ain’t Brad and you aren’t Neeta,” he said softly. “I also ain’t perfect and neither are you.”
He was right about that too.
“No,” I agreed quietly.
“So we find out about each other and who we are together.” His forehead dropped to touch mine. “I’m gonna piss you off ‘cause I can be a dick. That’s who I am. And you’re gonna piss me off ‘cause, babe, you got attitude. That’s who you are. And that’s who we’re comin’ out to be together. And I’m all right with that because, with what I had before, even when you’re a bitch, I like it. But when you’re not, it’s a sweetness the like I’ve never tasted.”
Oh.
My.
God.
I felt tears sting my eyes and my fingers curled around his biceps to hold on.
“Tate,” I whispered.
“So, I’m not takin’ you to the hotel. We’re sittin’ out on the deck and havin’ coffee. Then I’ll make you breakfast. Then we’ll fuck in bed, then fuck again in the shower, then we’ll go to work. Then I’ll take you for your swim. Then we’ll fuck in the shower at the hotel. Then I’ll feed you and we’ll probably fuck in my bed again.”
“That’s a lot of, um…”
“Maybe I should rephrase, some of it’ll be fuckin’, some of it’ll be me makin’ you come.”
I felt and heard my breath snag as my hands moved of their own volition. They uncurled from his biceps and started to press under his arms to wrap around his back.
“I usually eat before I swim,” I found my mouth informing him.
I watched his face relax and his fingers slid into my ponytail and twisted gently. “Works for me.”
Then his mouth came to a hairsbreadth away from mine.
“Okay,” I breathed as my eyes started closing.
“You over your snit?”
My eyes slowly opened and that disquiet I felt last night reminded me of its existence.
Then I whispered, “We should talk about Wood.”
His lips touched mine. “You got Neeta today, baby, Wood can wait until later.”
“But –”
His arms pulled me deep into his body. “Only so much of those two I can stomach in a day.”
“Tate –”
“You gonna finally kiss me good mornin’ or do I have to kiss you?”
I felt a flurry in my belly.
“I should probably kiss you,” I said softly because I probably should. I’d been a bitch again and I needed to make it up to him.
“You got a second, Ace, then I’m takin’ over.”
“Tate –”
“Time’s up,” he said, his head slanted and Tate kissed me good morning.
Chapter Fifteen
Peace of Mind
The phone rang and my eyes opened.
Tate’s painted shoulder and back were all I could see. I was curled into him and it was dark but the moonlight was shining in through the windows.
I felt his fingers wrap around my wrist that was dangling at his stomach, holding firm keeping my arm where it was as he lifted up. Once up, he let my hand go and reached for his cell on the nightstand.
I left my arm draped around his waist and snuggled closer. Lifting up a bit to rest on my elbow, I pressed my nose against his back then turned my head so my cheek was there as my arm around his waist tightened and he answered the phone.
“Jackson,” he growled, this growl due to sleep.
I listened to the silence. Tate listened to the phone.
“Who?” he asked his voice no longer holding even a hint of sleep. “Right. Where?” he went on and then listened. “Right. Fax or e-mail?” he listened again. “Right,” he repeated then said, “Next time, Thyne, do me a favor and let me in on this shit before it gets to this. Yeah?”
Hmm. He didn’t sound sleepy anymore but he also really didn’t sound happy.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Tate confirmed then flipped the phone closed.
He tossed it on the nightstand and turned toward me. I moved back to accommodate him and his arms slid around me, pulling me close again when he was facing me.
“Got a situation, Laurie,” he muttered.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Fugitive, probably armed, definitely dangerous. Why the fuck they let this guy out on bail is anyone’s guess. He’s serious shit.”
For the first time it struck me that he hunted fugitives that could be armed and definitely were dangerous. But then again, fugitives by definition of being fugitive were probably pretty dangerous, especially to the person who was hunting them in order to halt their fugitive status. I had no idea why this didn’t sink in before but I figured it did it then because he received a middle of the night phone call where they called him in during “a situation” thus giving his occupation a reality it never had before.
My arms around him got tight.
“Who’s Thyne?” I asked.
“Bail bondsmen in Denver. He’s got two local guys he uses for the small time shit, calls me in when he has problems. He tried to find this guy usin’ local talent which was a mistake. Those boys take less of percentage because they’re part moron but not moron enough to know no one’ll pay them for bein’ part moron. Thyne is cheap and part moron too so he pays ‘em. This guy is probably in Mexico by now.”
My arms got tighter.
“Do you have to go to Mexico?”
“Fuck, I hope not,” he muttered and I hoped not too. Mexico was a long way away and I had enough trouble thinking of Tate hunting a dangerous fugitive, I didn’t want to think of him doing it a long way away. “He’s faxin’ me the particulars. I gotta get on the road.”
My arms got even tighter though I whispered, “Okay.”
His hand slid up my back and his fingers sifted into my hair to cup the back of my head.
“Kiss me, baby.”
I used the moonlight on the angles of his face to aim and found his mouth. The minute my lips hit his, he rolled partially into me, forcing me to my back in the bed, and my mouth opened as did his. My tongue slid inside, he growled against it and when I absorbed that in my mouth, a small moan escaped my throat. His head slanted one way, mine tilted the other and my kiss turned into a kiss.
I was breathing heavily and holding on tight when his mouth disengaged and his tongue slid along my lower lip.
Then he stated, “I want you to stay here. Look after Buster.”
I blinked in the dark at his close up, shadowed face.
Then I asked, “Sorry?”
“I’ll leave the keys to the Explorer and the house on the kitchen counter. Garage door opener is in the truck. Take the Explorer into town, I’ll call Deke to bring it back. The alarm code is three five six one. To set it, you punch in the number and hit the red button and you got a minute to get into the garage. To disable it, hit three five six one and hit the green button. Once you enter, you got a minute to do that too. When you’re goin’ to sleep for the night, doors secured, windows stay closed and you hit three five six one and then the blue button.”
“Um…” I mumbled, not keeping up with him. “Sorry?”
His arms tightened and he rolled to his back, pulling me with him so my torso was resting mostly on his chest.
“I want you stayin’ here,” he repeated.
“To watch your cat?”
“Yeah, to watch Buster. And ‘cause I have an alarm.”
This belatedly penetrated.
br />
“You have an alarm?”
“Don’t use it when I’m home. You’ll use it when you’re home without me.”
I felt something silken slither through me.
“When I’m home?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“But, my room at the hotel –”
“Want you stayin’ here.”
“But, the hotel –”
“Want you in my bed.”
That slithered through me too.
“Tate –”
His fingers sifted in my hair, cupping my head again and bringing my face close to his.
“Could be gone a day, could be gone two weeks. I want you texting again and when I get my phone calls at night, I wanna know I’m talking to you while you’re lyin’ in my bed.”
That silken thing started to wrap tight around me and it didn’t feel bad at all.
Even so, I whispered, “Tate, I don’t know.”
“I do. You’ll be safer here.”
“The hotel’s safe,” I told him.
“Carnal Hotel ain’t safe,” he told me.
“Ned and Betty are right across the way.”
“Ace, first, to find this place, you gotta know where it is. Second, to get to work from here, you gotta be in your car, a fact I like since it’s a fuckuva lot safer than you walkin’ to the hotel after your shift. Last, my alarm goes straight to dispatch. Boys’ll know I’m gone, they’ll also know you’re stayin’ here. They get the warnin’, they won’t fuck around. Carnal PD is mostly shit but I got some friends there that are good men. They know my woman is here and the alarm tells them you’ve been breached, they won’t fuck around and they got trainin’ and guns. Ned don’t have that.”
This was true. Still.
“Um…”
“And Buster likes you.”
“She’s friendly,” I reminded him. “I think she’d probably like anyone.”
“She is and she does and that’s why I don’t like leavin’ her alone. She prefers company.”
“You’re out of town a lot, who looked after her before?”
“Krystal.”
This surprised me so much I had to take a moment to let the thought of Krystal coming up and taking care of a dainty cat as a favor to a friend sink in. She didn’t seem like a friendly-favor-doing type of person or a taking-care-of-a-dainty-cat type of person either.
“Babe, I gotta get the fax, get packed and get on the road. You stayin’ here or what?”
“I think –” I started hesitantly and he rolled me to my back again and pinned me to the bed with his big body.
Then he pulled out the big guns.
He did this by murmuring, “Peace of mind.”
“I’ll stay,” I agreed instantly
His head dropped but moved to the side and he flicked my ear with his nose.
Then he said in my ear, “That’s my good girl.”
And I was. I was his good girl. Even though this seemed like a big step, a step that was too big and too soon, a step that was too big that also didn’t say “I’m a cool and hard to get biker babe” but said “I’m your good girl and you’ve already got me”.
I was such an idiot.
His head came up and his mouth touched mine. Then he exited the bed.
I curled into myself and watched his shadow as he moved around. Then I listened as he took a shower. Then he came back, got dressed and I lifted up to sitting cross-legged in the bed. Buster joined me, sitting on her booty in my lap and since she was there, I gave her scratches. In that position, Buster and I watched as he packed mostly in the dark (he turned the light on in the walk-in closet and it partially shone in the bedroom). Buster knew the packing drill and I got the impression she wasn’t a big fan. Then again, neither was I. Tate was going away for an unspecified period of time again and I was back to texts.
He turned the closet light out and came back into the bedroom. I heard the zip go on his bag that was sitting on the bed and watched his hand curl around the handle. My hand shot out and my fingers curled around his wrist.
“Tate,” I called.
“Yeah, baby,” he answered.
“Does this happen a lot?”
“It’s my job, Laurie.”
“No, I mean, phone calls in the middle of the night.”
He paused. Then he answered, “A lot, no. Sometimes, yeah.”
Without my mind willing my body to do it, I pulled on his arm as Buster daintily hopped off my lap. I was wearing a shelf bra camisole and undies. I’d replaced these after cleaning up in the bathroom after we’d made love before going to sleep.
When I got to my knees in front of him, my other hand flattened on his abs as my hand around his wrist tugged harder to bring him down to me. My hand at his abs slid up his chest to curl around his neck when he bent at the waist to get close. My hold at his wrist disengaged when both his arms wrapped around me.
I tilted my head back and his face got close.
“Please be careful, honey,” I whispered and before he could answer my arms tightened around his neck, I flattened by body against his and I kissed him hard.
He crushed me to him with one arm, the other hand going into my hair, fisting and holding my mouth to his far longer than I’d intended.
He broke the kiss but didn’t let me go nor did his mouth move very far away.
“I’ll take care of Buster,” I promised.
“Thanks, Ace,” he murmured. “Don’t get into trouble when I’m gone,” he warned.
“I’m a good girl,” I reminded him.
When his mouth hit mine I could tell it was smiling.
“Yeah,” he said and that one word also held his smile.
Then his fist in my hair tipped my head down, he kissed the hair at the top, let me go and he was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Once We Were Brothers
It was three days after Tate left to hunt a possibly armed, definitely dangerous fugitive.
Which was five days after the incident with Wood in Tate’s living room.
It was mid-morning and I was sitting out on his deck drinking coffee, my feet up on a lower railing, taking a break from what had become an ongoing three day job of doing laundry and cleaning Tate’s house.
I’d struggled with this decision. Cleaning his house was an intimacy he had not invited. Then again, he’d asked me to stay in it and I could (somewhat) ignore the state of it when Tate was there and most of the time we were eating or having sex. I couldn’t ignore the state of it when I was staying there.
I was contemplating the trees that surrounded the house as my mind considered the fact that I might have taken things a bit too far. I hadn’t only picked up his bedroom, done his laundry and thoroughly cleaned out his kitchen including a complete clear out and wipe down of the fridge and a full scouring of his baked on, burnt on oven that clearly hadn’t been cleaned since the dawn of time. I’d also vacuumed and dusted the entire house, cleaned all the bathrooms, carried his boots in the mudroom to the closet in his bedroom, tidied his coats in the mudroom, organized his clothes in the walk-in closet and cleared the dining room table, stacking his mail (without looking too much at it) on the kitchen counter (magazine piles, opened mail piles, unopened mail piles).
I’d also stripped his bed and noticed his sheets were old and, if not threadbare, they were getting there.
There were also no other sheets to replace them that I could find but I didn’t look hard. The two bedrooms upstairs had their doors closed and I kept them like that. I found, on the ground level, the backstairs led into a big open space with a bunch of weight equipment in it and then there was a hall off which there were three rooms and a bathroom. The bathroom door was open (so I cleaned it) and another room was open. This was obviously Tate’s office with desk, computer, printer, fax machine, three filing cabinets and a variety of files and paperwork (not in the filing cabinets) that were not only unorganized but looked in danger of forming a paper avalanche. I
didn’t tidy his office because he probably knew where everything was and I didn’t know what anything was so I couldn’t organize it properly not knowing. The other two doors downstairs were not opened.
I didn’t open the unopened doors because I didn’t want him to think I was snooping. Though I found it slightly odd, with the upstairs and the down, that Tate Jackson had such a huge house. Essentially six bedrooms, three full baths, living room, dining room, family room. It was long and it was also large. Too large for one man and a dainty cat.
Unable to find sheets, I called Wendy, swung by to pick her up and we headed to the mall in order to buy some.
This was where I thought that perhaps I was stepping over the line.
Because I didn’t only buy sheets, I bought Indian cotton, high thread count sheets and because Tate’s comforter had seen better days, I bought a down one, a comforter cover, six new down pillows and shams.
I thought nothing of this until the clerk returned my credit card and Wendy giggled. Her giggle started slow and then gained in volume and hilarity.
Finally she shouted, “Love this!”
I turned to her. “Love what?”
“You and Tate buying sheets together.” Then she laughed outright and grabbed me, giving me a big hug.
I hugged her back and looked over her shoulder at the clerk who was smiling at me like she knew what was going on. I didn’t smile at her because I didn’t.
“Tate and I aren’t buying sheets together,” I told Wendy, she let me go and leaned back.
“You so are!”
I looked around to see if Tate was hiding somewhere and about to saunter out and surprise me. When I saw no Tate, I looked back at Wendy.
“It’s just that he needs new sheets. His are old and he only has one set,” I explained.
“He need a new comforter?” she returned.
“Yes, that’s old too.”
“A comforter cover?” she went on.
“You have a down comforter, Wendy, you have to have a cover,” I explained patiently.
“Shams?” she asked.
Hmm. I could see her point on the shams. Tate wasn’t exactly a man who needed two extra pillows which were only there to sport decorative shams.