“You look scared,” he observed, the corners of his mouth twisting slightly.
“What are you doing?” Piper flattened herself against the door as Tate tilted his head toward her.
“Thinking,” he said, distracted.
“About what?” Her heart pounded and she was finding it harder to breathe.
His lips whispered across hers. “Kissing you.” He dragged his lips down the slope of her jaw to her neck. “Tasting you.” When he reached the curve of her shoulder his hand dipped between her legs and cupped her throbbing mound. “Fucking you,” he whispered, placing a succulent kiss to her heated flesh.
Piper’s eyes squeezed shut as she struggled to regain her senses. This was unacceptable. Her body screamed for contact while her mind shouted for her to run. To slip away and get the hell out of there before any more damage could be done.
Her mind won.
Slapping her palms against his chest, Piper pushed against him for all she was worth. Tate backed off, fixing her with glazed eyes. “Not going to happen. See you tomorrow, Tate.”
The moment the elevator doors slid shut, Piper slumped against the wall and fought to get her breathing under control. If it hadn’t been clear before, it was now. Tate Larson was dangerous to her self-control. Digging into her purse, Piper found her phone and started dialing.
Shelia picked up on the second ring. “Yell-oh?”
“Hey, it’s me. How does a nice greasy pizza and a movie sound?”
“Heavenly. Romance or comedy?”
“Action.”
“Man troubles?”
“You could say that.”
“Say no more.” Shelia pulled the phone away and Piper overheard her muffled voice calling out to someone in the background. “Hey, you need to leave. No, I’ll call you. Okay,” she said, coming back to the phone. “I’m all yours. Should I call the girls?”
“Yeah, that would be great. I’ll pick up the pizza on the way.”
“Cool. I’ll leave the door open.”
“See you soon.” Piper pressed END and dropped the phone back into her purse. The best thing about having girl friends like hers was that they knew when to ask questions and when to just be there, stuffing their face with fattening foods and watching hot, muscle-y guys blow stuff up.
11
“Leave it,” Tate grunted.
Piper huffed, but dropped her hand from the stereo and slumped back in the seat. She felt like hell. Her late night pity party of five had gone on until well into the early morning hours. She’d packed way too much pizza, and to top it off, her least favorite aunt had shown up for an impromptu visit. All in all, she was tired, grumpy and had a headache the size of Texas, and being cooped up in a car with Tate for nearly an hour after having worked with him all day was seriously testing the limits of her patience. She was walking the edge of insanity. Tate probably couldn’t see it, but he was this close to being found stuffed in a roadside drainage ditch.
“Seriously, how can you stand to listen to this?” she complained. If she heard “It’s Brittany, bitch” one more time, she’d throw herself from the car. Even the threatening impact from the road at eighty miles an hour would be better than enduring another minute of this.
“How can you not?” Tate gave her a look of pure malevolence. “Even the critics agree that this is her best album yet.”
Piper shook her head. “Christina has a better voice than Brittany. Hell, Lady Gaga would even be preferable. Don’t you own any Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven?” Classical wasn’t even her cup of tea. She much preferred rock, of all kinds, but she was growing desperate.
Tate visibly shuddered. “God, no. You’d be crazy to think I would willingly subject myself to the sound of screeching violins and flutes and whatever the hell else that nutty group of eccentrics play. They don’t even have lyrics. That’s like reading a book with only pictures—pointless.”
Piper rolled her eyes and the small action sent a sharp stab of pain shooting through her brain. “Ugh, fine, whatever. Can we just turn it off then?” Her head hurt so bad she had to lay it back against the seat and close her eyes.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tate’s concern was so uncharacteristic, Piper’s eyes popped open. “You look a little pale. Hey, you’re not going to throw up in my car are you?”
“No,” she groused, “but maybe I will just so I can watch you clean it up.” She should have guessed that his concern was with his car and not her health. The pounding in her head increased and she shut her eyes against the discomfort.
“Shit, you’re not pregnant are you?”
Piper scowled. As if the very thought of it was so abominable. “For your information, I have a migraine.”
“Oh, well did you take anything for it?”
The hairpin turn he made off the highway had her grasping the door handle to keep her body from toppling over the center council and into his lap. He was a really shitty driver. “What do you think?”
“I think it sounds like you could use a couple of aspirin.”
“Oh, sure, so I can bleed out? I bet you’d like that. Then you could get yourself a new assistant. One that wears skirts,” she snapped.
“Whoa, what just happened here?” Tate looked confused at her sudden outburst. “First, you’re all depressed and barely speak a word to me all day, then you turn into a mad woman because I suggest you take an aspirin? You make no kind of sense, unless…” She glared at him and watched as dawning lit his eyes. “Yeah, never mind.”
“Uh huh.” Piper folded her arms over her chest and stared out the window the rest of the drive.
*****
When they arrived at his mother’s house, Tate watched as Piper angrily released her seat belt and stepped out of the car with jerky movements.
He stayed two steps behind her all the way up to the house, afraid to get too close. It was like he was starring in his own horror movie and had just figured out who the killer was. He had to put on a mask of ignorance and remain calm. As with any psychopath, she could probably smell fear.
As if she knew what he was thinking, Piper twisted around to pin him with accusing eyes. Tate smiled tightly and followed her up to the porch. Before they got the chance to knock, the door flew open and they were greeted with his mother’s jubilant face.
“There’s my sweetie pie!” Tate grinned and stepped forward, prepared to have the breath squeezed out of him—his mother loved him to pieces—only to watch in bewilderment as she shoved aside the screen door, nearly hitting him in the process, and grabbed Piper up into one of her bear hugs.
“I’m so glad you could make it! How are you doing? Oh, don’t you just look precious?” She held Piper away from her to take measure of the deeply red blouse and black jeans that made his mouth water and his palms itch to reach out and squeeze that perfect ass. “Oh, where are my manners? Come inside, come inside.” She dragged Piper with her, leaving Tate standing on the porch, holding the screen door and staring at their retreating figures like a dolt.
“Hey, look what the cat dragged in.” Grant, his older brother by two years, appeared before him sporting his trademark mile-wide smile. “Well, what are you waiting for, a written invitation? Get your ass in here!”
“Hey, man.” Tate stepped inside and embraced his brother in a manly, handshake-slap-on-the-back hug, and followed him into the kitchen were they found the rest of the Larson brood.
“Look who I found,” Grant announced over the racket of screaming children, the clanging of dishes and the general buzz of conversation.
“Tate, I need you on the grill,” his mother said from her place at the stove.
He nodded and made his way outside to get started.
Piper was already out back, he noticed as he stepped out on the deck, relaxing in of one the lounge chairs and surrounded by his sisters and sisters-in-law. It looked like she had already been accepted into their little group, which shouldn’t please him, but it kind of did. At least this way, he wouldn’t have to
worry about keeping her company so she didn’t feel uncomfortable or left out. Yep, that was it. No babysitting for him.
“So who’s your lady friend?” Grant asked awhile later while passing him a beer. Tate nodded his thanks as he glanced up from flipping the burgers on the grill in time to catch Piper laughing at something one of the women said.
“She’s my assistant.” He shrugged and moved the last of the meat to a platter then shut the lid to let the coals die down. Although he had brought her with him to see his mother a time or two before, it had never been in this context, and aside from general family gossip, they didn’t know who Piper was.
Grant whistled. “That’s quite a perk. Maybe I should become a writer.”
“Ha, you wouldn’t last a week in my shoes.”
“Yeah, probably not,” he conceded. “You’ve always been the creative one, but I sure wouldn’t mind taking a stab at it, if you know what I mean.” Grant nudged him in the side and wagged his eyebrows suggestively.
An inexplicable note of anger stirred deep in Tate’s gut. He didn’t like his brother—or anyone, he suspected—putting their eyes on Piper. She was his, dammit.
Alarmed by his own reaction, Tate downed the last of his beer and dug in the ice chest for another. He didn’t know where that thought had come from, but it was unsettling. He wanted Piper, of course he did. He’d have to be blind not to, but for sex and nothing more. He simply did not do relationships.
“She certainly is easy on the eyes,” Grant was saying. Tate wanted to jab out his wandering, lust-filled eyes with his bottle opener. “And that ass is—”
“How’s Tracy?” Tate interrupted, barely keeping a lid on his seething anger.
Grant blinked several times. “Oh, she’s good. She just got done with back surgery a few days ago, so she’s at home resting.”
“And you just left her there? Alone?”
“Well, it’s not like she could come along.” Grant looked at him like he had lost his mind.
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said sarcastically. “Well, at least you brought the kids.” He scanned the bobbing heads racing across the manicured grounds, but unsurprisingly, he couldn’t identify which kids belonged to whom considering he came around roughly once or twice a year at best.
“Are you kidding?” Grant scoffed. “Tracy’s parents took them for the weekend. After this, I plan to hit up Ben’s for a few brewskies and a show.”
Tate was familiar with Ben’s. It was a small bar a few miles down the road that served cheap booze and lap dances. One visit on his eighteenth birthday and a private dance from Big Shirley cured him of that particular curiosity and Tate vowed to never set foot in the place again. The fact that his big brother still paid it regular visits shouldn’t come as a surprise, but he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment. The guy he had looked up to as a kid had become someone he looked down on as an adult.
Tate shook his head, completely disgusted that he shared the same bloodline with the man standing next to him. It also reminded him of why he refused to tie himself to any one woman. The Larson blood was tainted with liars and cheats. His grandfather was a notorious ladies man, even after he was married with six kids. His own father was no better.
Eleven years ago, after his mother had finally had enough, she kicked him out on his ass, but Tate had already witnessed plenty by then and at the ripe age of seventeen, he had vowed never to hurt a woman the way his father hurt his mother. The Larson men were no good at relationships and he didn’t want to be responsible for inflicting that kind of damage on another person, ever.
As it turned out, despite his intentions, he had fallen for the girl next door, but it all went to shit when his worst fears were turned around and he found himself being the one cheated on. It was a cold, hard slap in the face and a good reminder of why he would never again bother with a relationship.
“Food’s ready,” he called out, grabbing himself another beer. Tate stepped back as everyone jumped from their seats and flooded the two long tables layered with food his mother had set up.
Piper continued to sit in her chair sipping at the plastic cup of pink lemonade. “Aren’t you eating?” he asked, approaching her from the side.
Her nose scrunched up. “Not right now. Maybe later.”
“Still not feeling well?” He wanted to reach out and touch her, soothe her in some small way. It took everything in him to resist the instinct.
“Meh,” she said noncommittally. “Your family is nice. I didn’t know you had so many brothers and sisters.”
He shrugged. “Yeah.” He never really talked about his family. He liked to keep things simple. It was less messy that way. “You’ve already met Marie,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but I thought you were lying.” Piper shifted in her seat, her faced scrunching up.
“You okay there?”
“Oh, sure, just my back hurts a little is all.”
“You want a pillow or something?”
“Oh, no. I’ll be fine.” She smiled unconvincingly.
“Suit yourself.” He wasn’t going to fawn over her. Women enjoyed that sort of thing and it would be better if she learned early on that he wasn’t one to play along. He walked away and back into the house.
“You better be nice to that girl,” his mother scolded him the moment he entered the kitchen. She had her back turned to him, stirring a big pot of her famous chili, but paused long enough to shoot him a look over her shoulder and point a red stained wooden spoon at him in warning.
“When have I ever not been nice, Ma?”
She raised a brow at him. “Be nice.”
“I am nice,” he said, his voice raising an octave. Well, look at him getting all defensive and shit. Maybe Piper’s sour mood was starting to rub off.
“Well, I don’t want you chasing this one off. You know she is the first girl you’ve brought home since Casey?”
Tate clenched his teeth at the very mention of her name. “Well, don’t get too attached. She’s just my assistant.”
Cindi whirled on him. It was nuts, but despite the fact that he towered over her five-foot-one frame, she still managed reduce him to an eight-year-old boy with a single look.
Unease captured him as she leveled him with her steely gray eyes. “She is more than that, and you know it. I like that girl. She’s good for you. So, don’t go screwing it up!”
“Sure, Ma.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, mister.”
“What tone?” Tate backed away from her and her wooden spoon with his hands in the air.
“The one that says you need a good old fashioned lickin’. And I hope you’re going upstairs to get some pain reliever for your girlfriend.”
He was actually heading into the living room to escape all the commotion outside. He could only take so much of his family’s particular brand of crazy. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. “That was the plan,” he lied as he detoured and bounded up the stairs to the bathroom instead. He would just completely ignore the comment about her being his girlfriend.
“Good. Midol is in the cabinet beside the feminine napkins!” he heard her call after him. Tate shuddered. If the idea of following in his father’s and brother’s footsteps wasn’t enough of a relationship deterrent, this certainly was.
12
Piper couldn’t get comfortable. Her back hurt, her headache was rebounding and she had cramps. She fantasized about being at home, sprawled on the couch in front of the television in a pair of sweats with a gallon of ice cream and her favorite shows. Thankfully, Tate had been kind enough to bring her some much-needed pain relievers, which had shocked the hell out of her. To be frank, she hadn’t thought he cared.
His family was a nice bunch. They were warm and welcoming, much like Cindi. That went double for his brother, Grant. Every time she turned around he was either standing there looking to chat her up or she found him watching her from a distance. On the surface he seeme
d like a nice enough guy, but there was just something about him that raised her hackles. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she didn’t trust him.
She found herself keeping Tate within her sights and avoiding situations where she might find herself alone with the man. She was probably just being overly cautious. The city would do that to a person, but she was following her gut—it had never steered her wrong.
“So how long have you worked for Tate?” Marie, the oldest of Tate’s sisters asked. She sat to her left among the little circle the women that had formed around her, studying her with kind blue eyes that matched her brother’s perfectly.
Piper was still trying to reconcile that the woman was actually his sister and not another one of his one-night stands. The realization was a bit of a relief. It meant she could remove one of the checks from her mental list of Tate’s criminal activities. Told the truth: Check.
“Just about two months,” she answered.
“That long?” Angie, the middle daughter, asked in wonder. She was by far the most beautiful, with her long, honey blonde hair and lightly bronzed porcelain skin. The yellow, black and white patterned sun dress she wore complimented her slim frame and Piper had to make a conscious effort not to stare whenever she looked in her direction. She had always been a people watcher and it was something of a hobby to break down what about each person made them attractive or unattractive.
“That’s not very long,” Piper responded, knowing how long it actually was in Tate Time, but she didn’t find it necessary to clue in Tate’s family on how miserable a man he could be to work for.
“From what I hear, it’s an eternity,” Marie said, tipping back the last of her lemonade. She stretched her arm out, reaching for the pitcher resting on the table between them and poured another.
“I’ve heard the same,” Leanne, the wife of one of Tate’s brothers, said. Piper looked to her right to the woman with a mane of flaming red hair and lightly freckled skin. She was pretty too, in a way that was uniquely her own. “Collin’s told me more than once how much of a bear his brother can be when he is working.”