by Rie Warren
He stomped away. “Fourteen fucking years you lied to me!”
“I didn’t lie.” I whispered. And how the hell could this fallout be as bad as Cat disappearing from my life? Because he was my bro. My buddy. Mine through thick and thin and breakups and marriage endings and stupid hijinks. And JJ.
“I just couldn’t tell you. Didn’t want to. When I moved in with Mimi it’d been easy, too easy, to latch onto the one thing that had nothing to do with a past I wanted to erase. You, your family, the Stone’s garage were as far away from Boston as I could get and much closer to the real deal than anything I’d had before.”
“That’s . . . I . . .” His hands raked through his hair. “Weren’t you ever going to tell me?” His voice cracked.
“I’m telling you now.”
“About that. Why?”
“Cat knows.”
“Why? Why not me?” Tears sheened his hazel eyes.
Sliding onto his two-seater sofa, my whole body was tense beyond belief. My throat burned raw. “It wasn’t as if I masterminded all these years of deceit. I saw my folks yesterday.”
“But you said—”
“The Euro-vacation wasn’t a lie, just the reasons for it.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” His shoulders fell when he sank down beside me.
“I didn’t want to live in the shadow of a tragedy. Mimi never told Gigi or anyone. She wanted me to have a fresh start.”
His hands covered his face. “I can’t believe it.” A fat tear slid between his fingers, joining the grease stains on his coveralls. Mine escaped down my cheeks one at a time as I tried to hold them off. “You were always there for me.”
“I’m still here.” My throat worked and my voice rasped.
“Yeah but, not to go all pussy, you didn’t trust me with this. And I wasn’t there for you.”
My hands stiffened into fists in my lap. “You know all those times when Mimi picked me up from high school? When I couldn’t skip class and help out here? Man, you think your garage dudes can see inside your head.” I chuckled. “Those afternoons I had to go a grief counselor. Apparently I wasn’t dealing. I was in denial.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
I sucked back the sobs in my throat. “It just hurt too much to think about, Josh.”
“And now?”
“Hurts more.” I got up and lurched to his desk. “Cat bailed on me.”
He came up in front of me and threw his arms around me. My fucking best friend. Always there. Holding on. With a goddamn headlock that cut off my wah-wah-weepies and also closed my windpipe. The warm hug went WWE.
Breaking free, I gasped, “Asshole.”
“Pinhole.”
Our chuckles were of the watery, emotional type as we took up separate stations in the office. I guzzled a bottle of water while he rearranged the papers on his desk.
“I know about you and Cat breaking up, by the way,” he said.
“Do you think she’s ever coming back?”
“To work at the garage?”
“Yeah.” And coming back to me.
“I don’t know. We’re losing money because she’s the one who knows all our accounts. The Steeles are losing money because we are.” Josh leaned forward in his chair. “Boomer and me been trying to reason with her. Get her back on the work orders.”
“I don’t have to be here, if that’s her whole hang-up.” I paced. “I don’t want you to take a hit because of me. You’ve got that whole five-star honeymoon thing to pay for, after all.”
Josh was so quiet, I wondered if I’d be forgiven for lying, for losing him the Chrome and Steele business. If he was going to cut me off from the Stone family just like I’d been cut loose from my folks.
“I’m pretty sure if Boomer keeps strong-arming Cat and I keep sweet-talking her, we’ll get her back on board.” Without looking up, he continued to leaf through some invoices. A small smile flitted over his mouth. “Besides, your fucked up love life is the least of my concerns. I don’t know what fuckin’ name Leelee’s gonna put on the marriage certificate. I mean, she’s a Childes, a Songchild, and for damn fucking sure she’s gonna be a Stone.” He started talking out of the blue as if nothing had happened yet everything was laid out between us.
Momentarily stunned, I stared at him. Then—fuck—wetness pooled in my eyes again because I’d thought I’d lost my best friend, but his usual pissing and moaning meant we were going to be okay.
I cleared my throat and started rifling through his filing cabinet for any leftover dildos just to give my nervous hands something to do. “So we’re done with the bad bromance breakup? ’Cause I don’t wanna lose another brother, dude.”
When he rounded his desk, I turned to him. “Brothers forever, man. And my best man.” He cemented his vow with a backbreaking man-hug I returned with just as much strength.
A knock on the door preceded a woman calling out, “Josh?”
Christ. I knew that voice. I pushed Josh off me and stood in the center of the room, tense from my feet to my fists.
Cat stepped inside. She drew up short when she saw me. “I can come back. I just came to apologize for being unprofessional because of . . .”
Her words turned me stone cold. “Don’t bother, princess, I’m outta here.”
Josh grabbed my arm. “Dude. You sure you wanna walk away?”
I nailed cool Cat with a blank stare. “I don’t need to walk away. She already did.” My smile was sharp as a blade. I shook him loose and exited the room.
Outside in the hall, I pressed a hand to the wall. Just that single sight of her and I was torn apart. I’d memorized her in that one instant. Her high ponytail, aviators hanging from the top of her shirt, a dark blue top tightly cuffed at her wrists and buttoned high. A skirt that cupped her hips the way my hands had so many times. Damn. She looked good. And that made me even angrier.
“Maybe your apology should be to Nicky, huh? And PS. I’m glad you’re back but I’ve got Nicky’s back. You think you got the wrong end of the stick? I just found out about Daniel today, and I’ve known Nicky since we were teenagers. I forgave him like that. Maybe you don’t have what it takes to be his woman.” I heard Josh’s low grumble before his office door slammed open.
I made my feet move down the hall.
“Nick. Wait!”
I stopped in my tracks. Dumb-dumb-dumb. I stood with my back to Cat.
Maneuvering in front of me, she asked, “Come outside with me?”
I started shaking my head, making excuses, trying to sidestep her.
She laid a hand on my chest. “Just for a minute. Please, Nick.”
I stomped ahead of her, shooting back, “Fine.”
Fine yeah, it was all just fine. Fuck. This was not just dumb. This was impossibly stupid. But goddammit, maybe it was time I learned to swallow my pride. Maybe Cat was worth fighting for, and maybe she was going to fight for me.
It was cold outside, and neither one of us had on jackets. She wrapped her arms around herself as I jammed my hands into my pockets.
“What you gotta say to me?”
“I shouldn’t have left like that.” Her pleading blue gaze sought mine.
“No. You shouldn’t have.”
“I missed you.”
“You did, huh? Is that why you didn’t call or come by or—I dunno—apologize for being a heartless bitch for the past two weeks?”
Cat looked like she’d taken a mortal bow. Too bad. Sometimes the truth hurt.
“I’m apologizing now.” She stopped rubbing her arms. Her hands fell to her sides. “I just . . . seeing you hurt like that, crying . . .”
“Fuck, Cat!” I struck from my frozen stance and ranged up to her. “Yeah, I’m a human being. And you’re the first person I told about Daniel. So excuse me for not living up to your expectations!”
“They’re my own expectations, for myself!” Her chin shot up, but her bottom lip wobbled.
“I swear to God if you’re doing this be
cause of Steele-Stone business . . .”
“I’m not.”
“I know Boomer and Josh have been getting at you.”
“For work. Not for us.”
“Is there an us, anymore? Was there ever?”
“Yes.” Her body wracked with shivers, but still I held off. “There was. I was a coward. I’m not as cold as you think, Nicky.” The tears that had been pinned to her long eyelashes dropped to her cheeks.
“And I’m not as macho as you think.”
A slight grin curved her lips, and her short chuckle hit me hard.
My hands framed her face, spreading warmth over the coldness of her skin. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t bolt when shit gets real. That’s what my folks did. And you can’t blame me for wanting more with you. I want more with you, Wildcat. I want you. All of you, all the time.”
“This is hard.”
My thumb stroked across her bottom lip, the upper bow, then I leaned in for a kiss, one small touch. “You know what they say, ‘anything worth doing is hard’.”
Her eyelids fluttered down as she nodded.
“No more running.” I clasped her face again.
“No. No more running.” She held onto my forearms, and her breath came in fast gasps that washed across my so-close mouth.
“Or walking away. Or driving off for that matter.” I kept moving her backward until her body halted, stuck between the building and me. “On your bike or in your car.”
I covered every possibility and thought about getting her to sign a legal doc too. But that’d probably look like a marriage certificate, and we had to get Josh hitched first. The fact that thought didn’t even bother me should’ve scared some damn sense into me. Instead, a grin prodded my mouth.
And then my mouth was on Cat’s.
My hips pumped against hers and she purred into my ear. “Makeup sex?”
In the back of my mind, I wondered if Cat used sex as a weapon, like I’d used it to keep my feelings at bay. A way to shackle her demons. That fleeting thought wasn’t enough to keep me from her.
I slammed a palm to the wall beside her head. “Not here. Come home with me.”
“Lead the way.”
Chapter Eleven
Lust and Distrust
CAT DIDN’T SWOOP BACK into my life. No. She slipped into my daily grind of writing, promoting, fighting off Viper grinding on me, easily, as if she’d always been part of it. And I’d only known her for approximately two months.
I was almost distracted from truly knowing Cat by the sex. Sex that was off-the-scales, wet dream, Hall of Fame worthy. Make-up-and-more sex that made all the fucking all my life pale in comparison. But underneath, I recognized the truth about her. There was a reason she was such a hard-ass. She was heartbreakingly human in a way that meant when she hurt, it went a hundred times deeper. There was a reason for the tats, and why she never mentioned her folks.
After our rocky start I wasn’t ready to push her to tell me. Not when we were becoming part of each other’s lives, bit-by-bit, day-by-day. Over the next week, her stuff crept into my house, merging with my shit. I always chewed back a smile when she unloaded a tote bag full of feminine items. She made no apologies about rearranging my dresser drawers, or closet, or bathroom counter.
Every other night she stayed with me.
She never invited me to her house.
I refused to let the worry over why not creep up on me.
****
Limos lined up outside Stone’s garage the Saturday night before the wedding. Josh’s crew was dressed to the nines in their going-out apparel. Josh wore his swanky Tom Ford suit and fedora, all refined . . . toting a cooler of beer.
Natch.
The old dudes who made the picnic tables at Stone’s their permanent residence had been included, but they were too old school to touch a Hummer limo. They preferred to show up in a tricked-out Caddy Deville instead.
Brodie and Boomer met us at High Cotton, one of downtown Charleston’s upper-crust eateries, where I’d reserved a large private room. Food, booze, and broads were on the menu. I’d decided to play Josh’s stag night off the infamous Magic Mike noon/night at The Golden Banana in Atlanta. Talk about a boneheaded move.
In my favor, I’d set the bachelor party plans in motion before Cat told me about her past. At least I hadn’t booked her old stomping grounds. And I hoped none of her fellow former working girls were among the women hired to provide the night’s entertainment.
The Brothers Steele looked pretty low-key when they ambled into the restaurant, completing the pre-wedding party. They cut a swathe through the other guys with their big frames to exchange back slaps with Josh, who stood next to me.
“’S’up?” Brodie held out his fist to mine—no brass knuckles, just big chunky silver rings.
“You still treating our sis right?” Boomer grabbed my hand in a firm shake I returned while meeting his all-seeing big brother stare.
“Doing my best. Other than pissing her off about every three days just because it’s fun when she gets riled up, things are good. She’s a damn fine woman.”
Brodie smothered a chuckle. “So, you told her you knew she has all your books?”
“And I asked her if she wanted my autograph.”
Both of them rumbled with similar deep laughter. “You told him? So that’s why Cat almost keyed your bike, bro. Nice one.” Boomer gave an appraising look to his brother.
“She’s a firecracker, I’ll grant you that.” My life pre-Cat looked like a boring series of same-old, same-old days. I squinted at Brodie and Boomer. “She’s special. I’ll take care of her. You got my word on it.”
“Good. That way we won’t have to kill you.” Boomer ended his unveiled threat with a scary serial-killer smile and a resounding knuckle-crack.
My death by B & B off the table, at least temporarily, I felt a knot of tension release from my spine.
The party got started after that. The food was top notch. The room had been kitted out in comfy two- and three-seat sofas around low tables. Alcohol flowed anyway we wanted it, which was usually more.
The food had barely been cleared away when the lights dimmed, and Josh stared at me with a wide-eyed look of oh no you didn’t.
I sent a smug grin in return. Oh yes I did.
Unmistakable Vaudeville-style stripper music started up and out walked the women. They were almost modestly covered in a matched-set of burlesque stage show outfits, minus the fact a lot of boob looked about to bust out of corsets. It was tastefully done, if I did say so myself, and the older gents were really getting into it.
Once the women arranged themselves to the tune of “Patricia the Stripper” in a series of hot femme-femme tableaux around the room, the beat kicked up and became a hell of a lot raunchier and . . . holy shee-it.
Off came the burlesque costumes. Underneath were a whole lot of shiny almost-nothing thongs, bras, and thigh high hosiery finished up with heels that looked like nine-inch spiked plinths.
Josh punched my arm, but he still grinned. His grin grew wider when Ray and the boys unleashed a round of wolf whistles louder than anything they’d ever let loose at the garage.
I rubbed my eyes and groaned behind my hands as the grinding and the tit swaying and the leg lifting began. Instead of the construction worker, fireman, policeman combo we’d been subjected to during the Magic Mike spin-off, we were treated to a black Lycra-clad catwoman who could apparently lick her own boobs. Imagine that. And her opposite, who was maybe supposed to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel, but she wasn’t holding back any secrets as she went bare-breasted while she swashed tits with another dancer. Then there was the nurse who demonstrated her bedside manner by means of sucking an oversized thermometer in and out of her pink-pursed lips before drifting it between the mounds of cleavage revealed by her unbuttoned—and possibly illegal—uniform.
“Baby, I got a thermometer to put in your mouth.” Mick winked at the woman and prepared to get saddled up for a lap dance
.
Cupping one hand in front of his crotch and holding the other up in defense as Catwoman approached, Josh gulped.
“Aren’t you the stud about to get married?” she purred as she leaned over him.
“Yeah, but I’m not about to go there. Leelee would castrate me then feed my tackle to her fuckin’ cat.” His cheeks flamed bright.
One black lacquered nail trailed down his thigh. “If you say so, hon.”
The pussycat left our immediate area with flash of white teeth and gleaming red lips.
Gerald invited two of the naughty hotties onto his knees—the VS angel and her red devilish counterpart. Ray made sign of the cross and gave some excuse about his missus cutting off his gonads if any of them touched him. One of the old dudes, Jasper, grinned like he’d just won the lottery when a pretty little pinup in hot shorts and a pushup clasped his neck and drew him close enough to count the freckles on her powder-puffed chest.
So maybe the night wasn’t a bust after all. Until I looked at the two men who already said they didn’t need much of an excuse to murder me. Boomer and Brodie didn’t have an inkling I knew about Cat’s dancing, as far as I was aware. However, the Steele brothers’ low-key ramped up several notches to not-fucking-happy-at-all and all that pissed off attitude was aimed at me. They literally glared daggers at me. Fuck, they probably carried those big hunting knives like the dudes from Sons of Anarchy, too. I felt like I had Dead Meat tattooed on my forehead.
I deflected their glares by turning to Javier. He was going batshit on the other side of Josh, who still cupped his manhood.
“Madre Dios! I come for a night of drinking with mis amigos and have to sit here in front of the tatas and the pussay. Is it too much to ask for a little uh-uh cock, I ask you?” He jumped up to demonstrate what uh-uh meant with two thrusts of his crotch . . . while he cupped his manhood.
He continued his fired-up rant, pulling out his phone and mouthing dirty Spanish curse words as he texted Tate.
Josh chuckled beside me.
Those amused chuckles petered out when Danzig’s “She Rides” started up. Aw shit. This song reminded me of Cat. She was the only one I wanted, not some tawdry imitation, no matter how nice—and Tantric yoga-style flexible—the ladies were.