No Excuses

by Nikky Kaye

  Dom looked away uncomfortably. “Okay, fair enough. Shit, I don’t know.”

  “What would you have done, in my place?”

  Silence. Right, I thought so.

  “I gotta ask you, Jake. Do you still want Evie?”

  “No! I mean, she’s beautiful and sexy and everything, but I’m not in love with her.” Hadn’t I said something like this to Annie? “I never was.”

  I met Dom’s assessing gaze, wanting him to understand that I wasn’t a threat to him or his relationship. I saw Evie as a sister. Okay, yes, a sister that I’d double-teamed with him at one point, but… She was just… Evie—soft, sassy, real.

  In retrospect, I’d barely noticed her after seeing Annie’s flushed face and pebbled nipples the night before.

  All I saw was Annie.

  All I wanted was Annie—the woman who didn’t give a damn about my money or medals. The one who had no regard for her own personal safety, but looked at my little girl like she was made out of crystal.

  “Okay, smart guy. What do I do now?” I asked him.

  “Hang out, if you want. I think Evie’s going shopping or something. Then take Stella and pick up Annie after the lunch service is done,” he said, reminding me that there was no dinner at her restaurant on Sundays.

  “I meant in a bigger picture kind of way.”

  Dom considered it. “Talk to her.”

  And say what?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ANNIE

  I almost didn’t expect Jake to come pick me up from work. When he did, I didn’t know what to say to him. Luckily, I didn’t have to say anything, as my manager John pulled him aside to talk about… something.

  Whatever. I grabbed my stuff and said goodbye to the kitchen staff, who were still scrubbing things down. The dishwasher was broken, which left Darren steaming open his pores over a full sink of hot water. I felt bad for the guy.

  “Do you want me to help?”

  He shook his head, his face red. “I’ll get the boss to pitch in.”

  I snorted. “Good luck with that.” John was notoriously prissy. Then again, he might help out just to make sure it was done properly—not that Darren was a slacker. But there were a lot of brunch dishes there.

  “Wow!” Stella had broken free of her father’s gravity and wandered into the kitchen. “Can I have a peanut butter sammich?”

  Everyone froze, unaccustomed to seeing a little kid in a commercial kitchen.

  “I’ll make you one at home,” I told her, scooping her up. “Say goodbye, Stella!”

  “G’bye, Stella!”

  “Sheesh.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you practice being cute?”

  She squirmed out of my arms and ran out into the front. The staff got back to work with fresh smiles on their faces. That kid was better than Prozac, sometimes. By the time I caught up with Stella, John was going through credit card receipts and Jake was waiting at the door.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded.

  The walk back to Jake’s apartment was quiet, except for Stella’s shrieks as she swung like a monkey from his tattooed, muscled arm.

  “Again!”

  Yeah, kid. Again. I envied her ability to hang on to Jake without a care, trusting that he would catch her if she fell. I’d never known a man like that. I certainly hadn’t had a Daddy like that.

  As a teenager, I spent some time trying not to get caught by my mother’s asshole boyfriends. They seemed to think that jailbait was fair game if my mom was asleep. I got out of there as soon as I could, but my grades weren’t good enough to get me very far.

  Waitressing wasn’t my dream job but it wasn’t a nightmare, either. It was honest work and decent money, and until recently I’d been satisfied with it. Now I was almost thirty, and realizing that I’d been in my “temporary” job for nearly twelve years.

  Shit.

  It made me feel even worse for getting so comfortable at Jake’s. I was a strong, independent, ninja woman! Okay, maybe not so much the ninja part.

  I frowned and sighed. “You know…”

  Jake nearly tripped when he heard me speak, swearing as he stumbled over Stella.

  “Daaa-ddy!” Stella picked herself up from the sidewalk and gave us both a baleful look.

  “Sorry, honey.”

  She stepped between us and took our hands. “Swing me!” she demanded in restitution.

  Jake grinned at me over her head. Was that relief? Gratitude that I’d broken the awkward silence? Usually his smile did weird, wonderful things to my insides, but this one felt like I’d gorged on hot chocolate instead of tequila.

  It took us a couple of tries to coordinate our arms, but soon Stella was swooping up and down like a tote bag on a really successful shopping trip.

  “I know what?” Jake asked.

  “What do you know?”

  “You started to say something. ‘You know…’”

  I blinked. “Oh, yeah. My, uh, secret admirer seems to have given up. No notes, no presents, nothing.”

  He stopped, breaking his daughter’s grip on him. “So you think he’s forgotten about you? Stella, stop whining.”

  “I just think maybe I could go back to my own apartment.”

  Try to live my own life again. Get back to the place where I wasn’t depending on other people to keep me safe and happy. Maybe I wouldn’t have as much, but I wouldn’t lose as much, either.

  Stella tugged on my hand, trying to wrestle a swing out of me from sheer momentum. “Let’s go!”

  “Just a minute, starlight. We’re almost home, anyhow.” I looked at the sidewalk. “I mean—I’m sure you’re wasting money on me…”

  Jake stepped toward me, taking my other hand. The three of us stood in a circle, Stella yanking on us both and our free hands in each other’s. We looked ready to have a séance, summoning spirits from beyond the grave.

  He leaned in close, his voice harsh in my ear. “I don’t know what’s worse—the way you undervalue yourself, or the way you underestimate other people.”

  A hole opened up in my chest. “Like you?”

  “Like me.” His hand squeezed mine, completely surrounding it with warmth and strength. His daughter was still holding my other hand like I was a puppy on a leash. “And like him. You don’t know what’s capable of. You don’t even know who he is, remember? Maybe he’s just lulled you into a… what’s the—?”

  “False sense of complacency,” I finished. Yeah, I was familiar with the concept. It seemed to be the story of my life. “I’m a big girl, Jake. I know how to dial nine-one-one, all by myself.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Okay, smart ass. Prove it.”

  Then he said nothing more while we walked the last block to his apartment.

  Prove it? I didn’t understand. “What, you want me to show you my phone or something?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. Once in the lobby, he gave Stella his phone to play on and told her to go sit on one of the couches. I watched, confused, as he then spoke quietly to the security guard.

  “Aren’t we going upstairs?”

  “Not yet.” He unbuckled his belt as he stalked toward me, whipping it out of the loops on his pants with a swish. “Turn around.”

  “What?” Was he going to take his clothes off in the lobby?

  Impatiently, he spun me around and pulled my hands back. My shoulder blades squeezed together. “Ow!”

  “Sorry.” He landed a soft, slow kiss on the nape of my neck. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Each apology came with the press of his lips, the tip of his tongue, the heat of his breath. It all rendered me to a liquid form, relaxing me into that sweet, mellow complacency we talked about.

  Until he wrapped his belt around my crossed wrists.

  What the—?

  The leather squeaked a little as he pulled my makeshift binding as tight as possible. My gaze flew to the guard, who was looking down at his phone. Even Stella was immersed in Jake’s phone.

  “Jake, I don’t think—”

  H
e stepped in front of me to silence my protest with his mouth.

  Damn, he was too good at that.

  Then he fished my phone out of my pocket and placed it in the pot of one of the artificial ficus trees dotting the lobby, before flopping down on the couch beside Stella.

  “Now, call.” He raised his arms to lace his fingers behind his head. Smug.

  My mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Come on, Annie. This should be easy. Your legs are free, you’re not shot up with sedatives or heroin, you know where you are, and you can identify your assailant. You have lots of information to give the dispatcher. This is really the best case scenario.”

  I shook my head. “You’re crazy.”

  Ring ring? Yes, operator, I’m being held hostage by my boyfriend while his daughter plays Angry Birds. What’s he doing, you ask? Teaching basic physics, it seems. And smirking.

  There were times that Jacob Stone’s smirk was kryptonite for my panties. This was not one of those times. Fine. I could do this.

  “Okay, fine.”

  “I could have tied you to a chair,” he reminded me as I walked over to the potted plant. “Or hog-tied you.”

  I stared at him. “Uh, thanks?”

  His eyes twinkling with mischief, he mouthed “sexy” at me.

  Okay, I just had to get the phone out of the pot. No problem. But my hands were behind me, so I turned my back on the ficus and tried to squat and lean backward at the same time. My fingertips brushed against the leaves. I lowered further, like I was doing a limbo game at a party.

  And lost my balance.

  I pulled against the belt handcuffs with the compulsion to windmill my arms out, my shoulders feeling the tension. In my effort not to plant my ass in the pot along with the ficus, I overcompensated and fell forward.

  My knees slammed into the floor.

  My face followed.

  “Shit!” Jake swore as he launched himself off the couch and to the floor beside me. “Are you okay?”

  Pain stabbed my legs, and my neck ached from the effort of avoiding full facial contact with the floor. I turned my head to the side and rested it on the cold tile.

  “Yeah, I’m great. My boobs broke my fall.” Barely.

  He bit back a chuckle. “Are they okay?”

  “Don’t you dare feel me up for broken bones right now, Stone.” Wriggling like a fish out of water, I tried to get back on my knees. Bad idea. “Motherfu—!”

  Jake’s hand slapped over my mouth and he jerked his head toward Stella. When he removed it, I glared at him.

  “I don’t see you putting any money in the swear jar, mister.”

  He shrugged. “I’m her father. She’s hard-wired to ignore me.”

  I managed to roll onto my side, dust coating my black shirt and pants. “You gonna untie me, here?”

  “Nope. You still haven’t called for help.”

  “Help! Help!”

  The security guard was useless, instead shepherding people around us between the street and the elevators. The rubberneckers probably thought we were doing some weird improv thing, or shooting a video.

  “With your phone, ninja girl.” Jake sighed as I bent my knees and started spinning in a circle on the floor, trying to get a foot underneath myself. “Okay, hang on.”

  I’d just managed to get myself to an almost sitting position, my legs bent to the left behind me, when he put my phone on the floor in front of me.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Go ahead,” he said, settling back down on the couch six feet away. “Call nine-one-one.”

  What followed was possibly the most awkward, humiliating, futile experience of my entire life—and I’m including losing my virginity to the Mathletes captain in my senior year.

  It would have helped to see the buttons on the face of my smartphone when entering my passcode.

  Bzzz.

  Bzzz.

  Bzzz.

  I was at serious risk of disabling the damn thing. With a huff, I wriggled around on my ass to face the phone. It sat there on the floor, taunting me.

  Jake sat on the couch, taunting me.

  Stella snuggled under his arm, engrossed in pigs taunting birds. Birds… that gave me an idea.

  With as much control as I could muster—and that wasn’t a whole lot—I bent at the waist like a lever. My face was so close to the phone that my breath fogged up the screen.

  Yes!

  No.

  No, it turned out that one’s nose did not equal a thumbprint ID. Nor was it that great for the passcode. Damn you, Apple! Why did you have to go to six digits?

  “Miss Annie?”

  My chin jerked up at Stella’s little voice. My ponytail was falling out, my hair a wispy cloud around my face that I had to blow away in order to see the frown on her face.

  “What are you doing?”

  Good question. Leave it to a three year-old to point out the absurdity in my current situation. I was sitting on the floor in the lobby of a ritzy condo building, looking like a cat burglar that had just been caught in a citizen’s arrest.

  My whole body caved in. “Okay, Jake. You win.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ANNIE

  Jake waited until Stella was tucked away in her princess bed and I was in the shower before he ambushed me.

  “So, about that thing yesterday…”

  His voice startled me as much as his presence—hot, hard and naked behind me. When I jerked my head back in surprise, I knocked his chin. He swore, his hands flying to my upper arms.

  “Did you do that on purpose, ninja girl?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  He turned me around slowly, pulling me out of the water enough to face me directly without the spray between us. “To get me back for earlier?”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific.” Did he mean in the lobby? Did he mean the aborted threesome the night before? The dinosaur chicken nuggets he overcooked for dinner?

  He tilted my chin up to look me in the eye. I didn’t even have the excuse of the water in my face to avoid him.

  “Last night, with Ev—last night. I owe you an apology.” Shame clouded his eyes, along with the steam.

  “For?”

  His hands and gaze moved over my body, like he was looking for something. Or memorizing me? “For being so rough. For confusing you.”

  My mouth went dry, despite the moisture around us. “What are you saying?” That he regretted it? My stomach flipped at the possibility. The dino-dinner didn’t help.

  “I acted like a fucking caveman.”

  “I didn’t mind,” I said. And I hadn’t.

  It was unbearably hot, the way he just… took me. Maybe, if he’d been someone else, I would have felt powerless. The fact that I felt so safe with Jake, though, made his aggression less frightening. The only part that I’d struggled with was my jealousy, and the fear that he also wanted—

  “Evie…” I mumbled.

  Jake grunted, closing in on me until we were skin to skin. His half-hard cock nudged my hip, his hands heavy on my shoulders.

  “Annie. Annie, honey, look at me.”

  I took in the hard planes of his stomach and the muscles in his chest. A scar here and there. The change in skin tone on his upper arms, like a permanent farmer’s tan.

  Focusing on Jake Stone’s body wasn’t a hard thing to do. It was a privilege, like admiring an ancient sculpture.

  Meeting his gaze directly again was more difficult, but I did it—even if I blinked like the loser of a staring contest.

  He sighed. “Good girl. Keep looking at me, okay? I need you to hear this, and I get the feeling that your heart is deaf or something when you’re not looking in my eyes.”

  Oh. How was it possible to shiver while standing under hot water?

  There was so much truth in the lines around his eyes and mouth, in the frown on his forehead… that I couldn’t move if I tried. My chest was tight, but he held me tighter.

  “Are
you listening to me, ninja girl?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t want Evie. Evie is a…” He broke off, rolling his eyes to the ceiling like there might be answers up there. “Great woman. She’s a great woman,” he repeated, pinning me again with his stare. “But she’s Dom’s woman. He’s going to marry her. End of story.”

  “But—”

  “She could take off her clothes and jump on my dick and I would look her in the eye and tell her to get the fuck off.”

  Yeah, right. “But—”

  His thumb pressed over my lips. “No buts. Maybe you heard what you wanted to hear, or I didn’t say it right. But last night I wanted—I want you. You’ve had my eyes crossed since you attacked me outside your building.”

  “That might have been my fist in your windpipe. Maybe I gave you some brain damage.” It would explain a lot.

  “You’re a riot. No, I let my dick do all the thinking last night.”

  Reflexively, I glanced down at his big, fat… brain.

  Jake wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close—too close to look down between us. I could only feel him throbbing against me as my hands came up to rest against his chest.

  “Annie.”

  Right. Eye contact. My breath hitched in my throat at the fierce expression on his face. The shower spray beat down on my neck. Needles of heat tattooed my spine, until the water flowed over his hands at the curve of my back.

  “The last woman I trusted gave me a daughter, and it didn’t work out.” He exhaled, pressing his forehead to mine. “Now, leaving aside the questionable intelligence of my dick… I want to trust you. Will you give me something in return?”

  I gulped. “If you say you want a son…”

  His head rose, a blinding grin cracking his serious expression. “No, honey. I want you to trust me. To give me a chance.”

  “A chance,” I echoed.

  “Stop holding the past against me. Stop running away from me. Stop fucking fighting me on everything.”

  I searched his face. All I saw was honesty. If I didn’t give Jake Stone the chance he wanted, he might just take it anyhow. But after all this time—this intense, push-pull, instant family, in each other’s faces time—he’d earned that chance.