by Holley Trent
“Which are?”
He cut his eyes toward the blushing blonde and gave her his Nuh-uh smile.
She got the hint, and put her hands up in a conciliatory gesture.
If she’d asked a specific question, he might have answered, but he didn’t like being the quarry in a fishing expedition.
“Well, what about your dad?”
That he could answer. “We try to keep Dad out of most of our little squabbles. Besides, he’s rarely home. She takes the lady of the house thing far too seriously in my opinion.”
“Sounds like there’s lots of love between the two of you.”
He shrugged. “Plenty of love lost, truth be told. Whenever I fuck up spectacularly, she’s quick to tell people I was adopted.”
Her jaw dropped, and this time instead of her cheeks coloring, they paled.
He grinned. He liked seeing her speechless, and briefly he considered a couple of other ways to knock the words out of her mouth. Then he remembered how damned young she was. Not jailbait by any stretch, but inexperienced in life. She needed a bit of growing up. A reality check at the very least.
“Don’t pity me,” he said. “I wasn’t some lost kid that got taken in by a rich guy and his barren wife. Well, not exactly. My Dad is my actual biological father.”
“And your real mother?”
He put his empty beer bottle on the nightstand and sat up a bit against his pillow. “Don’t know. That’s why I’m so damned good at tracking people down. Just ask Nikki. I’ve had a lot of practice at it. All I know, or rather, all my parents have told me, was that I was born in Belgium when my father was working overseas, my birthmother disappeared, and my father brought me to the US. Sounds shady as shit to me, but hey—people keep secrets all the time. I suspect my mother was a whore and my father won’t admit it.”
There went that look of shock again. Now he laughed outright, and put his legs over the side of the bed to stand. “I’m fucking with you, Trinity. Really, though, I think I’ve worked out who my mother might be, but I haven’t had enough evidence to confirm my guess. Besides, I’m not sure she’d be interested in hearing from me after all this time.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she be? I would want to know if a child I gave up was thriving.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Time for a subject change. His parentage was too personal a thing to be discussing with a mere coworker, especially one that frequently seemed hell-bent on his demise. He bobbed his head toward the discarded pile of MLS reports. “What’d you think of the listings?”
She exhaled, probably glad to be let off the hook, and turned to wake the monitor up. She scrolled through the listings then shrugged. “I dunno. They’re cute, I guess. Not really something I’d see a bachelor living in. Why don’t you get an apartment?”
“Aw.” He resisted the urge to ruffle her hair. She was like a friend’s kid sister, often annoying, but smart, cute, and fun to tease. “I agree with you. Well, on the bachelor part. Not so much the apartment one. I want the space and the land, but I haven’t found too many floor plans that’ll accommodate what I need.”
“Well, what do you need?” Now she looked genuinely curious, and he liked this Trinity—this “Ask, not assume” Trinity.
“Something a bit more fluid, I guess. I don’t like having a builder prescribe to me what a room should be used for. I don’t necessarily need a dining room at this stage in my life, but that doesn’t mean when I’m forty my wife won’t want one.”
“I didn’t think you were the marriage type.”
“Sure I am. I have nothing at all against the institution, I just…” Why am I having this conversation?
“You just what?”
“I only want to do it once, you know?”
A slow, sly grin spanned her face.
“What’s that look for?”
“Nothing. So, if none of these houses work, what’s your back-up plan?”
“Smart girl. May I?” He pointed to the computer.
“Sure.” She put her hands on the armrests to stand, but gently, he pressed her back down by the shoulders. He leaned over the back of the chair, draping his arms across her shoulders to access the keyboard.
Her delicate breaths tickled the fine hairs on his arm when she turned her head a bit to the right to assess the intrusion into her personal space. Her cheek skimmed his forearm, imparting warmth, then a tickle when she whipped her head forward once more.
So tentative. She behaved as if a man had never touched her.
Maybe she hasn’t been. That would explain a lot.
He filed her reaction away to the back of his mind, and navigated to the tax assessor’s record for the distressed property he’d discussed with Lynn. “What do you think?” His face was just behind Trinity’s head, his lips near her right ear.
“Um.”
He would swear he felt her face heating.
“It’s…a dump.”
“At least you’re honest.” He laughed and stood erect, moving away from the back of the desk chair. He walked over to his bookcase and idly straightened the oversized atlases that were falling over. “And you’re probably right,” he said when he turned around. “Haven’t seen the inside. The house being habitable would be a bonus, but I’m really more interested in the land.”
“Why? Gonna take up farming?” She closed the tab and cued the live video feed back up.
“Funny. No. It doesn’t have a lot of trees on it, so the rooms would get great light. It’s flat terrain, lots of it. Not too prone to flooding, either. So, even if I decided to build something from scratch, I wouldn’t have to do too much rehab of the land itself.”
“You’d actually build a house? Just for you?”
“Yeah. Just like how I said I only want to do the marriage thing once? Well, once I move, I ain’t moving again, hon. Huge pain in the ass, so I want this house to be absolutely right.”
“Oh.”
“Hopefully nobody tries to bid me up too high. The auction is Tuesday when we’re supposed to be doing the nail polish shoots. I’m leaving my real estate agent in charge, so hopefully she can swing it.”
“Trust her?”
“Barely,” he said, giving her a real smile for a change, because she seemed genuinely interested. She was actually asking questions and not trying to divert him. “She’s an idiot in most things, but she knows real estate. Hopefully things will shake out the way they should.”
“Good luck.”
He studied Trinity’s face for evidence of sarcasm to go with those words, but there was none there. Her expression was relaxed. Tired, even.
No, she wasn’t cute. She was pretty when she didn’t have that jaw clenched and those big brown eyes narrowed into slits at him.
“Thanks.” He strode to the doorway, thinking he’d have that last slice of pizza he’d told Juan didn’t exist and paused there at the threshold. “Say, you know we can hook the laptop up to the television if you really want to watch. Might be more comfortable.”
She was very still for a long moment, staring at him, then nodded, finally. “Yeah. Okay. You’re probably right. Any pizza left? I’m actually starving.”
Damn it.
With Trinity snuggled up into his recliner with the last slice of pizza, he attached all the necessary cords and pushed all the right buttons to make the picture from his laptop show up on the big screen.
Yep. Still nothing going on at the barn.
“You going to hang out for a while?” he asked. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go collapse onto an old mattress and count cyborg sheep.”
“Yeah, just a little while. I know something’s going to happen. Feel it in my gut.”
“Suit yourself. Wake me up if anything good happens.”
“Sure.”
He had one foot inside his bedroom when she called him back. “Hey, Jerry?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you show me how to work this recliner?” She fiddled with the handle on the side and p
ut her hands up in a shrug. “I can’t get it to pop.”
“Oh, it’s temperamental. You’ve got to shimmy while you pull. Let me show you.” He motioned for her to move, and she slipped off the end, finishing the crust of her pizza and wiping her hands clean on her shorts.
He lowered himself into the warm space she’d occupied, and gave the handle a good yank while forcing the seat back toward the floor. Nearly horizontal, he said, “See?”
“I think I can do that.”
He eased the recliner into its upright position. “You try.” Standing, he held an arm toward the seat, which she sank into once again.
She pulled at the handle, pushed her spine against the backrest, and groaned with effort. She shrugged at her failure. “Nope.”
“Maybe you don’t weigh enough. Come here.”
She popped up once more, and Jerry once again demonstrated the workings of the recliner. As soon as the back popped and he was nearly flat, she climbed up onto his lap, straddled his waist with her knees, and locked her lips onto his while he was still too stunned to react.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Trinity, what are…”
“Shh!”
She needed to concentrate. To do it right. She had to spend an equal amount of time on everything above the shoulders that needed attention.
She’d started with his lips, and he’d been understandably confused, but hadn’t pushed her off, thank God.
His lips were soft and salty, and when he parted them to let her in, his tongue was strong against hers, pushing hers aside so he could show her what a real kiss was.
He’d closed his eyes, so she’d done the same. His tongue teased her lips and his teeth nipped her lips.
The sensation was overwhelming, almost like a drowning, stupefying her to the point she barely remembered to draw in breaths.
His thumbs stroked her cheeks gently as he sipped her lips, even as she insinuated her body even closer to his.
She put her head back, inviting him to kiss her neck, and he did, and it unleashed some sort of mania in her that begged for more. More touch, more kisses, more everything. More Jerry.
“God,” he whispered into the crook of her neck as his hands slipped down her back toward her waistband.
Something in her subconscious mind jolted her awareness up to the surface, and she took note of a very distinct swell against the front of her shorts. She backed away from his lips, begrudgingly, and looked down.
Her expression must have been quite telling, because his deep voice warned, “That’s the way it works. Take it as a compliment.”
She nodded, still staring, although what she really wanted to do was get off his lap immediately and find a barrel of ice water to jump into.
She was on Jerry Rouse’s lap for the second time in her life, and this time she was sober and happy to be there, but feeling like a slut for being happy.
Was that the feminist thing now? Or would a feminist wrap her legs around the man’s waist and grind him into next week?
Whatever. The feminists didn’t need to know.
She lifted his T-shirt’s hem and forced it up to his nipples, only to pause to inspect the art on his chest.
His expression was smug when she finally met his gaze.
“Does my ink bother you?”
She swallowed. “She’s naked. They’re all naked.”
“Only from the waist up. Mermaids, you know?”
“Fan of huge tits?” She crossed her arms over her small ones indignantly.
He shrugged.
“You know, you’re going to grow old and die with that tattoo. What are your kids going to think?”
He shrugged again. “There’s a such thing as shirts, pixie. I have a bunch of them. People in this society like it when you wear them in public.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She didn’t like being made fun of. Then again, she didn’t much like feeling like a tart, either. What had gotten into her? All she knew was that they were alone, there were no witnesses, and he wouldn’t likely kiss and tell.
Climbing onto his lap had been an impulse she couldn’t suppress, and kissing him had been a dare to herself. This was what modern women did, right? They made the first move if they wanted to have sex, didn’t they? And God, she did. Now she was being scorned for it? Dreadlocked jerk.
“Are we going to play fair here, or am I the only one getting naked?” He pulled his shirt the rest of the way over his head, and leaned back in a very relaxed posture, completely unabashed about his arousal.
Her fingers trailed over the washboard abs mottled with little mermaid tarts, and up to the pink nipples that begged to be pinched. So, she did, and drew her hands back as if they’d been burned.
Jesus, Trinity, what’s wrong with you?
“Um…”
“Do you want me to help?” Now his fingertips trailed lightly along the line of her jaw, and that gentle touch conveyed affection she couldn’t possibly hope for.
Her nipples hardened into tight, aching nubs inside her bra, sending jolts down her spine with each shift of her shirt. She swallowed. Nodded.
“I want to see you.” He fingered the top button of her short-sleeved blouse, and worked them deftly through their holes without even looking. His gaze remained locked on hers until he reached the very last mother-of-pearl fastener, then he pressed his palms flat against her belly and encircled her waist. “Pretty.”
What am I doing? Am I really doing this? Seducing Jerry? Or is it the other way around?
She shimmied the shirt off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
Now she was in her bra—the plaid, padded one she’d bought from the junior’s department.
What am I doing?
His fingers grazed slowly up her spine, both tickling her and sending a jolt straight down into the matching panties he couldn’t see. His eye contact was intense, and she wanted to look away, but something kept her gaze locked there as his fingers worked the clasp of her bra and freed her breasts. Bra shed, she instinctively slapped her arms over her chest.
“Stop hiding from me, pixie.” Something in his voice indicated he didn’t just mean her chest.
He put his hand behind her neck and pulled her down, pressing her mouth against his and pulling at her lips, flitting his tongue into her mouth with practiced control.
Things down below ached for attention as she imagined him doing the same thing to her most private place. Eyes closed, she moaned when he pulled away from her mouth and kissed the sensitive skin of her neck.
He eased his back against the recliner, and studied her. This time, she pressed her arms against her sides and looked away.
His gaze on her skin seemed nearly as sensual as his fleeting caresses, and some of her arousal gave way to feelings of utter inadequacy.
She’d never model anyone’s bikini. She didn’t have enough of the right parts. Sure, she had a big brain, but you couldn’t show those off in tiny bathing suits.
She expected him to say something, to mock her—criticize her, and girded herself for it.
That never came. Instead, a warm flick from his tongue on her areola, then the slight scrape of teeth as he pulled her breast into his mouth.
My god.
Eyes closed, she put her head back as his fingers raked through her short hair.
His laving of her nipple ceased only for him to drag his tongue across the valley between her breasts and find the other.
Impulsively, she ground her crotch against his front, hoping to satiate her throbbing clit, and his fingers sought purchase at her waist.
He pulled her up his body, positioned her over his covered erection, and rolled his hips in a way that made her gasp.
And just like that, he stopped suddenly, and leaned her to the side.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, covering herself with her arms again.
When he didn’t comment on her hiding, she turned slowly. Her eyes sought the thing that had stolen his attention. When she found
it, she growled.
On the television, a heavyset man in dark clothes struggled up a dangling rope ladder.
They stared at the screen unmoving for a moment, and snapped out of it when the barn lights were thrown and Charlie appeared on screen mouthing, “Fuck!”
They would have heard it if it weren’t for the fact the television was on mute.
She scrambled off Jerry’s lap, and cursed herself for the distraction. Just her fucking luck. The first and only time she allowed herself a small amount of affection from a man, and work got in the way.
At least she had an alibi this time, even if it were an embarrassing one.
He adjusted the crotch of his shorts, which had gone dark and moist from his arousal, and her face burned so hot her ears popped.
She looked away as he popped the recliner back up and hurried to his phone.
Her shirt was buttoned by the time he got someone on the other end.
“Yeah, I caught the end of it. Volume was off so I didn’t hear the alert. I’m sorry.”
Nikki must have been going off on her end because Jerry’s face drained of color. “No, we’ll run the cords from the satellite dish through another way. We don’t have to use that hatch. Yeah, I’ll get on it in the morning. I’ll come in early.”
He ended the call and gave Trinity an assessing look. “Well, pixie.”
“Well,” she said back after swallowing hard.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nikki hadn’t wanted to call the police, because they would have wanted to dust for prints and get in the way of production. The little dragon wasn’t having that.
The photo shoot for the tinted moisturizers was going on as scheduled, Beth and Gretchen were due in at any minute for make-up and wardrobe, and the pre-paid photographer was already on the road.
The staff cleaned up the mess of the previous night’s break-in the best they could, being especially careful around the depilatory cream one of the idiots had smeared all over Trinity’s workbench, while Jerry and Charlie reconfigured the networking wiring and nailed the ventilation hatch on the roof closed.