by Angel Payne
“You okay?” I murmured into her hair. When she nodded, I fought the urge to turn her over my knee and swat her for lying. Right now, that would accomplish nothing. Stability. Safe bet. Long haul.
So instead, I pulled back far enough to push the hair from her eyes, making her look at me. And see me.
“What can I do for you, love?”
“Stop calling me that, for starters.”
“Tell me and it’s yours,” I persisted, barely skipping a beat. “Why don’t you come back to my place? Well, what’s sufficing for it right now. I’ll give you a hot bath. It’s a Roman tub. That gatehouse is like the Four Seasons.”
“I know.” She sounded as if I’d just confirmed bears shit in the woods.
“So throw together a bag. Put some work clothes in too. I can take you to the office in the morning, and then on your lunch—”
“Stop.” She pushed a hand over my mouth, just to make sure I got that one. “I don’t need anything, okay? Not from you. Not from anyone else, for that matter.” As she lowered her hand, she narrowed her glare. “Why are you even here? Didn’t you get my message?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then why—”
“Because I wanted to see you.” I reached in, twining my fingers with hers. “But more than that, I wanted to help you.”
“No.”
“Damn it, Taylor.”
“Don’t ‘damn it’ me.”
“Then don’t push me away.”
“I said I don’t need your damn help.”
“I know what you said.” For the love of fuck. Where I drew the patience of a saint to deal with this girl was beyond my understanding—but maybe those saints were on to something with the whole divine strength line and I’d never understood it before now. I’d stand here all night and let her tear me apart in twelve more ways, if that was what she really needed…
But I knew it wasn’t.
Now, she just needed to realize it too.
“Then why are you still standing there?” she snipped.
“Because I care about you. And whether you need me or not, I need to know you’re going to be okay. Don’t you get that?”
“No.” She yanked out of my arms, circling toward her Barbie doll-sized kitchen. “And stop with the caring shit too. And now you can see I’m fine, so we’re dandy, yeah?”
I gave in to a heavy sigh. This bullshit was in the express lane to nowhere. Maybe I needed to change tactics. “Have you eaten dinner?” I made it a demand. “Can I at least make you something?”
“Clowns don’t cook.” She turned around to challenge me.
“Of course they do. Where do you think all those cream pies come from?”
That scored me the smallest trace of a smile. Yesssss.
“Here’s an idea.” I approached her again, wrapping my arms around her. When she started to protest, I pressed an index finger on her lips. “Let me finish. You go shower, or take a bath, or whatever you do in there.” I thumbed over my shoulder toward her bedroom. “While you do that, I’ll make you something to eat.”
She closed her eyes. The fight drained out of her frame. I moved in, kissing her forehead, but refrained from whooping in any further victory. Without further argument or discussion, she trudged past me and across the living room, closing the bedroom door quietly behind her. I heard the water running soon after, so I set to work in the small kitchen. Her refrigerator was basically bare and the pantry wasn’t much better, but there was a plastic zip-top bag full of white powder. In hot-pink marker on the bag’s label, it read Pancake Mix. Okay, I could work with that.
Back to the refrigerator. Score. I found butter and syrup. A brief dig through her cabinets turned up a waffle iron. Yuri, my college roommate, and I had lived on waffles in college. We had at least thirty different ways to make them and often joked that if we didn’t get into med school, we’d open an all-waffle restaurant and make a killing. There was a package of sausage links in her freezer that looked like they had been in there a few months too long, but I defrosted them in the microwave and then tucked them under the broiler, hoping for the best.
I heard her getting out of the shower as I poured batter into the hot waffle iron and turned the sausages. I found clean, matched plates and silverware and set her little café table for two. All she had in her refrigerator were beer and water, so I made two cups of coffee in her Keurig and set those on the table with two glasses of water. By the time she came out of her room in a sexy black cotton robe, I was piling the third waffle onto the serving plate to bring to the table.
“Breakfast for dinner?” I winked. “I hear it’s the new rage…somewhere.”
“Oh, my God. Waffles.”
“Do you like them?”
“No. I love them.” She beelined for the table, betraying how hungry she truly was. “Shit. It smells delicious, Mac. You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
“It was no trouble at all. But do enjoy it now, because this is literally the one thing I know how to cook.” It gave me a strange amount of joy to see how excited she was about the food. The meal I’d prepared for her—with a hell of a lot of happiness.
She sat down on the chair, one leg tucked under her bottom, hair still wrapped up in a towel. Her gaze was more brilliant, her skin rosy and fresh once more. She smelled like Chanel Allure again.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes upon.
I served her a waffle and passed her the butter. “For your arteries, my lady.”
She looked up at me, mischief dancing anew in her incredible, saucer-wide eyes. She remembered that first altercation just as clearly as I did.
“Thank you, kind sir.”
“Do you want a separate plate for your sausage?” I had a small plate in my hand.
“What?” Her confused look was more adorable than her pissed look.
“Some people don’t like when the syrup gets on their sausage.”
“Clown.” She snorted. “I’m from Georgia. A little syrup on a piece of greasy pork just makes it that much better.”
“Point taken.” I put the plate back in the cupboard.
“You hang around with too many pansies,” she said around a mouthful of food.
I almost choked on the water I had just sipped. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m at the gym and the guys are benching over three hundred pounds.”
“Nobody really does that.”
“The hell they don’t.”
Her features crunched in. “That’s, like, three of me.”
I shrugged and dug into my own food. I didn’t really want to debate her weight because I had a hard time believing she came in close to a hundred pounds, but she’d had enough crap already today. And of course, I’d already learned the ins and outs of the word “like” in Cali-lingo. It was a power lifter in these parts, giving people a very generous margin around facts and figures.
“My God, these are delicious. How did you learn to cook?” She shoved another big forkful into her mouth.
“Clown school.”
She grinned over her next bite but didn’t say anything more. We finished our food in silence, and it was…nice. Damn nice. For a few quiet moments, we were just two people at the end of their work days, filling their bellies with comfort food.
I stood to clear the plates at the same time Taylor did.
“I’m cleaning up.” She smacked at my hand as I reached over for her plate. “It’s the least I can do since you cooked.”
“Uh-uh. You’ve had a rougher day than me.” I tossed over a mock scowl. “And haven’t you learned your lesson about hitting me?”
“Hmmm.” She glossed over my challenge. “Debatable about who had the worst day. Wasn’t today your first day at the hospital?”
“In clinic,” I clarified. “I’ve had a few meetings and surgical consults, but today was full of seeing actual patients.”
“First days always suck.”
“It was okay.” I
shrugged. “Certainly not my first rodeo. Same problems, different city. Please. Let me clean up. Go lie down, or sit down, or whatever. Relax.”
“Fine, fine.” With a cute little smile, she took her coffee off the table and went to the sofa in the living room. I made short work of cleanup since I’d started washing the dishes as we bantered and there weren’t any leftovers to store. After stowing the syrup and butter back in the fridge, I left the clean dishes to air dry in the dishrack on the counter. I was astonished her place didn’t even have a dishwasher but didn’t bring it up.
I flipped the light off in the kitchen and then stood in the doorway to the living room and watched the light from the TV flicker on Taylor’s pale skin. I was captivated—but there wasn’t much about her that didn’t mesmerize me. Even her feet were beautiful.
“I…uh…guess I’ll head out.” I kicked lightly at the floor, grimacing from the acid that sprang to my mouth in revolt at the words.
“Do you want to stay?” Her voice was quiet and sexy.
“Yes. More than anything. But I know you’ve had a shitty night, and I’m not sure it’s the best idea.”
“I’m positive it’s the worst idea. But I’m also positive I don’t want to be alone. Especially not right now.”
Damn. Her honesty, delivered on a serrated rasp, sliced through my heart like a hot knife. “Okay, love. I’ll stay—but can we sleep in your bed? That floor fucked up my back for days.”
“No. No bed. House rules.”
Christ. “All right. Do you have an air mattress?”
“Aren’t those for camping?”
“Okay, so I’m going to buy you one when I’m shopping for my new place. When I find a new place.”
“Do you plan on sleeping over here a lot? Kind of presumptuous, don’t you think? Especially from the clown that didn’t bother mentioning he was moving across the country to the town I live in.”
Ohhh, boy. So that was where we’d go with this—though I’d all but asked for it, insisting she rejuvenate with the shower, the food, and the caffeine. Now she was fired up and damn sexy, sitting on the edge of the sofa, spoiling for an argument. And if that was what she wanted…
“Because of exactly this,” I stated, making a twirling motion above my head to signify the all-encompassing shit storm about to crash down. “I was ready for a career move, Taylor—and one presented itself in this town. Go ahead and shoot me for it if you want, but I’m not fucking leaving. Guess what? I like it here. It has complicated roads and boba everything and real fucking palm trees. Right now, the city I ‘ruled,’ as you have said, sucks big frozen hairy monkey balls. If this is December, I can’t wait to see January and February. Must be really brutal.”
“Don’t get too brazen. It does rain in February.” She paused for a beat. “Sometimes.”
I burst out laughing. These thin-blooded beachcombers had no idea how good they had it—and I couldn’t wait to become one of them.
“Why the hell are you laughing?” She was getting more pissed by the minute.
I just shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. Seriously, sass, let’s just go to bed. I promise I’ll be a gentleman this time. I’ll even sleep above the covers. I just want to hold you. But I don’t want to have to see a chiropractor every time we spend the night together.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t spend the night together anymore.” She stood up, folding her arms as she straightened. “I told you, we aren’t sleeping in my bed together.”
Well…fuck.
“What is this really all about, baby? Will you just explain that to me, so I understand?”
“No. It’s my issue!” She was yelling now, but I didn’t try to stop her. “You don’t have to understand it!”
“Okay. Okay.” I raised my hands in front of me in supplication. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s been a bad night.” She dropped her head into her hands.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I walked toward her and reached out to stroke her shoulders with my hands. She jumped when I made contact. “Hey,” I whispered. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No, no. No one did anything to me. Maybe you should just go. This will never work between us. I’m so fucked up. Don’t you understand that? I’ll never be what you want me to be.”
“How do you know what I want? We barely have civilized conversation. All we do is bicker and exchange clever insults. You don’t know anything about me, and I know even less about you. And now, the minute I try to reach out to you, you want me to leave. Why not just give talking to me a try? Tell me what happened tonight.”
“You don’t want to hear all my shit, Mac.”
“How about I decide what I want to hear and don’t want to hear?”
I took her hands in mine. They were ice cold and trembling. I gazed into her eyes, brimming with so much fear and dread I just wanted to fold her into my arms and hold her for the rest of the night. I sat down on the sofa, deep into the corner of the old piece of shit, and tugged her into my lap. Her black robe was thick and cozy—there was no reason her skin should be as cold as it was.
“Do you want me to turn the heat up? Why are you so cold?”
“I think I’m just tired.”
“Is it because your hair is still wet?”
“It’s not wet. I just piled it up in the towel in the shower to keep it from getting wet.” She let the towel fall away, and her blonde hair tumbled loose. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly against me, trying to help her warm up.
“Do you want another cup of coffee? That might help.” I was trying every home remedy I could think of.
“No, I’ll be up all night.”
We were so close, almost nose-to-nose, and I could smell the maple syrup on her breath. I couldn’t resist kissing her sweet lips. Just one innocent kiss, nothing too passionate, although my dick didn’t take much to wake up and take notice of what was happening.
“I’m glad you came back to San Diego.” She said it so quietly, I almost asked her to repeat it so I could be sure. I knew if I did, though, the magic would be spoiled with some smartass remark.
“I think that was the reaction I hoped for more than the original one.” I said it just as quietly, hoping to give her the same shimmer of magic inside that she had just given me.
“Why did you cancel our dinner plans tonight?” I really wanted her to know she could confide in me, and I knew I was pushing her but figured she would feel better once she was able to get it off her chest.
“Janet. That’s my mom. She was picked up down by Thirty-Second Street today.”
I must have looked confused, because she elaborated.
“Thirty-Second Street is the navy base where a lot of the ships are docked. Apparently, she was soliciting. I assume for drug money. They’ve cracked down on that shit there big-time, so she should’ve known better. So, I had to go bail her out. Again.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Mac. Be serious.” She looked at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet.
“What do you mean, be serious? It sucks that you had to do that.”
“I’ve had to ‘do that’ so many times in my life that they know me by first name at the station on B Street. And the one in North County. And the one in South Bay. It stopped being humiliating when I was around…” She made a stage face like she was really thinking. “Eighteen. Now it just pisses me off, because every time I’ve saved just enough money to do something for myself, like, say—I don’t know—buy a fucking sofa I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have someone sleep over on, I have to spend the money on bailing my degenerate loser mother out of jail. So, if you want to talk about things that suck? Let’s talk about that.”
“Taylor, I’d be happy to—”
She turned in my lap to face me so fast her robe bunched around her waist in her fury. “So help me, if you say you’ll buy me a motherfucking sofa or anything even close to it, Mac Stone, I will castrate you and feed your balls
to you one at a time, coated with maple syrup and butter. Then I’ll make you write a five-star review in the fucking Union Tribune about the meal, like it was the best fucking thing you’ve ever eaten. Okay?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Okay.”
I stared blankly, afraid to so much as breathe. “Well, no sofa, then. Got it. I have to say, I’m not really sure why I have an erection after you threatened to cut my balls off, but I do. It may have everything to do with your current wardrobe malfunction.” We both looked down at her exposed pussy and then back up into each other’s eyes. “But I don’t want to make light of the conversation we’re having.” I tried to pull her robe back together, and she slapped my hands away.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she barked.
I pointedly pulled her robe closed anyway. “Hey, sassy girl. I’m trying to save you from me coming on to you during your time of need here. Help a guy out. And bring the attitude down a peg. I know it was a tough night, but I’m on your side, okay?”
She shocked the hell out of me by wrapping her arms around my neck and straddling my lap, robe opening completely now. Her mouth was on mine as I finished my diatribe, consuming, kissing, tongue thrusting, probing, pushing its way inside my mouth. I wouldn’t have denied her in any circumstance. Ever. I spread my hands across her waist, easily covering the distance with my two palms.
“You’re so tiny but so mighty. A warrior. You amaze me.” I breathed my praise between her kisses.
“Stop.” Gasp. “Talking.”
“No. You should hear positive things about yourself, Taylor.” I tried to hold her a few inches away.
“Dude.” She leaned back on her own now. “I know I’m a badass. I would’ve never survived this fucked-up life if I wasn’t. I just get pissed that I’ve had to be. Now get your dick out and fuck me. And make it good, mister.”
I reached around to her ass and pinched her. Hard. She yelped, and I sat up and covered her mouth with mine, this time commanding the kiss, taking her the way I preferred. Stroking her tongue with mine, moving in and out the way I planned on stroking her clit next. I sucked in to take her breath away unexpectedly, sealing my lips tightly against hers, waiting to see if she would trust me or panic. She relaxed into my arms further.