by Unknown
“Uh…” Was all Matt got out when Tommy quietly ordered, “Ya’ll will stay here. There is no room in the main house and the clubhouse hasn’t been kept up for years.” Which was clearly a lie pouring out of his mouth, he just didn’t want them alone in the same building, sleeping or breathing. Just the thought, made his already upset stomach and attitude, sour further.
One wide doorway off the entry hall led to a library, on the left and a formal dining room, on the right. Down the hall were two staircases on either side of an open area with a round table in the center. Each door was black with white molding and double crown molding around the walls, meeting black wood floors.
This was a home made from nothing but absolute and total love. No hate, malice, disgust or anger, just pure love. A connecting hallway to the right, past the formal dining room, led to the kitchen where Tommy was cooking. Coincidentally it was one of Taylor’s favorites; Fried chicken, collard greens and honey biscuits. Tommy led them past the table between the staircases and to a door underneath the stairs that was secret; each staircase had what looked like built in bookshelves but were actually hidden doors.
Opening it, he held the door for them both to pass through and stepped back so as not to elicit a stomp on his foot when Taylor barged through angrily. She was known for those. He rolled his eyes at her and followed behind them as they headed for a second door a few feet in front of them.
Tommy walked past them to open the second door, which led to a very large guest bedroom, fully outfitted with a beach house decor and feel. There was a door that led to the back of the house, onto the porch, nestled behind a small arranged sitting area. A large king bed sat with its headboard pointed toward the front of the house and a second entrance to the bathroom at the far end of the right wall they entered at. Tommy dropped his bag and turned back toward the door. “This is where you’ll sleep high speed and if you need anything, you’re welcome to the kitchen. TV and stuff is in the living area which you can get to by going out that door, and turning right.” Tommy pointed to the door they had come through just seconds before.
He retreated, expecting Taylor to come but when she didn’t, he turned around and went back into the bedroom to retrieve her.
“Let’s go Tay.”
“I’ll just stay with Matt.” She challenged, crossing her arms and scooting closer to Matt.
Matt made a choking noise and looked down at her while Tommy ground his teeth together.
“The hell you will. Don’t make me drag you out of here.”
“You wouldn’t.” Her eyes narrowed and Tommy could only think that she had no idea who she was talking to.
Setting the duffle down beside his feet, he walked over to her with a commanding presence that dared contempt.
“Oh, I would, Annie.”
Grabbing her by her knees, he threw her over his shoulder, kicking and screaming and walked back to the bag, picking it up and stalked out of the bedroom, leaving the door open behind him.
“You put me down this very instant Thomas James Kane.” She crossed her arms expectantly and gave up her fight a moment to catch her breath. As they entered the hall again, a car pulled up out front and a man came running full speed into the house since the door was still opened.
“TJ, you’ll never fuckin’ believe what I just found out! The celebrity we were supposed to be protecting, I just found out who it was and she is on her way here now.”
“Is that so?” Tommy had a smug look on his voice and he knew that Taylor knew it too, because his brother had not realized yet who he was carrying.
“Yeah… dude, what are you doing?” His brother walked up to him and stopped two feet away, a puzzled expression painting his tan face.
“What about this celebrity?”
That he could give two shits about.
“You know, the one with the stalker. Something spooked her and she took off with her ‘people’ today on her own and Lucas was pissed when he found out but Mike just told me who the hell it is. This will blow your damn mind.”
When Noah said stalker, Tommy tightened his grip around Taylor and she realized that he had pieced the puzzle together in record breaking time, but didn’t know how.
“And how exactly did we get this case?” He was just as confused and wanted answers.
“Her agent or whatever he is, knew Smitty and Smitty knew Luke. Voila. Don’t you want to know who it is?”
Tommy cursed in understanding under his breath while debating on killing Luke and Noah and keeping Taylor to himself. After a minute of staring, that seemed to be happening a lot lately, he took a deep breath but Taylor beat him to it and almost inaudibly said, “Go home, No. Keep your mouth shut.”
Tommy slowly let Taylor wiggle her tight little body down his and she turned around, against his dick’s demands though because truth be told, he was savoring that sweet wiggling she did.
* * *
Noah stared a long second, grey eyes piercing me as if he was looking straight at a ghost. He may have even paled a bit but perked right on up and looked like someone was holding a treat before him. If he was a dog, his tail would have been wagging. Hell, his tail was wagging.
“Well put a skirt on me, call me Betty and fuck me til’ Friday.” Noah grinned and my mouth gaped open in near shock. I gasped, “That is no way to talk to a lady.”
“The fuck if you’re a lady.”
“You know I am. Wipe that stupid grin off your big stupid face” I rebuked, about turned red and slammed my barely there flip flop down onto his boot. It never failed.
“Oof.” He simply laughed and had the most mischievous sparkle in his eye. “Oh my God, this is too perfect. I must be dreaming. Oh sweet Annie, welcome to payback for telling Kelly Sampson I had a rare, incurable, contagious African disease just before prom.”
“You wouldn’t!” I protested, my eyes about to pop out of my head. I tried desperately to hold onto my last bit of strength before I surrendered to my female inclination to cry. “Everyone is gonna be mighty damn happy to see your face, Annie.”
He almost sang my nickname.
I looked up at him and if looks could kill, he would have fallen to the ground dead, because I was trying to choke him through sheer willpower.
He was hamming it up and I knew he was playing, but I wasn’t exactly in a playful mood. Stuck in a home with the only man who could make my blood boil from utter passion and euphoric, orgasmic pleasure. Seventh fucking heaven and it had been nearly six years since one word was spoken between us. The man I am bound to by God, love, lust, vows and pure fate. No, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to shoot the shit.
“Shut up, No-ellah.” I bit out at him.
Tommy sucked in a breath, suppressing his urge to laugh out loud and Noah looked back at me glowering menacingly.
“Yeah, I bet you missed that.” I smirked, pleased to have touched a nerve. Maybe now he’d step off. He was supposed to have been my bodyguard? “You’re horrible at being professional.” I said, trying my damnedest to be mean.
“Pfft. You are family, fuck professionalism.” His hand went flying, brushing away my comment.
“Do the ladies of Devine allow you to talk to them like that?”
“You’ve got a more colorful vocabulary than I do and have said much worse words than I have. I don’t even want to hear it from you, Annie Oakley.” He poked.
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
“And I grew a vagina and triple d breasts.” He snorted then changed course, “So why shouldn’t I say anything to anyone about your being here”
“Besides the stalker? Just keep it to yourself.” Tommy answered.
Oh, so he speaks.
“And the family? They’d love to know you’re here and I’m sure your mama could use the support.”
“Because we don’t want them to know yet and you’re my fuckin’ brother that’s why.”
“Exactly why I would spill the peas.” Noah pointed.
“Beans.” I corrected, quietly.
“What?” They asked in unison, confused.
“It’s, ‘spill the beans’, not peas.”
They both looked at my rather small figure compared to their six foot plus, looming bodies, then brushed me off. Again. I’m sensing a theme here.
“You certainly know how to keep secrets.” Tommy accused.
“Yes, but at a price. I’d hate to blackmail sweet ole’ Taylor here. Especially with everything she’s got going on.” Liar. He’d blackmail me if he found a benefit to it, no matter my situation. That’s how family operates.
“Please just do it because I am asking you to, No.”
I put my hand on Noah’s shoulder and he grabbed it, pausing only to stare into my face, lovingly.
“Damn girl. You know I’d stop the world for you.” He kissed my hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you.”
I gave him the sweetest smile I could muster and was rewarded with a zap of electricity when Tommy reached his hand over and pulled our hands apart, dropping mine and pushing Noah’s back down. That was apparently all the emotion he had left.
“So y'all go ahead and get set up tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll take you to town if you need or to go see the family. Whatever. I’ll wait to let them know you’re here so you can tell them when you’re ready. And in case I forgot to mention it, you look suh-mokin-hot Tay.”
I kissed him on the cheek this time, making him slap his brother on the back with that killer Kane smile flashing, and then he was gone.
* * *
The woman had been back in his life for less than an hour and while he wanted her here with an indescribable desperation, gut-wrenching anxiety she would leave and the irresistible desire to jump her right there in the entry hall, he swore she was going to kill him.
Quickly.
Tommy picked her duffle bag back up and led her up the stairs with a hand to the small of her back. He drank in the warmth of her body against his hand and wished he had an excuse to throw her back over his shoulder again, not that he technically, really needed one. This was his wife after all. At the top of the stairs the door to the master suite was centered in the middle of the house and between the two staircases. He walked over and opened the French doors for her, waiting while she admired what she didn’t know but probably suspected was his handiwork; wood carvings decorated the entrance.
She gently put her fingertips to the wood, caressing every inch, and he found himself jealous of an inanimate object. If she looked above the doors at the wood, she would see it was built from the tree that he carved their initials into when they were only 11.
Her eyes never got that far when she looked into the bedroom and they widened. A king size bed sat centered in the room up against the back wall of the house. The headboard was made of an old red barn door and the room was tastefully decorated in barn décor; the wall painted in a bright sunny yellow.
Their room was huge, taking up exactly half of the second story. On either side of the bed sat a nightstand made of old reconstructed horse stall doors, with a brass oil lamp donning each. On the right side of the room, barn doors made up the entrance to their genuine walk-in, closet.
To the left, another barn door highlighted the entry to their master suite bathroom, made exactly as she had recited to him, seven years ago. Walking into the bathroom was like exiting one new world entering a totally different one. To the right, against a large window sits an oversized Jacuzzi tub surrounded by rock and tile, a chandelier hanging above it and a TV screen built into one wall, a fireplace on the other. Beside the two steps up to the tub was a sage green chaise lounge and curtains of the same color as the chaise draped luxuriously over the window. Any spare surface next to the tub was covered in vanilla and hazelnut candles of varying heights.
On the other side of the bathroom was a stand up, state of the art shower decorated in the same stone and tile but had a massive showerhead built in over the shower and panels of sprayers on the three walls; double glass doors to get in and a sauna setting. Between the shower and tub were his and her showers and a separate door leading to the closed off toilet. If you asked a woman, they’d say it was ‘picturesque’ or ‘perfect’.
“Holy shit balls.”
Well, maybe not.
“What?” Tommy shrugged and walked away from the bathroom door, over to one of the sets of French doors on either side of the bed that led to a private balcony. He looked out over the 20,000 acres of land and waited for her to do her exploring.
She was always up for a new adventure.
When she finished unwrapping her gift, he walked to the bedroom door and asked,
“Do you need anything more?”
“Are there towels in the bathroom?” She asked around a yawn.
“Yes and there is food in the fridge if you get hungry.”
“And whiskey?”
He looked up at her, surprised, then guarded all emotions again. “You drink whiskey now?”
“Jim and Jack. They’ve never let me down.”
He caught that she was digging him a hole but he wasn’t going to fall into it. He didn’t cause this whole shit-tuation.
“I’ll put some on the nightstand.”
He walked out, closing the doors behind him. Shutting his eyes for a second, trying to wipe the image of her in the shower or tub or plain ole naked out of his mind, he refocused himself and went to get the whiskey. When Tommy reached the library, he heard Matt coming down the hall and turned to him.
“You need something?”
“Enh. I doubt you have what I need.” He chuckled pleased with himself.
Tommy had no idea what this guy’s connection to Taylor was, and that made him just a touch more irritable. Okay, he was a raging storm ready to destroy this man.
“How well do you know Taylor?”
Damn, it slipped out before he could catch it. In a time like this, the last thing he needed was his heart speaking before his brain could stop it.
“Why don’t you ask her?” When he realized Tommy’s hands were in fists he thought on what he had said, “She is your wife, after all.” His mouth split open into a shit eatin’ grin.
“You’ve been doin' good for her.” Tommy was making a statement, no question intended.
“She’s done it all herself. I’m proud of her and love her with all my heart.” Matt paused and made his own statement, “I would kill for her and want this whole fucking thing over before it started.”
Tommy’s knuckles were glowing white as he realized what he was doing; releasing his fists, he ran a hand through his hair to try and relax himself a bit. He really needed a cold shower after all the Taylor shit that had been thrown on him in such short notice. After years of wanting her back in his life, wanting to chase her down and drag her back by her hair, he couldn’t believe she was here but was so afraid to want it. It took Matt calling out Tommy’s name to bring him out of his own head.
Matt was trying to tell Tommy that he wasn’t some sleaze ball who was using or abusing Taylor and he could get on board with that. He didn’t have to like that this guy ‘loved’ his wife, but that could be dealt with later. Tommy nodded in understanding and opened the door to the library, headed for the whiskey.
Back to the bedroom in no time, he knocked first, listened for an answer then opened at the silence. Since she was still in the shower, he put the bottle down and called out. “Whiskey is on the nightstand with an ice bucket and glass.”
Nothing.
“Taylor?”
Pause.
Nothing again.
“Tay?” He raised his voice and hedged slowly around the bed.
When she didn’t respond again, he knocked on the bathroom door as a warning and opened it with maybe a little too much force. The room was billowing with steam and he heard the shower going. Walking over to the stand alone, luxury shower, the jets were shooting off three walls and from up above but Taylor was curled up in the corner, head down, knees to chest, shaking unco
ntrollably.
He grabbed a towel and smacked the controls off with urgency, reaching in to pull her out. She startled at his touch and about screamed until she saw his face, an inch from hers. His heart was racing and he pulled her close, wrapping the towel over her back, using it to keep her up against him. His innate instinct to protect her, shut all other senses and emotions off, pushing him through a mini adrenaline rush that kept him alive many a missions. After he ensured everything was alright, he would let himself drown in his feelings.
“It’s alright, I’m here Tay. I’m here baby, calm down. Breathe. Relax baby, you’re safe.”
He held her tight and kept on rubbing her back; he held her for what seemed like a lifetime but nowhere near long enough.
Pulling her back just far enough to see her face he asked, “Are you okay?”
His voice was thick with worry no matter how he tried to spin it.
“Y-Yes, I’m... I’m s-sorry. I j-just kind of l-lost it.” She stuttered and stammered with lips trembling still, clutching his shirt front.
She dropped her head to his chest and he cupped the back of her sopping wet hair.
“It’s perfectly understandable. I would be a little worried if this didn’t bother you to some degree.” He let out a sigh of relief and tension rolled into one.
“I just want this to stop. I don’t even know who this person is or why they seem hell bent on hurting me!”
She shouted, getting angry. Angry he could handle, angry he preferred.