With that, he pushed off the door, opened it, and disappeared.
And that, well, that whole thing left me a little teary-eyed.
Whenever I thought I had all them pegged, one of them always came around and surprised me.
So as I went back to my hair and makeup and clothing choices, I felt even more excited for the day, having permission from someone who was, for all intents and purposes, my only parental figure.
Sure, I didn't need any of their approval, but it was nice to have it regardless.
By the time it was ten to twelve, I was as ready as I was going to get. I had no idea what Mark had planned for the day. So I slipped into pretty baby pink lace panties and bra, then slid on simple black skinny jeans and a nice soft, lightweight white sweater, spritzed on some of my perfume, and got my feet into some black booties and called it a day. It was both casual, but fancy enough for eating out if that was the plan at some point.
It had been so long since I had a date that I actually forgot to clarify the parameters of the date.
But whatever.
I wasn't going to focus too much on that shortcoming.
I was going to focus instead on the excitement of the unknown.
Usually, in my life, the unknowns were terrifying, best to never allow to happen. That was why we planned everything out into godawful, painful detail. It was to save us from any unforeseen circumstance that could lead us to a cell or a casket.
And sure, maybe my brothers were right, maybe Mark was dangerous. But my gut told me otherwise.
So whatever unknowns he had planned, I was going to try my best to enjoy them.
"Yo, your boyfriend is here!" Rush called, making me snort as I shoved money into my purse, and grabbed my most recent burner cell and headed out of the bathroom just as a knock sounded at the door.
I didn't even bother to try to get to it first. It would have been a futile effort. Atlas and Nixon were pretty much waiting by the door.
So I went ahead and leaned against the closed bathroom door and waited to watch the show play out.
"Mallick," Nixon greeted, moving backward in a way that suggested Mark was meant to step inside. And, maybe given that he was expecting an interaction like this, Mark seemed completely comfortable as he moved inside, dressed casually in jeans and a long-sleeve blue tee, making me glad I hadn't gotten too gussied up.
"Scotti," he greeted me, giving me a small smile before facing up my brothers.
"Quick introductions," I offered, staying where I was. "That one breathing down your neck is Nixon. The one looking you over for possible weapons is Atlas. The one giving you a death glare from the living room is Rush. And the one looking at you like he will gut you if you put so much as a scratch on me which, I might add, he will, is my oldest brother Kingston. And as all you guys know, this is Mark Mallick."
"Gotta wonder why you have such an interest in my sister," Atlas said, brow raised.
To that, Mark's smile stretched wide and amused, his eyes dancing. "We're doing this, huh?"
"Doing what?" Nixon asked.
"The 'what are your intentions toward my sister' thing. I respect it. I'm just surprised she's cool with it is all."
"You know, it's easier just to go with the flow," I said, giving him a smile. "Plus, it weeds out the guys too lily-livered to go out with me in the first place."
"Easier for you, maybe," he said, giving me a wink before turning fully to face all my brothers. "Alright, let's do this."
And then they did.
I just stood and watched with growing respect for a man I knew so little about. It said a lot about your character if you could stand your ground when faced with four men intent on trying to scare you off your interest in their little sister. Maybe he fared better than any before him for the sole reason that he himself had many brothers, was likely used to shows of masculine confrontation, chest-beating, and testosterone-seeping.
Sometime in the middle of all of this, Kingston moved across the room to lean back against the door with me, arms folded across his chest.
"Gotta say, I kinda fucking like this one."
That was actually a pretty big deal. While he hadn't ever actively tried to keep me from dating, he sure as hell made it clear when he thought someone I brought around was beneath me. Which was every single man.
Kingston wasn't a difficult man to please. In fact, he was definitely the most laid-back of them all, likely because he had given himself ulcers about us for so long. He knew when he needed to just let things roll of his back.
But he mistakingly placed me up on a pedestal.
Maybe because I reminded him of our dead mother.
Actually, that would explain a lot.
"Kinda a shame we only have a week left here, huh?" he asked, giving me a sympathetic smile.
Agreeing perhaps too much with that given that I hadn't spent more than five minutes alone with the man, I deflected. "Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. He might chew with his mouth open or make me take off my shoes before I get in his car."
"Both capital offenses in your law book."
"Exactly." Though, I doubted he was the shoes-off kind of guy, given his general rough and tough and often work-dirty appearance. The chewing thing, yeah, that would be an immediate turnoff.
"You have your cell, right?" Kingston asked, always paranoid about my safety. "And your pepper spray?"
"Gee, you know, I might have left that on my dresser, right next to my chastity belt." At his unamused brow raise, I laughed. "Relax. You know I can handle myself."
Thanks to the five years of various self-defense classes he had forcibly enrolled me in, claiming it would save him from having to follow me when I went out at night to make sure nothing happened to me. I might have been pissed at first, but there was no better feeling in the world than knowing I could safely walk down the street at night and literally murder anyone who tried to touch me with my bare hands.
I about zoned back in when I actually heard Rush utter the words, "And when do you think you will have her home?"
"Okay, okay," I said, pushing off the wall with a smile. They might have been nut jobs, but they were my nut jobs, and I loved them. "I think that is enough interrogation."
"You know," Mark said, letting his hand slide from my hip to settle at my lower back despite the looks my brothers were giving him about touching me in their presence, "if the whole armed robbery thing doesn't pan out longterm, I think you guys might be able to get a gig in counter-intelligence." With that, he pressed a little harder into my back. "Ready?"
"Depends," I said, shrugging.
"On?"
"If you're going to make me take off my shoes before I get in your car."
"First, it's a truck. As in a work truck. So the floor has a quarter inch of concrete dust, sand, dirt, sawdust, grass, and any other number of crap. If you want your feet in that, be my fucking guest. But I think you'd prefer keeping your shoes on."
I shouldn't have, but absolutely did get mildly turned on by the words concrete dust, sand, dirt, sawdust, and grass. What can I say, I'm a freak.
"Alright. Let's go then."
"Seriously," Kingston called, making me look over my shoulder at him. "The pepper spray?"
To that, Mark chuckled, turning to face my oldest brother. "She won't need it. Damn near broke my fucking foot at the store when I met her." Then, his face went a little more serious, likely picking up on how important this was to him and respecting that. "Your sister is safe with me, Kingston. I know you will, but you don't have to worry about her."
Then with that, and the warm, squishy feeling I had inside from it, he led me outside and around the building.
"I know they can be a little... much," I offered as we rounded on his work truck which looked new, but a little busted-up already.
"It's good they care, baby. I'm not going to fault them for that."
"Kingston likes you," I blurted out as he opened the door for me, completely unsure why the urge was even
there to say it in the first place.
"And I'll do everything in my power to not fuck that up," Mark said, face serious for a second before a smirk started pulling at his lips. "You gonna hop that pretty ass up, or do you need help?"
I looked up into the truck, then back down at him.
"First, I want to know where we are going."
"The food store," he informed me, casual as can be. And before I could even untwist my tongue and ask what, I felt his strong hands sinking into my hipbones and yanking upward, lifting me clear off my feet, and depositing me inside the truck. The door slammed, and I was alone in the cab for a moment.
I'd been to a lot of strange places with men before: pool halls, bowling alleys, shooting ranges, the back ten of a farm.
But this was a new one.
Why the hell was he taking me to the food store?
SIX
Mark
Her brothers were good men.
It just further cemented something I had already known was wrong about popular assumptions regarding criminals. They weren't all pond scum. They weren't these evil, devious figures sitting in dark rooms smoking cigars and plotting terrible things.
In fact, it would probably freak average people out how much criminals were just normal like them. They had houses that needed cleaning and garbage cans that needed taking out. They often had wives and children that they loved and protected. They ate, worked out, worried about daily life shit.
And her brothers might have been armed robbers, but they were still, first and foremost, the big brothers to a little sister they thought needed their protection.
Coming from a large family myself, I understood those familial bonds. I respected them. I was happy for Scotti that she had that. It likely saved her a lot of headaches over chickenshit men who had no business being anywhere near her if they couldn't stomach the idea of her brothers taking him down if he did something to hurt her.
And, really, they all reminded me a bit of my brothers. Kingston, like Ryan, was the oldest, the more level-headed. Rush reminded me a bit of Shane- a bit too apt to act before he thought, headstrong, confident. Nixon and Atlas were very in-your-face, but I got the feeling that outside of trying to scare off their sister's boyfriends, they were probably the more carefree, jocular of the whole lot of them.
I hopped up in the truck beside a woman who somehow made jeans and a goddamn sweater look like the sexiest outfit possible, turning the truck over, and reaching behind her headrest to look out the back.
"The food store?" she asked as my eyes caught hers.
Finding her brows drawn together, I reached out and pressed my finger into the lines that formed between them, smoothing them out. "Yes. That's where the food lives. If I'm gonna cook for you, Scotti, I need to get some food to do so. And since I don't know much about you yet, including what you do or do not eat, I figured I would just make my life easier and take you with me."
Finding no fault in my argument, she gave me a small nod. "Oh, okay. Well, um, I eat anything really except avocados and cottage cheese." At my raised brow, she laughed, the sound a low, husky, hot as fuck thing that went right to my dick. "It's a consistency thing. Avocados are squishy, and cottage cheese is chunky." Even as she said that, her face slipped into a grimace that shouldn't have been, but totally was, fucking adorable.
"So you cook," she commented as we pulled out onto the main drag and in the direction of the food store.
"Yep. My Ma pounded that into all of us growing up. Said we weren't allowed to expect women to do the cooking for us."
"I think I like your mom," she said, giving me a smile.
"Do you cook?"
"Not if I can help it," was her immediate response. "I know how. My mom taught all of us cooking basics here and there. But trying to cook for myself and my brothers is futile. One week, Rush is doing keto and refuses to eat anything I cook with carbs. The next, maybe Nixon is on a green cleanse, so meat is out. You just can't please them all. It's easier to order in so everyone gets what they want."
"Or, you know, tell them to cook for their fucking selves if they are going to be a pain in the ass," I offered.
"Then, oh, the bitching and moaning," she said, shaking her head. "For grown men, they can put five-year-olds to shame."
"Do you bake?"
Her smile went a little wistful at that, her eyes seemingly far away. "Occasionally. Mostly around holidays. That was a tradition in my family as far back as I remember."
"How about I get dinner and you get dessert?" I offered.
"That seems fair," she agreed. "So I am assuming we are going to be going to your place."
"No. I'm gonna build a damn sun oven. You got twelve hours to wait to eat, right?"
"Why am I picturing your place as a frat house?"
"Must be my boyish charm," I offered, un-offended. Fact of the matter was, the verbal jabs, that was just part of my everyday life. In fact, I was usually the one most likely dishing them out. I liked that she felt comfortable and confident enough to say what was on her mind. That was refreshing. Especially so at the very beginning stages with someone. You almost never meet the true person on the first few dates. You meet their representative. You meet the version of them that was on their best manners, looked their absolute best, chose their words carefully, tried not to ruffle any feathers.
It was refreshing not having to try to see past the mask.
"Nope," I said when she went to walk up to the hand carts.
I pulled out a cart and her smile pulled up. "Are we feeding a small army?"
"Nope, but it means I can do... this..." I said, pulling her over to the cart and placing her hands on the push bar. Then I moved behind her, placing my hands on the outsides of hers.
"You can't be serious," she said, body jumping with a small laugh. "This looks ridiculous."
"And cheesy. And almost as irritating as same-side-seating at restaurants," I agreed. "Come on, let's make all the cat-ladies and un-fucked housewives a little jealous," I offered, moving in a little closer, not above using her response to my body against her as I started pushing the cart. Trapped between me and it, she was forced to start walking too. "They're all pea-green with envy," I said down by her ear, feeling a small shiver work through her as my lip brushed the lobe in the process.
"Okay, Scarlett O'Hara," she snorted, but looking over her shoulder like I was, I could see that she was smiling.
"So... green beans or Brussels sprouts?"
"Green beans," she said as I moved away. Then she went to as well, but away from me.
"Whoa, where do you think you're going, lil' lady?" I asked, grabbing her arm and spinning her back, catching her off-guard, and making her collide with my chest with a laugh.
"This is not one of those Harlequin Romance commercials," she said, looking around anxiously at the spectacle we were making of ourselves. "Knock it off. You're making a scene."
"Aw now... that wasn't a very smart thing to say," I said, smiling. "Because now I need to show you what a real scene is," I added as my arm wrapped around her lower back, arching her backward as I moved forward.
"Whoa... wait... what are you..."
"You want Harlequin Romance, baby, I'm gonna give it to you."
And with that, before I could even wipe the smile off my face at the huge eyes on hers, I leaned down and kissed her until her hands were grabbing my shoulders, until her body melted, until I was the only thing keeping her from free-falling backward onto the ground.
Then and only then did I pull away, promising myself that we could get back to those kinda thing later, after I fed her, in private so they could escalate the way it seemed we both wanted them to.
"Alright, green beans," I said, pulling her back upward with me, arm still around her until she got her footing, hearing a couple claps from afar, and completely ignoring them.
"Ah... what?"
Yeah, there was no stopping the grin that threatened to split my face right then. I kissed the woman senseles
s.
"Green beans," I reiterated. "You need a minute?" I asked, watching as she reached up to push her hair back.
"I, ah, yeah. I'll be right back. I need, um, apples and stuff."
"Meet you at checkout," I offered to her quickly retreating form.
Oh yeah.
I was going to have some fun with her later.
SEVEN
Scotti
So... that happened.
I was pretty sure things like that never actually happened in real life. You know, because other people were around, and it was silly, and guys - in my personal experience - weren't exactly into grand romantic displays. Not even with long-time girlfriends. Or wives.
Yet there was Mark Mallick, couples-pushing a shopping cart, whirling me around, and bending me backward and kissing me in the damn produce aisle.
And he didn't even know my real last name.
I guess it seemed to sort of go with his, as he said, boyish charm. He didn't care what people thought of his a bit over the top, fun-loving antics. And maybe he got a pass for them because he was so freaking good looking that all he had to do was flash a smile and all was forgiven.
That kiss, as goofy as it might have been, was still effective. I could barely force my legs to carry me as I walked away from him, making sure I was out of sight before I leaned back against an end cap and pulled myself together. If I didn't, I would be jumping his bones as soon as we walked in the door. And while true, I did want to do that, I also didn't want to rush things either. I wanted to enjoy the day, see what he had planned, not rush into the physical stuff.
Though, oh man, I bet the physical stuff would be worth rushing into.
Mind back on the task, I picked up apples, cinnamon, puff pastry, and some stuff to make icing from scratch, then made my way toward the register to find Mark casually standing next to a cart and reading the ridiculous tabloid headlines.
Mark (The Mallick Brothers #3) Page 7