“Who are you?” Damian demanded to know.
“You didn’t hear me ten fuckin’ seconds ago,” Brock decided.
“All right, I’ll ask politely. Please move aside so I can talk with Tess,” Damian asked.
To that, Brock stated, “In five seconds I’m closing the door. You’re not in your Escalade and on the road sixty seconds after that, I’m on the phone with the cops. No joke, no delay. Got that?” Then, as he promised, he stepped out of the door, closed it in Damian’s face, and locked it.
I stood where I was at the side of the island.
Brock moved to the window and yanked hard on the cord to the blinds to expose the glass. He stood in it, arms crossed, feet planted.
I licked my lips.
Brock didn’t move a muscle.
I put a hand out to the counter and held on.
Brock didn’t twitch.
I counted to ten. Then to twenty.
Brock leaned to the side, yanked the cord, and the blinds dropped with a crash.
He turned and prowled through the living room toward me, one hand to his back pocket. He had his phone out by the time he stopped a foot away.
I held my breath when I saw his face up close.
“Honey—” I whispered but stopped speaking when his hand came up abruptly.
I tensed as it came to me but, whisper-soft and unbelievably sweet, his fingertips skimmed my cheek on their way to glide into my hair where his hand curled around the back of my head and he pulled me closer.
I went because I didn’t have a choice and because I wanted to. When I got near, I put my hands to his abs.
“Mood’s broke, sweetness,” he muttered. “And I need to make some calls. If you’re tired, go get ready for bed, or if not, give your girl a call. I’ll be in in a minute and we’ll get some shut-eye. Yeah?”
“Is he gone?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I swallowed.
His hand gave me a squeeze and I watched his eyes flare.
Then he asked, “He won’t stay gone, will he?”
I shook my head.
His mouth got tight.
Then he said gently, “Give me a minute to make some calls, baby.”
I nodded. His hand gave me another squeeze and then sifted through my hair until it was gone.
I moved to my bedroom.
Okay, it was safe to say I wasn’t tittering with excitement nine months ago when my abusive ex-husband who raped me contacted me for the first time in over four years, shattering the illusion I’d built that I was safe in a life that no longer contained him. And it was also safe to say I deliberated at length about going to lunch with him.
But I loved his dad.
Donald Heller was a good man. He adored me openly and it cut to the quick when, to erase Damian from my life, I had to break ties with anything that had anything to do with Damian, including his dad. Donald tried to keep up a relationship with me but I did not encourage this and he finally quit trying. News that he was unwell broke my heart, gave me guilt, and just as Damian knew it would, spurred me to show at lunch.
It was a mistake that I would pay for quite a bit, it would turn out. And this settled in my soul the troubling fact that I’d allowed myself to be played, again, by Damian.
I left him the day after he raped me. My dog and I lived with Martha for the year and a half it took finally to get a divorce then I moved to my own apartment. And for that year and a half, Damian stopped at nothing to “win me back.”
I couldn’t take another year and a half.
Unfortunately, this current scenario wasn’t conducive to me finding that perfect nightgown to wear the first time I slept the night with Brock Lucas. We had slept together, twice, both times me falling asleep with him on my couch while watching a movie. No, strike that, three times adding last night.
But, except for last night, he’d always been gone before I woke and we had never slept together in a bed.
This was a momentous occasion that I should mentally, and arguably more important, fashionably prepare for. But at that moment, I didn’t have it in me.
I sorted through my nightgown drawer with trembling hands and luckily my inherent girl power kicked in and my fingers honed in on my cotton-candy purplish-pink embroidered eyelet nightie with its empire waist, spaghetti straps, and teensy-weensy ruffle at hem and bodice. Cute, girlie, comfortable, therefore it seemed a casual choice, like it was any other night, but it bared lots of skin, showed serious leg and a hint of cleavage, all of which stated plainly I was making an effort for my man.
Freaking perfect.
I grabbed it and my glasses, took them to the bathroom, and did my nighttime gig, contacts out, face washed, teeth brushed and flossed. I changed clothes, slid my glasses on, and walked out.
I heard Brock’s rumble when I did.
And this was what it said: “No shit, Calhoun.”
I pressed my lips together at that name, scurried into the bedroom, dropped my clothes in the hamper, and scurried out.
I knew he wanted to protect me but I was forty-three years old. I was in a situation. This situation was unlike the last. Now people knew. People who cared about me. People who had my back and people willing to take my front and act as a shield.
But it was high time I got my head out of the sand.
Somehow, I’d managed to be a survivor. But I was thinking that was pure luck and it only had to happen because I’d left my head in the sand too long with a husband who was no good for me from the start and I knew it. I just didn’t do a thing about it.
I needed to get my shit together.
So I stopped in the kitchen doorway and leaned against it, doing this with my eyes on a Brock Lucas who had his fist to his waist and his eyes on me.
Then he did something beautiful.
He trusted me and the strength I was building inside enough to keep talking.
“You call the DA and you tell him to tell that asshole’s attorneys that if he doesn’t desist in harassing Tess, his boatload of legal problems will become a shitload. He already forged her fucking signature on bank documents. And we already got taped testimony and phone records that show for six months he’s been dicking with her. So, when the DA talks to his legal team, he needs to use the words stalking, harassment, assault, and sexual assault.”
I felt my chest rise with my indrawn breath and I knew Brock saw it but he kept trusting me and thus talking.
“Statute of limitations is not out on that. No way in fuck that Tessa O’Hara, who runs a bakery and sprinkles fuckin’ confetti on her cakes, will take the stand, describe her nightmare and he won’t go down. I don’t give a fuck if we have no physical evidence. She’ll have any jury eating out of her hand. His lawyers will know that. Now, I smell that guy’s fuckin’ cologne, Calhoun, she’s pressing charges. This ends for her tonight. Make the fuckin’ call.” He listened for about two seconds, then grunted, “Yeah,” and flipped his phone shut.
I waited for him to shove it back into his pocket before I asked softly, “Are you okay?”
“No,” he answered harshly. “I had my tongue in my woman’s mouth and my hand on her ass for the first time in three months. I like your ass. For three months, I spent a good deal of time thinkin’ about havin’ my hand back on your ass. What I didn’t spend time thinkin’ about is havin’ my hand on your ass and someone knockin’ on the front door and that someone being your slimeball motherfucking ex.”
Well, there you go.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Kentucky is becoming more attractive.”
He stared at me.
Then he grinned.
His eyes swept the length of me and back again before he said low, “Great nightie, babe.”
“Thanks,” I replied, tipping my head to the side then, to shift the mood and probably breaking all the rules of the game by doing something that would get me kicked out of the sisterhood, I shared, “If I’d have known you were spending the night
I would have carved out some time to take a trip to the mall to buy a silky, sexy nightie that shouted, occasion.” With this, I lifted up my hands and shook them then dropped them and continued. “Though it would be carefully selected so when you saw me in it you’d think that was what I wore to bed every night when it isn’t. But since I didn’t know, I had to make do and this is what you get.”
To that, I flicked my hand to my cotton-candy nightie.
“I’m thinkin’ you did all right in a pinch,” he noted.
“I’m glad,” I said on a smile.
“So what do you wear to bed every night?” he asked.
“Well…” I thought about it, then finished, “various versions of this. Though, I will warn you so you don’t get your hopes up, some of them don’t have ruffles.”
To that, he burst out laughing and he did it while walking to me. He stopped laughing and walking a half a foot away.
With his head tipped down to me, he said quietly, “Call your girl, sweetness, and then let’s hit the sack, yeah?”
I nodded but asked, “I’m sensing our earlier activities have been scheduled to recommence at a later date.”
He lifted a hand and curled it around the side of my neck as he dipped his face close to mine.
Then he said, “It sucks but yeah.” His hand gave me a squeeze while he went on. “You’re right, this is an occasion. It’s important and that douchebag showing marred it. When that happens between us again it’s gonna be just you and me without the ghost of that guy tarnishing it.”
I liked that. I liked that he wanted to give me that. I liked knowing us connecting in that way was as important to him as it was to me. And I liked holding the knowledge that he wanted to make it special.
I liked it so much, my hand came up, my fingers curled around his wrist at my neck, I got up on my toes, and I touched my mouth to his.
When I rocked back, I whispered, “Okay. I’ll call Martha and meet you in bed.”
He bent forward an inch, touched his forehead to mine then pulled back and dropped his hand. I released his wrist and he moved around me and toward the bedroom.
I went to my purse and dug out my phone. Then I called Martha. She was home. She wasn’t fine but she’d just opened a bottle of red wine in an attempt to get that way or at least put herself to sleep. We chatted until I heard the tremble go out of her voice. Then I hung up.
I walked to my bedroom to find a bare-chested Brock “Slim” Lucas in it, on his back in my bed, sheets to waist but hands to his face rubbing.
Those hands dropped when I hit the room but not before I remembered the last time he was in my bed, pressing the butts of his palms to his forehead, his manner conflicted and his expression would provide further evidence of that when he’d turned it to me.
This made a curl of apprehension writhe in my belly.
He rolled to his side and got up on a forearm while asking, “Babe, you gonna sleep on your feet or get in bed?”
I came unstuck, moved to my bed, pulled back the covers, and got in cross-legged. I took off my glasses, set them on the nightstand, grabbed my tub of moisturizer, and commenced moisturizing my face.
Face moisturized, I sucked up the courage to ask, “When I came in, what was on your mind?”
To my surprise, he didn’t hesitate to answer.
“What was on my mind was that Calhoun was the lead on the investigation into Heller. Calhoun is a good man. A dedicated man. He and a lotta guys spent three years building up to that takedown. They made twelve arrests with that sweep and ten of those twelve are major players in Heller’s operation. That takedown was huge. Planned and orchestrated with precision and the man-hours behind it are incalculable. No case is rock solid but what they got on all those guys is the closest I’ve ever seen. And I was thinkin’ that if that asshole fucks with you and I do what I had the near overwhelming urge to do tonight when I looked at his motherfucking face seeing he had the balls to be standin’ right at your front door at ten o’clock at night, I’ll fuck all that.”
I was watching him as he spoke.
When he stopped, I asked, “What urge?”
Brock blinked up at me.
Then he asked a repeated, “What urge?”
“Yeah, what urge?”
He stared at me three seconds before he leaned into me, grabbed the tub of moisturizer out of my hand, and leaned deeper, half tossing, half placing it on my nightstand. With his strong arm tight around my belly and hip, he pulled me into the bed and into him.
Once he had me settled, arm still firm around me, he said softly, “I am not a normal guy, Tess.”
I’d already got that.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“I’m the oldest boy. I got two sisters, a brother, and Mom got us all in the divorce. Dad’s a decent guy but that didn’t mean he didn’t jack her around. He did. A lot. Too much. He and I have come to uneasy terms and, since he jacked her around so much, this took a while but because of his shit, I grew up bein’ the man of the family. I did not learn to be the man I am from my dad. The man I am was ingrained in me, starting at seven.”
I wasn’t sure I understood what he was saying but I was sure I thought it was fascinating, and furthermore, I very much liked lying pressed close to him in my bed with his arm tight around me while he told me stories of his life.
“Okay,” I whispered again when he didn’t go on.
“What I’m sayin’ is, you do not fuck with a woman who means somethin’ to me. And when I say that, I mean, you do not fuck with a woman who means somethin’ to me.”
Oh my.
I got it.
“You wanted to hurt Damian,” I said quietly.
“Hurt? Yeah. In a way he’d feel that pain every fuckin’ day for the rest of his motherfuckin’ life. In a way he’d never forget me. In a way he’d never forget the lesson I taught him. And in a way he’d think about you and instead of you giving precious headspace to wishin’ you never met him, his headspace would be filled with wishin’ he’d never fucked with you.”
Before my mind told me to do it, my body pressed closer to his. But if my body asked my mind, my mind wouldn’t have argued.
I slid my hand up his hard chest, along his corded neck to come to rest on his stubbled jaw.
Looking deep into his eyes, I admitted, “I don’t have words.”
His arm got tighter and his face tilted on the pillow to get closer before he whispered, “Tess, I learned somethin’ early about you. You are the only woman I know who doesn’t need words. Everything you do speaks for you and it never lies. Just your hand on me, babe, said it all.”
He held my eyes and I held my breath because he said that like he liked it, not a little, a whole bunch.
I nodded. His face got soft. It dipped to mine where he touched my mouth with his.
When he pulled back, he murmured, “Hit your light, darlin’.”
I nodded again and rolled. I turned out the light then curled on my side, pulled the covers over my shoulder, shoved my hands under my cheek and called, “ ’Night, honey.”
Half a second later, I found my body hauled across the bed, my ass in the curve of his hips, his knees cocked into mine, his front pressed to my back, his arm tight around my belly and his lips at my hair.
Only then did he murmur, “ ’Night, Tess.”
Brock Lucas spooned.
I fell asleep smiling.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wild Thing
THE SOFT STRAINS of Fiona Apple’s “I Know” forced my eyes open to the early-morning light. I listened to her contralto, her piano, the soft strum of a bass, and the slow gentle beat of a drum for a few long moments before the volume started to increase. Then I got up on a forearm, reached out, and hit the button that would freeze the volume like I usually did so I could listen to my music in the mornings.
When I reached for the covers to shove them off, my body moved backward across the bed and hit something very, very solid and very, very warm.
Oh man.
How could I forget?
Brock was there.
And boy was he there, his hard, heated body behind me, his strong arm around me. I felt his lips at the skin of my neck.
“Honey,” I whispered. Those lips trailed up then I felt teeth nip my earlobe.
A shiver slid through me.
Then, a rough, sleepy, deep, “ ’Mornin’, baby.”
Oh my.
His lips slid to behind my ear as his hand at my belly slid up my ribs and I held my breath until his hand stopped. I let out my breath and held it again when the backs of his knuckles started stroking feather light at the bottom swell of my breast.
Oh my.
I pressed back into him as he pushed into me and his tongue touched the skin behind my ear at the same time his thumb disengaged from his knuckles and swiped my breast just under my nipple.
At that, a throb pulsed through me.
“Brock,” I breathed.
“Unless you got an early-mornin’ emergency cake to bake, sweetness,” he growled in my ear, “our earlier activities are scheduled to recommence right about now.”
“The White House tends to give me plenty of advance warning,” I quipped breathily.
“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Brock muttered, rolled me to face him, his hand went in my hair, twisted gently, and tugged back but he didn’t have to do that. My arm was winding around him and my head was dipping back so he could have my mouth.
And he took it.
Brock had not lied with what he said in my kitchen when he came back. The first time he made love to me had not been planned. It wasn’t a seduction. It started as usual. We were just messing around, but before that night, he’d always kept it under control. It had usually been about me, him exploring me or him helping me to get off. But something happened, and even as much as I thought about it, to that day, I had no idea what it was. But whatever it was, it snapped his control and he picked me up from the couch, carried me to the bedroom, and off we went.
This was different from all of that except the last.
Because Brock didn’t have a plan. Brock wasn’t protecting me from exposing myself, giving too much to a man whose name I did not know. There was no reason for Brock to control the situation, his reaction or mine.
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