“Ah, it appears she’s home,” Cole informed me unnecessarily from where he was now standing at the window Reid had been looking out of. “And it appears she has company.”
Katy
How had this happened? I mean, I knew how it had happened – eye contact – but how. This morning I’d been so close to death that the grim reaper had added me to his Christmas card list, now I was walking toward my door with my new dog. Oh, and that dog was a freaking Great Dane.
How. Did. This. Happen?
Dave figured I weighed the same as my dog - which he’d imparted when he’d helped me get Duke in the back of the vehicle - and I wasn’t sure he wasn’t close to the truth on that one. I’d decided on a little dog and come out with a horse, who I’m pretty certain was walking me across the grass in front of my house.
I was so screwed.
“The girls say they’re ten minutes out,” Tabby told me, walking behind me with Dave who was carrying their daughter. “I told them while we were in there that whatever they got needed to be suitable for a dog the size of Dave, but they didn’t believe me until I sent them the photo of him sitting on top of you on the floor while you filled in the form.”
That was the other problem, the second I’d sat down Duke had wanted to sit on me. With anyone else he was happy to sit on the floor or just walk around, but not with me. I had a Dane who thought he was a lapdog.
Did I say I was screwed?
Looking down at the front page of the pack the center had given me about him, I looked over the behavioral and mannerism observations section of it, worried that maybe they’d missed something when we’d gone through it all there. None of it was new news, including where it said he had excessive excitement and obsession with playing with a ball. As the poor guy had been neutered, I assumed it was actual game balls and not his own so maybe he was compensating?
A hard tug on his leash almost knocked me over and when I followed where he was staring, I saw two Jarrods watching me.
“Lord have mercy,” I whispered, getting an, “Amen,” back from Tabby who’d also stopped to take in the view.
Then two more joined them, so I blindly reached out and grabbed her hand for strength and support. “Are we still drunk?”
“I don’t think so, and they’re all wearing different t-shirts,” she whispered back, pointing out something I hadn’t noticed.
“I was stuck on their faces, I didn’t even notice they had bodies.” But now that she mentioned it, there was Jarrod facial and body hotness times four. “Sweet Jesus.”
“Amen.”
“Hey, Katy,” three of them called out at once and I swear my knees buckled.
“They know your name,” Tabby mumbled out of the corner of her mouth, her hand tightening its hold on mine. “Say something.”
Instead, I just raised my hand as much as Duke’s leash would allow and gave a pitiful wave to them. When I lowered it, I figured that wrapping it around my wrist instead would stop me from ever doing that again, so I did it, anchoring myself to my horse dog.
One of the Jarrods broke away from the group and picked something up off the ground. Then, reaching back as far as he could, he yelled, “Fetch,” and launched it through the air.
Tabby and I both turned to watch the item sail through the air past Dave, but before we could look back at them or even ask why they were throwing things (so beautifully), my arm was almost wrenched out of its socket and I was running behind my horse who was chasing after whatever it was. I swear my legs had never moved so fast in their lives, not even on a bike, and I had a thought that I was going to die and this would be the last memory of me alive, when my foot went into a hole and I was being dragged across the grass on my front.
* * *
“Seriously,” Tabby howled, using Dave’s arm to keep her standing upright. “He went off like a rocket and she’s running behind him…” she broke off and squeezed her knees together. “Little legs,” she wheezed.
“Why didn’t you just let the lead go?” Maya asked in disbelief.
Looking down at the red mark on my wrist, I decided to hold it up instead of using words to answer the question.
After I’d been dragged across the ground by my wrist, Duke had managed to catch up with the ball, which meant that the four Kline men and Dave had managed to catch up with me. After being carried into my home by who I assumed was Jarrod, I’d limped into the shower, cleaned myself off, and I was now sitting in a pair of short pajama shorts and a t-shirt, having been unable to put my cut off jean shorts and tank back on seeing as how they were covered in mud and grass.
Taking one look at me, I’d been ordered to sit on my couch while one of the Klines ran next door for a first aid kit, and now the grazes that went from my shins to just above my knees were clean and had gook on them, and my ankle that had twisted when I’d stepped in the hole was strapped up and had a bag of peas on it. Oh, and my horse dog was sitting on the floor with the top half of his body between my legs because he wasn’t allowed to jump on top of me.
All of this while four male members of the Kline family watched at me. Great! Actually, make that three members of the Kline family, because as soon as I held my wrist up to answer the question just now, one had broken away and walked to the kitchen.
“I’m so sorry, babe,” one winced. “I didn’t realize he’d react like that when I threw the ball.”
Shrugging a shoulder and almost groaning when I remembered it almost being yanked out of its socket, I tried to not look like the loser I felt. “It’s cool. He just needs a bit of training, I guess.”
An arm appeared over my head with a bag of frozen carrots in it, then placed it on top of my wrist. “That should help.”
Tabby was only just able to get oxygen properly into her lungs, and the sound of her deep breathing was the only noise in the room while everyone continued to stare at me. Looking desperately at Ren and Cole and begging them with my eyes to do something, I groaned when they both shrugged looking totally bemused by it all.
Then Cole said something that started it all off again. “So, did you do long distance running or something in school?”
Tabby fell to her knees and even Dave choked as he turned around to face the door, with Ren walking up beside him to do the same thing. Chancing a glance at the four Klines, I saw one of them looking at the ceiling, one of them looking at his boots, one of them who I knew was Jarrod because of the eyes was looking at me worriedly, and the last one looked like he felt like shit because he’d thrown a frigging ball.
Picking up on his new mama’s emotions, Duke turned back and rested his chin right on my cookie muffin and stared at me with sad eyes like he was saying sorry.
Scratching behind his ear I sighed. “It’s ok, baby.”
“I feel, like, really bad, too,” the Kline who’d thrown the ball said. “Can I put my head on you to get an ear rub? It’ll make me feel so much…” he broke off as Jarrod smacked him around the head. “Yo, you kill off brain cells every time you do that,” he snapped, rubbing where he’d been hit. “All I’m saying is that the guilt is eating me up inside, and a snuggle and head rub would make it feel better.”
The one who’d been staring at the ceiling shook his head as Jarrod swiped out again. “He’ll keep on about it until she gives in.”
Glaring at his brother over his shoulder, Jarrod growled, “He’s not putting his fucking head in her lap, Bond.”
The world stopped spinning at those words, I swear. One second it was spinning like it always did, deciding sun/moon/stars, and the next it had screeched to a halt as we all got our heads around the name he’d said.
“Your name is Bond?” I breathed, staring at him.
Not realizing the effect this information had on the female occupants of the room, he nodded and walked over with his hand out. “Yeah, Bond Kline. Pleased to meet you, Katy.”
I shook his hand, managing not to pass out, and then looked at his other brothers. “Please tell me that one of you is
called Bourne!”
I was always the one who was so quiet she almost mute, but this information was huge.
One by one, the other two brothers came up and introduced themselves to me.
“Afraid not. I’m Canon,” the next one said with a huge smile on his face.
“Reid, and I got all the good genes,” the one who’d thrown the ball told me as he shook my hand. “Now will you rub behind my ear?”
In the space of twenty-four hours, I’d gotten hammered, thrown up, become a horse dog mama, been dragged behind the horse dog in front of four of the best looking men I’d ever seen in my life, almost died of embarrassment, been saved by them, had first aid applied by Jarrod, and only then can I say my world was blown into little tiny pieces and glued back together again by meeting his brothers and learning their kick ass names.
For someone who liked to live in her own world with books and a lot of gaming thrown in, I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
Four
Katy
Last year I’d bought a second hand, three door Mini Cooper convertible. I loved the car and the fact I didn’t have any issues reaching the pedals, I could parallel park with no problems, in the summer I could lower the roof and sing my heart out, and it was reliable and had hardly had any mileage on it because the lady who’d owned it hadn’t really used it.
Getting Duke in it to drive to work, though, had been problematic. In the end, I’d had to push the passenger seat back so he could sit on the floor in front of it or pop his booty in it and lean forward. The fact he wasn’t strapped in had also meant I’d driven to work like an old woman, so it had taken me twice as long to get here. In the end, I’d lowered his window halfway, and had eventually managed to relax a bit as he enjoyed the ride with his head out of it in the wind.
Parking up at the side of the garage, I got out and waved at Cole who was standing talking to Jarrod beside a car.
“Why didn’t you just put the roof down?” he yelled as Jarrod walked toward me, then opened the passenger door to let my dog out and made a fuss of him. Lucky big bugger!
“Because I couldn’t get the seatbelt around him so I wasn’t sure if he’d jump out while I was driving,” I shouted back and looked at Jarrod who was still focused on Duke. “Thanks, Jarrod.”
Shooting me a smile, he made his way back to Cole as I limped to the entrance with Duke beside me.
“I put a cup of coffee on your desk two minutes ago, Katy, so it’ll still be hot, and you need to use the ice packs on your ankle and wrist,” he ordered, then turned back and resumed talking to Cole, leaving me staring at his back and wondering if the world had started spinning again after his brothers had stopped it with their names.
* * *
Ok, so Linda Townsend was on a tear about Hurst’s car and the damage he’d caused to it – as in, she wanted photos so she could beat him around the head with them. That meant I had to warn Ren and Cole that their grandma was coming in to take those photos so she could carry out the beating.
Carefully making my way down the steps, I stopped at the bottom to give my ankle a second to adjust. It wasn’t bad as in screaming my head off bad, but it wasn’t great as in skipping and hopping around great. Once it had settled down and the piercing pain was a bit easier I started off walking, once again upset that I couldn’t wear heels to work today. I’d been wearing heels and wedges for as long as I could remember because as the shortest of four kids I’d had to so that I didn’t get sat on. By that I mean literally sat on because my brothers never once failed to do it and say they hadn’t seen me there when I made a noise because they weighed a ton. I was also the shortest in my grade throughout the whole time I was at school and that’d sucked even more. I wasn’t even that short, it’s just that everyone else was so much taller. Unless it was flip flops, wearing flat shoes was a hell no for me.
I kept my eyes on the ground as I walked across the garage to where Hurst’s car was, making sure I didn’t step on anything or accidentally kick something. Flip flops in a garage wasn’t a smart thing to do, in fact it was a health and safety hazard, but I didn’t own any other flat shoes so I’d had to wear them. Seeing that they’d moved his car from the bay furthest away, I turned to walk out of the door to the lot and had to bite back the groan when I saw who Ren was talking to – Shane Perkins.
Shane was someone my sister had dated for all of three dates until she’d dumped him because he was a skeezy phlegm wad. Plus, she’d been eighteen and he’d been twenty-six at the time, so my dad hadn’t exactly been over the moon about it. I’d had the misfortune to be there when he’d collected her for the first two dates, and on the third date he’d told her he wanted a threesome with her and me. After that, every time I saw him, he found a way to make me feel uncomfortable and dirty so I avoided him as much as I could. Added onto that was the fact that he knew my cousin Effie and even though I loved her, she was a total wreck and hung out with the wrong crowd. Him being part of that crowd wasn’t a surprise, it was a disappointment. When Aura had dumped him, I swear I’d almost cried big, fat happy tears because I figured it meant I’d never have to see him again. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. He kept popping up in the weirdest places, and I could have sworn I’d seen him walking down a street near my house on the development this morning even though he didn’t live there.
Before I could say anything to Ren, Shane gave me a slow dirty look over and grinned when he saw my shoes. “Hey, sexy. If you go running in those, it’ll sound like what I’m gonna do to you later.”
Thinking about the noise my flip flops made when I walked and imagining it happening at a faster rate, it was obvious what he meant. I only just managed to hold onto the contents of my stomach for Ren’s sake and ignored him.
Ren, however, didn’t. “You want my fist in your face, Shane?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t wanna do her,” he laughed, throwing his arm in my direction. “Fuck, bet she’s tighter than…”
He didn’t say anything else because Jarrod had appeared out of nowhere and had him by the neck of his t-shirt. “You’ve been warned once by Ren and now you’ll be warned once by me – shut the fuck up. She doesn’t exist for you, you hear me?”
“She wants it, man. Did her sister and it was ok, but Katy? Fuck yeah.”
He was lying because Aura hadn’t let him do anything with her, not even when he tried to kiss her. But at the thought of him ‘doing’ me, nothing could have held back the gag that hit me as he said that, not one thing, and it was loud, too, and got all of their eyes on me. Covering my mouth with a hand and choking back the next one, I mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Go back to your office for a minute, honey, ok?” Ren called as he looked back at Shane. “We’ll be up in a bit.”
Not needing to be told twice, I carefully turned around and limped back from whence I came. Five minutes later, Ren walked in and sat down heavily in the chair in front of my desk.
“I fucking hate that guy,” he growled. “I’d call him a dick but that’s offensive to dicks.”
“He really is. My sister Aura only went out with him three times and on the third date he told her he wanted a threesome with me. I think she was trying to figure out how to dump him anyway, so that gave her what she needed to do it, but still.”
Shuddering, he pulled himself together. “What can I do you for, Katykins?”
Let me just add at this juncture that I adored my boss. Not in a gross way, but as in he was one of the best guys I’d ever met in my life. His wife was also one of the best women I’d ever met in my life, so spending time with them was never ever a hardship. He’d heard my dad call me that when he’d dropped in to say hi two weeks ago, and since then every now and then he’d call me the nickname.
“Linda says she’s coming in to get photos of Hurst’s car, and then she’s going to beat him around the head with them.”
Not looking at all surprised by this, he chuckled, “I expected that.”
That may be the cas
e, but there was something else. “She said she’s also looking for you and Cole because you didn’t tell her what he’d done.”
That got a reaction from him. Sitting straight in the chair, he ran his hand through his hair and looked at the door to the office. “When did she say she was coming in?”
“She called ten minutes ago and said she was leaving after she hung up.”
Looking at his watch, he jumped up and made his way quickly to the door. “Gotta go for lunch. Let me know if you want anything.” And then he was gone.
Roughly five minutes later, the door to my office opened and Jarrod was there with Linda behind him. “Hey, Linda’s looking for dumb and dumber.”
“Lunch,” I snickered and then leaned my head to the side to smile at Linda. “Guess you just missed them.”
With a twinkle in her eye, she turned back to the stairs and called over her shoulder, “Yeah, but I know where they live.”
Flashing me another grin, Jarrod followed behind her and I heard his deep laugh as it carried across the building. The man was porn for all of your senses, and this I could say without hesitation or exaggeration.
First up, if you didn’t hear or see him, you smelled him - and by that I meant the guy smelled fucking outstanding. I wasn’t sure what cologne he used or if he was just born smelling like that but holy shit. I had mental images of nurses coming into the room while his mother recovered from the arduous task of giving birth to a six foot baby and sniffing him.
Second, his voice – it was deep, rumbly and growly, had a lot of bass to it, and when he spoke it gave me goosebumps. In fact, most women stood staring at him with open mouths when he spoke because of that (and the way he looked, I’m not gonna lie on that). When he laughed it was goosebumps and Skittle nipples all the way so I had to wear padded bras to work. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the man could sing. Trying to think of someone he sounded like was impossible because he was literally pitch perfect, but in the deepest way, and again it was filled with bass.
Talk Flirty To Me: Cheap Thrills Series Book 4 Page 4