by Rie Warren
“Done deal.”
I barely agreed before she leaned low and sucked me into her mouth.
Leelee and I were headed out after the afternoon of destruction in my office. It wasn’t half as chaotic as her hotel room, but it wasn’t anywhere near neat either. This time I didn’t give a flying fuck.
We reached my Bronco where I’d transferred her suitcases from her rental because I liked the idea of keeping her stranded at my house. Cro-Magnon? Not me. Nicky revved into the lot, his Jeep splattered in mud to the wheel wells. He hauled a trailer, on top of which sat a mangled heap of bike parts barely resembling a motorcycle. Hopping out, he sauntered over. The look he sent Leelee was probably meant to measure the possibility of her kicking him in the nuts. Satisfied with what he saw, he shrugged and pulled her into a hug.
She returned his embrace, I bumped his fist behind her back, and it was all good—the way it was supposed to be. When he released her, I slung an arm over her shoulder, feeling like a fucking king.
Then I turned my attention to the trailer. “The hell’s that?”
“The beast.” He proudly patted the side of the bike.
One fender was dented, one missing, and the chrome pipes were corroded with flecks of rust. That was just the visible damage.
“More like a wildebeest left rotting on the savannah, dude.”
“Fuck and You,” Nicky said, treating me to the double bird. “I’m restoring it. I figured you wouldn’t mind me keeping it here where I can work on it, since—ya know—I help out whenever you need slave labor.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Knock yourself out, man, but I seriously doubt you’re gonna get that scrap metal movin’ again.”
Leelee reclined against me, her hand flat on my stomach burning a hole through my shirt. “Actually, it’s a 1946 Indian Chief, a fine machine. It’s not in pristine condition, for sure, but these old bastards got more life in them than any other motorcycle ever made.”
Nicky’s mouth gaped open. Hell yes, she knew her shit.
“I told ya she knew her way around cars, didn’t I?” I grinned.
Motion at the door of the shop stole his attention. With his hand half-raised to wave at Ray, Nicky dropped it as a woman joined my second-in-charge outside. His mouth hung open for a second time before it snapped shut.
“Never mind the bike. Who the hell is that?” Nicky asked.
The woman’s head bent close to Ray’s as they studied a parts book, her sleek jet-black ponytail a huge contrast to Ray’s pale bushy hair. Her face turned in our direction, betraying not a single emotion. Nothing could be read from her eyes, the mirrored shades she wore reflecting outward.
“That is Catarina Steele. She runs the accounts side of things with her brothers at Chrome and Steele Auto Parts. We just started working with ’em.”
Catarina was as cool as they came. Anyone could tell she had a great figure, a nice ass, even under the strictly professional cut of her suit, but no one touched it, touched her, or talked about wanting to tap that. Not in her presence or anyone else’s.
“Maybe I might oughtta go talk to her about some parts I need.” His wide grin dug deep dimples into his cheeks.
I thought about warning Nicky but decided against it. I could use some entertainment. Bringing Leelee in front of me, I looped my arms around her waist and set my chin on her shoulder as he ambled off.
“What’s that all about?” she asked.
“That is a woman who is exactly Nicky’s type. Hair color, her figure, none of that matters. He likes a challenge, and he ain’t had one of them in as long as I can remember.” I kissed the pulse on the side of her neck. She shivered in my arms. “And that is Nicky about to get his ass handed to him.”
Sure enough, no sooner had he said hello to Ray—managing to get the dude to return to the building—Nicky exchanged a few words with Catarina. Her shoulders turned tighter than her features. He lifted his hand, presumably to twirl his fingers around a loosened strand of her hair, and said something else, his arrogant smile firmly in place.
The second his fingers made contact with her hair, Catarina grabbed his wrist in one hand and sent a crack across his face with the other.
I snorted at his stunned look and muttered, “Ouch.”
Leelee elbowed me.
We stood to the side as Catarina roared from the parking lot, barely jerking her chin at me through the windshield of her car.
A little less full of himself, although not much, Nicky strolled over.
“What’d you say to her?”
He stretched his jaw back and forth with a wince. “I called her Wildcat, you know, because of her name.”
“Oooh, burned. Hurt much?” I stared at the handprint spreading across his cheek.
Leelee stifled her laughter while Nicky glared at me. “Just tell me she treats all the guys like this.”
I towed Leelee over to the passenger side of the Bronco. “’Fraid not. I’ve never even seen her crack a smile, let alone get so riled up she lost her shit. She’s all about business, that’s why I like dealing with her.”
“Shit.” A grin slid across Nicky’s lips. “Looks like I hit a nerve.”
“Oh, Josh, it’s beautiful!” Leelee stood on the walkway in front of my house. White picket fence, two-story Victorian with black plantation shutters, wrap-around porch, decent-sized yards front and back . . . the whole shebang.
I took her elbow as we went up the stairs and through the front door. Letting her wander around at her leisure, I hurried back to collect her luggage. I dropped the bags inside, tracked her down in the kitchen, and sandwiched her between the worktop island and my body.
Her eyes glowed. “What?”
Tracing the outline of her lips with my thumb, I frowned. “What is this? I mean, we love each other, yeah, but Louisiana, South Carolina?” My fingers slid up to cup her face. “I don’t want the kid conflicted and I’m not thrilled about you being out of sight, let alone four states away.”
“What do you want?”
Dangerous question. Basically everything, with her. “I want you to stay.”
“For how long though?”
I snorted. “Yeah, about that. I was thinking maybe . . . forever?”
Her head shook until she rested it in the crook of my neck, but her smile had been soft. “I’d love to stay, Josh. I don’t want to mess you or JJ around.” Her voice turned into a whisper. “I didn’t book a return flight.”
I pushed her back so I could look at her. “Really?”
“Yes, but I think—since there’s that little thing of only knowin’ each other a week, and all the kerfuffle . . .”
“Kerfuffle?” One of my eyebrows lifted as well as a corner of my mouth.
“You, Nicky, gay, not gay . . . seduction . . . dancing.” She ended with a sigh.
“Hmm.” I tangled my hands in her hair and went for her neck with a kiss that slid to her ear. “I like dancin’ with you, Leelee.”
I waltzed her around the kitchen, enjoying the feel of her in my arms and the enormous possibilities of her staying with me.
“So, I’ll stay for a couple weeks, and then we can figure out if it works.” Her voice melted against my skin.
“Oh ye of little faith. It’ll work.” I dipped her, my lips finding the hollow of her shoulder, sucking lightly. “JJ will be home soon. Let’s get you settled.”
I grabbed her things and propelled her up the stairs into my room. Our room. Clean and tidy, fresh and bright, I couldn’t wait to see what sort of mayhem she made out of it. I emptied drawers—not that she’d use them as she seemed to prefer her belongings strewn all over the furniture—but the idea of her underthings in my dresser gave me a frigging thrill. I shoved my stuff to one side of the large closet and turned around to find Leelee staring at me with her hands on her hips.
“Are you sure you want to put me in your bedroom, sug? What about JJ and confusion?”
I swaggered to her and pulled her into my arms. “This—you
and me together—isn’t confusing. He’s gotta know where you fit in our lives.”
“But you’ve never had anyone here before?”
Hell no. I’d booted them out as soon as the sheets cooled. Jesus, I’d been a bastard. I’d never been like that with Leelee, never would be. “No, not while he was home.”
“What if he hates me, Josh?”
“Babe, the kid’s best friend is Nicky’s bitch pooch, a scary demon thing called Viper. He ain’t gonna hate sweet you.”
Her eyes twinkled and her long eyelashes fluttered. “Are you sure?”
I swatted her ass. “Yeah. Listen, I’m grubby as fuck so I’m gonna jump in the shower. You do your thing.” I glanced one last time at my spotless room. “And keep a watch out for my ma?”
“Sure thing.” She pinched my butt in return.
Ma hadn’t arrived by the time I’d done a cursory clean up. Neither had Leelee demolished the bedroom, yet. She unpacked, tossing whatever came to hand into various drawers with no rhyme or reason whatsoever while I lounged on the bed, grinning like a fool.
I saw the smile flirting around her lips and the glances she sent me.
Jesus, she was gorgeous.
I kissed the side of her neck and headed downstairs when I heard Ma’s car. She sped off with a toot of her horn as soon as I collected JJ from the car seat and his stuff from the trunk, the soft top on her convertible sliding down at her push of a button.
Suddenly my palms sweated. Shit, I was nervous. The two most important people in my life were about to meet.
On the porch, I set down the kid’s knapsack and blankie, plus a bag of possible contraband sugary items. I crouched at his level. “Did Jamma say anything new to you today?”
His face scrunched up. “Um, she said she got the burn in her heart after we ate us some chili dogs at Cosmic Dogs, and dat the traffic on seven’een so bad she might well crawl us home.” He scratched his tummy. “I think that it, Daddy.”
I hugged him to me. Goddamn killed me every time. Bad grammar and all. “Well, we’ve got someone visiting for a while.” Maybe forever, hopefully forever. “Her name’s Leelee. I love her, son.”
Fidgeting from my arms, he sat cross-legged in front of me, cheek in his hand, guileless green-gray eyes blinking. “I wuv everyone you wuv, Daddy.” He held up all five fingers of one hand. “Jamma, Wicky, Viper,” ha!, “I wuv Gerald and Way, Harvey . . .”
I laughed every damn time he called Javier Harvey.
He held up his other hand for more fingers to count. “I even wuv Momma. She didn’t wuv me back.”
My chest heaved several times and my throat tightened. I mashed him against me because I didn’t want him to see me weaking again. “Momma loved you, kid. Your momma loved you, she loves you, okay? Sometimes people, they just don’t fit.” With my hand engulfing his entire head, I rocked him with me. “How could anyone not love you?”
“Will Weewee wuv me?”
Holy shit. If I hadn’t been crying, I’d have fallen over laughing. We needed to work on his enunciation. “I bet she already does, baby boy. Are you okay with this?”
“Does she sing Disney songs too?” Wide-eyed, he wondered.
Well, shit, I didn’t know. It hadn’t been on my to-do list when I’d thought about winning Leelee back into my life. “Maybe we oughtta go find out.”
I walked him inside. He only came up to my knees and his fingers curled around mine, reminding me of the way he’d latched onto my thumb the first time I’d held him. Newborn, and sweet smelling, and the most fragile piece of bliss I’d ever known.
Another slice of the promised land waited beyond the doors. Leelee was all smiles and a few tears she blinked away as we entered the house. I couldn’t speak. I opened my arm, inviting her into my family. I looked at Leelee pressed against one side of me, JJ on the other. They both peered up at me, and I had to swallow past the hard knot in my throat.
“JJ, this is Leelee.” I patted her waist and squeezed his hand. Leelee’s fingers dug into my chest, all of our emotions centered there. “Leelee, this is my baby boy.” Love and hope so massive in that moment, they were etched in my soul and on my heart. “He wants to know if you sing Disney songs.”
She slipped free of me, kneeling down to shrink herself to my son’s height. “I sure do. But I’m a girl so I like the princesses better. That Flynn Rider has a lot to answer for.”
Breath exploded from my chest when JJ nodded so very seriously at her. In fact, my goddamn heart reached up to my throat and stayed there while I watched the two of them meet, eye-to-eye.
Leelee gathered his free hand between hers. “Now, I do like me some Little Mermaid. What about you?”
“Ursuwa the sea witch kinda scares me.” The kid shivered all over his body, and his hand slipped from mine.
“Me too.” Leelee’s eyes popped wide. “No one likes a witch, do they?”
“Nuh uh. Can I show you my new fairy stowybook? It’s in my woom. Daddy don’t care, do you?” He didn’t wait one way or the other. JJ pulled her hand, and she scampered to her feet.
“’Course you can, didn’t you know I love fairytales, darlin’?” She toed off her high heels and padded to the stairs.
The kid hung back for a second, their hands connected, the both of them linked to me, to my heart.
“Daddy, she wooks wike Ariel!” And he was a goner, toddling off beside her.
My throat was dry, my eyes wet as I watched my son and my woman walk up the stairs, sharing secrets, hand-in-hand.
Eighteen
Stone: At Her Service
A WEEK AND A half later, the kid and I took up residence in the kitchen, making a total mess of the place. We fried up fresh catfish and I tried my hand at making jalapeno hushpuppies because Leelee had ordered them when we went to Red’s Ice House. Friday night at home, I was happy to stay put instead of scoring on the bar scene. I laughed when the kid held up gooey, fish-battered fingers, trying to smear them on my face from where he perched on the counter.
Leelee looked over at us, a smile on her lips with a pen pushed behind her ear. She was in the living room, writing, visible through the open archway, and still here. She liked to move around the house at different times of the day, following sunlight like a sunflower opening, blossoming. The porches, the kitchen, and if she was really on a roll, she lugged her laptop upstairs later at night to the cozy office we shared while I scratched through paperwork. The writer’s block was gone. The professional fears caused by LaForge and the anxiety to write faster and faster vanished. And just like her, the second story in her trilogy bloomed.
Sometimes she read to me from her day’s work. The hot passages dripping from her low-toned voice made me harder than a plank, and made for good sex long into the night, but so did basically anything she did. Leelee laughing, her wet from a shower or pink from a bath, her tousled head pillowed on my shoulder as she woke in the morning. Lazy as a feline, stretching on top of me.
The flirting, the occasional fighting because she would never be less than feisty as hell, this thing about making a life—a home—together, got me right in the gut. It pushed up to my heart and filled it until I thought it would explode with happiness.
Fuck me. I’m turnin’ into a Hallmark card.
I went back to helping JJ form misshapen balls that pretended to be hushpuppies. I kept sneaking glances at Leelee though. She stretched out on the floor, legs spread wide, leaning over onto her elbows as she tapped across the keyboard of her laptop. In faded sweats, her hair in a ponytail, wearing one of my threadbare T-shirts, she walked a fine line between relaxed innocence and getting her bones jumped. Jesus. I certainly couldn’t go after her, not with the kid around. Some things wouldn’t do even though he was used to our hand-holding, hugging, and even our kisses, because I wasn’t going to hide my love for her. Touching Leelee was as vital as breathing. And he’d taken to her like she was the next best thing since chicken nuggets chased with a hot fudge sundae.
Start
ing up the fryer with JJ coloring at the table and possibly all over it, I realized I was almost one hundred percent domesticated and loving every fucking minute of it.
I pressed the timer on the range and sat across from the kid. “Whatcha drawing, baby boy?”
He shoved the piece of paper at me and kept doodling, on his hand. “Guess!”
Crap, I hated this game. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know what a tentacle-mass of red waves and a tent-shape with purple flowers was supposed to be?
I ran a fingertip over the scribbles. “Gimme a hint?”
“Dat a pitcher of someone I like.”
Squinting, I saw it then, in a surreal way. I dropped my voice. “Leelee?”
“Good, Daddy! She’s wearin’ dat dress from the day I met her!” He squealed, all semblance of being secretive off the table. Climbing off his chair and into my lap, he turned down the volume to whisper, “Can we keep her?”
Oh my hell, like she was a pet. Leelee and I had discussed it. We’d made it barely a week before both our minds were made up. We worked, this worked, the three of us together. Spending more time apart meant unnecessary pain.
She was staying. “I can write anywhere, but there’s only one Stone’s, Josh. This is your home, and I want it to be mine too,” she’d said.
And it was. High heels, mountains of dresses, cosmetics, files, folders, books and all, strewn around our bedroom, bathroom, and the office. Fuck if I even wanted to change a thing. Leelee was a hurricane-level storm that upended my life, made it chaotic and crazy, and more complete than I’d ever thought possible.
“Yeah, kid, we can keep her.” We fell into hair-ruffling, tummy-tickling awesomeness.
Walking into the living room after tucking JJ in at the table with a full-body bib, I hunched before Leelee. She blinked up at me, pulling out of the writing daze that captured her for hours.
I slid my fingers down her neck. “Hey, babe. Dinner’s on.”
Curving her arms above her head as she stretched and did that feline thing I liked, she said, “You know, you two are so cute, Josh.”