I’d only seen those eyes once in light. He didn’t turn on the lights when he visited me at night.
God, I forgot how beautiful he was. Even in my daydreams he wasn’t that beautiful.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Are you fuckin’ insane?” he barked in my face.
I blinked at his surprising tone and angry question. Then I asked, “What?”
“Struttin’ into Ride like you did. Jesus, are you insane?”
I blinked again. Firstly, because I was confused. How did he know I went to Ride? Secondly, I was more confused. What was he doing there during the day? Thirdly, I was even more confused because his unbelievably handsome face showed clearly he was extremely pissed off.
“Um…”
“Answer me, babe,” he demanded.
Yikes. He was scarier than Tack, Dog and the entire biker gang all rolled into one.
“Gwen, I said answer me.” His deep voice was beginning to rumble.
But I blinked again.
“You know my name?”
He stared down at me.
Then he stepped back and ran his hand over his short-cropped black hair at the same time he shook his head but not even for a second did he unpin me from his ferocious scowl.
“Jesus, babe, you’re a piece of work.”
“What?” I whispered.
He planted his hands on his hips and leaned back into my face. “Yeah, Gwen, I know your name. Gwendolyn Piper Kidd. Thirty-three years old. Self-employed, freelance editor. You pay your taxes on time, your mortgage on time and your bills on time. Married once for two years to a man who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and who has since married three other women and is currently engaged in his fourth divorce. Your father is Baxter Kidd, ex-Army, current construction foreman, married to Meredith Kidd, executive secretary to a hotshot divorce attorney who, incidentally, pulled your shit outta that mess you got into with that asshole. You hang with Camille Antoine who works dispatch for Denver PD and Tracy Richmond who works everywhere, mostly retail. You string along Troy Loughlin, who’d kill to get in your pants but you have no clue and he has no balls. Your sister is the definition of loser. You spend too much on clothes. When you go out, you show too much skin. And the only man you’ve fucked for a year and a half is me.”
For the second time that day, my jaw was slack.
Then I closed my mouth only for it to fall open again.
Then I closed it only to open it to speak. “How do you know so much about me?”
“Sweet Pea, I know who I fuck,” he shot back and I felt my body move like he’d struck me and that’s exactly what his words felt like, a blow. He didn’t see it, or more accurately, he disregarded it and went on. “Now tell me, what the fuck were you thinkin’ walkin’ into Ride like that?”
“I needed to talk to Dog,” I explained because I couldn’t get out any of the other ten thousand and fifty things I wanted to say.
“You needed to talk to Dog,” he repeated.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Babe, you were coasting under radar, now you’re lit up like a fuckin’ beacon.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means you’re fucked,” he answered.
Belatedly, I was getting angry.
“Okay,” I moved an inch from the door, straightening my shoulders, “now what does that mean?”
“I think you get that your sister is a piece of trash,” he informed me.
It was safe to say Ginger was a piece of trash. It was also safe to say my Dad, Meredith or I could call her that. Even Tack and Dog, who she owed over two million dollars, could get away with calling her that.
The person who could not was the man standing in front of me, a man I knew intimately but this was the first time I’d seen his face by the light of day. And one I was discovering was a big, fat jerk!
“Do not call Ginger a piece of trash,” I warned.
His eyebrows flew up and it sucked because he was so goddamned handsome, all that brown skin, those black eyes, that strong jaw, that thick, short, black hair, his beautifully chiseled features and equally beautifully chiseled physique – all of it hinting at Hispanic or maybe Italian and all of it freaking, unbelievably amazing. But the worst for me, right then, was that he could be even more drop dead beautiful with his eyebrows raised in disbelief like he thought I was an idiot.
“You’re sayin’ you don’t know your sister’s trash?” he asked.
“No, I’m saying you can’t call her trash. I can call her trash but you can’t.”
He scowled at me some more and then muttered, “Fuck me.”
“I think we’re done here,” I announced and started to move to open the door but then suddenly found myself pinned against it again by his big, hard, sculpted, exceptionally warm body with both his hands at either side of my neck, thumbs at my jaw forcing me to look up at him.
“Oh no, Sweet Pea, we’re not done,” he whispered in a scary voice and I fought my mouth dropping open again because he was back to freaking me out more than half dozen members of a biker gang and I succeeded in this endeavor mainly because his thumbs were there.
“Step back,” I demanded and was pretty pleased my voice didn’t tremble.
He ignored me and didn’t move. Instead, he said, “Your sister has bought herself a load of shit, then she bought herself more, not done, she bought herself more. She’s pissed off some serious people. The best end to this scenario is she turns up dead. I know there’s no love lost between you two and I know it still sucks for you to hear that but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Step back,” I repeated.
He continued to ignore me. “The best thing you could have done when Darla showed on your doorstep was close the door, close your mind to that shit and go back to work. You didn’t. You strutted your ass into Ride, got Tack’s attention and, trust me, babe, you do not want Tack’s attention. And doin’ that, you made yourself visible to a lot of people you do not want to know you exist. That’s done. Now, your sister’s problems do not exist for you. Your sister does not exist for you. Now, you keep your head down, be smart and keep yourself out of trouble. Which means you stick to what you know, who you know and where you know. You do not move out of regularly scheduled programming. You get me?”
“How do you know Darla was here?”
His brows shot together and the way they did made him now look scary and scarily impatient.
“Clue in, Sweet Pea, I keep tabs.”
“You keep tabs?”
“You’re mine so I keep tabs.”
I felt my own eyebrows shoot together. “I’m yours?”
“Babe, I’m fuckin’ you aren’t I?”
This was without question. I didn’t see his face but that didn’t mean he didn’t talk. He was seriously bossy in bed and I’d know that deep voice anywhere.
“Okay,” I started, “perhaps at this juncture we should discuss our relationship.”
“Clue in again, Gwen, the reason our relationship is the way it is, is so I don’t ever have to waste my fuckin’ time doin’ stupid-ass shit like discussing it.”
Oh boy. Now I was getting really angry.
“I think you should step back and then I think you should go,” I told him.
“And I think you should confirm you get me then I’ll go.”
“Fine, I get you, now… go,” I snapped back.
He didn’t move and his black eyes didn’t unlock from mine.
Therefore, I called, “Hello? I get you. Now go.”
Suddenly, his eyes warmed and his thumbs moved from under my jaws to slide over the edges of them.
Then he noted softly, “You’re pissed.”
Was he for real?
“Uh… yeah,” I verified.
“Don’t be pissed,” he ordered.
No, seriously, he couldn’t be for real.
“You can’t tell me not to be pissed.”
“Babe,
you think I don’t have better things to do than be here?” he asked.
Oh my God.
Did people’s heads actually explode? Because at that moment I was pretty certain mine was about to.
“Then maybe you should be on your way,” I invited, my voice sharp.
“The point is, I’m here.”
“Well, I hate to break this to you, but you’ve made other visits I’ve enjoyed a whole lot more.”
That was when he grinned and when he did, that was when my heart stopped beating.
Never, not once, not even that first night, did I see him smile and if he was beautiful normally, his face smiling knocked my freaking socks off.
Lordy be, the man had two dimples.
Two.
“Do you not get why I’m pissed?” he asked gently through his smile.
“No, I don’t and there’s never a good excuse for being a jerk so, again, please, if you’re so busy, allow me to stop wasting your time and just go.”
“You fucked up today, Gwen,” he told me.
“I think you’ve made that clear, baby,” I shot back.
For some reason the warmth in his eyes deepened at the same time he whispered his warning. “Don’t call me baby when you’re pissed, Sweet Pea.”
“Don’t call me Sweet Pea at all, baby,” I retorted.
“You call me baby when I’m fucking you,” he stated and I didn’t know if this was a demand or a recall but it was probably both.
“Well, don’t hold your breath for that to happen again.”
The warmth in his eyes got deeper, hotter and his thumbs stroked my jaws again. I tried to pull my face away but his hands tightened and I stopped.
“You shouldn’t make a threat you can’t carry out,” he advised, still talking gently.
“How many times do I have to tell you to go?” I asked.
He ignored me and declared, “I end things.”
Seriously, he was not for real.
“It’s good to experience change in life, refreshing, keeps your senses sharp,” I informed him.
“Don’t push that shit, Gwendolyn,” he warned. “You won’t like the consequences.”
“What’s your name?” I asked on a dare.
He called my dare and raised me. “You call me baby.”
“What’s your name?” I repeated.
“Sometimes honey,” he continued.
“What… is… your name?” I demanded.
“But I prefer baby.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and snapped, “God!” at the same time I stomped my foot, realized my hands were at his waist and I pushed back.
He didn’t budge.
My eyes rolled back to him and I instantly noted my mistake when I found one of his hands had disappeared and his mouth was at my neck, his lips at the skin behind my ear and then I felt his tongue there.
Without my permission, my body did a top to toe tremble.
His face came out of my neck, it got in mine, his hand returned to my jaw and he whispered, “Yeah.”
Then he pulled me away from the door and like a freak of nature, one second he was there, the next he was gone.
I stared at the closed door then moved to the window and checked and I was right. He was gone.
Then I turned my back to the door and stared into my messy living room.
And I was thinking I was pretty sure he felt the tremble.
Chapter Three
The Day of Epiphany
My house was an old farmhouse that once graced fields but now was situated in a neighborhood of much newer houses, that was to say built in the last fifty years, on the close outskirts of Denver.
Once you made it through the narrow walls with kickass stained glass of the entryway, my house had a living room that ran the length of the front. To the right behind sliding inset glass doors was a dining room or den, but it was nothing now. Empty space. To the left, a swinging doorway into a big kitchen. Upstairs were three bedrooms, one somewhat small so I made that into my office, and a mammoth bathroom.
My father had not let me move in until he and his buddy Rick had installed a new bathroom. He said this was because the bathtub was imminently going to fall through the floor. I thought he was being dramatic because he hated my house and still does. Even so, why I thought this I really did not know because my father was not a dramatic person. Therefore I shouldn’t have been surprised when they started working on the bathroom and the tub proceeded to crash through the floor.
So Dad redid my bathroom, after, of course, he rebuilt the floor, and now it was gorgeous with claw-footed tub, pedestal sink, heated towel racks, the lot. He also redid the wood plank floors in my bedroom and the office and re-skimmed the walls in both rooms. Meredith and I painted my bedroom and Meredith made me killer roman blinds to go in the windows of my bedroom and in my office. My friend Tracy and I painted my office. I then proceeded to the fun phase of renovation: decoration, while Dad moved onto the kitchen on which he worked with Troy. The completion of this took five months because they both got sidetracked with other things like their own lives and the faucet in my half-bath downstairs not turning off and the roof leaking and the light switch in my bedroom not working and the furnace going out, stuff like that.
But now the kitchen was fantastic, cabinets painted a buttery cream; a big battered, rectangle farm table in the middle with six chairs; butcher block countertops; fabulous appliances that Dad sourced for me on the cheap through his construction network and because they were damaged but in places you couldn’t see. I’d decorated it in countrified charm with a whimsical twist. I wasn’t country, not by a long shot, but the kitchen was an old farmhouse kitchen so it demanded country and there were times I could be whimsical.
So after MM left, I went to my kitchen, made chocolate chip cookie batter, took the bowl, a spoon and a cup of coffee to the table and grabbed my phone.
Then I sat with one foot on the floor, one heel to the chair and stared at it.
I should call Camille. Camille was a straight-talker. She was smart. She was worldly and she had her head together. Camille was living with Leo who was a cop and they’d been together for five years. It was a good relationship, loving but challenging because both Leo and Camille had attitude. But if they ever broke up it would be like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell breaking up, that was to say proof that the world would soon be coming to an end.
Camille, however, knew all about MM and she thought I was part nuts, part crazy letting him come to me in the middle of the night and not knowing his name. She advised repeatedly that during the very next visit I should firstly, kick him in the gonads and secondly, call the cops.
Hmm.
I could also call Tracy. Tracy was a romantic. Tracy was not a straight-talker. Tracy would rather endure torture than say anything that would make you uncomfortable or hurt your feelings. Tracy had three boyfriends and they were all jerks but she kept them around because she didn’t have it in her to break up with them even though they were jerks. Before getting bored and moving on, which Tracy did frequently, Tracy put up with a lot of shit at work because my sweet Tracy didn’t have a backbone.
Tracy also loved the idea of MM. She was convinced one day he was going to reach out, turn on the light, frame my face with his hands and tell me the sun rose and set for him through me, promptly marry me in a fairytale wedding and thereafter treat me like a princess to the end of my days. Even after all this time she was totally convinced this was going to happen and she never faltered in that belief. MM’s most recent visit would probably make her dance in delight. She would never see it for what it was, jerky, intrusive and supremely annoying.
I couldn’t call Troy because after what MM said about him I was freaked out about Troy. Troy had always been just Troy. Troy had been around before Camille and Tracy. Troy had been around before I met Scott Leighton, when I met Scott Leighton, when I married Scott Leighton and when Scott Leighton broke my heart. Troy was a friend and the thought that he wa
nted to get in my pants freaked me out almost more than everything else that happened that day.
I stared at my phone and spooned up some dough.
Then I shoved the dough in my mouth, dropped the spoon, picked up the phone and made the first smart decision I’d made since MM’s hand hit the small of my back the night before.
I dialed, swallowed and put the phone to my ear.
“What’s up, girl?” Camille answered.
“The Great MM visited last night.”
Silence. No, total silence.
Then, “Girl…”
Then nothing.
“He also came back today, he was here when I got back from doing something and he left just about twenty minutes ago.”
More silence, this even more total like all the noise in the world was being sucked into a vacuum.
“Cam?” I called into the void.
“He left just twenty minutes ago?” she asked.
“Yep,” I answered.
“He was there in the light of day?” she asked.
“Yep,” I answered.
“And his skin didn’t catch fire or anything?” she asked.
“Nope,” I answered through a smile.
“What happened?”
It was then I broke the whole thing down for her from last night through Darla through Dog and Tack through The Great MM’s surprise visit, loving chat and gentle explanation of the boundaries of our relationship.
When I finished, she muttered, “Shit.”
“Shit what?” I asked.
“Girl, I know about Kane Allen, aka Tack, head honcho of the Chaos MC. And I know you do not wanna go there. Rumor is he’s spent his term tryin’ to clean up the club, with some success, but clean for those boys does not have the same definition as it does for the rest of the population. They call themselves Chaos for a reason and these boys are not like other boys. These boys do not have the civilized filter other people do. They do not only not exist in a world of law and order, they exist in a world of survival where there is only instinct. They’re animals, Gwen. No freakin’ joke.”
Oh boy.
“Well, I didn’t exactly make a date with him,” I reminded her.
“And don’t, ever. You enter that world, there is no comin’ home. You get me?”
Mystery Man Page 3