At Peace (19 page)

Joe didn’t look cute. He looked a little
scary and a lot delicious.

But watching someone sleep was something
lovers did. We weren’t lovers. This was something else entirely,
something that didn’t involve intimacies like watching someone
sleep. I reckoned the intimacies shared during a booty call had
pretty stringent boundaries and I’d read that situation wrong once,
I wasn’t about to do it again.

I moved and his arm tightened, his eyes
opened and his chin started to dip.

I didn’t catch his eye, just pushed against
his tight arm, trying to roll away.

This didn’t work.

“Buddy,” he called softly, his voice
gruff.

“I gotta get back to the girls,” I
mumbled.

“After,” Joe muttered.

“I have to go.”

His arm loosened, I rolled to my other side
but then his other arm wound around me and he yanked me into his
front.

“I said, after,” he growled into my hair,
pressed his hard cock against my ass and my resisting body stopped
resisting.

He pushed into me, rolling me to my belly.
Then his hand went between my legs and he cupped my pubic bone,
gently pulling me to my knees as my torso stayed in the bed and my
head stayed in the pillow.

And I retained this position for awhile first
while Joe’s mouth worked me then while he was on his knees behind
me and his shaft worked me.

After, when I was done and he was done, his
hips pressed into mine, taking me off my knees and back to my
belly. His body covered mine for only a second before he rolled us
to our sides, his fingers drifting from between my legs, up my
belly to glide along the curve under one breast.

He lifted up and kissed my shoulder then at
my ear he said, “Now, you can go home.”

Released from my booty call, I started to
move away but his fingers at the underside of my breast suddenly
moved up and curled around.

“You understand what this is?” he asked and
instantly I nodded.

I knew what it was. Sex. Just sex. A booty
call. A really fucking good one.

“My truck’s in the drive, buddy, you’re
welcome in my bed.”

“Okay,” I whispered into the pillow, my eyes
closed, unsure what to make of this but deciding I’d think of it
when Joe hadn’t just given me an orgasm and I didn’t have his body
pressed to mine, his hand curled around my breast, his mouth at my
ear.

He moved, his whiskered chin scraping my skin
as it pulled the hair away from my neck and he kissed me there.

Then he let me go.

Then without looking at him (mostly because I
was naked but also because I was uncertain about how I felt about
the state of affairs, primarily me being naked, thoroughly fucked
by a man I went from not liking, to hating, but kept screwing and
I’d never left a man in his bed, in his house, to run home in the
shortest walk of shame in the history of womanhood, except, of
course, the times I did this with Joe), I escaped his room, threw
on my nightie, underwear and robe as fast as I could in his living
room and I got the hell out of there.

* * * * *

Stupidly, for the next several hours, my eyes
went to any window they were near and I peered out.

I wasn’t on the lookout for Daniel Hart’s
delivery men, his car, his driver or him.

I was wondering if Joe would come over for
pancakes.

Kate and Keira got up, I made pancakes and
Joe never showed.

So there it was. Booty call.

I took a shower and got ready to work the
afternoon shift at the garden center.

Cheryl had told me there was nothing wrong
with a girl getting some. And getting it from Joe was good. So he
wasn’t going to be the next love of my life. At least I wouldn’t be
totally alone anymore, not if his truck was in the drive. And I
doubted it would be hard to call it off if, someday, some guy who
did want to “take it there” walked into my life.

It wasn’t great. It wasn’t perfect. It was
kind of sad after what I had with Tim.

But it was better than where I was without
him.

I figured I could live with that.

* * * * *

Even so, I was on tenterhooks on the run up
to dinner, thinking, since the girls asked him, he’d come over. I
didn’t make pork chops or risotto because, with having to work, I
didn’t have time to make it to the grocery store. I just made
meatloaf.

But it didn’t matter.

Joe didn’t come for dinner.

Visit from Bonnie

Cal lay in bed, his window open,
listening.

He’d been gone a week and a half, had to
leave the day after things smoothed out with Violet to see to some
work.

He’d told her he was going before she slipped
out of his bed the second night they were together, telling him she
had to go home to her girls. She hadn’t slept with him that night,
just told him she needed to go after they’d finished their second
round. It wasn’t even midnight.

Her car hadn’t been in the drive when he got
home that day but the boyfriend’s yellow pickup and Kate’s Fiesta
were there. From his driveway he could see the girls through the
kitchen window, laughing and looking like they were making dinner.
Dane was sitting on the counter facing the windows, laughing with
them. If they were laughing, things were good. Colt had called
while he was gone, reporting there were no more flowers and Vi
hadn’t received any further gifts.

He knew Daniel Hart though, he knew the man
wouldn’t be done until he had what he wanted, something else caught
his eye or someone made him done.

Cal just hoped something else caught his
eye.

How life could make it that Hart’s current
obsession moved in right next to him, the wife of a man Hart
murdered, when Hart had also murdered Cal’s cousin Vinnie, Cal had
no clue.

He had been struggling with the decision of
whether or not to make the call to Vinnie Senior, his uncle, since
Cal found out about Violet and Hart. But after talking with Colt,
he decided to wait to see if Hart lost interest before he talked to
Vinnie. A call to Uncle Vinnie about Daniel Hart would mean a call
to Sal and then there’d be war. Sal was itching for it. Then again,
so was Uncle Vinnie.

He heard the sliding glass door to Vi’s house
open and he shook his head in the dark, grinning.

Then he threw the covers back, knifed out of
bed, grabbed his jeans, yanked them on and went to his
backdoor.

He had it open before she hit the steps and
he met her on the deck.

She tipped her head back to look at him.

“Hi,” she whispered as if they were in her
bedroom and she didn’t want her girls to hear.

“Buddy, get inside,” he ordered, pulling the
remote from her hand, he walked passed her, down the steps, across
their yards, up her steps and, pressing the buttons on the remote
without looking at it, he disarmed the alarm before he got close to
the door and tripped the sensors. Then he went through her sliding
glass door, closed it, locked it and walked through her house.
Unlocking the side kitchen door, he nabbed the key he’d seen on a
hook on the wall behind the door and he walked out, locking the
door and hitting the buttons on the remote that would arm the
alarm.

She was perched on the arm of his father’s
chair when he came back. She had her black satin robe on but he
could see the lace of another of her sexy nighties hugging her
cleavage through the opening of her robe.

“Where’d you go?” she asked as he was sliding
his door shut.

He turned to her and tossed the remote on the
couch.

“You’re in the wrong room.”

“Where’d you go?” she repeated.

“Your system is tight, Vi, but you can’t
leave a door unlocked. I locked it, went out your side door.” He
lifted his hand, the keys to her kitchen door jingled from his
fingers then he palmed them and pushed them in the pocket of his
jeans. “Now, like I said, you’re in the wrong room.”

She stood and whispered, “Thanks for thinkin’
of that, Joe.”

Christ, why did his dick twitch every time
she said his name?

He decided he was definitely done talking in
the living room.

Therefore, he growled, “Get in my bed.”

“Joe –”

There it was again.

Fuck, she undid him and she did it just
saying his name.

“Bed.”

She hesitated then she whispered, “Okay.”

He watched her turn and walk down his hall
like she had all the time in the fucking world.

He gave it a second to get himself under
control so he didn’t go into his room, rip her nightgown off and
scare the shit out of her when he did her.

Then he followed her.

* * * * *

“I have to go,” she said against his
neck.

She was on top of him, his cock still inside
her, he was still hard, he’d come not a minute before (she’d come
earlier but she still rode him hard until he found it) and now she
was talking about going.

He had an arm draped around her waist, the
other hand in her hair and he tightened both to make his point.

But he made it verbally too. “Not done with
you, buddy.”

“Really, Joe, I should go.”

He looked to his clock, it was nearing
midnight.

“You tired?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered.

His arms got tighter. “Then sleep.”

“Joe –”

He pulled her off his dick and rolled them to
their sides, shoving his knee between her legs, forcing her to wrap
her thigh around his hip and he did this to make another nonverbal
point.

She got his point and whispered into his
throat, “My girls are alone.”

“Anyone gets near your doors or windows, your
alarm will go off, I’ll hear it, so will Colt, and we’ll move on
it.”

“But –”

“Not to mention it’s wired straight into
dispatch and Colt’s told them, they get the signal, they go in
hot.”

“But, I –”

Cal tipped his chin down to look at her and
tugged on her hair to force her to tilt her head back.

When his eyes caught hers, he spoke, “I
thought for a second they were unsafe, I’d be in your bed.”

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

What he was sure of was that he was relieved
that she wasn’t slipping out of his bed to make some bitchy point
or that she was using him to get off and leaving him to go home and
sleep. Why he was relieved, he had no fucking clue. Any other woman
did any of that shit, he wouldn’t care less and some of it he’d
encourage.

Vi, it’d piss him off.

He was also sure nothing would happen to her
girls. Daniel Hart might have money and power but he didn’t have
anyone on his payroll who could slip through Cal’s system.

“I’m sure.”

Her body relaxed, settling into his. He
loosened his hand in her hair and she tucked her face back in his
throat.

“It’s weird,” she said softly and after she
spoke her body got tense again.

He waited for her to say more but she fell
silent.

“What’s weird?” Cal prompted.

“Nothin’,” she replied quickly.

“Buddy.”

She changed the subject, not that she
introduced the subject in the first place still she changed it.

“I’m just gonna doze before I go home.”

“Vi, what’s weird?”

“Really, it was nothin’. I was just
thinkin’.”

“About what?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

His hand slid from her waist to her ass, he
cupped it and he squeezed his warning while verbalizing it. “Not
gonna ask again.”

She was silent a second then she sighed.

Then she asked his throat, “How do you play
bodyguard and be home all the time?”

“What?”

She tilted her head back so he again dipped
his chin.

“You’re security to the stars, how do you
guard them if you’re here so much?”

“Don’t do the bodyguard thing much anymore,
buddy,” he told her. “Special gigs if the pay is good. Mostly do
their systems.”

“Systems?”

“Kinda like I did for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, means I have to deal with their shit
for a week, not for fuckin’ ever.”

“So you just install their systems?”

“Nope, stopped doin’ most of the installs
awhile ago too. Just design ‘em, contract out to guys I trust to
install the hardware and I come in to do the wiring.”

“Really?” she repeated as if this was
surprising.

“Yeah. That surprise you?”

“Um… I guess not.”

Cal rolled into her, taking her to her back
and got up on a cocked arm, elbow in the bed, his head in his hand
and he looked down at her shadowed face as he ran his fingers in
random patterns across the skin at her ribs.

“They call me in, I recon their houses, tell
‘em what they need, do the design, hand it over to firms who do the
installs, maintenance and watch. Wiring is my signature, my systems
are sound but my wiring is impenetrable. No one can do what I do,
my designs are comprehensive, seamless but my wiring is what they
pay for. ”

“But you used to be a bodyguard?”

“Natural progression.”

“Oh,” she whispered but he knew there was
more.

“What?” Cal asked, she didn’t respond so his
hand flattened on her ribs and he pressed in lightly before he
repeated, “What?”

“If you only do, um… recon and design, how’d
you get mixed up with Kenzie?”

It was then Cal understood her
hesitation.

He blew out a sigh, rolled to his back and
she rolled with him, coming up on an elbow with her head in her
hand like he’d been moments before.

“Sorry, was that…?”

Cal cut her off. “Kenzie had a situation.
Stalker. Bad shit. The guy was fucked up. He broke into her house
while she was out, did shit you don’t wanna know. They upped her
security, he slipped through it, did his shit again. They called me
to look into her systems, I made some modifications. She was there
when I did the walkthrough. I have a reputation, she’d heard about
it, she talked to her people, wanted me close and I didn’t blame
her. This guy was whacked. She has three houses, I designed new
systems for all of them in the meantime, until they caught this
guy, I took her back at her request and she paid big for it. She
took an interest while I was doin’ that. You know the
rest.”