Fire & Ice (The Locklaine Boys #1) (7 page)

Oh no he didn’t.

“You must be mistaken,” I answered as professionally as possible even though I struggled not to choke him out right then and there. “We don’t keep men’s shirts stocked here.”

He feigned confusion, tilting his head to the side. “Really? I could have
sworn
I saw some back there just the other day. You know, in the sewing room?” I never should have shown Tomas the clothing I made. The asshole wasn’t going to rest until I started making money off of my designs.

“Uh…” the handsome stranger muttered, breaking the stare-off Tomas and I were currently battling in. “I’m not really sure what’s going on right now, but if you have a shirt back there I’d be willing to pay whatever you want. Seriously. I can’t walk into a courtroom like this.” He held his arms out to the side and I couldn’t help but feel pity for the guy. He just looked so sincere. And desperate. If I were being honest, it was actually quite adorable.

I swallowed down the defeated sigh that bubbled up and waved him on. “Come on. I’ve got something that might work for you.”

“Oh, thank God,” he breathed.
Adorable
.

He and Tomas both followed me back to my sewing room. The man came in while Tomas hung back, propping a shoulder on the doorframe. I walked over to the shelving along the side wall and grabbed one of the few shirts I’d made when I got a wild hair to try making men’s clothing. “Here you go. This might work.”

“Thanks so much. You’re a life saver.” He took the shirt from my hands and his attention shifted around the room to the mannequin in the corner. “You’re getting married?” he asked, pointing at the dress I’d been working on.

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “That’s just something I’m making.”

“So you’re not engaged then?”

My cheeks heated at the endearing smile that stretched across his face. “No. I’m not engaged.”

Tomas chose that moment to snort from his place in the doorway. “Little Miss Thang here is totally single.” As I watched the smile stretch even further on the man’s face, the desire to smother my employee in his sleep lessened. That was, until the bastard spoke again.

“So, court, huh?” Tomas cut in. “You get a DWI? Or did you stop paying child support?”

“Neither. I’m an attorney.”

“Will you shut up?” I ground out between clenched teeth, walking over and elbowing Tomas in the ribs before looking back at the man. “I’m sorry,” I offered. “He’s not properly trained to be around people.” The smile that curved his attractive face revealed two rows of straight, white teeth. With his blond hair and brown eyes, he was like a life-sized Ken doll.

Undeterred, my friend, and soon to be
ex
-employee, continued. “Ah. Criminal defense? Getting the scum back on the streets?”

“Tomas!” I scolded, but the man just laughed it off. It was a really nice laugh.

He just shrugged. “What?”

“That’s rude,” I ground out.

“No, no,” the man interrupted just as I was about to rip Tomas a new asshole. “It’s all right. I get that all the time, I’m used to it. And just an FYI, I’m a prosecutor.”

“So you’re poor,” Tomas stated, earning a smack in the back of his head.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I seethed.

“You don’t have to hit so hard!” he whined, reaching up to fix his still perfectly-styled pompadour. “This look doesn’t just roll out of bed, you know.” He shot the man in front of us a skeptical look. “And to answer your question, I see lover boy here, making googly eyes at you. I needed to make sure he didn’t have a record or live in his grandma’s basement before he asked you out.”

My cheeks got even hotter and I knew my face was only a few shades lighter than my hair. I was two seconds away from committing a
serious
felony. In front of a prosecutor, no less!

“You don’t know that—” I started, but Mr. Ken Doll cut me off.

“He’s right. I was totally planning on asking you out. And if it makes you feel any better,” he addressed Tomas, “the only thing on my record is a fine for public intoxication I got back in college. I have my own apartment in NoHo, I’m debt free, and I’d like to think I make a reasonably decent income.”

His face was just so open and relaxed that I felt myself smiling despite any awkward tension created by my so-called friend. It definitely helped matters that he was drop dead gorgeous. And
not
Griffin.
Bonus.

He looked back at me and held out one large hand. “I’m Chance Hoffman,” he offered. “And if I’ve passed your friend’s inspection, I was wondering if you’d like to go out for dinner with me.”

I felt my cheeks pinch as my smile grew even wider and I reached out to shake Chance’s hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Pepper O’Malley.”

“Pepper.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I like that. It suits you. So… dinner?”

“Sure,” I nodded, my hand still shaking his. “I’d like that.” And I meant it. My head might have been a mess thanks to Griffin, but that didn’t mean Chance’s offer wasn’t flattering. And what woman in her right mind didn’t want to feel desirable?

“Well, not that it matters, since you’ve already accepted,” Tomas chimed in, his voice laced with annoyance. “But I approve, btw.”

“Don’t care,” I returned as Chance released my hand to pull his cellphone from his jacket pocket. We traded numbers and by the time he left, I had an additional seventy bucks in the register—Tomas jumped on it when Chance asked what he owed for the shirt—and was feeling surprisingly optimistic.

You know what they say. The best way to get over a man is to get with another one. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

BY THE TIME I
got home later than evening all I wanted to do was pour myself a glass of wine, dig into my box of oatmeal crème pies, and soak in a bubble bath before finally dragging myself to bed and passing out.

I only got steps one and two completed, and was just sitting down in the tub to enjoy step three when my cellphone chimed with an incoming text.

Thinking it could possibly be from Chance, I reached over and lifted my phone from the folded towel resting on the closed toilet. At the sight of the name on the screen my belly fluttered. And it wasn’t that new, excited kind of flutter a woman gets when a guy shows interest. I felt butterflies when Chance asked me out earlier—what woman wouldn’t feel that for a handsome man? What I was feeling right then was like a swarm of hummingbirds, so much more intense. And it was because the name on the phone wasn’t Chance… it was Griffin. That both thrilled me and angered me simultaneously.

Him: What r u doin?

I didn’t respond. I was too busy staring, flabbergasted at my phone screen. A minute passed, maybe more when it chimed again, startling a jump from me. Water sloshed around me as I clicked on the new message.

Him: U there?

Knowing he wouldn’t stop unless I shut him down, I began typing and hit send.

Me: Go away.

Him: Oh, good. Ur up. I thought u might b sleeping.

What the hell
? I thought, perplexed. That was when I made a mistake.

Me: In the bath. Go. Away.

I waited for a response… then I waited some more. When a few minutes passed and I got no response I figured he’d given up. Instead of feeling relief as I’d expected, my heart sank in disappointment.

Until I heard a knock at my door.

“What the hell?” Standing from the tub, I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around my body, bubbles still clinging to my legs as I made my way down the hall. Just as I exited the mouth of the hall another knock sounded. “I’m coming!” I called out, standing on my tiptoes to look out the peephole. “You’ve got to be friggin kidding me!”

“Nope, not kidding!” Griffin spoke from the other side. “Now open the door, sweetness.”

I threw the chain, twisted the lock, and pulled the door opened as I ignored the hummingbirds and focused on giving him my best evil glare. “What are you doing here?”

“
Fuck me
,” he groaned as those ice blue eyes I’d always been drawn to scanned the length of my damp, soapy body. “Jesus Christ, Pepper! You can’t answer the door dressed like that!”

Before I could formulate a cutting remark, his big, calloused hand came out and pressed into the center of my chest, pushing me back into my apartment. He stepped in after me and kicked the door closed behind him. “What the hell? I didn’t invite you in here. You can’t just barge in to my place, Griff.”

“Go get dressed, sweetness.”

“Stop bossing me around!” I stamped my foot. The move jostled the tenuous hold on my towel and I had to scramble to save it before I showed him something I didn’t want him to see. “Damn it,” I mumbled as I tucked one side into the other and held on tightly.

“Pepper,” Griffin started in a warning voice.

“Get out,” I replied.

“Go get dressed.”

One hand holding my towel together, the other propped on my hip as I shot daggers from my eyeballs. “What’d I just say about bossing me around? And get out.”

Completely ignoring my demand, he sidestepped me and headed for my couch, plopping down and kicking his booted feet up on my reclaimed barn-wood coffee table. “You don’t wanna get dressed, that’s fine with me, sweetness. But I gotta warn you, I’m not feeling all that gentlemanly seeing you standing there like a goddamned wet dream.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I repeated, trying my best to ignore the heat building between my bare thighs and come off insulted.

“Not at all,” he responded casually. “Unless you want me to throw you down on the closest available surface and fuck you into a coma, I suggest you go put some clothes on, although, I gotta say, covering up that delicious body should be all kinds of illegal.”

I think I might have spontaneously orgasmed right then. Either that, or I had a mini stroke.

Deciding it was in my best interests all around, I hurried back to my bedroom and threw on a pair of yoga pants and tugged on one of the dozens of big, oversized t-shirts I’d stolen from Dex before heading back into the living room, geared for a fight.

My eye began to twitch and I thought my head might explode when I walked in and saw my television had been turned on and was turned to a baseball game.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked in response, completely ignoring my question.

I sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm my frayed nerves and frustrations. “Griffin. I asked what you were doing.”

Dropping the remote onto the couch next to him, he turned his head and looked over his shoulder at me, taking in my ratty clothing. “Christ,” he muttered. “You didn’t put on a bra, did you?”

I jerked my arms up and crossed them over my chest, hiding the fact that my nipples might have stiffened under his heated perusal. “Griffin!” I snapped, drawing his icy gaze back to mine.

“I’m here ‘cause we need to talk. But first, I’m starving. I was thinking about pizza, but if you want to order something else, I’m open to suggestions.

My brows shot up in bewilderment. “What could we possibly need to talk about?”

“Like I said, we’ll talk about it after dinner. So what’s it going to be?”

I let out an irritated breath and turned toward the kitchen. Arguing with Griffin clearly wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I decided the best route was to just give in and order dinner. But I wasn’t giving in completely. He wanted pizza? Well, Chinese it was going to be.

After ordering a bunch of my favorite dishes from Szechwan Dragon—the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, in my opinion—and went to get my wine glass from where I left it in the bathroom. I desperately needed a refill to deal with the six-foot-five-inch pain-in-the-ass currently enjoying my cable TV.

As I poured myself another glass, Griffin came into the kitchen and opened
my
fridge, pulled out one of
my
beers, popped the cap off and took a pull.

“Please, make yourself at home,” I deadpanned.

Offering up a sinful grin, he said, “Lucky for you I love Szechwan Dragon. And Mongolian Chicken.”

I huffed out a breath and took a sip of wine. “Can we just get this over with? I’m exhausted and want to go to sleep.”

He looked back down to my shirt. “In a little bit. The Yanks are up and the inning’s almost over.”