Hard Case (Hard as Nails #2) (18 page)

I’m starting to worry. “Slate, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he says. “I just want to get you home. And in my arms.”

Once we’re in the car and he’s driving us home, I say, “I want to know what was on that piece of paper.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says with a sly grin.

“Oh, I see. Well, what did you say to the judge?”

“I told her what was on the paper.”

“Are you kidding me, Slate?”

He laughs. “I’m not kidding. I told her what was on it and offered it to the prosecution, and they agreed to drop the charges and dismiss the case.”

“Now I have to know.”

“You don’t need to know,” he tells me. “Don’t worry about it, because it will never affect you at all. Just be thankful we were able to knock it out in the first five minutes of the trial. That may be a record.”

“And you’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?” I tease.

“Wouldn’t you be if you’d pulled the stunt I pulled in there?” His face is glowing.

“I guess so,” I admit.

We drive a few minutes in silence.

“Slate, thank you,” I tell him after a few minutes.

“For what?” he asks.

“For everything. For taking me in and showing me all is not lost, for taking care of me, and for handling my case for me without asking for a dime.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to make you pay me back. Starting with tonight and continuing for the rest of our lives.” He stops at a red light, and takes my hand. “I love you, Rose.”

I’ve known it for weeks now, but it’s the first time he’s actually said it. My eyes fill with happy tears. “You couldn’t wait to say that until we got home?”

“No. I had to say it now.”

“Well, I love you, too. More than I ever thought it was possible to love a man.”

It’s true. I loved Josh. I still grieve for the horrible end to the life we had together and could have continued having. If he hadn’t changed so much, I could have been happy, but I know now, I never would have felt complete. Not the way Slate makes me feel complete.

He kisses my hand, and holds it for the rest of the drive.

When we’ve parked in his driveway and are out of the car, he takes me in his arms.

“Say it again,” he requests. “Say it now that we’re not in the car, now that I can respond.”

“I love you,” I tell him again.

“I love you, too, Rose,” he says, pulling me to him for a long, lingering kiss.

When we separate, we stand smiling at each other.

“I want you to move in with me officially,” he says. “I want you to sell your house, put the past behind us, and move on with our future.”

Knowing what I now know about Slate’s past, it’s a testament to his feeling for me when he says he wants to put it behind him. I know it’s too early. We met under stressful circumstances. Given how he’d lied to me in the beginning, I should proceed more cautiously. Get my own place. But I don’t want to.

I want to start on the future Slate mentioned as soon as possible.

“You know me moving in with you means expanding your movie collection to include Disney films.”

“No it doesn’t,” he says, his tone teasing.

I narrow my eyes at him in mock offense. “Slate, if you’re going to keep me happy, you are going to have to buy some Disney movies. A least my favorites.”

“I don’t have to. I’ve already done it and put them in my movie collection. I did it a couple of days ago, but you’ve been too busy ravishing my body every chance you get to notice.”

“Oh my God,” I whisper. “You really do love me.”

“Never doubt it, Rose. Not for one second. You’re everything to me. And I want to be everything to you. No wait, that isn’t right. I want to be the man you’ll love for the rest of your life. I know you need other things in your life to be happy, and not just Disney movies. Now that your case has been dismissed, we’re going to work on getting you back to teaching your kids.”

I pout. “You want me to go back to work already.”

“Yeah. Yeah I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to see you wearing your pink cardigan, and your navy dress with the cherries on it, teaching your class of kids, and looking so sweet. And then I want to take you home and fuck you as you say dirty things to me.”

“Hmm,” I say, leaning up to kiss him softly. “How about I give you a little preview?”

“Sex then a Disney Movie,” he says. “I can’t think of a better night.”

I laugh, and together we enter his massive house that now feels like home. Because home is wherever Slate and I are together.

* * *

Slate

Rose heads upstairs but before I join her, I tell her I need to make a phone call. She looks at me for a second, a knowing look in her eyes, then says softly, “Don’t be long.”

I watch her walk up the stairs, her ass moving back and forth in her skirt, and I thank the stars she’s mine. Then I do what I have to do and call King as I said I would.

“Slate,” King says when he answers the phone. “Congratulations on getting her case thrown out so quickly. That must be a new record. I just hope that piece of paper doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass.”

“It won’t,” I tell him confidently. But it could end up biting
him
in the ass. Because thanks to my friend Davis, who is a genius computer hacker and financier, I not only have information on a certain dirty judge, but that judge’s connections to King.

And by now, King knows it.

“So long as no one, and that means you or your associates, bothers me or Rose, that information stays private.”

“Good. Good,” he says slowly, savoring the word. “In the end, it was best the case didn’t go to trial. I know she was onto us. But you saved the day, like you always do. That’s why you’re the highest paid attorney in the state, right? Right.”

“I guess that’s that, huh? I’ve done a lot of work for you over the years, and I’d like to try to play it straight for a while.”

“Well, we’ll see, Slate. For now, Rose Carter is protected, the same way you are. But I still have to be paid back for what her husband took from me.”

“I’ve already told you I’ll pay you back every cent and even double it.”

“And I’ve told you, that’s not the kind of payment I’m talking about. But speaking of the girl. What are your plans for her? Is she going home? What’s happening there?”

“I’m taking her in full-time,” I tell him, not because it’s any of his business, but I want him to know she’s mine, in every sense of the word.

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me she’s moving in with you? Slate, you picked up an old lady out of all of this?”

“Goodbye, King,” I swear I can hear the asshole laughing before I can hang up.

I hear a whistle from upstairs. I turn around as I reach the bottom of the stairs to see her standing on the second floor balcony in her bra and panties.

“You want to come up and celebrate with me, Mr. Rawlings?” she asks me.

“Of course I do,” I tell her, loosening my tie. I take the first step, but she waves a finger at me and shakes her head.

“No, sir,” she says. “Not yet.”

“Okay, what do I need to do to get up there?”

“First, take off all of your clothes. Right there in front of me.”

I pull off my tie and unbutton my shirt. I shrug off my suit jacket and untuck my shirt, sliding it off my shoulders and down my arms. I pull off my undershirt, and I drop my shirts in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. I pull off my socks and undo my belt. I open my pants and let them fall as well.

Then, I hold up my arms and turn around so she can see I’m only wearing my boxers. I take the next step, but she stops me again.

“No, no, no,” she teases. “You still can’t come up yet.”

“My God, woman! What do you want from me?”

She leans on the bannister on her elbows. “Would you mind grabbing a bottle of champagne and two glasses, please? Oh, and can you put the bottle in an ice bucket like they do in hotels?”

“What do I look like, room service?”

She laughs. “I’m going to make you earn me this time,” she says.

“Apparently.”

I hurry into the kitchen, snatch up a bottle of champagne from the wine rack in my pantry. I fill an ice bucket around the bottle of champagne and grab two glasses.

When I come back out into the living room, she’s standing on the second floor naked, and I get a good look at her body.

I see her curves, the pink of her nipples, and the bare skin between her legs. I want her. I want her as much as I’ve wanted her since the first time I saw her.

“Now can I come up?”

“Please do, baby,” she says. “Come to me.”

She starts backing slowly away as I start climbing the stairs. When I get to the top, I see her duck into our bedroom. I follow her slowly with the ice bucket and glasses.

When I get into the bedroom, I don’t see her, but I hear her.

“Put the ice bucket on the dresser,” she tells me.

I do.

“Now, take off your boxers.”

I grip the waistband and slide my boxers down.

“Where are you?” I ask.

She steps out from behind the door. “Right here.”

I turn and she takes my face in her gentle hands.

“I love you, Slate,” she whispers seductively against my cheek.

“I love you, Rose.”

“I want you to make me yours now,” she says breathlessly. “Take your time and make love to me.”

“That will be my absolute pleasure, Rose. I plan to spend the rest of my life making love to you. But equal times fucking you.”

She laughs. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

Coming next in the Hard As Nails Series:

Hard Time
(Book 1)

Muscled, tattooed, and irresistible.

Thomas Street is an ex-con, but before he got out of prison, he locked eyes with her…

The moment Street sees Katie serving food in a hellhole of a prison, he wants her. Her sweet little body against his. Under his. Her screaming his name until she admits she’s never had better.

Now he’s found her again, working in a bookstore of all places, and she’s just as gorgeous as he remembers. Only Katie thinks he can be redeemed. That there’s a good man underneath his darkness.

He’s not so sure.

But then Katie becomes his. Katie and her daughter.

And he’ll risk everything, including fighting the devil himself, to protect them.

Hard Core
(Book 3)

Built, tempting, and deadly.

Axel Jackson is an ex-marine, haunted by what he’s done, but when he sees her, he dreams of the man he can become…

When Axel returns home, he’s shrouded in darkness, unable to forget the blood that stains his hands or the screams that haunt his dreams. When a dark force from his past offers him a job, he wonders if taking it will be his salvation or his downfall.