House of Payne: Steele (15 page)

“Right.” Essie nodded one last time, because what Carla said made sense.

She just had one small problem.

She wasn’t sure how to enjoy Steele and his lessons without having her heart get tangled up in the mix.

Steele hustled up the stairs to Essie’s floor, not bothering to look at his watch. He knew what time it was. It was approximately five hours from the time he’d sent a quick text to her—“hung up at work, C U when I C U.”

Five fucking hours.

His empty gut rumbled, deepening his less-than-great mood. His best friend at PSI, Luke Keyes had kept muttering at him throughout two meetings and a lockdown to stop looking at his watch, but he hadn’t been able to put a leash on his need to get to get out of there.

No. That wasn’t right. He hadn’t needed to get out of there.

He’d needed to get to Essie.

Hell of a note.

He was just lifting a hand to knock on Essie’s door when it suddenly swung open.

“Oh!” Clearly surprised, Essie stepped back, freezing in the process of tucking her phone case into a pocket of a pair of baggy denim overalls that had the cuffs rolled up to the knees. “Steele. Wow. Talk about timing. I was just headed out to the car wash and then on to the store to pick something up for dinner.”

That news flash distracted him from how little-girl cute she looked, complete with a high ponytail that made his fingers itch to take it down. “Did you forget I was coming by after work?”

Those amazing amber eyes of hers flashed with something that looked dangerously like irritation. “No, but since I didn’t hear from you and it’s after six, I figured you were the one who’d forgotten. All the stuff I put on hold for the day still needs to get done. I’m heading out because I’m starving, I have no food in the apartment other than cat food, and if I don’t get something into me soon I’m going to turn into Super Bitch.”

He bit back a short sigh. Yep. Definitely irritation. “I had a situation that needed my attention at PSI, which happens from time to time. Communication isn’t always possible, so I couldn’t let you know when I was going to be here.” What sounded like thunder from above had his gaze snapping to the hallway’s ceiling. “What the hell is that?”

“The other reason I need to get the hell out of this place,” she muttered, and the unvarnished anger in her tone brought his attention back to her. “The jerk who has the apartment right above mine is a drummer in some half-assed local band, and he doesn’t give a damn about his neighbors or the cat that supposedly belongs to him. That poor animal is so scared of all the noise that jerk makes, he slinks down the fire escape and crawls through my window whenever Thor starts hammering. Right now he’s hiding under my bathroom sink, shivering, refusing to eat and losing clumps of hair. The cat, not Thor.”

“Yeah, I got that.” The thought of gentle Essie trying to take care of a helpless animal that wasn’t even hers hit him in a place he didn’t even know he had. “Does this happen a lot?”

“Every. Single. Day.” The aggravation in her voice hit the red zone, and he hoped she never aimed that particular tone of vicious disgust on him. “Talking to him doesn’t work. Talking to the super wasn’t much better. Thor was given a warning about not playing his drums for more than an hour a day, and never after sundown, but it didn’t do any good. This—“ she stabbed a finger sharply toward the ceiling, “—has been going on since before you texted me.”

He’d texted her around one. This asshole had been terrorizing his neighbors—for fuck’s sake,
Essie
—for more than five hours.

“That’s the real reason I’m heading out,” she gritted out between her teeth. “If I don’t get the fuck out of here this very second, I swear to God I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Understood.” First things first, he told himself while his temper threatened to blow like Mt. Vesuvius. “My lady’s a little hungry, a lot hangry, so I need to get you out of here and fed.” With that, he pulled her out into the hallway. “Do you have your keys?”

“Yeah, but… wait, Steele. I can’t go out to dinner like this.” She swept a meaningful hand at herself, and it made him take another, more detailed look. She wore a skinny, buttercup yellow tank underneath the overall bib. The generous swell of breast beneath it and the inch-wide strip of satiny, golden skin that showed at her hip where tank ended and denim began made his mouth go desert-dry. “Like I said, I’m heading out to wash my car and do some grocery shopping.”

“You look fantastic.” With that, he reached in, closed the door behind her and shook it to make sure the lock had engaged. “I hope you like authentic Japanese-style ramen. The place we’re going is the absolute shit. Swear to God, you’ll never want to eat anywhere else after you have a taste.”

The incessant pounding overhead continued as she tried to tug her hand from his. “Look, I’m serious, okay? I can’t go dressed like—”

“Essie, yes you can, and what you’re wearing isn’t what you’re pissed about.” Gently but firmly he kept them moving toward the exit and away from the noise that was making his blood boil. “You’re pissed because I didn’t get here sooner to save you from that asshole upstairs. But I’m here now, so don’t spoil things.”

“Damn it, I’m not spoiling anything. Feel free to have your ramen, but do it without me. I refuse to go out to eat when I’m dressed in my grossest old rags because I’m set to wash a fucking car. So bon appétit and let me the fuck go.”

“And there she is—the fighter makes a sudden appearance.” They reached the bottom of the stairs, and in one fluid move he had her against the wall of mailboxes, his body holding hers in place as he searched her upturned, pissed-off face. “You’re pissed off at me for letting you hang all day. Admit it.”

Angry breath whistled between her clenched teeth. “Now that you mention it, that’s got me a little peeved, yeah.”

If this was a little peeved, he didn’t want to see her full-blown mad. “Every now and then, a client comes to Private Security International, whose security is so tight all cell phones are confiscated. Those phones are then put in lockdown, along with everyone else who happens to be in the building, until that client leaves. This is only one of the reasons why PSI has one of the best reputations in the private security business—we take pains to secure even ourselves. When I texted you earlier, I should have been more specific by saying that I was headed for a few hours of radio silence, so you could’ve gotten your errands done. I didn’t, I’ve learned from that and I’ll do better next time. But you have to know a couple things here—one, I got to you as soon as I could, and two, this is how my life can be. Most of the time it’s not like this. But there are times when shit happens, and my schedule needs to be flexible even when I don’t want it to be. Now, my stomach’s growling just as much as yours, I currently do not give two fucks that your car needs a bath, and I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in overalls. So are we doing this, or what?”

By degrees her pissy expression eased, though the gloomy light in her eyes was definitely not anywhere near the zip code of happy. “Overalls are just so… so last century. I should look prettier when we go out. You deserve better than this.”

“Essie.” Like magic, his grating mood vanished. His hands came up to cup her face, lifting it to his. “I know what I deserve. I deserve a kiss from a woman who’s so beautiful inside and out that I almost never notice what she’s wearing. All I see is
her
, this amazing woman who takes my breath away. Am I going to get that kiss?”

Without hesitation she rolled up to her tiptoes and sealed her mouth to his while her hands caught at his waist for balance. Warmth that was as sweet as Essie herself washed through him in a silent, crushing wave, and he closed his eyes to better absorb the sensation. If he wasn’t careful he’d wind up addicted to her, needing her warmth and sweetness in his life every damn day like he needed fucking air.

Crazy.

When she slowly eased back down off her toes, his head bowed to follow her descent, not wanting to lose that mind-blowing connection. He kept himself firmly in her space by resting his brow against hers, and a fierce shockwave of need smashed into him when he heard her breath tremble. She never hid what she felt. Never lied about how he affected her. Knowing he could move her with something as little as a kiss filled him with so much light he thought he might explode with it.

Maybe getting addicted to her wasn’t such a bad thing.

“There’s the sweetness I know so well.” He kept his hands still on either side of her jaw so he wouldn’t touch her anywhere else like he ached to do. If he did that, there’d be no stopping him. “You still hungry?”

“God, yes.”

His eyes closed as lust nearly broke him in two. Goddamn. Her honest need of him was going to be the death of him. “Then I need to do something about that.”

And he would.

Tonight.

Chapter Fourteen

If Essie’s mood had been a weather report, it would have sounded something like,
grumpy, with a chance of bitchiness
. Her entire day had been wasted on watching her phone like a freaking loser and being ready for a meet-up that never happened. So, what happened when she finally ditched her jewelry, her pretty heels and her new girlie-girl clothes for the grubbiest rags she owned?

Steele finally showed.

Of course.

Because The Fates were assholes.

This whole getting out and dating business was such a headache. Life was simpler when she’d been on the verge of perfecting the hermitic lifestyle.

Luckily, her horrifically non-dazzling, neo bum-on-the-street attire wasn’t entirely out of place at the Irate Ladle. Perched on a plain, thick wooden bench that matched an equally plain, thick wooden table, she looked around the tiny restaurant with interest. She’d driven by the Irate Ladle countless times—in fact it was only five minutes from her place—and always made a mental note to explore the place with the screwball name. Now she was sorry she hadn’t done it sooner. With wooden paneling, bamboo-accented paper lanterns, exotic-sounding Asian music whispering in the background and a ceaseless stream of customers lining up to order massive bowls of steaming ramen, it was hard to believe they weren’t in some small hole-in-the-wall in Tokyo.

Not that she would know, she thought, silently snorting as she sipped her chicken
paitan shio
broth from a ceramic spoon, then went after a floating bamboo shoot. Everything she’d learned about ramen came from watching
Naruto
.

“There.” Seated beside her, Steele let go of the chopsticks he’d been wielding like he’d grown up on the other side of the Pacific instead of Louisiana, and ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “Finally, a smile. You feeling better now?”

“Yeah, I am. I needed food, and I needed to get away from all that drumming.” But most of all she’d needed Steele. She could admit that now. It was an actual relief to simply be there with him, sitting by his side and drinking in the heat of his leg right next to hers. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d become as vital to her as air or water.

Be careful
, she heard Carla’s voice whisper in her ear.
Be careful
.

Steele made a sound that could have meant anything, picked up his chopsticks and bowl, and fished around for some noodles in his miso broth. “You won’t be going back there for a long while yet, so I don’t want you to give that dickhead another thought.”

That got her attention. “Do we have something planned besides dinner?”

“We do. I want to show you my place, get you used to being there. Then later—maybe a lot later—we’ll go out and get your car washed.”

She went still. “Your place?”

“Yeah, my place. I don’t believe in putting pressure on a woman about a lot of things,” he went on, setting his bowl aside and turning his full attention on her while she continued to do her best impersonation of a statue. “But there’s one thing I will press you on, and that’s making you answer this question. Do you trust me?”

The intensity of his tone and his locked-on gaze made her understand how a deer could freeze in the headlights. “Steele—”

“You trusted me last night to pleasure you when you knew you were safe and there were people around. But if that’s as far as you can go, then it’s not far enough. It’s not
good
enough, because it means you don’t actually trust me. Not deep down, where it matters most.”

“I do. You’d never hurt me.”

“I swear with everything I am that I never would, but part of you still doesn’t believe that.”

“It’s like a reflex being hit,” she tried to explain, groping around for the right words. “It has nothing to do with
you
. I know you’re a good man, so don’t think that any negative reaction from me is a reflection on how I see you. I
do
see you, Steele, and everything I see, I like.
Everything
. You’re nothing like that monster that took something vital from me, but every now and again we’re going to stumble on something that triggers me. That’s life. Or, to put a finer point on it, that’s
my
life. So please, if I feel like I have to curl up in a little ball every now and again to protect myself, don’t take it personally.”

“I can’t take it any other way, because if I allow fear or upset or stress to get at you when you’re with me, I haven’t protected you in the right way. And the only way I know how to protect you from all that shit is to make you face it, push you through it by giving back to you everything that fucker took, and watch you come out all the stronger for it. Are you going to trust me enough to help you do all that?”

She sucked in a breath, and she wondered if he heard the tremor in it. “I told you I trust you. I know you’d never hurt me.”

“I will never hurt you,” he repeated, still watching her. “Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes.”

He smiled, and the irrational doubts clinging to her vanished. Anything that produced a smile so powerful it brought a tingle to her girlie parts had to be the right move. She was safe with Steele. No matter what happened next, he would take care of her.

And with luck, he would teach her how to take care of him.

“That’s what I needed to hear.” Sliding off the bench, he pulled her with him until she was on her feet. “It’s time we moved this party upstairs.”

She blinked, surprised. “Upstairs?”

“Yeah. Where I live.” Glancing toward the counter, Steele lifted his head in a brief nod, flashed a couple of bills that he tucked under his ramen bowl, and headed for the exit. “Gotta say, it’s pretty convenient living above a restaurant. I can cook, and when I get sick of ramen I’m glad I know how to fry off a burger without setting the kitchen on fire. But for the most part, the Ladle is where I get my meals.”

“No wonder you’re so good at using chopsticks.”

“Yeah, I guess I do get a lot of practice.” They only took three or four steps down the sidewalk to a black wrought iron gate that blended in with the building’s black-painted edifice. There was a heavy-duty lock on the gate, but instead of pulling out a set of keys, Steele flipped the face of the lock up and pressed the pad of his thumb onto the surface. After a couple of seconds there was a metallic thunk, and the gate swung open.

“Whoa. Bond-level cool.” She went in first, watched him swing the gate shut behind them to re-engage the lock, then headed to the only door in the dingy, recessed alcove—a heavy, scarred industrial steel door that looked like it belonged in a factory. “That kind of lock reads fingerprints? I’m assuming it remembers the fingerprint of everyone who lives in the building?” That was some kind of lock.

“It can remember up to six prints, but I’m the only one who lives here so only my prints are on file. In case there’s an emergency, both my boss and my best friend Luke have physical keys that work on it, but there’s never been a reason for them to be here. You’re the first guest I’ve had since I left the Marines and moved to Chicago.” Another fingerprint-activated lock awaited his attention, and then the steel door swung open on silent, hydraulic hinges.

And inside… damn.

She couldn’t believe she was seeing.

“Come on in. It’s kind of a work in progress,” he added, and while she reeled from shock, she still caught a hint of self-conscious defensiveness in his tone. “The first floor was a fucking nightmare when I bought the place. It was nothing more than a shit-filled maze of little abandoned tenements that smelled like cat piss and looked like a set straight out of an urban crime drama. I even found some crime scene tape when I was cleaning out the place, I kid you not. The first year that I was here I gutted everything on the ground floor, gave some texture to the walls with stucco, painted over that, and knocked a big-ass hole in the ceiling to let the light in. This past year I’ve focused on the living area upstairs, which is a lot more welcoming than this floor.”

“I can’t imagine anything more welcoming than this, or more beautiful.” It was true. Dying sunlight glowed from the enormous domed skylight above, and more light came from recessed lights every four feet that framed the massive, rectangular area that could only be described as an entrance hall. The double-tiered copper-wheeled chandelier suspended over where she stood completed the lighting scheme. Its golden light reflected off the pale yellow of the walls and glossy, polished acid-washed concrete floor that looked like marbleized copper.

But the focal point of the entrance hall was the stairway.

Situated between four columns that framed the huge domed skylight was a straight, open-riser metal staircase, which rose to an airy upper level gallery and a larger living space outlined in a copper-topped balustrade.

Warm. Light-filled. Welcoming.

Beautiful.

“Beautiful?” His voice echoed hollowly in the open space, his eyes on her instead of their surroundings. “You think so?”

“I
know
so. I can’t believe all this beauty is hidden behind that black gate and industrial door.” She spun in a slow circle to take it all in, falling in love with a well-lit art niche that held a fluid bronze sculpture that looked like a flame frozen in metal. Across the way were three framed photographs of the entire Chicago skyline during a glorious yellow, peach and tangerine sunset. Until that moment she never would have guessed that Steele was an art lover. “I almost feel like I’ve entered another world.”

“Come see the rest of it.” Taking her by the hand, he led her up the stairs to an open-plan salon. The soaring walls were also faced in stucco and painted a calming sand color, and the floor was finished out with a light maple hardwood. Cream-colored sofas and overstuffed chairs were set in conversational groupings, along with tan leather tufted ottomans that served as coffee tables. At the end of the open room was a wet bar and a stack of framed artwork waiting to be hung. The outer walls were broken up with tall, sunset-filled windows covered in ethereal sheers, with mellow copper curtains pulled back to pool gracefully on the gleaming floors.

“All this space.” She simply couldn’t get over how tranquil—how freaking
heavenly
—it was. Somehow he’d created an elegant oasis in the middle of a gritty Chicago neighborhood—a neighborhood that seemed light years from where they stood. “For you to do all this remodeling, including the roof… do you own the entire building?”

A negligent shoulder lifted. “Yeah. Wicker Park hadn’t yet gotten into the full gentrification swing when I first landed in Chicago and found this place, so I got it for a song. I lease out the space to the Irate Ladle, the coffee shop next to it, Beelzebub’s Brew and the flower shop on the cheap, because I’m grateful they keep me in ramen, caffeine and flowers when I feel like it. They’re good tenants and I try to be a good landlord and we all basically stay out of each other’s way. I just do my own thing up here, and that makes everyone happy.”

“And… I’m really your first guest?” She looked out at the groupings of furniture designed to welcome friends and conversation, and she wondered if he saw the irony of that.

He nodded once, his eyes on her. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I never wanted to let anyone else in. We all have our defenses,” he went on when she looked back to him, confused. “When I first got to Chicago, I was fresh out of the Marines and was looking at four reconstructive surgeries to put my face back where it belonged. No—five,” he corrected, counting on his fingers even as the floor seemed to dip unpleasantly under her feet at the words. “I had to fly to Johns-Hopkins in Maryland for the second one, but all the others were here at Northwestern.”

“Reconstructive surgeries?” It was hard to get the words out through the unexpected surge of pain clogging her throat. Though she tried to stop it, she couldn’t hold back the memories of years of specialist consultations, the tissue expansion needed to close up a wound in her forehead and bridge of her nose, the stitches, the bruising, the swelling. And the pain. Not just the physical agony that each procedure put her through, but the emotional one of knowing she was too hideous to show her face to any other human being, even her aunt or her parents.

To think Steele had gone through even a fraction of that cracked her heart right down the middle.

“Yeah.” He ran a hand over the scarred side of his face and turned so that she only saw his unscarred profile, a move she now recognized for what it was. He did it to spare her from having to look at the damaged side, a trick she’d pulled more than once herself. “I was even more hideous a few years back than I am now—a real freak show, caused by shrapnel from a mortar that hit our convoy. I pulled into myself, bought this shell of a building that looked as ugly as I’d become, and day by day I filled it with whatever treasures I could find. Giving beauty to something that had once been so fucking ugly that it had been abandoned…I don’t know. It helped me, somehow. Making this place beautiful again was how I coped with the reality of becoming the fucked-up thing I am now.”

“Stop.” She wasn’t aware of moving until she was pressing her fingers to his lips, while the ache of what he’d gone through resonated until it filled every corner of her soul. “I know that feeling, Steele. Believe me, I
know
. I’ll never forget the horror and grief I felt when I forced myself to look into a mirror that first time. I remember being sickened by the twisted-up thing staring back at me. The rage, the hopelessness. The yearning of just…wanting to die.”