Lady Killer (Tangled Desires Book 2) (10 page)

“You’re the one that slept with anything that moved.” I toss a piece of my crust at his face, and he catches it in his mouth with a grin.

“It was easier.”

“Now it’s complicated?”

“Yeah.” He exhales, a weight settling on him, but he’s relaxed, as though he’s come to terms with whatever it is. “Will be for a long while, and part of me is fucking relieved.”

“So you’re what? On the straight and narrow?” Except he’s all over me, every time we’re alone. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Part of me wants to believe him, the part that flutters each time he stares into my eyes.

“Something like that.”

“The women of the world must be in mourning right now.” Laying my sandwich down on its wrapper, I smirk. “Knowing they can never get a piece of Tom Hadley again.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. They never got a piece of Tom Hadley in the first place.” He takes my hand, commanding all my attention. “They got the Lady Killer, they got Harbinger, and they got a story they could tell their friends the next day. Not one of them ever got me.”

“You talk about yourself like you’re two people.” I pull my hand away, because the earnestness in his voice makes me uncomfortable. “It was your dick, your decision. There were hundreds of women. Probably more.”

“Do you want to know a secret?” He lays back, his hands folded beneath his head. “I’ve only ever found myself in the park, on a lunch date, with one girl. Just one.” 

Whether I like it or not, and my body warms at how much I do like it, this isn’t the Lady Killer staring up at me right now. This is the guy beneath the mask. The one most people don’t know. Of those who do, I doubt more than a handful of them are women, his mother and sister included. I pluck at the blades of grass, tearing them down the middle and dropping them in a pile in front of me. Does anyone know the real me anymore? It’s been so long since I’ve shared part of myself. “I was a ring girl.”

“A ring girl?” His brow scrunches in concentration. I can only assume he’s running through the catalogue of women he remembers from his time on the circuit, trying to remember me. “For boxing?”

“That’s how I knew who you were.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t remember you. Maybe we moved in different circles.”

I shrug, as though it’s not important that he doesn’t remember, but for some reason it stings. “Maybe you were too full of yourself to notice when I was standing in the ring with you.”

“It could have been all the knocks to the head.”

“Yeah, it could have been that, but you didn’t take many, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” He moves fast, too fast. Pulling me down to lie on the grass beside him, our faces turned to each other. Threading his hand through mine, he squeezes it, letting me know he sees me now, and nothing will change that. “I can’t believe I never noticed you. My head must have been shoved too firmly up my own ass not to. You’d stand out in a crowd of ten or ten thousand, pretty girl.”

“You were busy being a champion.”

“I was good at it.” He grins, squeezing my hand.

“Until the car accident.” I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth. Turning my face to the sky, I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for him to put two and two together, but he doesn’t. He rolls onto his side, his hand resting lightly on my waist. Fingers tapping gently on the hollow of my hip, he sends sparks shooting through me.

“Yeah. Then it was over.”

“Do you miss it?” I can feel his gaze burning into me despite having my eyes closed, and I’m quickly beginning to understand how even blind girls could fall for his charm as tingles spread inside me.

His breath brushes my cheek, his chest almost on mine. I can practically feel the rise and fall of it while he considers the past. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. Fight nights were some of the best of my life. The adrenaline, the high, the win. It was infectious.”

“I miss it too, sometimes.” Watching the fights, the endorphin rush, the adrenaline as the crowds roared for their chosen champion. “There was something about those nights that you can’t find anywhere else.”

“Maybe. I’m beginning to think that’s not the case.” The blunt tips of his fingers scrape across my cheek as he tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “So, ring girl, tell me about your boxer.”

“What?” I blink. The sun bursts against my eyes, temporarily giving Tom a halo, and I pull in a sharp breath between my teeth.

“The guy you’re running from.” His brow scrunches and then smooths, leaving his gaze boring into me. “He was a boxer, too? Someone I’ve been in the ring with? Someone I know?”

My throat feels like it’s filled with glue. Jammed shut. I can barely swallow. He’s so close to the truth.

“That’s why you don’t want to tell me who it is. Because I know him.”

“He’s not my boxer.” I whisper. “It was never like that. I was just a possession.”

For a minute I thought it might have been, but lucky for me there’d been something that had kept me from falling for Santiago. Then I’d come face to face with the monster behind the man, and I didn’t think I’d ever trust myself again when it came to men. “But it is complicated.”

“Everything’s complicated.” He leans closer. “Me and you. The whole bloody world.”

Me and him. Well, that’s the exaggeration of the century, since there is no him and I. Yet there’s a gut clenching, fuzzy sensation that makes me nauseous at the idea, and not in a bad way. Nope, not at all. Except it is complicated. So ridiculously messy. Still I find myself offering him something, because he makes it so easy. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” He arches one brow, his mind clearly having moved to other things, like mine did. I wonder if he gets this nauseous tummy thing, too, when we’re so close. Near enough to touch. I can’t imagine he would. “You know him.”

“Tell me.”

I shake my head, and struggle to sit up, to get my head clear of how much my body notices him. “What do you think you would do if I told you? If you knew where he was?”

“I’d deal with him,” he says all matter-of-fact, as though he believes it would be that easy. Oh, how I wish it were.

“How? Do you think a few well-chosen words would do the trick? Do you think he’d be willing to simply forget I exist?” I ache for that to be the case, just so I can stay here in this park forever. But it’s not.

I know too much, saw too much to ever simply walk away. There’s this pain that slices through my gut, making my eyes sting, my throat constrict. I can’t end this game of hide and seek just because Tom’s looking at me like I might be something more special than I am. Getting up, I toss my bag over my shoulder and pick up my trash, stalking toward the trashcan at the edge of the grass.

He jumps up and follows me. Gripping my elbow, he slows my momentum. “Always running, aren’t you? Don’t you ever want to stop and catch your breath?”

“Every single day.”

“Then tell me who it is. Whatever has to be done, I’ll get him to leave you alone. I’ll find a way to get your life back. Trust me.”

I spin into him. My eyes are burning, my breath coming in harsh bursts. What I wouldn’t give to be free of fear, of running. To be able to see my family, go to college, and explore these feelings I’m having for the man in front of me. “Why would you do that? What is wrong with you that you’re willing to jump into danger? You don’t even know me.”

“Listen.” Taking my chin between his fingers, he lifts my face, carefully, soothing me with nothing but his touch. “I want to know you. All your secrets. Every single piece of you. I’m being fucking selfish, and you can’t even see it. This isn’t only about saving you from him. I don’t want you to have any reasons to run.”

It’s almost too much. That fragile bubble of cynicism I’ve been keeping him from stealing bursts. I don’t want to leave him, and it’s too much, too big for my mind to handle so quickly.

“Are these the lines you use to get women into bed?” I give him a watery smile. “Because I can see how that might actually work better than insulting them.”

With a twitch of those dangerously appealing lips he scrapes his palm across my cheek and flicks away a spot of wetness that accidently escaped. “I told you I never needed lines. All those women weren’t interested in me. They wanted a piece of him.”

My gaze roves down. “Lady Killer.”

“You’re not… You want me.” There’s humor in the way his eyes dance. “But you don’t want that.”

“Oh, I want that.” I smirk. “I think there should be a scientific name for the effect you have on women. Or at least a law that prohibits you from coming into contact with female anatomy. It’s distracting.”

He blows out a breath. “Bangable girls are everywhere, Gem. I mean, I can pick up condoms and a woman in the same aisle at the grocery store if I want to, but I’m trying to get to know you. I want to spend my time getting inside your mind, not just your pants. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

That he’s going to take my heart and break it if I let him. Maybe when he goes back to his old ways, or when I have to leave. I’m not sure which, but does it even matter?

“That you have some kind of white-knight hero complex, and you need to save the damsel in distress.”

“Sure. We could pretend that’s it if you’d like.” He squeezes my hand. “If it makes you more comfortable than admitting there’s something more between us.”

I would rather stick the tines of a fork in my eyeball than admit anything of the sort. It’d be like calling the candy man. Saying the truth out loud makes it more real, right? Which would only lead to more truth, like how I watched as he was mowed down in the prime of his career. That it was my fault. I practically drew a target on his back when I involved him in my mess. That when it came down to the crunch I left him there, broken, unconscious. I try to console myself with the fact I took precious seconds to check he was still alive and called an ambulance, before I ran from him, from Santiago, from my guilt. But it’s not enough. Not really. And here I go dragging him in again, but this time with feelings? “I’m not…”

“Interested.” He rolls his eyes to the sky. “You’re nearly as bad as that damn cockatoo. Is that the only sentence you know?”

I smack his chest with the back of my hand and keep walking. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

It takes him a few seconds to call after me. “What were you going to say?”

“Nope.” I shake my head with a grin and glance at my watch. I have to skedaddle, and I’m kind of thankful he won’t be able to pull an answer from me yet. Because it really is as complicated as he says. This isn’t some hero complex, some knight in shining armor kick he’s got going on. This is real messy, dirty, touchy, feely bullshit on both our parts. If I’m honest with myself it won’t be long before he gets what he wants. “I’m not going to tell you. You keep insulting me.”

“You’re infuriating, but you don’t see me walking off in a huff.”

“I’m going to be late back to work.” Grinning, I shrug and turn on my heel. But I don’t want to leave him hanging for information. I might not be able to give him everything right now, right this minute. I might not even be able to admit to the way he makes my heart go pitter-patter when he touches me, or when he smiles in that sexy as sin way he does. There are too many confessions that come after that.

Spinning back to him, I lift up on tiptoe and kiss him for all I’m worth. “I’m not sure I want to run away from you.” Then I leave him staring after me as I race back to the vet’s office.

Tom

That woman will do my head in long before she stops talking in riddles. She’s worse than Claire and Chelsea combined. She leaves me breathless and hungry to know everything there is to know about her, from who she’s running from right down to the way it would feel to be inside her. That’s how I know she’s more than some random woman passing through my life. Or at least I want her to be. But since she’s intent on keeping secrets, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to proceed. Hell, even without secrets I wouldn’t know how to court her. That’s not my area of expertise. But I want at least a chance to try.

My life’s pretty fucked up. I haven’t done myself any favors, that’s for sure. Pity it took me this long to figure it out.

Would Gem even care that I might be a father? I get the feeling she’d take it in stride. That her heart is much bigger than she lets on. I can imagine her with my kid, falling in love the way she does with animals. Being as giving as any of my family. I have no doubt that if I have a child, that kid is going to be pretty damn lucky to have two loving households. I should be surprised that I can see it so easily, but she’s gotten inside my chest. I just have to help her realize she has nothing to be scared of, that she can trust me to protect her.

Sooner rather than later.

Since I don’t need to head back to the gym, I make my way down to the hardware store to pick up a lock for the bathroom. Not that I wouldn’t be happy to stand in there every time she showered, but there’s only so much a man can take of wanting a girl he can’t have. Not yet anyway. The attraction between me and Gem is something I’ve never experienced before. It’s not just that she’s adorable, or that she smells incredible, but the way she speaks what’s on her mind. Even the sound of her voice affects me. But for now, at least, I’m going to need that lock, because otherwise I’m not going to be able to get her to admit she wants me the way I want her to, before she reaches inside me and plucks away all my self-control.

It doesn’t take long to find a simple hinge latch. A couple holes drilled in the trim and this sucker will keep us on opposite sides of the door. I pick up another and consider whether I should add one to the bedroom door, too. After this morning I can’t trust I’ll actually be able to walk away from her so easily. Dropping it back in the pile, I head toward the register with the new lock in hand. I should probably kick Mace out of the main room and put her in there. That way she’d have a bathroom to herself. Except the idea of her sleeping in that room does things to my cock and my chest. Which feels awkward, but it’s the kind of sensation I could get used to.

“Hey, Tom.” Lucy waves at me from the end of the aisle.

“Lucy, how have you been? You look amazing, as usual.” I take the pastry chef’s hand and kiss her cheek.

“Where have you been? I’ve missed you.” She smiles, her bright eyes crinkling around the corner, while she taps her scarlet nails on my forearm. “It’s not the same without you around.”

“I’ve had family business to attend to.” I glance at the lock in my hand. Something I keep almost forgetting with Gem around.

She smiles, touching her neatly pulled back blonde hair. “Well, I hope you come back soon. Your talent is exceptional.”

With a grin, I lower my voice. “Lucy, Lucy, that’s between us. Could you imagine the ribbing I’d get from the guys at the gym, if they heard?”

She glides past me on black studded heels. “Don’t be a stranger okay?”

“I won’t. It was good seeing you.” I raise the hand holding the lock. The one I hope I won’t need for long. The one I’m planning on installing purely for entertainment value, because Gem’s already beginning to crack. There are only two things I need for her to tell me. The name of the guy I’m going to deal with, and whether she could stop running long enough for me to convince her I’m more than some guy who wants to get in her pants.

Of course, I need to come clean, too.

I need to work out the whole baby momma drama. Tell Gem about the list. The idea of going into that with her makes me cringe. She shouldn’t need to hear about what happened before her, but these are unusual circumstances. It’s not as simple as manwhore meets love of his life and changes his stripes because she’s fucking amazing.

After I buy the lock I run home. Pounding concrete gives my mind a chance to settle, to formulate a plan. It cleanses my lungs and burns my muscles, until I’m in the moment. My problems fading. One thing at a time. First the lock on the bathroom door.

While I’m marking out and drilling the holes for the latch, Mace finds me.

Leaning against the wall, he stares at the latch. “This for her?”

“Yup.” I don’t want to get into it anymore with him. He’s going to say something that’ll piss me off. That’ll make me want to punch him. So I drill into the trim hoping that will be the end of the conversation.

“I spoke with my contacts about your gun.”

“Her gun.” I draw my finger off the drill’s trigger.

“Yeah, her gun. Well, Gemma Castle’s gun anyway. I don’t know if it’s the same girl, though. Gemma Castle’s pretty much a princess. Heiress to the Castle ice cream and confectionary empire. Worth more than you’ll see in your lifetime, Tommy boy.”

“Seriously? We grew up on that stuff.” I reel at the idea that she could be that Gemma Castle. I can’t clearly remember what she looked like as a teenager, but there’d been a fantasy or two where I’d dipped the eldest Castle girl in ice cream and set about licking her clean. Surely, it couldn’t be the same Gemma.

“Yeah, I always had a soft spot for the chocolate, cherry, and coconut.” Mace shrugs. “Do they know what happened to her?”

“She hasn’t been mentioned by the media in three years. She could be holed up in their mansion.”

“Or she could be here.” I frown. “Why wouldn’t she have gone home? Surely they have security on hand. People who could protect her.”

“My contact’s sending through more information.”

“Where’s the gun now?”

“In my safe.” He claps a meaty hand to my shoulder, and nods at the lock I’m holding to the trim. “This is good. Smart. Maybe the first smart thing you’ve done since she came to town.”

The only smart thing I’ve done when it’s come to Gem is realize there’s something special about her.

“Who came to town?” Chelsea asks, sticking her head round the door to see what I’m doing. “Did you find your baby momma?”

“Not yet,” I grumble.

“Do you ever go home, Hells Bells?” Mace scowls. “I swear if you spend any more time here you might as well fucking move in.”

“Couldn’t live with you, jackass,” she bites back.

“Well thank fuck for that.” Mace mutters. “I’m out of here. Got to get to work.”

“See you. Wouldn’t want to be you.” Chelsea grins at his back.

“Do you two have to go out of your way to irritate each other? I thought you were getting along at the moment,” I ask, holding the latch over the holes and inserting the screws.

“As much as anyone can get along with that lug head.” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “So what’s with the lock?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Usually is.” She wanders past me and takes a seat on the edge of the tub.

“There’s a girl.”

“Always.”

“Actually, almost never,” I tell her, because there’s never been a girl quite like Gem. One I’ve wanted to be with every minute of every waking hour and sleep beside, too.

“Yeah, right. So she’s staying here?” She glances around the bathroom. “That’s who you’re finally willing to put a lock in for?”

“Yeah.”

“Does she know about your possible fatherhood?” I hear the worry in her voice.

“Not yet.” I finish tightening the screws, then shut the door and try out the latch. It couldn’t keep me out if I really wanted to get in, but that’s not the point. It’s psychological. I want her to feel safe around me, safe enough to tell me her secrets. I need to know that if I turn the handle when she’s in here she’s making the decision to keep me out. For a second I try to berate myself and then give up. Of course I’m going to wonder if she locks it to keep me out, or leaves it so I can join her. Telling myself I’m a gentleman is like telling myself I’ll get back in that ring and fight with the greats again. Never going to happen.

Gritting my teeth, I force that thought down. It’s not relevant anymore. The fact that my life became something different than I imagined isn’t so wrenching now. Still, I wish I knew why they’d gone after me, or that girl. I wish I knew who had been behind the wheel of the car. I’d make sure they never got a chance to hurt anyone else like they did me. “So we better make like Batman and Robin and get to the bottom of it. I’m going to tell her and I’d rather have more than half-baked theories to offer her.”

“It’s like that, huh?”

I pack away my tools and dump them in the garage on the way out. “Only a couple left on the list, Chelsea.”

Gem

The one thing I hate more than the damn cockatoo screaming obscenities, while I spend the rest of my afternoon cleaning out cages and taking care of sick animals, is the way I can’t stop thinking about what Tom said to me at lunch. That there’s something between us.

I’m more than a little enamoured with him. He makes it so easy to want to fall in love with him. I need that kind of connection like I need a hole in the head.

Even that night when I started running, when I stood in front of him pleading for his help, the connection between us was palpable. I could tell there was more to the Lady Killer than the sum of his skills in the ring and in bed. I guess it makes sense that he would be as legendary in the latter as he was in the former. Fluid art. Style, grace, control. Nothing like Santiago. Jimmy was a thug in the ring, but I ignored the warnings, seeing what I wanted to see.

Locking up behind me, I head to the gym to collect my bag and make sure everything is still in it, then I look for Tom. He isn’t in this afternoon, and more than I want to beat on a bag, I want to trust him with my secrets. I need to. It suddenly becomes urgent. I find myself racing the few blocks to his house, my bag bumping against my hip.

Lucky snaps out a short bark of hello as I step through the door, but it isn’t the dog that makes me stop in my tracks.

Tom’s stretched out on the couch, his bare feet resting on the coffee table. A baseball cap is turned backwards on his head while he holds some girl’s hand in his large one. Their murmured conversation comes to an abrupt halt when they notice me.

My chest tightens. A lump forms in my throat as I check out my competition. She’s drop dead gorgeous, and for a moment I wish she
would
drop dead. This Grecian goddess who fits so perfectly with him they could have been made for one another. And I’d believed him when he said he wasn’t that guy anymore.

Idiot.

“This is Chelsea,” he says, jumping up from the couch.

I don’t need to know her name. I don’t need to know her status. That she’s curled up beside him, in the middle of the afternoon, watching TV and having a conversation about God knows what suggests she’s probably more than a one-night-stand. Oh God, he has a girlfriend.

For a minute I’d toyed with the idea of what it would be like to have that status. To maybe be the first girl he ever considered that way. I was almost ready to fall for the Lady Killer. All those touches and kisses. He was slowly undoing me.

“Excuse me, I have to…” I don’t know what I have to do, but leaving the vicinity is a good start. I race out of the room, down the hall to my bedroom. How could he bring me here when he has a girlfriend? How could he touch me the way he has, when it’s obvious he cares for her? And he’s lied to us both, telling me he’s never been into relationships, never had a girlfriend. I can’t imagine what he’s told her, or why she hasn’t reacted at all to my being here. Lying bastard. All of them are, though, aren’t they? Isn’t that why I keep my trust for the animals I look after at work?

Packing my bags and getting the hell out of his house seems like the next logical step. What doesn’t make sense is how much I don’t want to go. If anything, I want to bitch-slap that woman into next week and stake my claim on the man who can never be owned.

I dump out the clothes from my bag, and yank my shirt over my head.

“Why’d you run out of the room like that?” Tom barges in, and I want to yell at him, but I’m not quite sure I can. I mean it is his house, and he claims he is trying to protect me. But my head is stuck in the neck of my shirt, and my arms are up over my head. He’s probably staring at my tits while I flail, trying to get it back on.

I should be grateful, but right now I’m pissed and I’m hurting in a way I didn’t even think was possible. Not after such a short period of time. Not when I haven’t admitted to him that I’m a teensy tiny bit possessive of him, or that I might have, had I been given the chance, confessed to the way he affects me. All I can visualize is that girl getting closer than they already were. Perfect, perky. They were holding hands, for goodness sake.

I yank my shirt back down. Was it only hours ago that he tried to get me to admit to wanting him for more than his body? And here he is with a girlfriend. Talk about awkward. “You really do have a way with words, don’t you?”