Property Of (23 page)

“Thanks for the help,” I said when she turned to me, but she didn’t look the least bit chagrined about leaving me shorthanded.

“You’ll thank me later, sweetheart,” mother laughed, unfazed by my mood.

“June,” I said, ignoring my mother, “Dallas and I have only just started dating. It’s a little early to be planning our wedding.”

“Don’t crush my hopes, Nicola,” mother bit out on a sigh.

June had been watching my mother and me as we interacted with a knowing smile.

“Nicola,” June jumped in, “Dallas has been single for two years and in all that time he’s been on four dates of which all ended with him not calling for a second. The way he rushed out of my house when you called the other day told me you were different.”

“See, you’re different, sweetheart,” my mother spouted, vibrating at the thought of marrying me off. “Wait, why did he rush out of the house?”

Oh, boy.

My brothers and I had agreed not to say anything to my parents because they’d worry for no reason. Now the cat was out of the bag. Looking at my mother, but coming up empty, June saved the day with a knowing look and replied, “She was having a cookout, and her grill wouldn’t light.”

“Oh, a cookout, that’s a wonderful idea. I’ll talk to your father and see if we can’t organize one this weekend. We can have you and Dallas, the twins, the girls and you’re welcome to come as well, June.”

“Mother, I don’t think—”

“It’s all settled, Nicola. The sooner Dallas gets to know everyone the sooner he’ll feel like part of the family.”

“But—”

“Humor your old mother,” she snapped, “I could be dead before any of my children get married at the rate you three are going. The least you can do is give me this.”

“She’s good,” June replied, laughing at my mother’s obvious manipulation.

That she was.

“Fine, but I can’t guarantee Dallas will come. I think he’s on call this week.”

“Nope, it’s Bill’s week to take after hours calls.”

“Dallas isn’t on call?” I asked, thinking about how he had to race off last night.

“Nope, they take turns if anything comes in after hours. It’s Bill’s turn this week.”

“Oh.”

Duty Calls? How could I have been so stupid? I laid there like some lovesick fool waiting for pretty words from a man who was just trying to leave quickly.

“Nicola, are you ok?” my mother asked.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, just worried about Kasey is all,” I lied. “I need to hit the road mother; I have a ton of stuff to do.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” she answered as I scooted out of the booth.

“June, I look forward to visiting with you at the barbecue, if you can make it.”

June smiled, and then stood to walk out with us. “I wouldn’t miss it,” she replied with a wink.

I didn’t need to be walked to my car; I needed a swift kick in the ass for jumping into bed so quickly with a man I barely knew. Warlord my ass, he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and he couldn’t wait to get away from me.

That’s what you get for living in your head, Nic. You see the world through rose-colored glasses, turning every man you meet into a potential knight in shining armor. Mom was right!

“Hell’s bells.”

“Did you say something, sweetheart?”

“Um, yeah. I said, um, Taco Bell for dinner.”

Yeesh, don’t look at me like that; it was the best I could come up with on short notice. The last thing I needed in that moment was my mother’s “I told you so.”

Fourteen

In case you’re wondering, romance writers aren’t immune to affairs of the heart. We may write dashing heroes who are tested by feisty heroines, but that doesn’t mean we all live in castles while living happily ever after. Our ability to dream up imperfect heroes, who are perfect for the right female, made us creative not experts. We don’t always use the best judgment when it came to our day-to-day lives, just like the rest of you. What made complete sense in a book might not make complete sense when you’re the one living it. Take for example the fact that I was now under the impression that Dallas had lied about why he left and that I was indeed just a one-night stand. If one of my heroines had jumped to that conclusion, I would have clucked my tongue at her and thought, “Silly woman, talk to him first before writing him off.” However, that was Grace Martin the writer, not Nicola Royse the woman.

My insecurities about not having a voluptuous body like my friends, or not having enough sexual experience for a man like Dallas, had led me down the path of “I suck in bed” and “he got a good look at my body and thought, yikes.” Of course, that train of thought had me ignoring my phone when Dallas called. I figured I could be just as nonchalant as the next twenty-first century female. Women were no longer held to a double standard about sexual partners (lies), so more and more of us were sleeping with whomever. I could be just like the next woman. I didn’t have to pounce on the phone when the guy called for another booty call. I could see it for what it was—a night of passion the likes I’d never known, nor would see again in my lifetime.

You see, I’d ignored all that he’d said to me on Monday about him being lucky and chalked it up to flowery words that he’d used to get me in the sack. Why else would someone like Dallas be attracted to someone like me?

Yeah, yeah, I learned later that evening I was stupid, you don’t have to roll your eyes at me. Honestly, you’d think as many times as I’d written this type of misunderstanding that I would have seen it for what it was. Petty insecurities that I shouldn’t have, but all of us do, no matter how gorgeous we are. It didn’t matter if you were a one or a ten on the beauty scale; women always find something wrong with themselves, while men just see us for who we are. Too bad we couldn’t all see ourselves as easily as men did.

So, here’s how it all went down.

Picture it . . .

Since the fair-haired maiden was licking her wounds in light of her discovery that the dark hero was nothing more than a cad, a rake, and a scoundrel, she decided to prepare her favorite comfort food upon the hearth. Double dark chocolate fudge brownies so rich they’d cure any heartache. While she whipped up the batch of double dark, delicious delights, she ignored her phone when it rang. That might have worked to keep the warlord at bay, but she’d been so busy wallowing in her self-pity when she arrived home, that when she came through the side door to her kitchen, she’d forgotten to lock it and set the alarm. Normally, that wouldn’t have been an issue because A) she lived alone and B) it didn’t stop the twins. However, as she was reminded later, there was a killer on the loose so C) it was just plain stupid.

Thus, there she was in her kitchen, heavy hearted and mixing a double batch (heartache required double) of brownies, when a very male, very pissed off voice seethed in her ear, “You don’t answer your fuckin’ phone, you don’t lock your fuckin’ door, and you didn’t call me like I told you to do.”

As you can imagine, that scared the living daylights out of her, so when she turned and screaming, the mixing spoon in her hand came with her, splattering the front of his shirt with precious double-dark chocolate fudge brownie delight.

He looked down at his shirt and scowled while she felt her temper rise because A) she was a one-night stand and B) he can’t order her around!

In a moment of sheer lunacy, she decided he needed more fudge on his clothes for being a cad, a rake, a scoundrel, so without a second thought she grabbed a handful of mix and splatted it upon his chest. The dark hero was so caught off guard by her childish maneuver that he in turn wiped the mix from his shirt and smeared it on her exposed chest. That, of course, sent her into a conniption because honestly, how dare he?

More mix was smeared as tempers flared and before she could say, “Mayhap you should leave,” the dark hero grabbed her by the waist and buried his face in her chest. That, of course, got a rise out of her. So much so, it sent her tumbling to the floor in hopes the rise could be extinguished. Shirts were ripped off and mouths were clashing when the kitchen door banged open and the idiot knights came bounding in.

“What the fuck?” said Frack, while Frick started laughing, but the dark hero didn’t think it was funny. He covered her chest before he stood, then shoved them out the door with the angry warning, “If my bike is in the drive, you fuckin’ knock first,” before he slammed the door in their smiling faces.

When he turned around and caught the fair-haired maiden standing there laughing, he stalked across the kitchen, grabbed her by the waist, ran his tongue up her chest, and then put a shoulder to her stomach and pitched her up and over his as he headed for the shower.

Get the picture?

***

“Babe,” Dallas grunted.

“Mmm.”

“That’s the fifth shirt you’ve ruined. If this works out between us, I’ve got a bad feeling I’ll need a new wardrobe.”

Glancing down at his face, I gazed in wonder at his dark beauty as he looked up at me. We were lying on my bed, tangled together after having just tumbled out of the shower. A shower that left me very satisfied and very clean in all the right places, thanks to Dallas.

“If you’d quit sneaking up on me, I wouldn’t ruin your shirts.”

“If you’d called me like I told you to do, I wouldn’t have rushed over here when you didn’t answer your phone.”

“You rushed over here?”

Dallas’ brows pulled together and his eyes flashed like fire right before he rolled me to my back, pinning me to the bed.

“There may or may not be a killer out there after you and your friends. Until I have this bastard behind bars, I want you checkin’ in with me so I know where you are. If you don’t check in with me, I’m gonna hunt you down until I find you. Are we clear?”

“You were worried?” I asked for clarification.

“I hadn’t heard from you all day, you didn’t call me when you were done, and you didn’t answer when I called, so, yeah, I was worried.”

Thinking that was the nicest thing a man had ever said to me, I curled my arms around his neck and leaned up pressing my lips to his.

“Sorry,” I whispered against his lips, and then watched in fascination as the honey color deepened to a dark amber.

“Jesus, you’re sweet,” he murmured against my mouth right before he touched his tongue to my lips causing me to open for him. Rolling to his back, his lips molded tight over mine as he plundered my mouth until I shivered. If I’d been standing that would have been a kiss that weakened my knees, just as he said he could.

Pulling back from his mouth, I lay astride his body; legs tangle together, the veil of my hair falling around our heads as I noticed a small scar to the right of his left eye.

“How did you get this scar?” I asked, running a finger across the pebbled skin.

Dallas seemed more interested in the swell of my breasts, which were pressed against his chest, than my question. Leaning forward, he ran his tongue between the valley of my breasts before husking out, “Murder suspect cheap shot me with an elbow.”

It’s funny that what he did for a living had never sunk in until that moment. I’d knocked a guy out with a door, but until I saw that crescent shaped scar, the danger of his job hadn’t penetrated my brain.

“Your job is very dangerous,” I whispered, looking at the scar. It wasn’t a question really, more of a statement of fact to myself.

“Driving a car can be dangerous,” he mumbled against my neck.

“This is true,” I gasped as he nipped my ear, “especially if my mother is driving.”

Dallas smiled against my neck, while his hands burned a trail down my side, over my ass, and, hello . . .

“Always wet for me,” Dallas growled as he parted my folds and slipped a finger inside.

Breath escaped my lungs as he rolled me to my back and attached his mouth to my nipple. His tongue teased as I arched up against him, burying my fingers in his hair. I felt his cock lengthen against my leg while he applied pressure to my clit, finding a rhythm that had me mewling like a kitten. Dallas covered my mouth and absorbed my cries while I shuddered around his fingers and liquid fire turned my body to mush.

Floating in a cloud of orgasmic contentment, I slowly tuned into the fact that Dallas was chuckling against my throat.

“What’s so funny?” I panted.

“You light up like a Christmas tree when I touch you."

“Don’t be arrogant,” I warned.

“Babe, it’s kinda hard not to be arrogant when you’re wet the minute I touch you,” he explained.

“You're being crass again.”

“I told you if you didn’t stop bein’ cute, I wouldn’t stop bein’ crass, since you bring out the "rake" in me.”

“Rake?” I laughed in astonishment that he knew that word at all. Rolling to his back, Dallas tucked me into his chest and began playing with my hair.

“Yeah, a man with loose moral values, who's devilishly handsome, and preys upon innocent maidens,” he informed me unnecessarily.

I looked up, caught the glint in his eyes as he looked down on me, and knew he was teasing me about the books I write.

“Are you making fun of my profession?”

“Nope.”

“Have you ever read a romance novel?”

“Nope.”

Narrowing my eyes, an unfathomable thought occurred to me and I blurted out, “Please tell me that you read for God’s sake.”

“Do police reports and arrest records count?”

This was not good.

“One, two, three, four, five—”

“Why are you countin’?”

“I always count when I meet people who say they don’t read.”

“Why?” he asked, but I didn’t miss the way his lips twitched in amusement.

“To keep from bashing them over the head and yelling, “What are you, stupid or something? Books kick-ass!”

Dallas threw his head back laughing, rolling to his back, and taking me with him even though I didn’t think it was the least bit funny.

“It’s not funny,” I groused

Ignoring my anger, Dallas pulled me further into his body and buried his head into my neck while he continued to roar with laughter.