Someone to Watch Over Me (18 page)

“Stay with me, babe. That’s my girl.”

That deviant finger fell still, holding me
back. I found the frustration it caused, lent me some added
strength, and Christ if I didn’t need it. His stamina was
immeasurable. I had a strong notion that he was being honest with
his assertion. I might never walk right again.

Close to peak, I could feel Tate’s cock
stiffen further. He rumbled under his breath with each thrust. His
pace grew fierce. Demanding. Merciless. Expletives poured from his
lips with no rhyme or reason, though ‘fuck’ seemed to be a
favorite. I thought it was ironically fitting.

With the same vocal gusto, he urged me on,
demanding I come with him. I didn’t think I had much choice in the
matter. He’d been leading me to this point, teasing me, holding me
back.

Adding that finger back into the mix, he
overwhelmed my senses. I imploded in a burst of spasms, my knees
quaking below me. Tate followed, impelled by my release. His thrust
hard and deep, his body locking up, lost in his own physical
release. I could feel his heart racing.

Drawing out the last of my orgasm, Tate
eased himself from me, using the last of my racking shudders to
temper his withdraw. Slowly, he guided me up, straightening my back
until we touched from head to toe. His tenderness was welcoming,
and a soothing descent from our frenzied climax. Resting my head
against his chest, I settled into his embrace.

“My God, Coop.” Dipping his head, he nibbled
a kiss at the corner of my mouth. I turned toward him, meeting his
lips. “I think I die a little each time I make love to you.”

Laughing against one another, I could feel
the heat rolling off our bodies. We were damp with perspiration.
Where our bare skin met, we clung together. My mouth had gone bone
dry.

“I need water.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Tate panned the
room around us. “Don’t move.” Stepping away, he tugged his pants
over his hips then reached for the water bottle and the towel that
we had dropped on the floor during our trek through the storage
room. Uncapping the water, he poured a small amount onto the towel
and then passed me the bottle. To my consternation, he began wiping
the remnants of our activities from my backside.

“I don’t think I could if I wanted to,” I
said, flinching when he followed the cleft of my ass all the way to
my thighs. At this point, nothing was sacred anymore, but modesty
was a trait hard to overcome.

“I’m sorry. I was too rough with you.”

“No, I was kidding, but you really don’t
need to do that.”

“Least I could do.” Finished with his
ministrations, Tate snapped my thong back in place and tugged my
shorts up for me. “I don’t know if I should feel satisfied or
guilty. I feel like a brute for being so rough when you’re all
bruised up like this.”

“I think you should feel like a god.”
Turning, I molded myself to him, locking my mouth against his in a
lascivious kiss. “I have no willpower when your hands are on me. I
don’t think I could say no if I wanted to.”

Raising one brow, Tate smiled crookedly. “A
god?”

Behind us, the door shuddered and flew open.
“—employees only,” Evan clipped, clearly involved in some sort of
altercation. “If you don’t leave now, I’ll have to forcibly remove
you from the premises.”

“Here we go,” Tate muttered. He stepped in
front of me while I buttoned up my shorts. His back was to the
door, but he kept an eye over his shoulder, in case the unexpected
intruder made it past Evan.

“One of your many fans?”

Tate snorted. “No. I think this one’s
yours.”

My heart stuttered in my chest. My first
thought was Grant, but I heard another voice, which was much too
high to be his.

“Cooper!”

“Sir, this is your last warning,” Evan
clipped.

“I told you, man—I just need to talk to her!
She knows me!”

I did know him. I mean, not personally, but
I knew his voice. He was one of our regulars. He never missed a
show. There was no mistaking his trademark, “Cooooperrrr!”

“Hey, that’s Ken.”

“Ken?”

“It’s a nickname we gave him. Well, Mia did,
because of his pick up lines. He’s got three of them, like Sweet
Talking Ken.”

I leaned to peek around Tate’s side, but he
placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed me behind him, obscuring me
from view. “Don’t. Any kind of acknowledgement will only encourage
him. Nutcases like this don’t know the difference between a
courteous hello and a blatant fuck off. They’re delusional.”

“COOOOPERRRRR!”

I heard the sharp snap of linen and the thud
of fists against flesh. Someone huffed and wheezed as the other
knocked the breath out of him.

“Jesus Christ. Are they fighting?”
Anxiously, I shifted my weight, listening to the ensuing scuffle.
Tate’s grip on my shoulder tightened as if I were going to jump in
the fray.

“He’s down. Evan’s got him.”

“Guy’s drunk,” Taylor said. “What do you
want to do with him?”

“Call the cops,” Tate answered. “Let them
deal with him. Drunk or not, that fucking fruitcake should be in
jail. He’s going to hurt someone; if not Coop, then one of the
other girls.”

Taylor nodded. “Give us five minutes to get
him gone. I’ll come back when everything’s clear.”

“Maybe we should just go,” I suggested. The
Loft had its share of drunks, but rarely did things escalate to the
need for physical force. Usually Marshall’s presence alone was a
sufficient deterrent. And while Billy might like the income
generated from Carter’s PR, he might not appreciate the trouble it
attracted. The last thing he wanted was a lawsuit for assault or
using excessive force.

“Should I have Derek pull the car around?”
Taylor asked.

“Yeah, and let Carter know we’re gonna
bounce.”

The door closed with a click, muffling the
ruckus outside. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding
and looked up at Tate, who was scowling down at me.

“Do you see what I mean about the job and
the hours? That fuckin’ idiot out there—you might think he’s
harmless, but he obviously wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

“That’s why we have Marshall and the rest of
the bouncers.”

“Marshall and the other bouncers are here to
manage the six hundred customers. They’re crowd management. They’re
not your personal protection. Obviously, they’re understaffed,
because that fucker shouldn’t even have been backstage.”

“So what do you suggest I do, Tate?” I threw
my hands up in exasperation.

“Quit. I’ll pay you whatever you’ll
lose.”

“Sure. Ok.” God, was he insane?

“Really?”

“No!” I exclaimed with a frustrated laugh.
“We’ve known each other less than forty-eight hours! You can’t just
commandeer my life because some drunk has a crush on me!”

Grinning back at me, Tate pulled me into his
arms. Suspicion arose in the pit of my stomach. I’d seen that
self-satisfied look before. “I thought I already had.”

“I’m not taking money from you.”

“You’re not losing much. What does he pay
you, fifty bucks a night?”

“No.”

“It’s my fault he fired you.”

“No, it’s not, and the answer’s still
no.”

“You could spend more time with Mini
Cooper.”

That actually gave me pause for thought.
“No, Tate. No.”

“You’re caving. I can see it.”

“No, I’m really not.”

Behind us, the door clicked open again.
Taylor stood in the doorway, his face grim. This wasn’t going to be
good. He looked as comfortable as a pig in a butcher shop. “Hey
boss.”

“What up.”

“We’ve a situation with Miss Hale’s
vehicle.”

“My car? What happened to my car?” Breaking
away from Tate’s grasp, I nearly sprinted for the door. If
something happened to my car, I was going to kick ass and take
initials. My car was off limits. You just didn’t mess with people’s
shit.

Taylor, fortunately, was there to stop me
before I could commit a homicide. “It’s not here, ma’am. It’s just
around the block where Derek parked it. Someone’s taken a key to
it.”

“Mother fucker!” An empty janitor’s bucket
took the brunt of my ire when I punted it across the room. My run
of good luck had just expired. No surprise there. It was bound to
happen. I suppose I should be glad it was only my car, because it
could’ve been much, much worse.

“Ma’am,” said Taylor, apologetically. “I’m
afraid there’s more. They left some photos on the windshield. I
think they’re of your little boy.”

“Oh God.” Anger gave way to fear. It
was
much worse. “Grant.”

Chapter
9

I
frowned as I
cranked up the air in the rented Ford Fusion. The temperature had
risen to a scorching ninety-nine degrees for the fifth straight
day. The vents spit out a lukewarm stream of air that smelled like
damp upholstery, cheap fruity deodorizer, and—despite the no
smoking stickers adorning the dashboard—cigarette smoke. The
vehicle had less than a thousand miles on its odometer, but looked
as though it survived Hurricane Sandy or perhaps World War II.

I wanted my Mini back.

Fucking Grant.

After I called Emily in a panic to make sure
Levy was safe, Taylor drove Tate and me to get my things from my
car, and then to the police station to file a report. They dusted
the car for prints because of the restraining order and the
implicit threat behind the photographs, but they said that it could
take anywhere from days to weeks before we received the results.
Six days had already passed and I still hadn’t heard a thing, which
irked me because they had his prints on file from his arrest. I
mean, how heavy could their workload be? I lived in East
Podunk.

Sliding my shades on, I shifted the car into
reverse, annoyed with the geographical differences in the car’s
interior. Out of habit, I reached for the wrong instruments, or
rather the right instruments in the wrong places. It was going to
be a long two weeks until I got my car back. Nevertheless, I’d
rather have a pristine finish on my Mini than some half-assed paint
job because I had rushed the shop.

Peering over my shoulder as I backed out, I
winced over the crick in my neck. If what they say is true about
bad things coming in threes, then my streak of misfortune had run
its course. To top off losing my job and Grant vandalizing my car,
I woke up Sunday morning with back spasms that left me debilitated
and unable to get out of bed. When Monday rolled around and I
hadn’t improved to Tate’s satisfaction, he confiscated my phone and
called me out of work.

The rest of the week was run-of-the-mill,
aside from coming home to Tate Watkins every night and the
consequential interrogations from the girls at work every day. I
don’t think I actually did an ounce of work throughout the week.
One girl asked me about my night (wink wink) at the Krups machine
one morning. Later, another snagged me at the laser printer and
grilled me for the real story behind how I threw out my back. A
third party concurred that I must’ve done it during some bout of
sexual acrobatics. My manager, Molly, just wanted assurance that I
wasn’t giving her my two-week’s notice so that I could go on the
road with my rock star boyfriend. I assured her I wasn’t, not
unless Tate was offering health insurance and a dental plan. In
reply, someone else promptly made a quip about Tate and oral
examinations.

Pulling out onto the first stretch of my
one-hour drive home, I flipped through the stations on the radio
and stopped on Under Par by none other than Hautboy. I felt
obligated to listen to their songs whenever I came across one
playing. Shameful but true, I knew most of the words, but I hadn’t
given much thought to the meaning. I guess it was sort of a
personal ambition of mine to interpret them to the best of my
ability.

In the cup holder, my phone began to
vibrate, rattling the change beneath it. I answered the call from
the controls on steering wheel. “What does the line, ‘Hot rubber
chicken reeking of menthol,’ mean? Or, ‘Driving in a body bag
kicking on the cruise control’?”

“Are you listening to my shit?” I could hear
the smile in Tate’s voice. His humility amused me. Like it was a
surprise anyone listened to his music. He was a fucking star.

“Actually, I was singing along with it:

“
Hot rubber chicken reeking of
menthol

“
Driving in a body bag kicking on the
cruise control

“
Hoarding the Idol staving off the
nightmares

“
Feeding that fucking sweet tooth
declaring all out warfare

“
Gas chamber’s got no vacancies.

“
We’re joyriding in another postal
code

“
Chase your tail in circles then go
straight at the fork in the road

“
Losers are crazy to complain but life is
fucking arcane

“
Beat another drum dude you’re riding on
the gravy train

“
Kittyyyyy she in plur knee
sheeeeeeeee

“
Pull your pants up and walk tall, this
is fucking rock n’ roll

“
Kittyyyyy she in plur knee
sheeeeeeeee

“
Pull your pants up and walk tall, this
is fucking rock n’ roll…”

On the other end of the line, Tate laughed
while I butchered the last few lines of his chorus. “That’s Quitter
chienne pleurnicher. It’s French.”

“For what?”

“Quit whining bitch.”

“And the hot rubber chicken?”

“It’s a hot water bottle shaped like a
rubber chicken.”

“You have a hot water bottle shaped like a
chicken?”

“On the bus. The song is about a show we did
in some East Bumfuck town during our first tour. Jake got the flu
and was all hacking on the sofa with his fucking menthol vapor rub
and rubber chicken, spreading his disease all over the bus—which we
dubbed the body bag, because we were dropping like flies. Shane got
it the worst. Man, we could barely keep him off the bottle long
enough to shake it off. ”