Tristan on a Harley (Louisiana Knights Book 3) (4 page)

She would, too; Trey didn’t doubt it for a second. She was already fidgeting, stacking one bare foot over the other while pulling the ends of her kimono sash so it tightened at her narrow waist, giving her a shape to make a man drool. Still, he waited another two seconds before he started moving toward her.

She blinked and backed up a step. Was it something she saw in his face, or just a natural reaction to his slow prowl?

It didn’t matter. He put out a hand to catch her right fist, unwrapping her fingers from her kimono sash. Holding it with care, he reached to touch the ring in her nose.

“Wait a minute!” she exclaimed as he turned the nasal adornment with gentle and easy moves until the catch was uppermost. “What are you doing?”

“You think Zenobia had one of these?”

“She may have.” The words were defensive. She pulled her head back, away from his hand.

“Doubtful. She was from the ancient Palmyra in what is now Iraq, not India.”

“How do you—I suppose you read up on that as well.”

“I had to, didn’t I? To be sure I wouldn’t tell you something wrong.”

“It’s wrong if I don’t want to give up my nose ring!” She declared in waspish protest.

“And why would you want to keep it? In India, it can be a sign a woman is married.”

She was still for an instant. “Really?”

“Really. You haven’t been married, have you?” He paused to take in her fulminating stare. “No, I didn’t think so.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to be Indian to like the style.”

“Do you like it, or is it a way to thumb your nose, literally, at society and all the folks who don’t have holes in their noses?”

“What a thing to say!”

“Even if you love it, you have to worry about whether you’ll get the part while it’s in place, right? That is if you really want a chance at this bit of playacting?”

“Of course I want it.”

The words were firm, but Trey wasn’t sure he believed her. She didn’t meet his eyes, for one thing. For another, she seemed not to realize that he’d unfastened her nose ring and was slowly sliding it from its mooring.

It was simple enough; a quick flick of his thumbnail and the ring flew open. A few small movements, and the uppermost curved ring section slowly glided from that tiny opening in her body. It was such a sensual move that he was tempted to reverse the act, sliding it back into the hole.

Suddenly it was free. He held it, warm from her body, in his hand. Slowly, he closed his fist upon it as if in holding it, he held a piece of her.

Jeez, he needed to get a grip. If he didn’t watch out, he’d get himself thrown out of her apartment on his ear.

She switched her gaze to his, her own dark. “Fine, then. No nose ring. Is that all?”

It was a challenge. She was daring him to continue along the path he’d started. He drew a deep breath and let it out again. “Next thing is your hair.”

“My hair.”

“You did ask for my help,” he reminded her.

Thought flickered behind the mirrors of her eyes before she frowned. “I could wear a wig.”

“Too uncomfortable,” he said at once. “Especially if you get the part and then have to spend a week or so filming.”

“It can’t take that long,” she protested.

“You never know. If you’re really good—” He let that trail away as if contemplating the prospect, and maybe the future that lay before her.

“Ridiculous,” she said with a ladylike snort. “I’ll probably just be some figure barely seen through swirling purple smoke or some such thing.”

“Maybe, and maybe not.” He grinned. “But if you are, I don’t think you want your hair to match the smoke.”

The frustration on her face told him he had her.

“I guess you think I should color it some natural color,” she said through semi-clenched teeth.

“If you can remember what your natural shade might be,” he said in agreement. With a negligent, almost reflex action, he slid the nose ring he held into his pants pocket.

“I remember, thank you very much.”

“Dark brown, almost black?” It was a guess, made as he took his hand from his pocket again, though he really wanted to know. Why, he wasn’t sure.

“Medium brown.”

“Good. Try for that,” he said in mild suggestion, rather than as any kind of order. “It’s probably close to the real Zenobia’s natural color, anyway.”

She gave him a suspicious stare. “Not coal black hair?”

“Could be, but those old sheikhs collected their wives and harem women from all over Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East and the Orient. Auburn and blonde looks were highly prized.”

“But not purple, I suppose.”

He chuckled, as much in appreciation for her resigned attempt at humor as for what she’d said. “Not so much.”

“Got it. No costume, no nose ring, natural hair color. Anything else?”

“Minimal eye makeup and none of those red squiggles.”

She sighed. “Henna designs.”

“And no apron,” he went on, his face solemn.

“No tank top, either, I suppose?”

“Not likely. What do you have instead?”

“You want to check out my wardrobe?” The question had an extra long-suffering sound.

No, he didn’t. “Maybe.”

Trey wasn’t sure why he was doing this. He didn’t want Zeni to be in the movie, didn’t want her mixed up with Peabody and maybe becoming another one of his groupies. He didn’t want her associating with the leading man at all, now that he’d met the guy. Nor did he want her too close to the whole movie crowd with their lax attitudes and predatory habits. Zeni wasn’t exactly an innocent, he was sure, but she was no match for the kind of amoral goings-on that turned up so often in the gutter press.

So why in hell was he here?

Because it was something Zeni wanted, something that had meaning for her, one way or another. Because he’d made a bet, and he honored his debts.

“In here,” Zeni said shortly, and led the way into her bedroom. Walking to her narrow closet, she pushed open its sliding door and stepped back.

Trey had seen women’s closets before. He had two sisters, both of whom were married and living out of state, and he’d also lived with a couple of females at different times. Compared to past experience, there was next to nothing on the rack in Zeni’s closet. The items were grouped into categories and had at least an inch of space between each one. Six tanks tops in different colors, four T-shirts, one long-sleeved white dress shirt, an extra jean skirt, two pairs of jeans, and one pair of black dress slacks was the total count. On the floor underneath was one pair each of running shoes, brown leather sandals and black heels. That was the sum total.

His brows climbed his forehead. He’d thought he had seen her in more outfits. The difference was apparently in the wild assortment of belts and scarves, silk and velvet flowers, lace and net shawls and chains and beads that hung on the back of the closet door. “This is all?”

“It’s enough.”

“But the two dresses you showed me. Where did they—”

“Thrift store.”

“I hope you can get your money back,” he muttered, only half to himself.

“No problem. And so?” She leaned a shoulder against the door’s frame, crossing her arms over her chest.

The move lifted her breasts under the silk of her short housecoat, making it clear she wore no bra under it. Trey had to look deep into the closet and clear his throat before he could form an answer. “I say wear the gray tank top under the white shirt and with the black slacks.”

“No color and maybe the heels for a French vibe?” she asked with sardonic amusement in her voice.

“That’s it.”

“I think I could have figured that out, once the costume idea was out of the picture.”

“Yeah,” he answered, frowning again at the scarcity of choices for her. It also crossed his mind that knowledge of the most sophisticated ensemble choice from what was available didn’t exactly go with what he thought of as Zeni’s style. What else was he missing about her?

She pushed away from the door facing. “Now that’s settled, would you like coffee?”

“If you have it already made.”

“I can put some on. It will be ready in just a minute.”

“No, that’s okay.”

She paused halfway out of the room, glancing at him over her shoulder with one lifted brow.

Trey shook his head. “You were having tea, I think. That’s fine for me, too.” The idea was to save her the trouble of doing something extra.

“Hot tea? You?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

Her smile was crooked before she walked away. “I’ll put some ice in it for you.”

“Good,” he said under his breath as he swiped a hand across his forehead while watching her regal carriage that didn’t quite disguise the sway of her hips. “Ice will be really good.”

Trey’s advice not only toned down her personality and style, but almost neutralized it. Zeni wasn’t sure he meant it that way, but the effect was the same.

Maybe it was necessary to get the part, and maybe not. There wasn’t much use complaining, however, since she’d asked for it.

She might have guessed how it would turn out. Maybe she had; maybe she’d wanted to see how he’d change her if he could—or if he’d change her at all.

If so, she had her answer.

Nothing about it was permanent, of course. When this movie deal was done, she could go back to being her true self, just as Derek Peabody had said. That was, if she could figure out exactly what that might look like. She wasn’t totally sure, hadn’t been for a long time.

“That’s the way,” Trey said as he followed behind her into the kitchen. “Exactly like that!”

She glanced at him over her shoulder with suspicion as she took down a glass from the cabinet, poured warm tea from her old blue teapot into it. “What’s the way?”

“That walk with your chin up, nose in the air and shoulders straight, as if you’re queen of all you survey and the rest of us are mere peasants.”

“I don’t do that!” She found a spoon and stirred sugar into the tea, the metal hitting the sides of a glass with an agitated tinkling.

“Sure you do, every time you get mad at me and go stalking off.” His eyes were silvery with amusement as he watched her put his glass under the refrigerator’s ice dispenser.

“Remembering it should be no problem then. All I have to do is think of you at your most annoying.”

“Yeah, I expect that’ll do it,” he answered, his smile fading.

Her fingers touched his as she handed him the tea. The zing of it along her nerve endings was almost painful. It was also more natural and familiar than she wanted to admit, after the months she’d been around him. That the reaction never seemed to go away was the strange part.

It was also unusual for them to be alone like this, just the two of them. Their sparring was a public sport, complete with customers for referees if things got out of hand. Not that they ever did; Trey saw to that. He was the one who walked away when things threatened to escalate to the point where she was going to quit or get herself fired. She’d like to think that was because he didn’t want her to go, but was all too aware it could be he didn’t want to have to find a replacement.

“All right, then. You’ve fixed my jewelry, my clothes and the way I walk. Besides, my hair, what’s left?”

He watched her for long moments. “Does it bother you? I mean, really? I’m not criticizing, just trying to help out the way you asked.”

“I know.” She stepped into the living room to retrieve her tea cup, bringing it back to reheat in the microwave for a few seconds.

“What I’m trying to say is, you’re just fine at the Watering Hole. It’s this movie thing that makes it different. If you were trying out for a comedy part, your hair color and so on would be okay.”

Her smile was wry. “You’d better stop while you’re ahead.”

“Maybe I had, at that,” he said, looking away, though his face cleared after a second. “So, are you going to model the outfit for me that you’ll be wearing?”

“I don’t think so.” The answer was automatic, with no thought whatever.

“Too boring for you?”

“Too satisfying for you.” Irony still lingered in her smile. “Besides, you’ll see it at the screen test.”

“Who said I was going to be there?”

She gave him an inquiring look. “Aren’t you? Out of curiosity at the very least?”

The look on his face said he hadn’t considered it. That was hardly a surprise, since he had zero interest in what was going on. Chamelot might be slowly turning movie mad, but that wasn’t Trey. He liked things real, not artificial.

Zeni frowned at that thought. She knew that about him, had known it from the first time she met him, when she walked into the Watering Hole and asked for a job. Was it, just possibly, the reason she’d become more out there with her hair and makeup every passing week? Protective coloration, as it were? A way to make sure she didn’t appeal to him, so she—

What? Wouldn’t have to deal with it if he decided to come on to her? Or needn’t feel bad if he ignored any opportunity?

She didn’t want or need entanglements. She was single and proud of it. She’d been on her own for years and preferred it that way.

Zeni had never been part of a big family. The closest she’d come was her association with the Benedicts these past couple of years, Trey’s cousins, Lance and Beau, and their wives. There were advantages in that: she didn’t have a lot of birthdays and anniversaries to remember, didn’t have to cook for family gatherings or decide where she was going for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Of course, nobody knew or remembered her birthday, and she celebrated the holidays alone.

She liked it like that, most of the time. She also liked it when someone added her to their family gathering.

“You want me to show up?” Trey asked.

It was an instant before she could form an answer; she’d almost forgotten what they were talking about. To answer with another question seemed better than saying she didn’t much want to go through her screen test alone.

“Don’t you want to see your handiwork?”

He studied her a moment, his eyes unnaturally grave. It almost seemed he could see right through her. And wasn’t that a scary thought?

“Nah,” he said finally. “You’ll be fine on your own.”

It was better this way, she realized. If she failed, he wouldn’t be there to see her do it.

“So now what? “ She summoned a smile. “We still have a lot of day left. Any other pointers for making me look like a warrior queen?”

“You’ll need to be bold, almost challenging. You should look people in the eye and dare them to be less than respectful toward you.”

A frown pleated her brows. “I thought I did that.”

“Sometimes. Other times you back off as if you want to disappear.”

He was entirely too perceptive. Yes, and when she least expected it.

“No such thing!”

“No?”

The sympathy in his eyes was almost her undoing. For one thing, he looked far too dewy-eyed-handsome with understanding in his face. Then she also didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. She was fine, had been fine since coming to Chamelot, escaping the pigeonhole she’d been rattling around in since she started to school, that of being too smart for her own good. She’d abandoned her nerdy image along with the triple degrees in mathematics, English literature and environmental chemistry, all earned before she was eighteen. Dumbing down from her stratospheric IQ so she could fit in, avoiding big words and complicated ideas had been a small price to pay for acceptance. She’d been happy enough, hiding out behind her borderline outré image so no one could get close enough to question that camouflage for her brainpower. Being singled out now felt like something she should have avoided.

The only trouble was that another part of her was gladdened by the special attention. And wasn’t that a sad thing to realize?

“Oh, well,” she said with as much nonchalance as she could manage. “We are all weird, each in our own way. So what do you suggest I do to look more queenly?”

“If I remember the bet right, we have a whole day to work on it,” Trey paused for an instant. “Want to take a bike ride?”

Zeni didn’t care for bikes, especially the big Harley Davidson motorcycles Trey favored. Their high speed and lack of protection for the rider; their weaving progress through traffic and exposure to sun, wind, rain and bug assaults all seemed like willful testing of disaster. Riding one was bad enough, but clinging to the back of someone, with no control of the situation, struck her as the height of foolishness, if not proof of a joint suicide pact.

Yet she envied Trey when he took off from the coffee shop on his Harley, swaying in and out of the slow traffic on Main Street with masculine grace, sublimely free and unfettered, completely without care.

“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

She wore jeans as covering for the bare skin of her legs, just in case they had an accident. Her T-shirt had much the same purpose, though she wished it had long sleeves. And the pair of old-fashioned goggles she slapped on over her eyes was something more than a fashion accessory.

She clung to Trey with both arms clamped around his waist, her cheek pressed to his broad back for the protection against flies, gnats and moths. But it was also a fine excuse to be close to his hard strength, to feel the subtle vibration of the machine underneath them as it coursed through his muscles and sinews and then into her own. And if their swift, windswept passage, racing their shadow over the pavement, had an element of almost orgasmic excitement, that was her secret.

They swerved from the main road after a bit, taking a dirt track. The trees overhead created a cool green tunnel, one which they rode through like a surfer threading a turquoise ocean pipe. Dust billowed out behind them, cream and rust from the mix of sands, though they outrode it all the way to what appeared to be a driveway. It billowed past them as they turned again, coating the road’s edging of dried grass and the nodding weeds with a fine powder.

The house appeared at the end of the drive. It was large and imposing, yet oddly human in scale, another of the many old plantation houses that dotted the area. Trees, vines and head-high shrubs had taken possession of what had once been farmland behind it. They encroached on the house as well, with honeysuckle and saw briers climbing the shutters, and massive azaleas doing their best to cover the front steps.

It was a Southern Planter’s Cottage in style, with one main floor and a second one under the steep roof that received light through dormer windows. The floor-to-ceiling windows across the front were protected by shutters, as was the fan-lighted entrance door, and all were set behind a long, railed porch. The building appeared almost derelict, however, fighting a desperate rearguard action against the forces of nature that were trying to take it down.

Trey eased the bike to a stop and put out his feet to brace it on either side. For long moments, he simply sat looking at the place.

“This is where Lance and Mandy hid out for a day or two last year, isn’t it, when those mafia guys were after her?” Zeni scooted from behind him, dismounting as she removed her helmet and dropped her goggles inside it.

He tipped his head in a nod. “They pulled the RV out of sight around the back. I’ve never seen a female as happy as Mandy was when she saw the clothes you sent her.”

“Being half naked while in the company of a man you don’t know from Adam can do that to a woman.” Her voice held more than a little asperity.

“Guess I’ll never be able to check that out,” he said and heaved a sigh.

“I should hope not, if it includes people trying to kill you.”

He gave her a quick grin as he removed his helmet, then took hers and hung both on the handlebars, but he made no answer.

A sidewalk of faded red brick led toward the house’s front steps. Zeni followed it, scuffling through mats of decaying leaves, avoiding patches of green moss, stepping over rotted limbs and twigs. The motorcycle’s engine rumbled to a stop behind her as Trey turned the key, and she heard his footsteps when he trailed after her. His progress was stop-and-go, however, as if he was assessing the place for future reference.

“So what’s this about?” she asked over her shoulder. “You feeling a sudden yen to get back to your roots?”

“Something like that.”

She’d been kidding, just getting in a dig at him as she’d done a thousand times before. Something in his voice as he answered snagged her attention. She halted and turned back toward him.

“Really? You mean it?”

“I own the place now. Several relatives were involved in the ownership after my granddad died. My dad signed over his interest to me, and I finally raised enough money to buy out my sisters and a couple of aunts and uncles.”

“And you’re going to do what with it? Spend a fortune restoring this big barn of a house and then live in it?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

An acid retort crossed her mind, but the defensive sound of his voice kept her from letting fly with it. He expected her to be scathing, and that made her wary. It was an odd turn of affairs.