Watching You: KJ Elite Inc. (23 page)

When I got to the city, I had a brief and embarrassing encounter with a precious little deaf girl and never forgave myself for not being able to help her even though she made due. The next day, I went out and signed up for classes and studied sign language for the next two years. Although I wasn’t deaf or hard of hearing and really didn’t know anyone who was, I was able to use it a good amount of times to help out or even communicate with others when speaking wasn’t an option.

Matt was so supportive that while he didn’t have time to take the classes with me, he let me learn him some things on top of the basics and he knew it made my heart melt when he used it to talk to me because it meant that he cared about my feel goods. Why I was never interested in that man was a mystery to all but one I was not trying to solve. He was a brother to me and one I couldn’t live without. Not that I could live without any of mine, but, you know.

I lay there quiet and Tommy explained, “I figured you would be awake soon enough so I started making you tea before I heard you…shouting.”

Even in my silence, Tommy knew I was appreciative and he loosened his hold on me, unwrapping our legs from the tangled mess they were in the aftermath of my terrible nightmare. I took my time but finally shoved myself up to sitting and reached for the mug needing some form of sustenance. For the life of me, I could not figure how people lived off of coffee when the sight of the stuff made me cringe. No, I preferred my tea and always said…

“Tea heals the soul.” Tommy cut off my thoughts making me look up into his eyes.

“You remember.”

“I remember everything about you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I just looked away and poured myself a big cup.

“Do you want to tell me what you were dreaming about?”

“Not particularly because then I would just be thinking about it and I’d really just like to forget it.”

“Okay.”

I looked back up at him mildly astonished at his retreat but was not going to question it.

We spent the rest of the night in silence and when I was ready to try sleeping again Tommy informed me that he would be in the rocking chair if I needed anything more.

His words still hurt so deeply but in my heart of hearts, I knew he was just saying them out of anger. Some people believed that you only spoke truth when drunk or angry but I truly felt that fear and anger incited nasty and weak things inside of us that caused us to speak things we never thought or felt before. Then again, sometimes the people we loved and trusted who knew us inside and out knew exactly what we needed to hear to see action. There was no science to my beliefs but I knew Tommy and that was enough for me. I knew I could forgive him and in all actuality, I probably already had.

The next few days were spent in the same fashion as the night I had that first nightmare, total silence. There had been very few, and I mean one or two, times when Tommy and I were not so close as to be attached. Matt, who I still wasn’t able to talk with, was always acting funky and I had decided today was the day I was going to break the silence, come hell or high water. Apparently hell was how the universe wanted to play it.

“We are getting out of the house today. Normally, I wouldn’t mind it and I spend a lot of time inside writing but I am beginning to go stir crazy and we are going to do something about it. No arguments.” I stated matter of factly as if there was no room to discuss it. Tommy thought that was cute.

He smiled a rye little smirk and for that, I wanted to throw a book at his face. Sitting in the library a foot from me while I hid my face in papers, writing, he read and drank. At my announcement Tommy set his drink and his book down after marking his page and looked over at me.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, that is so.” I pursed my lips.

“And where do you think we are going to go?”

“I don’t care where we go, so long as it ain’t here.”

“Town is non-negotiable. Too many people and too little security.”

“Please, like anyone would be dumb enough to try something in Devine.” I rolled my eyes and he made a noise that rubbed me the wrong way. “You’re an idiot.”

“Like I said time and again, non-negotiable.”

“Whatever.”

“You sound like a teenager again.”

I wanted to say whatever again and then I wanted to punch him in the face but all I could do was stare at him like he was an infectious sore.

“If you want to leave this house you better go put on some clothes.”

I looked down at my body because quite frankly I hadn’t even looked at what I put on that morning. Noting my regular yoga pants and tank top I looked back over at him and threw my arms up, “What is wrong with what I’m wearing. I just need a sweater.”

“The hell you do. Go put some pants on. Every man for miles can see your ass in those.”

Mmhmm.

“And you propose I wear, what, a potato sack?”

He just stared at me, daring me to fight him. I was very easily lured and he ought to know that by now.

“I happen to have a great ass, thank you.”

“I never said you didn’t. I happen to think you have the greatest ass I’ve ever seen but that doesn’t mean every other man in Bradley County needs to see it.”

“If it’s so great, maybe every man for the next twelve counties should see it.”

“Don’t make me lock you in the safe room forever, stalker or no stalker.”

“Jealous is a very sexy color on you. Have I ever told you that?”

I knew I had, I just liked the dumbfounded look on his face, un-matching the strain in his pants.

This was where I took my leave and left him with that. Standing to walk away, I bent to grab my papers and pen and turned to the door. When I reached the stairs I noticed that Tommy wasn’t following me, yet, and I moved a little faster up each step when I heard him sigh and turned to see him staring after me.

That was my first mistake. My second was when I began to fall backwards or rather, sideways and I didn’t drop my things but clutched them tighter to me bracing for the tumble, instead of reaching out.

It wouldn’t be the first time I fell down the stairs and if a hospital visit was necessary, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d have to sign a sworn statement that truly, I wasn’t pushed or the victim of domestic abuse. It was comforting to know they were taking that more seriously, but also a pain in the ass to have them push so hard when I was just plain clumsy. When the air left my lungs and I felt a firmness that had nothing to do with the ground, I opened one eye and saw his broad, muscular chest stretched under his tight t-shirt, right in front of my face and holding me up were his taut, sensuous, purely lickable arms, wrapped around me.

“That’s it, I’m buying you a bubble and locking you in it.” He huffed into my hair.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me, either.” I remarked like the smart ass I was, as he pushed me back to vertical.

“Knowing you, you’d still hurt yourself in it.” Tommy scoffed.

“Don’t be jelly. It takes skill to be this clumsy.” I remarked turning away again. “Honestly, what is it with the men in my life, constantly chastising me for my...awesomeness?”

Without actually seeing him, I turned back around holding up a finger and quickly stated, “THAT is rhetorical, I really don’t need nor do I want to know.”

He was really trying hard, not, to hide a slight chuckle and I decided to ignore it. I really wasn’t a fan of playing ‘pick-apart-Taylor’, not especially. He skipped up the stairs two at a time and was pushed up against my front before I could blink, wrapping his arms around me to rest on my lower back, enclosing me. Lazily and without much effort I walked backwards toward the door of the master suite, begging my brain to function properly, if only long enough to ask him a few questions.

“Damnit he’s so sexy, I can’t even talk. I just want to jump him all the time like a rabbit!”

He laughed a hearty belly laugh that tickled my sweet spot, deep down.

Doh.

“I did not just say that out loud…?”

“You did.” He nodded with a smug smile of intense satisfaction.

Hello, mortification.

“I’ll just be going to slam my head through the wall now.” I began to pull away, into the master bedroom but he tugged me back to him, connecting his groin to my center.

His smile did funny and very fierce things to my…everything. Never mind that our relationship was like a freakin’ yo-yo at this point. Up, down, up, down. One minute we are chasing after each other like dogs in heat and the next we’re frostier than an Alaskan winter’s night. Even then, we were still clearly insane for one another. If I knew nothing else in this whole entire, wide world, I knew that we had chemistry and it was electrifying, sometimes terrifying, but an all-encompassing need.

Standing before me, clutching me tightly to him, Tommy took a deep breath and visibly relaxed.

“Go get a sports bra and a real t-shirt. One that isn’t see-through or flimsy enough to break when anyone looks at you.”

“Um… okay, but why?”

“You never could just do what someone tells you.”

He wasn’t even asking.

I turned away pretending to be angry by stringing together a bunch of mumbled curses and headed for the walk-in closet. After reaching for a black ribbed tank top and extra supportive sports bra, I took my sweet time dawdling back to him.

“Now, what are we doing?”

“I actually meant that you were supposed to put them on, not carry them around.”

“Har, har genius.”

“A little run never hurt nobody.” He shrugged indifferently.

“Running?” I exclaimed, most obviously appalled.

“Cardio is good for the body and helps with the tension.”

“Cardio is the devil.”

“Okay, calm down Mrs. Boucher.”

“What did you just call me?”

He stared at me like he hoped I wasn’t serious and he scratched his head for some dumb effect.

“The Waterboy.”

“You mean the guy who hands out water at the football games?”

“The movie.”

When I stayed quiet he shook his head with what was possibly annoyance. I could do that to people.

“Just put it on and let’s go.”

“But I don’t wanna!” I whined.

Fat lot of good the whining did. Tommy grinned at me and turned back to the stairs, reciting some stupid statement I may or may not have just made about getting out of the house no matter what we were doing and no arguing to it. Damn my lack of short term memory and ability to specify what I actually wanted to do or rather, did not want to do. Damn it to hell.

I could see there was no stopping him and I really did want to get out of the house, so I followed and began stripping as I descended the stairs. Considering my most recent act, I probably should have thought better against the stripping and moving. But would I be me if I had?
As I pulled the tank top over my face, the view before me became one of white cotton but the feeling was heat wrapping around me before his fingers even touched my bare belly. The rough, rugged strength when put to the soft, silky texture of my skin was shocking and sublime.

My father always told me, ‘Never trust a man with soft hands, Annie-Girl.’

He was right, of course.

The thought of my father made my heart stop a second too long and I struggled to breathe as the tears began to run down my cheeks absent-mindedly. This crying crap had to stop.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy’s eyebrows scrunched together in an impossibly adorable expression.

“I was just thinking of my dad.” I told him, truthfully.

It would do me no good to try and lie to him now. Over hundreds of miles it seemed doable, but straight to his face was like nailing jello to a tree.

“Tay…” He seemed to struggle with the right words but eventually looked back to my eyes and grabbed the black shirt from my hands; I had begun to ring it around my hands, maybe a little too hard. “Your dad is a fighter and I’ll be damned if he lets some heart attack stop him from doing what he has always done. Nothing in this world can take him away from y’all and certainly not before he is ready to let it do so.”

“I can’t really help it, Tommy.”

Great, now I was blubbering like a baby. Did this bother anyone else, how unstable I had become?

“Here.”

He pulled the bra and then the ‘wife-beater’ over my head and down my torso with his gentle force. I gave him a weak smile as I slid my arms through the holes awkwardly.

Tommy slid his forefinger under my chin and lifted my face up until my gaze met his again.

“D’you want to go and see him?”

Weakly, I shook my head and answered, “No. Charlie will be by tomorrow to take me back. It’s the only time I get with him right now and I don’t want to risk seeing mama.”

He grabbed my recently shucked tank top, tossed it onto the top landing near the bedroom doors and replaced the emptiness of the shirt with one of his hands.

“Come.”