Wrong then Right (A Love Happens Novel Book 2) (16 page)

How the hell Hope Coleson was running her sweet, half naked ass off waiting tables in a strip joint when she came from a family with deep pockets was a question he’d dearly love the answer to. Maybe it was the same reason Ash brushed off any association with the renowned Coleson Creek Vineyards, famous for their bestselling wine and infamous for the tawdry circumstances surrounding the deaths of two woman intimately tied to the patriarch, one being his wife. Beck didn’t know the details of the story, nor did he care.

What he did seem to care about, despite his best efforts against it, was her.

The tinny, digital version of the most annoying Christmas carol in the world sounded again and the front legs of the barstool he was leaning back on hit the wood floor with an irritated thud. A guy could only take so damn much, he thought, his booted steps echoing through the house as he strode toward the guest room, intending to take perverse pleasure in waking her up.

Pushing hard on the partially open door with the flat of his hand, it ricocheted against the wall. “Wake up, princess. And shut that f—Jesus Christ!”

She was naked.

Not, naked meaning she was wearing a tiny, stringy, static-clinging thing that most women wore to bed. Not, naked meaning she was bare except for a sexy scrap of fabric covering the entrance to heaven. Naked, meaning naked like the day she was born, her spectacular ass and the long line of her spine showcased as she lay sprawled on her stomach. The bed sheet, along with a ratty blanket he’d never seen before, covered only a portion of her tanned legs. Legs that were bent slightly open, exposing a heart attack inducing amount of prime pink flesh that he couldn’t take his eyes off. Heaven and the holy land, wrapped in one.

He stood motionless, gawking at her like an adolescent boy getting his first glimpse of Cinemax after Dark. Or the internet with no parental control filter set, if he were an adolescent boy nowadays. Jesus, he was old.

Jingle Bells split the air again and her arm reached out, searching for the phone with quicker reflexes than he would’ve given a woman coming out of a sleep-induced coma credit for.

“I told you...” Rough with sleep, her voice held a hefty amount of annoyance, “to never call me that word.”
Princess
.

The phone quieted before her hand found it and she tucked her arm back tightly to her side, never opening her eyes.

“And I told you not to sleep naked.”

Her head lifted the littlest bit and she peaked over her shoulder, looking at him through squinting china blue eyes. “No, you didn’t.”

“I told you not to make me regret letting you stay here.” He shrugged. “Same damn thing.”

Groaning her disagreement, she pushed the hair off her face and slowly blinked him into focus, a frown marring her pretty face. “What do you want?”

Her cute, grumpy voice sent a spark straight to his lap as he walked toward her, stopping at the side of the bed to stare. All that exposed flesh was making him stupid. “What do you think I want?”

“Hmm,” Hope murmured, closing her eyes again as she buried her grinning face in the pillow. “Aren’t we confident today?”

“I’m confident every day, princess.” Then he deftly dodged her knee before it connected sharply with his groin. “Not nice,” he admonished, impressed by her blind aim.

“It’s not nice to call people names, either.” The pillow muffled her disgruntled response.

“What does this tattoo mean?” Reaching out, he tapped the top of her right wrist, knowing what was tattooed on the underside, just above the bend in her hand.

An elaborate tiara, the kind a fairy tale princess would wear in a colorful children’s book, was inked in blue and purple. It might seem ordinary, if not for the fact that it was jaggedly cracked right down the center, with each sharply pointed corner tilting in opposite directions. An obviously broken crown.

“It means don’t ever call me that word again.” She moaned and slowly stretched.

And decidedly sexual images popped into his head.

Rolling to her back, she looked at him with hooded eyes. “Now let’s get back to why you came in here. And what you want.” Her warm, naked body was displayed like a buffet. “But you can’t kiss me on the lips. I need to brush my teeth first.”

His heated gaze raked over her pink tipped breasts—quite possibly the best set he’d ever laid eyes, hands, or mouth on—down past her flat stomach to the V of her thighs. The narrow landing strip of hair set his blood on fire, rushing through his body to settle heavily in his rapidly rising erection, and his hand moved quicker than his brain.

Tracing a fingertip lightly up and down the strip, her legs opened when he cupped her heat fully. Pressing the heel of his hand against her clit, he murmured, “No lip kissing at all?”

“I could be persuaded to change my mind,” she whispered, a blush blooming on her cheeks as her hips lifted into his touch. “Depending on the location of the kissing, that is.”

He traced that tempting line again, then down along her seam, debating when it was exactly that he’d lost all his fucking marbles. Probably somewhere around the time he’d started giving this woman keys. To his room. To his house. And the devil only knew what next. His black heart, maybe? Or his even blacker soul? Choosing to ignore the ramifications, he opened her with his fingers, swiping one through her significant wetness, the tip of his middle finger teasing her entrance before moving up to rub her in small circles. Wincing at the throbbing pressure against his zipper, he leaned over, gripping the iron headboard with his free hand as he bent down to lightly kiss the pebbled peak of her breast. She smelled warm and sleepy, and like green apples.

This was a bad fucking idea. Hadn’t he given a reasonably convincing speech against this very thing the first night she’d crashed here? And within the space of a few days, he was blatantly breaking his own damn rule. He might be out of his right mind, but he had enough functioning brain cells to know this was a can of worms that once opened, couldn’t be closed. Then his eager dick chimed in, happy as hell to remind him that the worm can had already been blown wide the fuck open in a hotel room a month ago. And much like coming upon a horrible car accident on the freeway, when there was a naked Hope Coleson in your line of sight, you just couldn’t look away.

Her breath caught on a low moan and she reached for him just as his back pocket rang. A normal, non-annoying ringtone. And his hand stilled at the timely wake-up call.

“Ignore it,” she said, whimpering. “For the love of God, Beck, ignore it.”

It took a supreme will for him to turn his attention away from her, backing up a step.

Huffing out a playfully irritated breath, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I can’t believe you just did that. You’re terrible at following directions.”

“You’re the one who said no lip kissing, princess.” He grinned at her look of outrage and glanced at the screen on his phone, showing a missed call from Ash. And immediately felt like he’d been splashed in the face with a ten gallon bucket of ice water. The guilt made him mean. “And I’ve got somewhere more important to be.”

Standing, she yawned before padding toward the bathroom, the swing of her hips almost hypnotic. “Then do what you do best, Prince Charming, and disappear. Ride off into the sunset on your white horse.”

There was no heat in her words. Just mild amusement and a touch of exasperation, but before he could respond, the twinkling of Jingle Bells interrupted him. “You need to do something about that obnoxious ringtone or I’m gonna use your phone for target practice.”

“It’ll stop in a second,” she called out, from somewhere inside the bathroom, and he heard the shower turn on.

He also heard her mumble the word
Grinch
before an electric toothbrush began to buzz. At least, he assumed it was a toothbrush. Hell, it could be the whirl of a vibrator for all he knew. Oh, fucking great, he thought, closing his eyes on a deep exhale. That was a visual guaranteed to keep him from sleeping a goddamn wink tonight.

Unable to endure it any longer, he swore under his breath and grabbed her jingling phone from the nightstand. Tapping through the screens, he saw a handful of unopened texts from the same blocked number, the most recent one sent a few seconds ago. Knowing it was an invasion of her privacy but not caring, he tapped on the message just received.

Stupid Bitch. You need to learn your place.

What the fuck? Swiping down the screen, he thumbed through each unread message, a total a four sent since late last night.

Don’t ignore me. It won’t make me go away.

Poor little rich girl. Such a disgrace.

You’re nothing but a common whore. Just like Mommy.

The last text had a high resolution photo attached. A zoomed in shot, clearly taken while she was working, showing a beer-bellied man with his meaty hand on Hope’s leather clad ass. She was smiling but it was strained, the tray in her hands loaded with drinks. There were dozens of other texts sent from the same blocked number, the chain of messages too long for him to read through without taking several minutes. He didn’t need to see anymore, though. The sender’s hostility came through loud and clear.

“Hope, what the hell is this?” Walking into the steam filled bathroom, he abruptly slid the glass shower door open a foot. She yelped in surprise, her head under the spray and a buzzing toothbrush in her mouth. He held up the phone, not bothering to school his voice. “What are these texts and who the fuck sent them?”

Her eyes widened in surprise, either at his barely restrained anger or his blatant audacity to read her private messages. Glaring, she pulled the humming brush from her mouth and pointed it at him. “You searched through my phone?”

Okay, it was the latter. “No, I was silencing Jingle Bells. And on a side note, I’d like to point out that it’s barely July. Now do you know the person sending this crazy shit? Because there’s a hidden message in these, not to mention the threat of violence. They don’t seem to like you very much.”

Clucking her tongue impatiently, she turned both the brush and the faucet off and reached around him for a towel hanging on the rack, not caring that she flung droplets of apple scented water on his shirt. He stepped back, distracted by all the slick naked skin in front of him.

Wrapping herself in the fluffy white towel, she moved toward the vanity, shrugging nonchalantly. “I don’t know who’s sending them and I don’t care. I just ignore them.”

“Yeah? You ignore them?” He held up the device, but didn’t let go when she reached out to grab it. “How’s that working for you? Because the sender doesn’t seem deterred. In fact, it seems to be pissing him off even more.” He leaned his backside against the counter and their shoulders brushed as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Tapping the screen, he scrolled down the chain of messages again, talking more to himself than her. “There’s gotta be fifty messages here, honey. How long ago did this start?”

She froze in the act of applying some sort of white goop to her face. “Did you just call me honey?” Smiling, her forehead crinkled like she might start crying. “Aww. I like that, Beck. I like it a lot.”

He rolled his eyes, covering up his unintentional slip. “Don’t read into it, princess. I call Nolan honey, too.” He held up the phone. “Now tell me more about these. When did they start?”

Beck had to give the girl her props because she was quick. Before he blinked, she grabbed the phone from his hand and held it behind her back, a scowl marring her freshly washed face.

“Who’s Nolan? And you better not say a woman.” Her frown line deepened. “Wait, I don’t think I want it to be a man, either. Is Nolan a dog? Nolan better be a dog.” Then she snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Or a goldfish? You seem like a pet fish kind of guy to me.”

Make-up free, with her skin scrubbed pink and her long hair hanging in wet ropes down her back, she was by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Probably the most sarcastic and inconvenient one he’d ever come across, too. A heavy weight settled over his chest as he stared into those laughing blue eyes, followed by a distinctly loud warning in his head.

Run, dumbass. As fast and as far as you fucking can. Because this girl is trouble.

His pocket rang again and Beck knew it was Ash. Probably on his way over right now, with a Sig Sauer 9mm strapped to his side and his beloved weapon of choice, a painstakingly cared for M4 assault rifle, sitting on the passenger seat of his beat up Jeep.

It was a good thing Beck had his own sources of defense, and in this particular case, his best ones were his sparkling personality and a fair amount of denial.

“Wear clothes in this house. At all goddamn times, you got me?” Moving toward the door, he pointed to the phone she held, his menacing voice brooking no argument. “And I wanna know when more of those messages come through. I’m gonna get to the person sending them.”

Because this wasn’t a cut and dried case of cyber-bullying. Whether Hope knew it and was simply playing dumb, or truly oblivious to the underlying threat in the messages, somebody was trying damn hard to scare her shitless and they weren’t happy with her passive behavior.

“Whatever you say,
honey
,” she said, emphasizing the endearment sweetly, then laughing as he walked out of the room. “Oh, I do love the sound of that. I might try out darlin’ or pooh bear on you later, so just remember that you started it,” she called out, her voice carrying through the house as he walked out the door.

He was halfway to work before he realized there was a stupid smile on his face.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“So. I, uh...” Beck ran a hand across the back of his neck, watching as Nolan leaned so far back in the office chair, it was dangerously close to tipping over. Or breaking in half. “I fucked up pretty badly.”

“Yeah? What did you do? Wash your whites with colors? Have eleven items in the ten or less line at the grocery store? Sleep with a married chick?” Nolan chuckled to himself at that last part, knowing Beck wouldn’t stoop to something so low as adultery.