Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) (16 page)

HUNTER ANSWERED THE
door with a confused look on his face, rubbing his eyes like I’d just awakened him. Which I probably had. Then he really looked at me, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He poked his head out the door and looked around. “No car. How’d you get here?”

“Walked.”

He stood there gawking at me like I had three heads.

“It’s fucking cold as balls. Let me in.”

He stood back and allowed me inside. “Surely you knew it was cold before you left. You could’ve put something on.”

I made my way to the living room and grabbed the first throw blanket I saw. Good thing Tallie kept them all over the place, because I couldn’t stop my body from shivering. I wrapped it around my shoulders and wished I had another for my feet, but I was too cold to walk the several steps required to get to another one. “Only a few blocks. No big deal.” I plopped down on the couch.

“No big deal,” he repeated, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. He rolled his eyes and picked up another blanket, tossing it toward me. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re
here
and not at your house.”

I wrapped it around my feet a few times. “Had to get away from her.”

“Her? Not following.”

“London. She’s stuck at my house with me.”

“London’s at your house?” Tallie squealed, joining us from down the hall in a silky robe and fuzzy house shoes with her hair up in a haphazard bun-slash-ponytail combo that I couldn’t even attempt to name. “I
knew
you two would hit it off.”

“If you mean hit each other…”

“You’re not going to hit her,” Hunter said, taking a seat on the recliner across from me.

Tallie, bleary-eyed and clearly exhausted but still smiling, kicked off her slippers, curled up on his lap, and tucked her toes between his thigh and the arm of the chair.

Something inside me warmed at the sight, and I tried to brush it off. I wasn’t here to get any crazy ideas about things I might like to have. Things I didn’t deserve. That kind of shit needed to get out of my head right this second. “Might have if I didn’t leave,” I ground out.

“Mm hmm, whatever,” Tallie said. She leaned her head on Hunter’s shoulder, her wild hair blocking half his face from my view. “If you two would just get over yourselves, I bet you’d go at it like rabbits.”

I gave her a look that said I wasn’t amused.

Her eyes went wide. “You already
have
! I knew it. Bet it was good, too. The way you two go at each other all the time, I can only imagine the sparks.”

“No sparks.” More like full-blown explosions.

Tallie rolled her eyes.

“How did she end up at your house?” Hunter asked, moving the conversation back to safer territory.

“Went to get gas for snow blower. Bought it after the snow last winter. Thought I could help neighbors with their cars, but someone stole her car at the gas station. Couldn’t leave her there. Woman all alone in wheelchair, stranded at gas station in snowstorm.” Papa would roll over in his grave at the thought. He’d raised me better than that.

“No, you couldn’t,” Tallie said, “because you wanted to get her home and screw her brains out.”

“Not screwing her brains out.” Which was a fucking lie. That was exactly what I’d been doing, and what I wished I could continue doing, because it shut her up and got her to leave me in peace for a while. At least for as long as we were fucking. But now she said
no
. No sex, just talking. The last thing I wanted to do.

“So you two are arguing a lot or something? And you’re stuck together in your house until everything thaws?” Hunter asked, sounding like this entire conversation amused him to no end. Some friend he was.

“Woman won’t stop pushing. Why you have tattoos? Why you have beard? Tell me about wreck when you tried to kill your best friend.”

“She wouldn’t say that,” Tallie said, her tone just this side of chiding.

“How you know? You meet her one time, think you know her. She sees one tattoo, she thinks she knows.”

“Maybe she knows more than you think she does,” Tallie said, and I scoffed.

“London probably wouldn’t say something like that, but I bet
you
would,” Hunter added with a pointed look in my direction.

“I didn’t try to kill Sergei.”

“We know you didn’t. But do you know that?”

“Fuck you,” I bit off, and he laughed. “Sorry, Tallie,” I added sheepishly once I realized I’d cursed in front of her. I tried not to do that, to lose my cool like that around my teammates’ wives and girlfriends. Not that I was careful around all women. I’d cursed at the team owner’s wife once, but there was something about her that practically begged for it. She was horrified, which only made me want to do it again.

Tallie waved me off like it was nothing. “This ain’t my first rodeo. But seriously…y’all are going at each other?”

Like monkeys in heat, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud. She’d just cackle like she won the lottery if I admitted how right she was on that score. “Constant arguing. Constant prodding.”

She grinned. “I bet the makeup sex is hot, though.”

“Not making up.”

“No? So angry sex, then?” She waggled her brows. “That’s good, too.” She gave Hunter a pointed look that I did my best to ignore.

“And you got so worked up you needed to go for a walk,” he put in.

“Yes.”

“In the snow,” Tallie said. “With no shoes on.”

“I’m Russian,” I grumbled, silently cursing myself when I shivered. “Thought Harper needed me.”

“She’s been out like a light since that call. She’s fine. And now that we know it works as well over the phone—”

“I can still come. I can rock her. Works better.” I might have been too desperate in my argument, but I wasn’t ready to give up my time with that baby. I needed Harper more than she needed me, and that wasn’t easy for me to explain.

Tallie gave me a questioning look, but she didn’t contradict me.

“Have you cooled off enough you’re ready to go home?” Hunter asked. “She’s in a wheelchair. You can’t leave her alone in your house with all those stairs for too long.”

The walk had worked a hell of a lot better than a cold shower would have in terms of getting rid of my hard-on, but I wasn’t so sure it had done anything for my inappropriate anger. I scowled at him.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m driving you home.”

“Can’t drive in this. People getting stuck. Causing wrecks.”

“Wanna bet I can’t? Did you pass any cars that were stuck on your way over?”

I hadn’t, but I didn’t want to tell him as much. The bigger problems were on the highway and main roads. No one had been out in our neighborhood when I’d walked over to his place, and he was surely a competent driver in snow. In other words, he was kicking me out so I would have to deal with London, whether I wanted to or not.

“Go on,” Tallie said. “You can’t leave her alone like this, and there’s not a chance in hell I’m letting you walk home in your bare feet and without a coat on.”

I knew it. I didn’t like it, but I knew it.

Damn it.

I TRIED TO
convince Hunter to stick around for a while, but, bastard that he was, he left as soon as he dropped me in front of my house. He didn’t even wait to be sure London hadn’t locked me out, though, because the snow had turned to sleet and freezing rain in the time that we’d been gone from his house, and it was only going to get worse from there. He needed to get home, and I knew it, but I still wasn’t happy he was abandoning me.

He could’ve been a friend and acted as a buffer for me for a few minutes at least, especially after all the ways I’d been helping him and Tallie with Harper. That wouldn’t be asking too much, would it? But he was gone, and I was doomed to be all alone with London again.

When I walked through the front door, she wheeled into the hall.

“So you didn’t freeze to death,” she said.

I grunted. “I’m Russian.”

“So you’re fond of saying. You’re also an idiot.”

The last thing I wanted to do was start another fight right away. I climbed the few steps in the entryway and moved past her into the living room.

“Your feet are blue,” she said, following me.

I whirled around, praying for patience. “You need anything? Or can I put you in bed?” It was plenty late enough that I was ready to be done with her for the night.

She gave me a suggestive look.

“No fucking, you said.”

“So I did.”

“You need anything?” I repeated.

“I should probably go to the bathroom again,” she said. “With my—”

“Chair and purse,” I cut in. I knew the drill by now, whether or not I understood why the fuck she would need her purse to piss. I crossed over and picked her up to get the process started.

She shivered the instant I touched her, and damn if her tits didn’t harden to stiff peaks.

I glared, mainly because I couldn’t stop myself from focusing on those gorgeous breasts, and it pissed me off. “Sorry I’m cold.”

“You should take a hot shower or something. Warm up.”

I noticed she didn’t offer to warm me up herself.

I deposited her in the bathroom and went back for the rest of her stuff. Once she was settled, I decided to do exactly what she’d suggested, going into the other bathroom and turning on the steaming spray.

By the time I finished and came out with nothing but a towel around my waist, still dripping, she had wheeled herself into my bedroom. Her eyes roved over my body again, assessing and appraising, and triggering yet another erection. Which, I might add, she noticed, if the way she licked her lips was any indication.

“So you’re sure about me sleeping in here?” she asked.

Positive. Especially because if I left her in here and went downstairs to sleep on the couch, it meant I could be away from her for a while. Eight hours without fighting or fucking sounded really good at the moment.

“Bed is all yours,” I said, going into my walk-in closet to find something to put on.

“You could share it with me,” she said.

“You ready to fuck again? Had enough talk for now?”

“No, but I wasn’t offering sex. I was suggesting we could share the bed.”

“Next time I’m in bed with you, we’re fucking. Got it?”

She snorted in laughter. “Message received, loud and clear. Enjoy the couch.”

When I came out of the closet in sweatpants, she’d already gotten into the bed and was situating the blankets over her. I paused long enough to debate whether I was doing the right thing or not. But chances were high that she’d try to talk to me all night long, and all I’d want to do was fuck her. Not a good combination.

I stalked out of the bedroom and started to close the door, but she said, “Dima?”

I stopped with the door cracked. “What?”

“Might want to leave that open so I can shout for you if I need you.”

“You shout loud enough.” So loud I could hear her at Hunter’s house, most likely. But I left the door open and went downstairs to figure out how I’d manage to sleep on my couch.