Lady Killer (Tangled Desires Book 2) (8 page)

“She pointed a gun at you,” Mace grumbles as though it proves his point, but all it proves is how scared she is of whoever she’s hiding from.

“There’s that, too,” Razer says. “I’m not sure I want that around Claire, either way. I don’t want her in any kind of dangerous situation.”

I’m about to tell them they can all get the hell out, it’s my house, and I’ll damn well have anyone I want in it, when Claire pipes up. She catches my gaze, then the others. “Since when did we Hadley’s stop helping people in need? When did we forget where we came from?”

“Shit, sugar.” Razer presses his lips to the top of her head, grinning with pride. A pride I think each one of us has over our youngest sibling, our voice of reason. Even when it’s not what we want to hear.

“Fine,” both men say at the same time.

Mace places his cup in the sink and picks up the gun. “It’s got a serial number, so I can start from there. I’ll get a hold of one of my contacts and see what Intel we can stir up. If you could get her real name, first and last, that’ll help, too.”

“I’m working on it,” I tell him, as he exits the kitchen.

Razer shoos Claire out as well with a quick slip of his mouth against hers and a swat to the ass. “I need five minutes with Tommy.”

“Sure. I’m supposed to meet Chelsea soon anyway. We’re going to look at wedding dresses.” She practically bounces, absolutely radiant. Her violet eyes light up with how happy she is as she leaves us to it.

Razer leans on the counter and folds him arms, his gaze steady as he studies me. “So is Mace right? Is this about your dick?”

“Fuck no.” Maybe a little. It’s definitely a part of the equation. “I want to help her.”

And I do want to help her, because I don’t want her running away. I’ve barely scratched the surface of who she is.

“Bullshit,” he says. So matter of fact, like I’m the easiest person in the world to read, and yet Gem still doesn’t know if she can believe me. “Have you fucked her yet?”

I’m seething that he’s talking about her like that. As though she’s nothing more than a fluff piece. “No, I haven’t.”

“No, but you want to, bro. It’s written all over you.” He laughs, a belly rumble that makes me grimace. Am I that fucking obvious? “Haven’t you ever heard of jacking off? That’s how normal males deal with a dry spell.”

“Toss off, dickhead.”

“Don’t need to. I have your sister.” He smirks. I know he’s doing it to rile me. Like I haven’t done the same thing at times.

Still, that’s my sister he’s talking about, so I stick my middle finger in my mouth and make gagging noises. “Not cool. Don’t ever say shit like that to me again.”

“So what happened with the girl then?”

“Nothing,” I say. “She’s in trouble and needs some help.”

“And I’m the Prince of Norway.” He taps his fingers on the counter. A one two-beat that gets on my nerves. “You want us to help her, then I want to know everything. Including how involved you’re planning to get.”

“Fine,” I exhale, with a whoosh. “I kissed her.” Had my fingers inside her, while I watched her cum, watched her fall apart for me. Something I plan on doing again as soon as possible, but I’m not about to share that with him. So I dive into what I know that’s pertinent to the situation. “I’m struggling to get her to talk to me. She won’t tell me much. Said she didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.”

“I’d have thought you’d be able to get blood out of a stone with that charm of yours.”

“Yeah, well, maybe she’s immune.”

“Still, you’re a teddy bear. You’re like the most amenable dildo a woman could ask for.”

“Shut up.” I toss a tea towel at him. “Anyway, that’s not how she sees me. Well maybe the dildo part. She knew of me before. I’m fucking Harbinger.”

“That’s not working in your favor?”

“Never has,” I say with a shrug. Especially now, when I don’t want her to see me as that guy who fucks anything with a heartbeat, because I want her to understand I’m only interested in her.

“This girl special or something?” Razer’s more intuitive than Mace, cutting straight through the bullshit. 

“If things weren’t so fucked up.” I shake my head and sink onto a stool. “Between her running and my mess, I don’t know how things could be more complicated. How did I manage to screw up so thoroughly? I can’t consider anything with anyone. Not right now. It’s not right to involve other people in my shit when I don’t even know what the hell I’m dealing with. Whether I’m going to have a kid in my life or not.”

He sits quietly, tapping his fingers. “You don’t know anything for sure yet. This whole pee-stick conundrum could be nothing, could be some woman thinking she can hook the great Tom Hadley. Even if it turns out you’re going to be a father, you don’t have to put your whole damn life on hold.”

“Feels like I do. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey princess, I might or might not be having a baby with a woman I don’t know, and you’re running for your life, but let’s forget about all that because I want to take you out for pie?’”

“You want to take her out for pie?”

“That’s not the point. She probably doesn’t even like pie.” I’ve more than considered it, I’ve done it. The pie bit, anyway. That surprises me. I want this girl more than I should want anything, in spite of the fact she’s trying hard not to admit she wants me, too. Even when I should be concentrating on finding out whether I’m really going to be a daddy. Even when she could run at any moment. “The timing couldn’t be worse.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it.” He gets up and pushes his stool under the island. “But maybe you should tell her, before you do something crazy like fall for her.”

Gem

Raised voices come from somewhere in the house, so he must have told them I’m here. Pulling the towel tighter around me, I cringe and duck back into the bedroom as heavy footsteps stomp up the hallway toward me. I should have taken my bag to the bathroom with me, but I was so excited about having a shower, in peace, without worrying about someone creeping up on me, that I raced to the bathroom as soon as the hallway was empty.

I still don’t get why Tom Hadley makes me feel safe like he does, or why he’s so intent on helping me. I have to remember that he’s not invincible. It’s just when he’s with me, I almost believe that is exactly where I’m meant to be.

Pulling my shirt with the vet’s logo and a denim skirt from the bag I brought in from the car, I wonder if he picked up the bag I left at the gym. There’s nothing truly important in there, except for the thumb drive.

Brushing the snags from my wet hair, I consider my options. They’re pretty pathetic options really. Run again. Keep running. Hope that I can spend the rest of my life flying under the radar. So far my luck has held, but it’s not going to last forever. Being able to stay a step ahead isn’t going to keep me safe forever.

Or, I could stick around. That isn’t much of an option either. Not really.

When he made me cum it must have scrambled my brain, because that’s the only explanation I can come up with for letting Tom bring me here when Mace hates me. Tom probably hasn’t noticed the way his brother glares at me at the gym since I lied to him about who I am. I doubt he’s going to be willing to forget any time soon. Staying is going to cause nothing but trouble.

I’ve already caused them enough grief for one lifetime, and the last thing I want to do is cause them anymore.

Tom barges into the room, and I jump with a squeal, dropping the brush that thuds softly on the carpet. He stops dead in his tracks, his gaze roaming over me until it stalls at the edge of the towel. The length of terry cloth barely covers me, and it sure as hell doesn’t block out the tingles that slide through me while he’s standing there with the door wide open.

“Shut the door.”

He pushes it closed and shoves his hands deep in his pockets. I guess it’s an effort to try and keep them off me since I can see the rather impressive outline of his hardness through the front of his shorts. Not that it matters. I can still feel his touch from earlier. I shudder, imagining where I want those hands to go. Or his mouth. If his kisses are anything to go by, he’s got mad skills I’ve barely gotten to appreciate. But I can’t stay. “I’m going to leave,” I say. “I don’t want to cause you trouble.”

“It’s my fucking house, and I said you’re staying.” He covers the distance so fast I barely have time to register he’s moved. My pulse picks up, and I don’t know if I’m disconcerted by how quick he can move, or if it’s the way he’s staring at me with those intense blue eyes.

“They don’t like it. I heard yelling.” I stand my ground. I’m not scared of him, only of what he’s doing to me. With his mouth, his hands, his body. Of the way he makes me feel shit I haven’t felt before. Of hurting him again.

“They don’t trust you, yet, but they will.”

“They have no reason to.
You
have no reason to.” I can’t help but reach out and touch him, flutter my fingertips along a nerve in his bicep. I give him no reason to trust, and still he chooses to believe in me, to protect me. “I could hurt you.”

I could. I have. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second. If I’d never run to him that night, Santiago wouldn’t have tried to kill him. Yet, I’ve brought him back into my nightmare. There is no part of me that is worthy of his help.

“You could.” He says the words a moment before his mouth finds my skin. His warm breath whispers over my neck and up to the shell of my ear. “You’re hurting me right fucking now. My balls are blue because of you.”

Opening my eyes, I gasp, startled by how close we are. There’s barely an inch between us, and if I breathe his mouth will be on mine. I inhale his scent, that rich masculine smell that makes my mouth water. So I don’t think, and I don’t speak. I just destroy the gap. Because right now I want to feel him, only him. I want his tongue in my mouth, and my ass in his hands. I want him inside of me, and I want to forget why I’m running, and why this is the shittiest, dumbest move I could ever make. I want to live in the moment with him, even if it’s all I’ll ever get.

He doesn’t take it easy on me. He owns me and my pleasure while he devours me, both hands threaded through my hair, holding me captive. The way he tightens his grip, the delicious possessive edge to it, has me dripping wet. As if I didn’t cum a short time ago while we sat in my car at the lake. My nerves fray with the craving for his hands on my body. I reach up and try to pull his hand down where I need him the most “Touch me, just touch me.”

He doesn’t pull away, but he keeps his hand where it is. “Tell me who you’re running from.”

“Can’t.”

He groans into my mouth, the sound rolling around inside me is intoxicating. Sliding his palm down my arm and along my breast to my hip, he walks his fingers toward my navel. Just when I think I might combust, that the sheer need for him might overwhelm me, he stops and glances down at where he’s touching me so close to where I’m aching for him. “You’re dripping wet.”

“From the shower.”

“No.” He says, this rumbling sound that seems to pierce my very core as he slides his hand between my thighs to graze my clit. “Here. I can fucking smell it.”

“Jeesus.” I clench my thighs in an effort to tamp down the flood of warmth, but only manage to trap his fingers against my pussy.

I should probably care that I’m doing something this stupid, that each time he touches me it increases how much I want him. I don’t. Right now the stutter of one callused digit against my clit is all I can think about.

“Fuck. I want you, pretty girl. I want to put my mouth on you, right here. Want your taste in my mouth while you cum.” He dips his finger inside me, strokes me until my knees buckle. “I want to stick my cock so far inside you and feel your tight, hot pussy cum on me.”

A delicious little thrill runs through me. Those soft strokes become more insistent. Swirling up need, until I’m rocking into his palm, my eyes half-closed while I cling to him. “I want that. Your cock in me, making me cum.”

He goes rigid, with a low feral groan. I can hear the harshness and the low rumble of hunger in his voice. “Not good enough.” He takes my swollen clit between his fingers, rolls it gently. “I want so much more from you than your need for me to be inside you.”

It drives me wild, sends sensation skittering through my nerve endings, everywhere, until I’m whimpering.

He’s slept with half the continent and he makes an exception for me? He could have been inside me by now, but he’s holding out and I kind of hate that he has that much self-control. “Tell me why you don’t fuck around anymore.”

His eyes widen and then his jaw sets. “Give and take, princess. Tell me who you’re running from.”

I want to, badly. I want to lay out my secrets, and get him to tell me his. The way he’s staring at me like this could be something real, and we’ve barely begun, makes my heart flip. I want to know him, and I want him to know me inside and out. It scares me more than anything. More than Santiago, more than running for the rest of my life.

I’m suddenly too naked, too vulnerable, and he’s far too close to me. His fingers still rest against the inside of my thigh. What will he do when he finds out what I did to him? I wince at the loss of his hands, as I spin away, knowing I’m putting distance between us. I already ache to it take back. Snatching up my shirt, I pull it over my head and fumble with getting into my skirt. “I can’t tell you.”