Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (14 page)

Hudson’s eyebrows hopped up. “Sneaky.”

“Yeah. And as we saw today, it can be effective.”

“I still maintain you were a rockstar in there. Your competitors may have been doing it out of strategy, but it only worked because you were the real deal to begin with.” He pulled her hand up to his lips and grazed a kiss over her wrist. “And I, for one, enjoyed watching you in your element. You always make everything ultra-sexy. I was entirely disappointed they didn’t let me take home your bidding paddle. I swear, in the movies they let folks take it home.”

Laughter bubbled out of her at the memory of him asking the auction folks if he could keep the paddle as a souvenir. The auctioneer’s assistant had all but
simpered
at his request, making it clear over all the cooing and cleavage-thrusting and lip-licking, that though the auction paddles were not available to be taken home,
she
was.

And apparently, she was a
very, very
bad girl.

Lia hadn’t been able to help it, she’d had to hide her face behind the paddle in question to keep her hilarity at bay. When Hudson politely declined, and cast Lia a look that had shouted, “Stop laughing and help me out here, woman,” after the very, very bad girl kept on pushing, Lia called over one of her fellow collectors who she’d heard was into that sort of thing.

Not long after, everyone had gone home happy.

And Hudson had kissed her silly the second they got back to her apartment.

“Never really saw the appeal over the spanking thing until today,” Hudson had growled between kisses.

Jealousy, Lia discovered, was an awful, awful feeling. Swift moving and gut-consuming as well. A discovery she’d made sure to thank Hudson for by sweeping him off his feet.

Literally.

When he’d simply rolled into a martial arts tumble and shot out a hand to yank her down under him, they quickly found themselves in a steamy little grappling match that ended in him pinning her down and explaining gruffly that the butt he’d wanted to swat for making him crazy hadn’t belonged to Miss Auction House Barbie.

“Honey, if you don’t stop remembering what I think you’re remembering,” teased Hudson as he shifted his jeep into park, “I’ll have no chance in hell at winning over your brothers and father tonight.”

Her what and her who?

Blinking in confusion, Lia looked out the window and saw they were sitting in the Spencer driveway. “What’s going on?” She hopped out and circled around the car. “Did they invite you here for a
Spencer Inquisition?
” she hissed, mildly alarmed.

He grinned. “So that’s an actual thing? Gabe called it that when he invited me over.”

“Yes, it’s a thing. But I’ve never been in the hot seat for it before. Gabe has probably gone through it the most, and then Max. I’m sure Caine probably went through it a lot before I moved there, but I’ve only ever seen it happen to Gabe and Max.” She used her key to let them in the house, half-surprised that her brothers weren’t in the foyer ready to pounce.

“Wait a sec.” Hudson tilted his head, puzzled. “Are you saying the hot seat for the Inquisition isn’t reserved for me?”

“An understandable misassumption,”
called out Gabe from the stairwell, grinning ear to ear. “The guest of honor is always just that—a guest. Mom would have our heads if we grilled a guest at dinner. Now the person currently dating the guest, however... He—or
she
as in tonight’s festivities—is fair game.”

Lia groaned. While she didn’t have anything to hide, as she had seen many a time in the past, the boys didn’t exactly follow any rules during the Inquisition. “Let’s get this over with,” she muttered, following Gabe over to the family room.

The sound of video game gunfire announced at least Max was already there, probably testing out some exclusive new game that hadn’t hit the market yet.

Ten to one odds, all three brothers had gone out of their way to be in attendance tonight.

Gabe’s eyes were positively dancing. “Caine’s just grabbing a beer.”

Sibling torment did always turn the punk into a psychic.

“He even cancelled his plans for tonight
specifically
so he could stop by.”

Of course he did. What ever would they do without their resident snoop? Though the guest of honor was never grilled at dinner, the guys always made sure to use some of the info Caine managed to dig up on ‘em to make both the Spencer in the hot seat and their guest squirm via ‘innocent’ dinner conversation.

When Caine materialized with a beer in hand at the other end of the hall, Lia immediately headed over to get some answers. “Tell me you didn’t go interrogating Hudson’s last three girlfriends.”

A classic Caine move she wouldn’t put past him.

“Three?” returned Caine with an incredulous frown before taking a swig of beer. “I barely survived
one
. I think that Fiona chick ended up getting more dirt on me, than I did on her,” he complained with a slightly awed, mostly sympathetic look at Hudson. “That chick is straight-up nuts.”

Behind her, she heard Hudson stifle a chuckle. “I’m familiar with her work.”

Lia turned to flash a curious glance Hudson’s way. “I thought you dated Fiona back in high school.”

“I did.”

She slid her bewilderment back to Caine. “Why in the world did you dig that far back?”

Caine shrugged. “Apparently he’s only ever been serious about one woman. At least according to his old commanding officer and a few other folks I talked to. They all said the rest of the women were just casual dates, the occasional hook-up, that sort of thing. So I
had
to go that far back because other than that one woman, Fiona was the only one I could find.”

Her eyes swung back to Hudson in surprise. He looked…amused. Now curious beyond saving, she bit her lip,
wanting
to ask but knowing she really shouldn’t be encouraging Caine in this way.

When Hudson broke his gaze away to take the beer Gabe was offering him, Lia broke down and asked Caine semi-casually, “So did you get a chance to interview that one woman?”

Caine revealed his two deep dimples. “What do you think tonight is for?”

* * * * *

THE GUYS PROCEEDED to give Hudson the ten-cent tour of the house, and Lia trailed behind, processing Caine’s little grenade of information as if she were translating an alien language.

The tour finally ended in the family room. And when her brothers dropped down onto the sectional to listen to Max rattle-off all his brutal critiques of the video game, directed at whatever marketing exec was on the listening end of his Bluetooth, Lia pulled Hudson back out to the hallway.

She didn’t even know where to begin.

Hudson’s dove gray eyes crinkled at the corners. “Sweetheart, don’t overthink what Caine told you earlier.”

“Are you saying it’s true?”

He deliberately skirted around the question with another amused eye twinkle. “You mean that thing about Fiona? Yeah. It’s not that weird. You haven’t had an actual relationship with anyone since high school either.”

Touché.

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t dated,” he continued with a shrug. “But I wasn’t ever in one place for very long. I was constantly on extended deployments and on-call missions. And the rare couple of years I wasn’t, I’d offered to take on most of the duties that required travel to relieve some of that burden off my buddies with families. Basically, I just never wanted to start something serious unless I knew I could follow-through.”

She gazed up at him, floored.
How to ask the question without getting her own stupid hopes up?
“So why does your CO think you’re serious about me?”

He cupped her face affectionately. “Because I am.”

“But our expiration date…”

“—Is still there, sweetie,” he supplied gently, but with obvious regret. “I’m still going back to California in a few months. I...have to.”

Right. So much for not getting her hopes up.

“Do you want us to go back to being friends
without
benefits?” His soft charcoal gaze ran over her features as if memorizing every last detail.

No.
Definitely not. She couldn’t go back. Even if it didn’t last forever, it was worth having and holding onto. “We’re fine,” she told him firmly. “Remember, I
like
boxed stuffing. I’ll take ‘em over those military meal packets with the long shelf lives any day.”

He brushed a thumb over her lower lip. “So are you saying that once the stuffing expires, you’re
not
going to go out and find yourself a nice, reliable little MRE packet?” A flash of possessiveness darkened his gaze.

“Like one with a medical degree and a Mercedes?”
supplied Caine from the couch, showing off his multi-talented ability to operate a virtual assault rifle alongside Max while also eavesdropping shamelessly.

“Caine!” huffed Lia in annoyance. Looks like her brother’s investigation had expanded to Hudson’s relatives after the Fiona thing was a bust.

Hudson growled. “
Ben?
That’s
who your brother thinks you should end up with?”

This time it was Gabe who was the fountain of helpfulness. “Wouldn’t matter, dude, because according to her watch, that doctor cousin of yours doesn’t float her boat at all.”

“Gabe!”

What the—? She didn’t even know her watch could measure that sort of thing.

Meanwhile Max was still barking away on his Bluetooth, commenting this time on the sound quality of the wild animal noises in the game. Apparently, they weren’t wild enough.

It was any wonder Hudson hadn’t gone running for the hills already.

Max brought the volume of the game up to ear-pounding, but just below wall-rattling. “Hey, Lia?” he called out.

“Your rifle sounds are all wrong,” she bit back in exasperation, answering him before he got a chance to finish asking.

When she turned back to Hudson, she saw he was laughing.

Laughing.

And somehow
that
earned him an offer of another beer from Caine.

Max turned down the volume. “Seriously? They got the assault rifles wrong?”

“It’s too low and barky. Sounds too much like an M-16. You need more of a
pop
.”

“Tell them to adjust the clip-fed rifles, too,” added Hudson. “The ones the villagers were coming at you with earlier? They were missing that metallic ping.”

Caine rolled his eyes between Hudson and Lia as he headed over to the kitchen. “Oh good lord, there are two of them.”

Lia did a double take. She’d totally missed it, but Hudson was absolutely right. Yes, it spoke to some profound weirdness in her that she found the accuracy of his assessment sexy, but she didn’t care. She was all but swooning replaying it in her head.

“Dammit, Lia!” complained Gabe, who was tap-tap-tapping his index finger on his beeping phone screen like a violently traumatized man. “At least
take your watch off
before you have those kinds of thoughts!”

Hudson snickered. “My cousin Ben wouldn’t last a day here.”

* * * * *

DINNER WAS ENTERTAINING, to say the least. For Hudson, definitely. For Lia’s brothers, exponentially. They were funny as hell, and rather masterful at pushing her buttons.

“And that’s why Lia’s absolutely right,” replied Gabe to Hudson’s earlier question…a passing comment, really, which had resulted in a ten-minute highlight reel of all of Gabe’s best pranks. “I
am
the reigning prank master in the Spencer household.”

Max gave a peeved grunt from the other end of the table. “Have we forgotten that I’m the one who taught you everything you know?”

“Yes, but
I
was the one who got Lia to laugh for the first time after she moved in with us,” retorted Gabe. “Remember? It was the night I finally got you back for writing my name on the waistbands of a bunch of tighty-whiteys—size
small
—and shoving them in my middle school gym locker for all the guys to see.”

Max beamed. “Hehe, good times.” Then his eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Which reminds me, I don’t recall pounding your ass for pouring skunk oil into my cologne bottle the weekend of the homecoming dance.”

Lia giggled, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

A sudden, affectionate look of remembrance broke over Max’s expression as he tossed Gabe a grudging look of respect. “You’re right. That
was
the first time we saw Lia laugh. I remember not even minding that it was at my expense.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” promised Lia, eyes twinkling with a long-kept secret. “Or even because of Gabe’s prank.”

“You weren’t?” echoed both Max and Gabe.

Hudson watched her amused gaze fly over to her foster parents who were both suddenly looking at the crown molding around the dining room, fascinating as it truly was. “I was actually feeling bad for you, Max, until I saw
these two
trying so hard not to crack up in the other room.”

Jack and Grace Spencer finally broke, their chuckling quickly turning into full-on laughter.

Max crossed his arms over his chest and pinned his parents with a look. “You two
knew
about that prank? I smelled for two days!”

Gabe frowned. “Come to think of it, I spilled some of it in my room and had to live with the stench for two
weeks.”

“Why didn’t you guys ground us or something? Put an end to the feuding?”

“I’m certain no punishment we came up with would’ve been half as effective as the ones you were doling out for each other,” assured Jack.

“And it was nice to see you two being so creative,” added Grace.

Meanwhile Caine was off to the side, shaking his head the entire time. “Do you see what I put up with before you came along, Lia? You were my
only
sane family member.”

“You thought of me as part of your family back then, too?” Lia glanced at him in surprise. “But you were hardly home.”

“He’d have been home even less had it not been for you,” stated Jack matter-of-factly. “You two were always watching those MacGyver reruns together.”