Play Me to Infinity (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 3) (14 page)

We spent the day secluded from the outside world, lounging.  Thanks to that one night at Nicole’s place, aside from naked, I knew there wasn’t anything sexier than seeing her parading around with my shirt,
so that’s all I allowed her to wear.

It worked wonders when I saw her bare ass peek from the bottom of it, as she’d reached up in the kitchen cabinets for a bowl.  I took her on the kitchen island that time.

Her glorious cheeks made another appearance when bending over to grab her phone out of her purse to check her messages.  I made sure she knew I appreciated the view then too.

All day long, I began to find excuses to make her reach up or bend over.  By the time she’d caught on to my antics, she was just as riled up as I was and forgot why she had been vexed to begin with.

The pool got some mileage too.  I watched as she swam about and couldn’t keep away from her naked form, so I grabbed her and fucked her up against the tiled edge, thankful that my neighbors weren’t that close.

It had been an amazing day.  But like all good things, they come to an end, right?

The doorbell rang and Nicole was chasing me around the house with a spoonful of chocolate sauce.  We were in the middle of dessert, which had turned into a food fight of sorts.

“You’re not getting away from me that easily, mister!”  She came up behind me with a cloth to wipe at the spatter I had gotten on her cheek and plowed into my back when I opened the door to see who it was.

“Baby!” Tracey cried before she attempted to jump into my arms.

I caught her by the shoulders and kept her at arm’s length.

“Tracey?”  Nicole came to stand beside me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked my visitor, dropping her like a hot potato.

“I came for you.” She tried to make another advance and that’s when Nicole stepped in front of me.  “Move, bitch.”

How the fuck did she find out where I lived? 
“You need to apologize to my girlfriend, turn around, and leave me the hell alone.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she said.

“Why the hell not?” I asked, annoyed, and slid my arms around Nicole.

“Because I still love you.  I realized it when I saw you in Austin.  We’re meant to be together, Michael.”  Her eyes were intent on Nicole.

Call me crazy, but I couldn’t hold back the laughter that bubbled up.  When I looked over at Nicole, the woman had turned a shade of maroon.

“Get the fuck out!” Nicole yelled.

“Or what, your tiny ass will get rid of me?” Tracey asked, looking down on her.

Amazonian versus Sprite.  The vision was comical, but the reality, not so much.

Nicole pounced, but the arm I wrapped around her waist acted as a metal band, preventing her from getting to her target.

“One more word, Trace, and I’ll let her loose,” I said.  “She might be small, but she packs a punch.  It’s over.  It’s been over for nearly two years now, so go on and get out of here.”

After a lengthy stare-down, the woman conceded.  “Fine, I’ll go.  But you will be mine again, Michael.  She can’t keep you happy.  You know I can.”

“You didn’t keep me happy, Tracey.  It’s why I left, remember?”

We watched as my ex overdid it with the swinging hips on her way to her car, got in and drove off.

Things lightened up, but weren’t that much better after Tracey’s visit.  It was as if a dark cloud hung over Nicole.

She had been hurt before and despite knowing my story, it didn’t cure her of all insecurities.  And I didn’t expect them to dissipate right away either.  Hell, I still had some of my own.

By the time we hit the sheets for the night, I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself anymore.

“You know,” I combed my fingers through Nicole’s hair, “I’ve never felt like this with anyone else, not even Tracey.  The fire, the passion, the raw tension,” I shook my head, “it was never there.  Not like this.”  I grabbed one of her hands and intertwined our fingers.

“What were you thinking?”  She gave a rather unladylike snort that had me chuckling.

“I don’t know.”  I sighed into a soft kiss to her temple.  “It makes me wonder how great things can be for you and me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” She snuggled further into my side.  “You’ll have to cart me off to the loony-bin in a straightjacket to get rid of me, and that’s if you manage to dissolve the superglue that’s laid on thick against our bare skin, fusing us together.”

I laughed at the visual.  “Now, now… no need for invasive maneuvers.  You’ll be lucky if you can keep me off of you in the office.”  I hugged her tighter to me.  “I can’t see myself ever letting you go.

“I remember wondering one night, before things went south with…”  Nicole propped herself on my chest with crossed arms and listened.  “I wondered if what we were was it, if there wasn’t anything more.  It wasn’t the bliss some people talked about.  I pretty much thought-”

“That bliss was a myth?” she supplied.

I nodded.  She understood.  “It’s like waking up or going to bed and turning to see your partner and deciding that being with them was better than being alone.  You convince yourself that it’s all there’ll ever be, and that you’re okay with it.”

It was her turn to nod in agreement.  “I used to tell myself that it could be worse.  With Dean, I was taken care of from a financial standpoint, but I didn’t care, because with the shop, I had it on my own too.  The more I think about it now, the more superficial everything was between us.  I’m not mad at him anymore, but I’m mad at myself for staying with him for so long, for giving into my weakness toward him.”

I reached up and cupped her cheek.  “He was stupid for not seeing you as anything more than a toy.  Frigid, my ass!”  I winked at her and she buried her face in my chest.  Her lips pressed a lingering kiss against my chest.

“And how is the temperature then, doc?” she asked.

“You’re the best I’ve ever had,” I kissed her, “the hottest,” another kiss, “the most beautiful, caring, loving person-”

She kissed me in an effort to shut me up.  “Great answer.”  She smiled against my lips.

I grinned.  “Great question.”

I woke up with a start.  The quiet of the night had been broken by a large crash.  Nicole heard it too and in my sleepy haze, I held her against the mattress, inspecting her from top to bottom to make sure she was fine.

“I think it came from downstairs.”  She swallowed hard.  “Outside.”

“Stay here,” I told her, “I’ll be right back.”

I made to get out of the bed, but she grabbed onto my arm.  “Maybe we should call the police.”

I tried to sound reassuring.  “No point if it’s nothing.  It’ll be fine.”

She let her hand fall to the sheets.  “Hurry back.”

“With you in my bed, how could I not?”  I grinned, covering my manliness with my underwear, hoping that she wouldn’t pick up on my apprehension.

I walked downstairs and my instincts were to look at all my front-facing windows.  They were intact.  I hurried to the front door and sighed when I confirmed that it was indeed locked, my alarm active.  I looked out of the window beside the front door and saw it.  Nicole’s car windows were smashed.

“Nic,” I called out. “Honey, I think you better come down here.”

The sun was beginning to creep up higher in the early morning sky by the time the cops had left with Tracey’s name as our suspected culprit after our brief explanation as to what had transpired yesterday.  Nicole’s car was taken away by a tow truck.

Nicole and I had spent the better part of the day unwinding from last night’s events when she brought up the family dinner at Danica’s and Jake’s.

I played with her hair.  “I want to stay here with you.”

“But you haven’t even checked in with her, and I know that she called you on Friday.  Christ, she called me before I came over.”

I flipped her under me, on the couch.  “I’ll go if you come with me.”

“Oh no, you don’t!”

“I can convince you.” My fingers found her sides and tickled her until she cried mercy.  “So what’ll it be?”

“Fine, I’ll go, but you have to take me home so I can change.”

“No more shirt?” I asked with a pout that befitted a small child.

“No, no shirt!”  She giggled.  “At least until later.”  She kissed my cheek.  “I promise I won’t disappoint.”

“You haven’t yet, honey,” I smiled down at her.

Nicole was right.

That light green sundress of hers looked fantastic, but it’s what she’d surprised me with when I got her to sit down with me before heading out that got me going.  Thanks to my roaming hands, I discovered that the woman had barely covered herself with some skimpy piece of lacy floss.

Needless to say, I indulged in her a little before hurrying us out the door for some family time, which was bound to include an interrogation I no longer dreaded because I had my girlfriend with me.

Jordan ratted out my presence as per usual.

My sister appeared in the kitchen’s entrance fuming until she saw Nicole, and then a smile broke out.

“Finally!” Jake said as he peered over her shoulder, an all-knowing grin on his face.  “I told you, baby.”  He kissed Danica while handling Gabby.

I heard a cry from upstairs and knew that Marco must have just woken from his nap.

“I’ve got it,” Nicole said and rushed off.

“Traitor!” I called up at her and she stopped to look down at me.

“She’s your sister,” she grinned, “you deal with her while I deal with your nephew.”

When she disappeared, I realized everything had gone silent and everyone’s attention was on me.  “What?”  I shrugged my shoulders.

“You could have at least returned my calls,” Danica said.

I rubbed my hand at the back of my neck.  “I was busy.”

“Oh, I bet!”  She smirked.  “So I take it that you’re together now?”

“Yeah.”  I grinned.

“It’s about damn time!”  She rolled her eyes at me before giving me a hug.  “Take care of her.  She’s been through a lot… and so have you.”

“I know, baby sis, I know.”

Nicole made an appearance with baby Marco in her arms, and I was taken with the sight.  She looked perfect, at ease with the newborn in tow. The pang of want to my gut was overwhelming.

I wrapped my arms around her as she cradled the little guy and kissed her temple.  “A baby looks good on you,” I whispered so only she could hear.

“I plan on getting a lot of practice time when it comes to making one of these.”  She bounced Marco in her arms and looked over her shoulder at me, smiling.

“You want kids?”

She nodded.  “But I never felt the need before.” I understood why.

I loved kids and wanted my own, but the proverbial ‘baby fever’ as they call it had never materialized when Tracey and I were together.

Nicole holding my nephew, so tender as she was, cooing and kissing on him, made that urge to have a namesake of my own that much stronger.  I could picture a little boy with dark brown hair like mine, her bright green eyes instead of my boring blue ones, a day where Nicole sat on the piano bench, teaching him to play…

“So Tracey’s back in town.”  Danica pointed out, knocking me back to the present and shifting the conversation into uncomfortable territory.

“How’d you know?”

Jake snorted.  “She stopped by yesterday.  Real piece of work, that one.”

“I know.  Sorry.”

“I sent her packing,” Danica said.  “I think she’s got a few screws loose though, so watch out.”

I grumbled.  “That’s an understatement.”

“We think she might have wrecked my car,” Nicole threw in.

“What happened to your car?” Jake asked.

We filled my sister and Jake in on the events of early this morning.  “Are you sure it’s her?” Danica asked.

“Who else would it be?” I asked.

Somehow, another name popped in my head, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before.  Nicole and I must have been on the same wavelength because we turned to one another with wide eyes.

“You don’t think…” I started.

She shook her
head, but didn’t appear too convinced. “He doesn’t even know where you live.”

“Tracey found out somehow, so could he.  And he’d recognize your car.”

“There are loads of silver Honda Accords out there, Mike.”

“And only one with your license plate.”  My gaze was stern.  “Why are you so quick to dismiss him?”

“I just don’t think he would do something like that.”

“What about when you told me-” Dani started but shut her mouth.

I found my girlfriend giving my sister a shut-up-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you look.  Nicole met my eyes, but she never elaborated.

“Fine!  Let’s just wait and see what the cops have to say,” I conceded.

Why was Nicole so quick to brush her ex off?  Her dismissal of the overall situation pissed me off more though.  She made it seem like there was no threat against her, when in reality, there could very well be.

The whole situation worried me.  What if it wasn’t her car, but her head next time?

I shuddered at the thought.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked.  We were sitting so close on the sofa that there was no way she hadn’t felt the tremor.

“Fine!” I said, my sullied mood apparent.

Okay, so I might be worrying more than I should, but at least one of us was.

“It’ll be fine.”  She pecked my lips.  “You’ll see.”

I hope so.