TRAGIC: Rook and Ronin, #1 (9 page)

"What?" I ask, shaking my head.

"That you do not own any panties."

My whole face goes hot. "
What?
"

"Panties, Rook," he says, pointing to the laundry closet with his bag of stadium peanuts. "I folded your seven articles of clothing over there so that when you woke up you'd have something to wear besides that sheet, and I found no undergarments."

I open the closet and there are my seven articles of clothing sitting on top of the stackable washer lid. Folded. "Uh…"

When I turn Ronin is standing next to me taking a swig of beer. He swallows and grins. "I can help you out with that, if you'd like."

"I'm lost. Are we talking about getting me panties, or taking them off me?"

He laughs. "Both, I think. Come on," he says, taking my hand and setting his beer down on the coffee table as we walk by. He pulls me outside and the only thing I smell is cherry blossoms. Every single cherry tree is filled with flowers, so many flowers every bough bends under the weight. It creates a heaviness that transfers across the terrace and pulls me into the scenery. Ronin catches my gaze and stops for a moment. "We're gonna take pictures of you out here tomorrow. It will be perfect, don't you think?"

I stare at the trees a few more moments and then mutter, "They're so beautiful I can barely stand to look at them."

"I know the feeling." His boyish charms are gone now as he looks down on me with a hunger I haven't seen on a man's face in a very long time. "And a picture of you surrounded by those blossoms will be enough to make a guy shed a tear over the perfection of it all."

I wait for the joke but it never comes. He just stares at me for a few more seconds and then squeezes my hand and pulls me into the studio.

"Where are we going? I have no clothes on!"

"Exactly," he comes back with. We enter a small hallway near the stairs and walk to the end of it and turn a corner to find a double door. It has a keypad and Ronin punches in his code, which I notice is the same one that opens the outside doors. The same one he gave me the first day I met him.

"That code of yours works a lot of stuff around here. You should maybe not hand it out to just anyone."

"I didn't." He grins and pushes against the frosted glass until the doors begin to open automatically. He waves me into the room and then flicks on the lights.

I gasp.

"Welcome to the Chaput Studios wardrobe and dressing room. You may choose anything you want from this side of the closet." He points to the largest area where racks are overflowing with clothes. There must be thousands of outfits here. "Those over there," his gaze goes to the smaller section, "are for the next week's shoot. And these right here," he says, pointing to a large chest of thin drawers, "are undergarments. These are all new, so take what you want."

"Am I allowed?" I ask, stunned.

"Allowed what?"

"To take this stuff."

"I just said you could."

"But won't Antoine or Elise get mad that I'm pilfering your stuff?"

"I run the girls, Rook. That means I run the closet too. This is like my little kingdom."

I laugh again. Shit, this guy has me laughing like an idiot this morning. "You're the King of the Closet?"

He bows. "The one and only."

"And you have spare panties for
me
?"

"Just shut up and pick some clothes, you goof."

"I don't know where to start, honestly. I've not had a lot of opportunities to shop."

He looks over at me as I take seat on a long bench in the middle of the room. His expression is a little sad. "I'm not going to ask, because I know you've got things you're not about to reveal to me, not after three days anyway. But I'd just like you to know, that is not right. Whatever you've been through, whatever it was that made you so… sad. I'd just like to say you deserve better."

I swallow down some old hurt and mumble out a, "Thank you."

Chapter Fifteen - RONIN

"You're welcome, but you're definitely getting clothes today. This closet is bursting with shit so I'll tell you what, you look through the bras and panties and I'll bring you clothes. I have excellent taste anyway."

I go off to find her something comfortable. I pass by the sexy stuff, then grab a pretty nightie just in case, and continue on and find the casual wear.

Rook's clothes aren't that bad. I mean, she looks hot as hell to me. I don't look at that shit at all. Now her body, that's something else. I look at her body. But I work with girls every day. Beautiful girls. The most beautiful girls in the world, actually. And I know that when they wear pretty things, they feel pretty.

So I get Rook just about every pretty thing I can find, whether she needs it or not. I flip through the rack of jeans for some soft ones and grab several pairs. She must like jeans because that's the only thing I've seen her in, and besides, I like her in jeans and I'm the one choosing. If she doesn't like what I get, she can come shop for herself.

I grab some t-shirts like she's been wearing, but also some other stuff. Frilly things, tailored things, a few skirts, some shorts, tank tops, I grab all of it.

I catch myself grinning as I round the corner and come out of the circular closet behind her. "Here you go."

She spins around from the drawer of underwear, startled, like I scared the ever-loving shit out of her. And it hits me. Something very bad happened to this girl, and it wasn't that long ago from the way she acts.

Slow down, Ronin.

"Here, try these on."

She takes the handful of clothes out of my arms and I back away. "I'll be out in the studio if you need anything, OK?"

To my surprise she comments to me on everything I brought, yelling out as she tries them on one at a time.

"How'd you know what size jeans I wear?"

We only have three sizes, and if she wasn't one of those sizes, she wouldn't have gotten past the door. She's not all bones like some girls, so the small size is out, and she's bigger up top than any of the models I've seen come through here, so I figure the larger of the three sizes is safe.

I say none of this out loud, I ignore that question altogether. That's a trap if ever there was one.

"Nice try with the nightie!"

Now this topic is safe. "I picked it because it's blue and I thought to myself, Ronin, that girl out there has the prettiest blue eyes, wouldn't she look spectacular in this little slip of see-through fabric that is a shade or two lighter."

She walks out of the dressing room as the last few words are coming out of my mouth.

Wearing the nightie.

I'm speechless and I'm pretty fucking sure my mouth is hanging open.

"I thought since you went to the trouble and put all that thought into it, you at least deserved to see it on."

"You are very bad, Rook. Very, very bad."

She laughs all the way up to her eyes and my heart is filled with… something. Something weird. Heat flushes through my body and I almost lose my train of thought when she begins to turn away.

"Hey!" I call. "Come back here a minute, you distracted me and I missed some parts."

To my surprise she turns back around and stands there, her hip jutting out, one hand practically caressing the wall and an unreadable expression on her face.

She's not flaunting it, not modeling, or twirling around to hide her embarrassment. She just stands there and allows me to look at her. I almost feel guilty as my eyes travel down her body and then stop at the bottom and make their way up again. Half of her long black hair is flowing over one shoulder, but the rest of it peeks out from behind her back like a cape. "Miss Walsh," I whisper, "you've wiped my mind of everything right now."

I walk up to her and she averts her eyes but when I get closer she fights hard to meet my gaze. "I'm glad you're here," I tell her honestly. I want to take her face in my hands and kiss her so bad, but I make myself behave. "I hope you understand that. I'm a flirt and I joke a lot but—" I lose my train of thought as she starts breathing a little harder, making her chest rise and fall under the very sheer pale blue fabric that barely covers her breasts. "—but you
stun
me."

I finally find her face again and she's watching me closely, leaning in a little maybe—like she wants me to kiss her.

But then the moment passes and she turns away slowly. I watch her body move down the short hallway until she rounds the corner and starts talking again. "You're an excellent shopper, Ronin. I think I'll keep them all, but only if you take it out of my check." She comes back out a few minutes later dressed in a t-shirt and some jeans, holding the huge pile of clothes in her arms. On top is the sheer blue nightie.

"You're keeping the nightie?" is all I manage to say.

And then we both laugh because I am such a fucking pig.

"Yes, thank you for picking it out. I agree, it really makes my eyes look spectacular."

"Right," I breathe. "Your eyes."

"So you'll take this out of my check, right?"

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"No, I'm not taking the clothes out of your check. It's like the food, Rook. It comes with."

"Do you give all the girls free clothes?"

"No, but I would if they needed it."

"So I need it?"

"Don't you?" I see where this is going and a smarter guy would back off, but she's just being dumb.

"I don't really. I'm fine with the clothes I was wearing, it was you—"

"OK, whatever. I'll tell Elise to bill you for the clothes. Make you happy?"

She nods and I take the clothes from her arms and we walk across the terrace to her apartment. When we get inside I dump all her stuff on the bed and wait.

It's an awkward moment. Does she want me to leave? Stay? "Do you want to go get some lunch?"

"Um…"

"Before we train for tomorrow?" I stick that in to throw a wrench into her I'm-trying-to-get-rid-of-you plan, because I can see it coming.

"Train for tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I told Elise I'd train you at the shampoo station before she got back, you know, so she could relax on her romantic weekend getaway with Antoine. It's their anniversary. Well, sorta. They're not married, but they still call their first date their anniversary."

I'm fucking babbling.

"I need to train on the
shampoo
station
?" is all she comes back with.

"Yeah, you know—the whole hot and cold water thing, shampoo versus conditioner. Detangler…"

I'm dying here.

"If you say so, Ronin. But I'm going to take a shower so why don't I meet you at the
shampoo station
in an hour and we'll talk about food afterward?"

Chapter Sixteen - ROOK

Even though I should be thrilled at scoring a whole armful of designer clothes from the closet of Antoine Chaput's studio, I'm irritated as I wrestle with the stupid hand-held shower head thingy that won't let me relax and enjoy hot water at the same time. And Ronin.
Train on the shampoo station
. What kind of stupid way to spend a Sunday is that? I mean I get it, everything in my life is tentative right now, so I could do a lot worse than standing around listening to control-freak Ronin babble on about how to use the hot and cold water spigot.

I blow out a breath of air and rinse myself one last time and then give up on the shower being something fun. Next time I'll just take a bath, at least I can relax in a bath.

Who needs clean hair anyway?

Shampoo station training my ass.

I shake it off and go back into my room where all my new-to-me clothes are piled up on the bed. It is pretty cool that I got all this stuff though. I'll probably regret it when the bill comes, but that worry is for another day. Right now, I'm in underwear heaven. I fish out the prettiest panties I found and slip them on. They are black with little pink ribbons threaded through the butt and have tiny pink bows that accentuate each of my hipbones.

The jeans I wore out of the dressing room were perfect so I put those back on, and then wrangle my girls into the matching black and pink bra and add a black tank top to the ensemble. I look in the mirror. My hair is a bit of a mess and might even still have soap in it due to lack of proper rinsing, plus I have no make-up on to boot. But even so, this is the prettiest I've looked in years. Maybe ever.

I brush my teeth and then gloss up my lips with some brand new peach-tasting stuff I found in the make-up drawer. Imagine—three days of proper care and feeding can make up for four years of neglect and punishment.

It's amazing how little we humans really need to thrive and it blows my mind that a matching bra and panty set, coupled with the perfect pair of jeans, can lift my spirits up so high, it leaves me dizzy.