Blue Lines: The Assassins Series: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Toni Aleo

  Her fears of him sleeping with Reese came back in full force because how would he know unless he had been there before? She never asked Reese if they had been together, and really, she was afraid of the answer. More than likely Reese would have told her if she had slept with Erik, especially now, she thought. Reese lived above the dance studio, in a cute little apartment, and Piper had a horrible feeling that he had been up there, in Reese’s bed. Hell, he’d been in everyone else’s bed, so why not hers? Oh Lord, she was a mess.

  “I was here once with Jacob to take Ally to dance,” he said as he made his way back around the car. “Why?”

  “Just wondering,” she said, feeling stupid.

  She recalled the time Erik would have driven Ally to class. It was after Harper had one of her miscarriages and Piper couldn’t get out of work in time to take Ally to her lesson.

  “Okay, so I’ll pick you back up, when?”

  “I’ll be done at three, but I wanted to take a shower and get ready to go on the plane, so three thirty?”

  “All right, well, I’ll be done earlier than that, so I’ll just come back here and wait.”

  She eyed him and said, “Wait where?”

  “I don’t know, wherever you’ll be.”

  “I’ll be dancing.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Yeah, I’m helping with some choreography for a duet that Reese is doing,” she explained.

  Erik had a shocked look on his face as he pointed at her and asked again, “You’re dancing?”

  “Yeah, I used to dance when I was kid. I went to the same school Reese went to, but dropped out for some reason I can’t remember. Probably to sing, but no telling.”

  Erik blinked a few times, and then turned to get into the car.

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “What?” She laughed. “Why’d you make that face!”

  Erik smiled.

  “Because you just seem to be able to do a lot of different things, and it’s kind of amazing. Later.”

  She watched as he got into the car. She waved goodbye to Stanley as Erik glanced back and nodded bye to her. It was moments like these when he totally confused her, and she didn’t know if he was lying or not.

  With a shake of her head, she made her way up the stairs to Reese Allen’s Dance Studio. Music blasted from the back, and a smile came across Piper’s face as she followed the music to where she knew her sister would be. “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys shook the walls as Reese moved to the music in a way that only she could.

  Reese was a choreographic genius. It was breathtaking to watch her dance and sometimes it brought tears to Piper’s eyes because Reese was so beautiful. They resembled each other, but not as much as twins should. She was darker in skin tone, with dark hair and green eyes, while Piper had a ruddier complexion, with blondish brown hair and blue eyes. Piper was small while Reese was tall and had a dancer’s athletic build. They had the same drive in them, only Reese was dead set on being the best dancer imaginable, while Piper’s focus was on a variety of things. Reese could be a little bitchy at times but they were sisters and loved each other and always worked out their differences.

  When the music stopped, Reese looked over at her and smiled as she breathed deep.

  “I only need you to go over the beginning and I think I got it,” Piper said, taking her shirt off and then her sweatpants. Underneath she wore a sports bra and a pair of booty shorts. When Reese started laughing, Piper looked up, confused.

  “What?”

  “How in the world did I miss this pregnancy? I thought you were just getting pudgy all this time,” she said with a smile.

  Piper laughed.

  “It just popped, I swear. My clothes used to fit but now, this kiddo is like ‘Hey! I’m here!’ ”

  Reese smiled as she came over and held Piper’s little bump in her hands. When the baby kicked, Reese’s smile grew as she looked into her twin’s eyes.

  “I would have been there for you, you know.”

  “I know. I just wasn’t ready to tell anyone.”

  “I’m not anyone. I’m your twin,” Reese said.

  Piper nodded, hating to see the hurt in Reese’s eyes.

  “I know, but I thought that Erik needed time to think before I told people.”

  Reese shook her head. “Out of all the men.”

  “He’s a good man, Reese.”

  “He’s a cocky son of a bitch who thinks women should fall at his feet. Plus he is too damn smooth for his own good. He could talk his way out of a murder rap. Be careful.”

  “He won’t hurt me,” she said, and she knew that it was true. Well, he’d never physically hurt her … emotionally was another story.

  “Let’s hope not,” Reese said with a shake of her head as she walked over to the stereo.

  “But I’ll be here if he does.”

  “Thanks,” Piper said as she sat on the floor and started to stretch.

  Nothing was said as Piper warmed her muscles, but the whole time, her mind was moving at the speed of light. She needed to know if Reese had slept with Erik, and she knew that if she didn’t use this moment to ask, she would forever regret it. Why, out of all of the women Erik had slept with, this one mattered the most, she didn’t know, but it did, and she had to know.

  “Hey, Ree.”

  Reese looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “Did you sleep with Erik?” Piper asked, feeling a tremor in her voice.

  Reese started laughing. “Isn’t it a little late to be asking that?”

  Piper nodded as she looked down at her growing belly and said, “Yeah, but I need to know.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “No.”

  Reese slowly shook her head.

  “No. I don’t even know if he wanted to. I never gave him that opportunity.”

  Piper laughed as relief filled her. She had planned to ask Erik, too, and then she would know the truth. If he said they did, then she really didn’t know how she would handle it but she would cross that bridge later. At that moment, though, she believed that they hadn’t; she trusted her sister. “Okay, forget I even asked,” Piper then said. “Bring your happy self on over here and let’s get this done. I have a plane to catch.”

  “With your husband? That’s so weird to say. I thought we’d never get married, just be really cool aunts.”

  Piper shook her head and said, “Maybe that’s how you’re gonna be, but God has a different plan for me.”

  Reese genuinely smiled as she said, “Yup, and the plan involves a husband.”

  Piper smiled as she cradled her belly and whispered, “And a baby.”

  * * *

  Erik couldn’t get her off his mind, no matter what he did.

  His music blasted in his ear as he ran on the treadmill. He also had tuned in SportsCenter on the TV, and he was even listening to Tate talk about the different colors they were using in his daughter’s room, but nothing worked. He couldn’t kick the idea out of his head that she was a dancer. How was she so good at so many things? It made no sense. She was an artist, a photographer, a dancer, a saleswoman, and if he remembered correctly, she was going to be a teacher, too.

  Piper was amazing.

  With a shake of his head, he pushed himself hard, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to work out much while he was in Las Vegas. There were a lot of events that he would have to attend and he also planned on partying with the guys. So he needed this workout, but what he didn’t need was the image of Piper dancing around in barely anything. It wasn’t only that image that was in his mind, though; he also began worrying that she could fall, and hurt herself or the baby. That thought made him lose his footing and he almost fell off the treadmill.

  “You okay?” Tate asked.

  “Yeah, I was thinking of Piper.”

  Tate gave him a knowing smile and nodded.

  “I think of Audrey all the time, too.”

  “Yeah,” Erik said with a wave of his hand. “She’s out
dancing with her sister and I’m afraid she’ll fall or something.”

  “Wow, she is still dancing?”

  “Yeah, apparently,” Erik muttered. “I don’t know if I like that.”

  “I know I wouldn’t. I’ve seen her dance with Reese before. They don’t take it easy,” Tate said, and since he was worried, it made Erik even more concerned.

  “Great, now my mind is at ease,” Erik complained as he increased the machine’s speed. “I have to trust that she knows what she is doing.”

  “That’s true. She’s not stupid. It’s just the man in us that wants to protect what is ours,” Tate said, kicking up his speed, too.

  Was that what the problem was? Was he worried because he cared and she was his, or was it because he just didn’t want her to get hurt? Was it the same thing? If he was honest with himself, he’d admit that he did care for her. Erik, being the stubborn ass that he was, even with himself, couldn’t admit that, though. So when he hopped off the treadmill and grabbed his bag, he wouldn’t let himself analyze the reason why.

  The only thing he knew was that he had to get to Piper and make sure she was okay.

  * * *

  After making sure that Tate had everything he needed to take care of Stanley while they were away, Erik drove like a bat out of hell to Reese Allen’s Dance Studio. After locking the car, he ran up the stairs and entered the gaudy yellow studio. It was bright as hell but it looked good with the black designs and shit that she had hanging everywhere. Music shook the walls as he made his way through the studio, following its beat. He didn’t recognize the song, but that wasn’t new. He usually listened to rap and bluegrass, not this pop stuff they were dancing to. He was a music weirdo, as Jakob would call him.

  Erik finally found Piper among the many rooms in the studio. There in the middle of the floor stood Piper in supertight black shorts and a small black sports bra. Reese wore almost the identical thing but her outfit was yellow and blue and her body wasn’t nearly as delectable as Piper’s. Piper had piled her mass of hair on the top of her head. Sweat dripped from her brow and her body glistened with the evidence that she had been working hard. But even with all that sexiness in one little package, the one part he had a hard time breaking eye contact with was her belly.

  It was so small, but protruding at the same time. He had only gotten a glimpse of it on the dock, but seeing it now, out in the open, made all of this so much more real. He wanted to walk up to her, press her against the wall, and cradle her stomach, just to feel what she felt every day. He had this unbelievable need to just hold her, and tell her she was beautiful.

  “We’ll do it one more time, girls, and then I want y’all to come up here and do it,” Reese said, but Erik’s eyes never left Piper.

  When she glanced over at him, she looked shocked that he was there. He gave her an awkward little wave and then slid down the wall, leaning forward on his knees so he could watch. She broke her gaze with him when the music started. Piper and Reese started to move so fluidly and in sync, it was mind-blowing. Watching them dance was like watching two of the same person. The steps they choreographed for the song were perfect, and when Piper took her solo, doing what seemed like a million little turns before kicking her leg up into her arm and falling back to where her head almost hit the ground, Erik almost flew up to help her, but she had it. A dance move he would bet most pregnant woman would never be able to do.

  She was on fire.

  Erik had never seen anything so beautiful and it started to piss him off when Reese took over the dance. It should have been Piper; she was wickedly awesome. Once the song was over, the girls who sat against the mirrors started to clap as they stood. They couldn’t have been eighteen, and if Erik remembered correctly, he remembered seeing them dance solos at Ally’s last recital. They were damn good, but nothing like Reese and Piper. Reese started teaching the girls as Piper walked toward him. He stood, smoothing out his shirt as she approached.

  “Whatcha think?” she asked with a grin.

  She was breathing hard, and it made him want to have sex with her, which did not help the raging hard-on in his pants.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said with a laugh.

  She laughed along as she said, “I do! Did I look like a whale? I know I messed up that fallout.”

  “Whales are the last thing on my mind, Piper. You didn’t mess up anything; you outdanced your sister,” he said without looking at her.

  When she didn’t say anything, he looked over at her to find her biting her lip as she looked at him.

  “That’s really sweet.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s the truth.”

  Piper smiled and shook her head.

  “I’m gonna go shower and raid Reese’s closet.”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Piper eyed him suspiciously. “You aren’t taking a shower with me.”

  Erik gave her a playful smile.

  “But isn’t that what husbands and wives do?”

  “We are not real, remember?” she said with a little bit of what he thought was sadness in her voice.

  He hated when she got that look on her face. To lighten up the situation, he joked, “Maybe we could try doing the fun stuff of marriage, the sex.”

  She paused on the stairs and turned to look at him. Her belly was inches from his face, and if he bent down just a little, her sweet, juicy pussy would be inches from his mouth. But then she started talking, distracting him from the prize in those little black shorts.

  “Are you proposing a sexual relationship with me, Mr. Titov?”

  Erik gave her a lopsided grin.

  “Depends, what would you say?”

  She didn’t even hesitate.

  “No way.”

  “Then no, I am not. I don’t do well with rejection.”

  She gave him the same sad eyes again and said, “Neither do I. Let’s just drop that subject, okay?”

  Well, that sure did backfire.

  “Okay,” he said with a long breath as he followed her up the stairs.

  Piper opened the door to a light beige–colored room that held all the necessities of life—bed, kitchen, couch, TV, and a bathroom.

  “I didn’t know Reese lived up here.”

  Piper looked back at him and smiled as she crossed the room for what looked like a huge closet.

  “Yup, that’s why she bought the building, because it had living quarters upstairs. She loves this place. I do, too. It suits her.”

  “It’s nice.”

  “So you’ve never been up here?”

  Erik turned to look at her back, his eyes dropping down to her sweet little perky ass. Man, what he would give to get his hands on her again.

  “Nope, why would I?”

  He watched as she shrugged her shoulder, pulling out different dresses from Reese’s closet.

  “No reason.”

  Erik didn’t like that answer, and soon he was making his way across the room to her side and said, “No, there is a reason. What is it?”

  She wouldn’t look at him as she asked, “Do you like this dress?”

  He looked down at the burgundy dress and made a face.

  “No, it’s hideous, all of them are. They aren’t you; go buy something new.”

  She looked away again as she muttered, “No, I don’t have the money to go blow on a brand-new dress.”

  “How do you not have the money when you are married to me?”

  “I’m not spending your money,” she said, offended.

  “It’s part of the deal. I need you to look smokin’ beside me, so buy a new dress in Vegas. Go take a shower so we can get to the airport, but first answer me.”

  “Whoa, Mr. Titov, you aren’t going to tell me what to do. I’m not spending your money.”

  “Fine, I’ll buy you something,” he said, his anger getting the best of him. “I don’t know what the big deal is. If you are going to help my image, then these dresses are not going to cut it. We are walking the red c
arpet of the NHL awards, with news reporters and bloggers all over the place. We both have to look like a million bucks, so please, just let me buy you a new dress.”

  She paused, looking down at the dress in her hand before looking back up at him.

  “I’ll pay you back when I get my second advance from Emmaline.”

  Erik shook his head, his eyes glued to hers as he said, “No, I want to buy you the dress, okay? And we need to discuss the living expenses, too. I’ll start helping out.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she muttered, putting the dress back in the closet.

  “I want to.”

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Fine.”

  “Now, why did you ask if I have ever been up here before?”

  She looked up at him with an annoyed look. “I told you, no reason.”

  “And I know there is a reason, so come on, what is it?”

  She looked away, chewing at her lip as he waited.

  Finally she looked at him and asked, “Did you sleep with Reese?”

  This time he was the one not hesitating as he said, “Hell no.”

  A smile pulled at her lips as she looked away. “Okay.”

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  She nodded. “Okay, I believe you.”

  “Good, because your sister was never the one I wanted.”

  Piper smiled over at him as she made her way to the bathroom, those delectable shorts and itty-bitty bra screaming his name.

  “I thought you didn’t want any female.”

  With that she closed the bathroom door behind her.

  He wanted to laugh. She was such a sassy little thing, and man, did she drive him crazy. He wanted to chalk up his need for her to the fact that he was horny as hell, but it wasn’t just that. It was more.

  Chapter 11

  Piper walked behind Erik as they got off the plane. The commercial flight was only a couple of hours but seemed to take forever, probably because she was sitting next to him as he was radiating sex hormones. It just pissed her off that she still had the hots for him. Ugh. As they walked through the airport she checked her email to see if anything was abuzz, made a few comments to friends on Facebook, and then heard a ruckus. What was up? Dropping her phone into her Juicy Couture satchel she looked up to see flashing lights as people called out Erik’s name. Piper glanced up at him, surprised as he took her hand in his, squeezing tightly before leading her through the paparazzi and journalists over to a group of fans who wore the famous purple Nashville Assassins jerseys.