by Anne Martin
Her expression brightened slightly. “What’s the budget?”
I almost told her that there wasn’t a budget, but telling her that I was accustomed to buying anything I wanted would make her bolt. I pulled out my phone and checked my allocated funds for the team. “I’ll send you the details. What’s your number?”
She sighed and pulled out her phone. “I guess this was inevitable. What’s yours?”
I told her and watched my phone until the text came from her. It was very exciting.
I’m ordering parts. Your pristine living room will be covered in machinery. It’s not too late to back out of your extremely out-of-character generosity.
I raised my eyebrows at her then texted back.
I trust you to keep those parts as immaculate as possible. Am I being generous? I suppose since I’m letting Nix think I’m the father.
She read my text and threw down her phone. “You’re letting Nix think you’re my baby’s dad? Why?”
I shrugged. “Why did you tell him that?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t tell him you weren’t when he jumped to that conclusion either.” She bit her full bottom lip. Everything about Trix was full and desirable. I wanted to bite that lip, to hold her while we had this conversation. When she looked up at me, there was a bit of guilt in those eyes. “You’re an easy suspect. You have your reputation so it’s not like it would hurt you for people think that you were careless with me.”
I curled my hand into a fist so I wouldn’t touch her. I would never be careless with her, body or heart. So that’s what my reputation made me. I studied her for a long time. She was so beautiful, strong, vulnerable, confident, uncertain, so many things at once.
“What?” She frowned at me. “If you’re appalled at the idea of being an official victim of a Trixie O’Hara stupidity spree, I’ll make the announcement at once.”
I shook my head. “Not at all. It’s actually a really good thing for you. If I’m the father, then the dick isn’t, and there’s no reason to threaten you. The only thing is that I’m not usually careless. What do you want for dinner? If you can order it, it’s yours.”
She frowned in concentration. “I feel like I should take advantage of you, because I’m on your couch, which makes no sense since it’s not like you’re getting anything out of me being on your couch, other than the sweet work I’m going to do on Ace and Matrix.”
“Ace and Matrix? Good names. They’re more Death-Hammer names than Band of Demon names.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You wanted War and Famine?”
I grinned at her. “The four horsemen of the Apocalypse? That would be deliciously suitable. I’d need you to do two more for me to round it out.”
She scowled. “If you have too many things, you can’t love them as well.”
“So, if you had ten children, you couldn’t love them as much as six?”
“You think I could love six children? That’s a different kind of love, the kind that makes you a crazy person.”
“You’d do it well. I can see you with your house crawling with kids, and you yelling at them to stop putting the tire irons in their mouths while you make a track from the bedrooms to the laundry room for efficiency.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I grew up in chaos. You saw my apartment. These days I like to be calm and in control.”
I grinned at her. “The paradox. Your chaos breaks out every once in awhile to remind you that you’re not in control. You need it.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “And your high-class prissy side wishes you wore suits. Do you have to sneak out to a museum every once in awhile, maybe the opera to keep the seething gentleman at bay?”
I grinned. “Actually, yes. I fly to New York and wear my favorite blue suit to the opera. I also drink chardonnay and refuse to make eye contact with women.”
She laughed, a low, throaty growl. “My chaos would take your priss for a ride.”
“My priss would never recover. It’s too bad you don’t want to take the man-whore for a ride. Sorry. Forget I said that. I have habits of speech that will be difficult to change.”
She shrugged. “You don’t have to change for me. It’ll be a long four weeks unless we can figure out who tried to knock me out sooner than that. Are you sure there weren’t any identifying clues?”
I rubbed my chin. I wasn’t in a hurry for her to leave. “Finding out who it was isn’t going to change the problem. Someone powerful hired the guy to take out your baby. Returning the favor, targeting someone well-connected, someone with money, that’s a lot of risk and effort. I am looking into it. I know a PI from Upstate who knows the family. In the meantime, you can’t go anywhere anyway, so you’re safe with me. I’m leaving Louis here in the hall while I’m at work, just as an extra precaution. It’s a good idea to spread the rumor that I’m the father. That was good thinking.”
Her brows came together. “If only I could have intentionally done that before the threat. I’d be a genius.”
I almost kissed her hair. “If the way you drive isn’t genius, I don’t know what is. I’m ordering Chinese, Mexican, and Italian.”
“Not Italian. Las Vegas Italian is an atrocity.”
I grinned at her. “Like I said; I’m not the only snob here.”
She made good on her threat, the one about covering my living room coffee table into a mechanic’s shop. I’d never seen such clean engine parts. My living room was nice, but stuff could be replaced. Trix couldn’t be. Her chaos was delightfully tidy. Watching her put together pieces of an engine on the couch while I sat in the wingback chair and told her about a race, I felt like I was home, really home, and if the background music was her jazz or my opera, it didn’t seem to matter.
In the morning, I’d work out in my gym, and then we’d have breakfast and talk about news or work, and then I’d go to the warehouse or a track, then on the way home, I’d pick up what she wanted for dinner. One night I came home and she just pointed at me.
I lifted the boxes of Indian. “Not the right place?”
She thumped the priceless book spread face down on the arm of the couch. “Chaucer. Now I understand the beginnings of the entire Western Male mindset. Jack Handy and his juicy kisses. Is this the stuff they teach in college?”
I grinned and pulled the wingback next to the couch, putting the Indian boxes on the side table. “Some of it. Economics is in there. What else? It was a long time ago.”
“You went to college?”
I hesitated then shrugged. “I did. On my graduation day, I could barely see out of my left eye. That was a good fight.”
She snorted. “I didn’t make it to my high school graduation. I was racing in Brazil while my friends were walking.”
I started divvying up portions. This was definitely a couch conversation. Talking about this was good for her. “That’s a long way from New York.”
“That was the idea. I guess I’m pretty well-traveled, but tracks look the same no matter what country they’re in. I wasn’t ever book smart. Is that true? I used to tutor my brother in his classes, and he got okay grades, but school was so hard for me. The people, I guess. I was like an alien. I didn’t fit.”
“A goddess,” I said, handing her the plate.
She laughed. “That would have been more clear than what I was. No one was certain if I was a man or a woman, least of all me. I mean, I was a woman, because I had all the equipment and I liked boys just fine, but I didn’t have the right hobbies. I was raised fighting and racing. When I was young, it didn’t matter what I had between my legs so long as I could hit hard and take the turns tight. Then things got confusing.”
“Don’t forget the sauce.” I handed it to her with a smile.
She frowned back at me and shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m talking about all this stuff. You couldn’t be interested.”
I shrugged. “I took a few psychology classes in college. Let me think, what would they say about you? Gender identification at that sta
ge of development, hormonal imbalances, displacement issues…” I shrugged. “Now I’m just making stuff up. I felt like I was in two worlds. I went to college, but I spent my nights street-fighting, building up my savings to do what I wanted, to build a team and make a splash in the show violence ocean.”
“Ocean of idiots.”
“Ocean of tears.”
“Only the tears of women who couldn’t tie you down.”
I put my hand on my heart. “You wound me. Seriously, I don’t appeal to women who want to settle down. I haven’t tried to.”
“Why not? I mean, you were ready to tie the knot with Michelle, so it’s clearly in your hardwiring.”
My stomach twisted. Could we talk about this so casually? It was a couch session, but some old wounds still hurt.
“Sorry,” she said after a second. “You’re clearly not over it.”
“Should I be?” I snapped.
Her eyes widened then narrowed. “Probably, but I’m not over my first broken heart either, so I guess we’re equally in need of therapy.”
I licked my lips. I wanted to say something to distract me and her from the issues, something about how much I wanted to go on an elevator ride with her. It was a very strong defense mechanism.
“The kind of therapy I want to do with you would shock you.”
She smiled sharply. “I doubt it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Chess.”
She laughed. “I take it back. I’m shocked. I must warn you, I’m not a novice.”
She beat me soundly. I grinned at her when she put me in check after very few moves. She was as decisive and blood-thirsty at chess as at racing.
She cocked her head and studied me. “You let me win.”
“I wanted to see what kind of player you were so I could adjust my skills accordingly.”
Her lips twitched. “Let’s go again. This time, I’ll let you win.”
She did. It was a very slow game because I wasn’t interested in winning. I was more interested in the expression in her face as she figured out her next move. There were different kinds of winning, and this, having a content Trixie on my couch was the sweetest one of all.
The day came when she was sick of eating out. That meant that I was in the kitchen in front of the stove while she gave me directions from the window seat. Her lovely voice all husky and rich, was like the white sauce I had no idea it was possible for me to create. My noodles weren’t right, though. No matter how often I did them, they weren’t up to her exacting standard. She really was a snob.
She disliked everything about Vegas, except the racing. She loved racing almost as much as she loved her vehicles. It made me wish I could transform into something she couldn’t help but run her hands over.
As the days passed, it began to be a bit of a dilemma. The longer she stayed in my place, the more I ached for her, but I wasn’t going to do anything that would make her feel uncomfortable around me. Sometimes I caught her looking at me, when I came out of the gym without a shirt, sweaty and panting, her eyes lingered and her cheeks pinked up a bit. When I rubbed her feet, using the reflexology stuff I’d learned in a different college than the one with Chaucer, she didn’t relax for a long time until she got used to my hands on her. After I’d broken that comfort zone, she had me rub her feet every night.
After a particularly hard race, I was icing my shoulder and she made me sit on the floor in front of her while she kneaded my muscles. It hurt. So good.
Little by little, we grew into each other’s space, lives, until it would be jarring to live alone. That was my intention, for her to get accustomed to me and rely on me so that I could protect her and her unborn baby, but I didn’t expect it to be so easy for me to need her. The odds of her staying with me when she didn’t need me were so low. But, she needed me now, and I owed her at least that much.
Four weeks we’d been living together when I came home one evening from training to the smell of tomatoes and basil in the air. She stood in the kitchen over the stove in her Jersey cow night shirt, bare feet on the checked tile floor, perfectly tan calves tantalizingly gorgeous.
I rushed to her and swept her off her feet. Her eyes went enormous, those soft green eyes that hid so much trouble. “You shouldn’t be up.” I kissed her nose and carried her to the settee. I settled her down, tucking her under the throw and squeezing her feet, but pulling away before she could kick me. I went to the stove and stirred her sauce.
“I can’t do this.” Her voice was trembling.
I glanced over her. “No, you can’t, not for a little while longer. The doctor’s coming tomorrow. You’re almost finished with the first trimester. You’ve been doing well.”
“Well? You call this well?” She gestured with her hands, knocking the throw down her knees and revealing how high up her thighs the shirt had slid.
I cleared my throat. “Moderately well.” I wanted to say so many things, but I focused on the tomatoes instead.
She threw a cushion at my head. “Moderately well? I sit around all day watching races. I’ve become my Nana. Do you see this?” She gestured at her ample bosom.
I blinked at her. “You want something else to sleep in? My shirt would probably fit you.”
“Your shirt? You think your shirt would fit me? I know I’ve gotten fat. I can’t do anything, not even make a spaghetti!” She put her head on her knees and started sobbing.
I held my breath for a second before I turned off the sauce and went over to kneel in front of the settee. “Hey, Trix, you’re not fat.”
She raised her snotty face and looked quite horrific. “Oh yes, I am. I’m hideous. I’m so hideous that even you haven’t hit on me for weeks. You don’t have a high standard.” She sniffed and wiped her face on the hem of her shirt, showing a flash of black underwear.
I was so overwhelmed with this horrified shock. She actually thought it was possible for her to not be desirable to me? “That’s ridiculous. You’re a goddess.”
“That’s what they call fat.” She started really crying ugly.
What was I supposed to do? Pregnancy hormones, inactivity when she was used to racing through life in the fast lane, and being stuck with me, someone who she generally hated, it wasn’t going to make her happy.
“Trix, go ahead and cry. Wipe your face again, and lift the hem a little higher this time. Are those designer underwear? You’re stealth classy. You keep all that sex appeal out of reach, tucked away, but it’s never going anywhere. You are everything luscious and tantalizing, that ripe peach pie in August, the smell of the ocean on a hot day…”
She covered my mouth with her hand. “What’s wrong with you?”
I blinked at her and pulled her hand down. “Nothing a night with you wouldn’t fix. Scratch that. A week of the kind of sex rampage that makes that amoeba keep calling you even after all this time. How many times did he satisfy you?”
She shook her head. “That’s more like it. I was worried for a second. Comparing me to pie? So, not you.”
“I have a thing for peach pie. In August. Come with me to upstate New York and I’ll show you this restaurant. They have a peach orchard in the back. In August you can pick your own peaches and watch them put it into a pie. Or you can eat them fresh, ripe, juicy, or make love in a pile of them.”
Her eyes went big. “How would that work?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never tried. I’m sure with you, Miss O’Hara, we could accomplish something amazing.” I ran my hand up her leg to the hem of her shirt and circled my thumb on her skin until her breathing got catchy, chest rising and falling beneath that thin shirt.
“Are you natural?” I asked her, ogling her openly.
She winced and shoved my hand off her. “Natural? No. I’ve had tons of work done. Are you one of those guys who wants a girl to be unnaturally perfect naturally? I thought you took it however you got it.”
I exhaled and smiled. The snap was back in her voice. “I appreciate variety. You had good work. I can’t place
it.”
She glared at me and tugged up her shirt showing her beautiful curved stomach and the rest of her in nothing but those black panties. She had gained weight, but she was pregnant. Women were supposed to gain weight when they had a baby. She traced a scar across her belly.
“I had my appendix out. And here,” she said, half turning so I could see under her armpit. “The doc had to fish out rib fragments. I had the other side taken out to match. It just happened to coincide with a wreck through a guardrail and down a canyon. That was a good race.” She smiled reminiscently as she slowly lowered her shirt.
I nodded, but my breath was coming short. She was so real and warm and her legs were right there, and those black designer satin panties…
“I have had cosmetic surgery,” she said with a shrug. “I had some skin grafts on my forehead after a bad burn. It’s still slightly discolored. I also had some breast reductions. And some nips and tucks. How about you? Did you surgically enlarge the miniature horse?”
I laughed. “I’ve had more nose reconstructions than I can count. I wouldn’t mess with anything that has delicate nerves that would be so easy to damage. My nipples are real, too. Do you want to see, up close? I can put on some oil. They shine up nice.”
She laughed and shook her head. The laughter didn’t last long. She pulled up the throw like she was hiding behind it, feeling ashamed or something ridiculous.
I took her face carefully in my hands and brushed back some of that wild hair. “You’re beautiful, sexy, and anyone would be the luckiest amoeba in the world to have you in their bed.”
“I am in your bed,” she said with a smirk on her sinfully luscious mouth.
“I have too many beds.” I kissed her. She tasted sweet and salty, and a bit like basil. Then she tasted like Trixie and I needed more of her. I pulled her onto my lap, off the settee, and kissed her until the water boiled over on the stove.
We ate dinner, spaghetti with a red sauce that was better than anything I’d ever tasted, barring her own sweet mouth. She still made a face, though. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I handed her the parmesan and couldn’t stop my fingers from brushing over her skin. She needed to be adored.
