Just What I Needed (The Need You Series)

by Lorelei James

  “And you’re always begging me for details on what I do during my days at F&L?”

  Annika rolled her eyes. “You tear stuff down and build it back up.”

  “It’s more complex than that. We need to have all the city, county and state permits in order before we can break out the sledgehammers and—”

  She held up her hand. “Say no more. Seriously. You know the other reason I’m here, Walker.”

  “No, honestly I don’t. Didn’t Mom already buy tickets to the performance?”

  “Oh, don’t play cute. I can’t believe that Betsy got to meet your new girlfriend before I did. Where’s the love, bro?”

  My eyes narrowed. “When did you talk to my office manager?”

  “Last night at Cabooze. Betsy was sort of tipsy. She went on and on about how cool it is your new girl Trinity is a hot-shit artist. And she secretly caught you two making out in the conference room, which she squealed about for like five minutes because it was so freakin’ cute and then you locked the door in your office while you had lunch. I had to pretend I knew that you’d been seeing this Trinity chick for a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks!” she repeated as if I hadn’t heard her. Hell, they’d probably heard her in the auditorium.

  “Maybe you oughta show me the love once in a while, baby sis. Because not once have you asked if I was seeing someone. Not once in the times you’ve called to ask for my help or to vent about hockey players or anything else in the last year have you asked me what’s new in my life.”

  Her face fell. For once she didn’t pull her usual argumentative crap; she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tightly. “I’m sorry. I always swear I’m nothing like Dallas and then you remind me that I am self-centered. You deserve better from me since you are such an awesome brother. I’m so freakin’ sorry, Walker.”

  “Apology accepted. You can make it up to me next week by taking me to Ike’s for lunch.”

  “Deal. And I won’t even put it on my expense account.”

  I laughed.

  “So this Trinity … she makes you happy?”

  I almost said, When she’s not making me crazy, but given my past dating history? Annika would jump all over that as an opening to recite the crazies from my past—chapter and verse. “Yeah, she does.”

  “Good. Take me to her.”

  “She might be busy.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” Annika hooked her arm through mine. “Lead on, Dubbya.”

  “You promise to behave?”

  “You did not just ask me that! I have an MBA and I’m junior VP of an entire division at LI. Polite corporate behavior is my life.”

  She managed to pull off an affronted look. Color me impressed. “So why didn’t you use that same corporate mind-set when dealing with the hockey players?”

  “I tried—believe me. But from the very start, Santa was begging for me to rack him with his own hockey stick.”

  “Wait.” I stopped and faced her. “Did you just say Santa?”

  “The Swede’s name is Klaus. So I started calling him Santa. Santa Klaus—get it?”

  “But I thought his name was Axl.”

  “Axl is a nickname. Since his last name is Hammerquist, it’d make more sense if his nickname was Thor—not only because he makes my head … thor.” She laughed. “Thor, sore, get it?”

  I groaned.

  “Maybe I oughta change my name to Rocky since I clearly had rocks in my head when I agreed to revamp his image.”

  “Whoa. You’re working for him?”

  “No, I’m working for his agent,” Annika corrected.

  “How’d that happen?”

  “Mom butted in. She knows this agent; they’re from the same fjord or something. Then Jensen signed with this agent, so I took on this PR project as a tiny ‘flavor’ to her.”

  The side door opened and people flooded in, including Brady and Lennox.

  “Hey, bro.”

  “What are you two doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  Brady gave me a level look. “You know why.”

  Defensively, Annika lifted her hands. “Hey, it wasn’t me who spilled the girlfriend beans this time.”

  “That’s because I knew about her weeks ago,” Brady said. “Did you?”

  Annika shoved him. “Shut it, braggart.” She demanded of Lennox, “Did you know about her too?”

  “Nope. She was news to me.”

  I scanned the crowd. “Is Mom here? Dad? Jensen? Nolan? Ash? How about the damn gardener?”

  “Knock it off. The sooner we meet her, the sooner we can report back to everyone,” Brady said.

  “Walker?”

  I whirled around at the sound of Trinity’s voice.

  “What’s going on?” She kept looking between me and my siblings as I strode toward her.

  “Reckoning day, sweetheart.”

  “Oh god. It’s your family, isn’t it? I’m not ready. I’m covered in paint, my hair is a mess and I’m seriously sleep deprived, so who knows what will come out of my mouth? And did I tell you the homeless woman on the corner gave my clothing a pitying look and offered to give me her shoes? Plus, I—”

  I kissed her. It stopped her babbling … for a minute anyway. “It’ll be fine. They’ll like you. I promise.” And even if they didn’t? I didn’t care. I liked her. I slipped my arm around her waist and steered her toward my siblings, who’d lined up in firing squad formation. Assholes.

  “Everyone, this is Trinity.” To her I said, “First in line is my older brother, Brady. Beside him, his bride, Lennox. Next to her is my little sister, Annika.”

  Trinity held up her hand, heavily spattered with green paint. “I won’t offer to shake hands, but it is great to meet you all. If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve practiced a soft-shoe routine since I resemble a hobo.”

  Silence.

  If her hand hadn’t been covered in paint, she likely would’ve clapped it over her mouth. She did have a disconnect between her mouth and brain when she got flustered. It amused the hell out of me and I laughed.

  So did Brady. “Popping by unannounced wasn’t my idea”—he shot Annika a look—“but I’m glad we did. Nate let us wander around the stage. The sets are outstanding.”

  “Thank you. It was a team effort.”

  “It paid off. People will flip when the show opens. Word of mouth is gonna be killer,” Annika said.

  Silence expanded as we stood around and stared at one another.

  Awesome.

  Trinity mock-whispered to me, “That soft-shoe routine is sounding better and better, isn’t it? On the count of three …”

  Annika laughed. “Since it sounds as if you like to dance, I can admit our ulterior motive was to convince you guys into going out with all of us tonight.”

  “All of us,” I repeated, “is who?”

  “The five of us. Nolan. Jensen. Maybe Ash. Dallas is playing Hide the Franken-weenie with Igor, so she’ll be late.”

  “Jesus, Annika.”

  “What? It’s true. We’re not all paired off, so if you want to invite some of your friends, Trinity, that’d be cool.”

  Trinity smirked at me. “I could invite Ramon since it was so fun when you met him.”

  “Pass. What about Genevieve? I haven’t met her yet.”

  “Gen is riding the hobbyhorse with Connor tonight.” She frowned. “Wait. Do they use horses in rugby?”

  “No, that’s polo.”

  “See!” Trinity bumped me with her hip. “I told you I’m hopeless about sports stuff. Besides, Gen isn’t really riding a horse—she’s riding Connor.”

  “I caught that, sweetheart,” I said.

  Trinity looked at Annika. “As you can see, my list of friends is woefully short.”

  “No worries. We always pick up a few strays anyway.” Annika high-fived me. “Bring your girl to Flurry. Eight o’clock.”

  I hated Flurry. Too loud. Crappy music. Overpriced drinks. Nola
n and Brady both had VIP passes, which meant we’d sit upstairs in the VIP section that overlooked—or rather looked down on—the rest of the bar. If I were the type of guy who wanted to impress a date, Flurry would be the place to take her. But I preferred to keep everything on the down low.

  Brady slipped his arm around Lennox’s waist. “We’ll let you two get back to work. Nice meeting you—” He paused, as if he couldn’t remember her name—his way of warning her that he knew she’d lied about that once—and flashed his sharklike CFO grin. “Trinity.”

  “Same here.”

  “Catch you later, bro.”

  Grabbing Trinity’s hand, I towed her back inside the set-painting room. The space had been cleared out, so we had it to ourselves. I closed the door and faced her.

  “Sorry they ambushed me today. We don’t have to go out with my family tonight if you’d rather not.”

  “Sounds like you’re the one who’s on the fence.”

  I was selfish. I didn’t want to share her on the one night I wasn’t already sharing her with her project. “Have you ever been to Flurry?”

  She shook her head. “I hear it’s a cool place. Hard to get into. And I wouldn’t mind celebrating since I’m on the downhill stretch.”

  “It’s gotta be a huge relief.”

  “It is. The client is coming to check the progress on Monday afternoon.”

  “When’s the event?”

  “Two weeks from tonight.” She reached up and fiddled with the collar of my shirt. “Will you be my date? It’s at some fancy private country club.”

  That meant I’d have to wear a damn suit. But I’d do it for her. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Thank you. I’ll need someone to stop me from becoming a babbling idiot and from drinking too much free champagne because that is a dangerous combination.”

  I stroked her cheek. “Is that the only reason you want me to go? To kiss you when your nerves kick in and the motor starts running?”

  “No. I want you to go with me because we’re a couple and that means we support each other on this kind of social stuff, right?”

  “Right.” That’s when I realized she wanted to go out with my family. I’d suck it up and show her a good time for a few hours. “I’ve gotta unload equipment, so I’ll be between here and the warehouse the rest of the day. What time works for me to pick you up?”

  “I’d love to have dinner first, but maybe we should plan on dinner afterward since I’ll be working all afternoon. So how about … seven thirty?”

  “Perfect.” I kissed her and ignored the high school kids whooping and hollering outside the window.

  Fourteen

  TRINITY

  I stood in front of my closet, staring wide-eyed like a shell-shocked toddler expecting monsters to jump out.

  Don’t be ridiculous. How hard can it be to pick one outfit? Just reach in and start grabbing stuff.

  Within five minutes I had half of my clothing strewn across the bed in a sea of black, but I wasn’t any closer to making a decision.

  Should I go with a little cocktail dress? Or a fringed miniskirt and vest combo? Or a maxi dress? Walker was tall enough I could don stilettos, but it’d been a while since I’d worn heels. With my luck I’d trip in them, fall on my ass and give his family an indecent view of my Spanx.

  Maybe I should just stick with pants.

  After I applied my makeup, I straightened my hair. It’d been ages since I’d fussed with my appearance, so I hoped I’d achieved the wow factor. Walker was such a hot-looking man that I didn’t want anyone to question why I was on his arm.

  The doorbell rang.

  I grabbed my beaded clutch and my messenger bag before I opened the door. “Hey. I’m ready.”

  Walker made a very slow, very thorough sweep of my body before he looked me in the eye. “I knew it.”

  “What?”

  “That I’ll spend half the night mesmerized by my gorgeous date and the other half of the night wanting to punch all the men who are lusting after my gorgeous date.”

  I smiled. “You get high marks for that compliment.”

  He angled his head and placed a kiss where my cleavage started. Then he ran a finger up my arm, from the cuff at my wrist to the ball of my shoulder. “I like that this shirt is see-through.”

  I glanced down at the V-neck sleeveless shell I’d worn beneath a sheer black blouse. “It’s not completely see-through.”

  “Then how come I know that your nipples are hard?”

  “Because they get hard when you touch me.”

  Walker’s avid gaze followed the movement of the back of his hand, gliding across my breasts. “We could stay in,” he said huskily. “In fact, that might be best since your skin is feeling a little hot and feverish. Maybe you oughta be in bed.”

  “You just don’t want to go out,” I said a little breathlessly.

  “I just want to be in with you. All night. Is that a possibility?”

  “Yes.” Placing my hand over his on my breast, I slid it down so he cupped me completely. He squeezed the flesh and I opened my mouth on his to swallow his soft grunt.

  That seemed to frustrate him. “Let’s go.”

  Once we were in Walker’s pickup, I said, “Are we meeting someplace first?”

  “No. Annika mentioned meeting to take a car service, but I frickin’ hate that. I prefer to drive so I don’t get stuck somewhere.” He grinned at me. “That’s why I didn’t have a problem when you insisted on meeting me for our first date instead of letting me pick you up.”

  “Can you give me the details on the family members who’re coming tonight?”

  “As far as cousins? My older cousin Ash. Maybe his younger sister, Dallas, who’s still in college. Definitely my cousin Nolan.” After he said the name a tiny scowl appeared.

  “Don’t you get along with him?”

  “I get along with him great. Until he starts tossing out unwanted advice.”

  “On what?”

  “His favorite thing to rag on me about is my appearance. I ignored his call earlier because I didn’t want fashion tips on what to wear to the damn bar.”

  Walker looked great. The casual way he dressed suited him. “Why does he try to change you?”

  “Exactly. I’m not the suit-and-tie-wearing type.”

  My panties would spontaneously combust if I saw Walker Lund in a suit. The beard, the sexy man bun … not even pinstripes and wing tips could conceal his raw masculinity.

  “So is Nolan the cousin that co-owns the boat with you?”

  “Yeah, although we keep that on the down low.”

  “Don’t want your relatives begging you to take them to the lake?”

  “Something like that.”

  “With that many people going, will there be a problem getting in?”

  “We won’t have a problem. Trust me.”

  “Ah. So the truth comes out. You’re at the club so much there’s a seat with your name on it and you’re feigning disdain to throw me off the trail?” I teased.

  “Hilarious. Brady and Nolan are the VIP club members, not me.”

  Because he couldn’t afford it? I had no idea what VIP memberships cost. I assumed Walker made decent money, but maybe he wasn’t in the same financial league as his relatives.

  Yeah, I know how that goes.

  “Ash will disappear without a word at some point,” Walker continued. “Don’t bother to learn Nolan’s date’s name because we won’t see her after tonight. I’ve heard Brady and Lennox spend most of their time on the dance floor. Don’t do shots with Annika.” He spared me a quick look. “Seriously. Don’t. Her metabolism for booze is unmatched. And if my brother Jensen shows up …” He sighed. “It’ll be easier to explain if you see it with your own eyes.”

  “Way more detail than I expected, but good things to know nonetheless.” I looked at him curiously. “What about you, Walker? What warning or insight would you give me about yourself?”

  He muttered, “No pressur
e.”

  “Come on. I’ll even help you out. ‘Don’t …’”

  “Huge help, Trin. Thanks.”

  I got a funny tickle in my belly from hearing him call me Trin.

  “If you drink too much, don’t worry. Walker will make sure you get home safely.”

  That threw me. Was that how he saw himself in his family dynamic? As the brother who took care of everyone? Or had that expectation been put on him by his family?

  “Or … ,” Walker continued, “don’t be surprised if Walker stomps on your toes because he is a shitty dancer.”

  I beamed at him. “Really? Me too!”

  “You’re a bad dancer?”

  “Yep. The worst.”

  “Babe. Why are you so happy about that?”

  “I’m happy that you admitted you’re not good either. We’ll be evenly matched when we dance together.”

  He laughed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m looking forward to that.”

  “Tell me something else you’re bad at.” When he raised his eyebrows, I added, “I’ll even go first. I am a terrible singer. When I’m alone in my studio, I’ll just belt out a tune like I’m Christina Aguilera at a recording session, but you’ll never catch me singing in public at a karaoke joint. Never.”

  “I’ll scratch that off the list of future date possibilities.” He sent me a sideways glance. “But that’s not the only reason you don’t have a karaoke set list. Out with it.”

  How had he sensed that? “It’s a sucky story.”

  Walker reached for my hand and kissed it. “Trust me with everything, even the ugly stuff.”

  “Our school had a talent show for fifth graders before we started middle school. The entire student body and most parents attended. Since I couldn’t dance … I decided to sing. There weren’t tryouts or rehearsals, so I didn’t know I sounded bad until I got onstage and heard myself. Unfortunately everyone else heard me too. Seeing people laughing and whispering about me … I was happy that my father and the stepmonster hadn’t come to the show.” But my half siblings had been in the audience and they relayed every awful moment.

  “Babe.” He kissed my hand again. “That was sucky. I’m sorry. So a water park with a karaoke bar is your idea of hell?”

  “Quit stalling and confess your ineptitude, Walker Lund.”