Two Cowboys Next Door

by Jay S. Wilder

  “Tanner sent me. A get well present.”

  “Oh,” I fumbled making hard eye contact with the exotic woman lightly grinding down on my lap. “Well, that’s nice of him…”

  I guessed the bastard was on lunch break. I’d last seen him when he was escorting me around after a lavish breakfast, Of course, he’d picked the spot and insisted I was paying for it. Now here we were with this fun little situation. As she dotted small kisses along my jawline, I tried to keep my head in the game and my dick out of the decision-making process. Not that it wasn’t giving me a run for my money. I fidgeted around beneath her, trying to get my bearings as her fingers worked at the collar of my shirt. For whatever reason she took this an encouragement murmuring something obscene—and delicious—against the curve of my ear.

  “Look—what’s your name?”

  “Faith,” she purred nibbling the lobe of my ear.

  Damn, I was going to regret this later, wasn’t I?

  “Faith, as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, I really…really…can’t let you continue where this is headed, especially not in my workplace.” I swallowed thickly, grasping her well-manicured hands between my own, which forced her to pull back from mouthing my throat using her tongue and teeth. She blinked, seeming stunned. “Seriously, this is sweet. But I can’t accept it."

  She made a small grunt in the back of her throat going still over me. Still she wasn’t making a move to dismount, so I wasn’t quite sure what that meant in the grand scheme of things. Time to make things more obvious. I pinned a cordial smile to my lips and tilted my head while gently pushing her off my lap. She was like a baby colt trying to get her balance, all wobbly legs. She smoothed her hands down the front of her short-shorts. I silently breathed out a sigh. My hands automatically went to my shirt as my fingers redid the buttons by route and she crossed her arms under her perky breasts.

  Damage control time. Why the hell was this necessary? That bastard was going to get a piece of my mind when he came back into the office. My fingers itched to dial the phone.

  “Any other time or place, I assure you, this would have gone differently, Faith. Today just isn’t a good day for me. Though please don’t think I don’t appreciate the time you took to get here.” My fingers splayed over my desk before straightening up by habit. Until everything had its place and I didn’t have to look at the woman who’d crossed to the other side and perched on one of my client chairs. “Do you perhaps want a job? We need a new data entry specialist here in the office and judging by your nimble fingers; you’d be a great hire.”

  The forced cheerfulness in my voice fell flat and I held back a wince, making sure to draw back into my normal neutral mask. Faith didn’t look all that impressed. Mainly, she looked vaguely insulted, as if she’d eaten something sour and was in the process of bringing it back up.

  “I was doing a favor for a friend. That’s it. You don’t want it? So not my problem.” She glared at me biting her bubblegum pink lower lip with a glare. “I’m out of here.”

  As if to make her point she sashayed out of my office as if purposefully displaying all the delicious curves I’d passed up on with an uncomfortable smile on my face. Well, she certainly knew what she was doing. A pang of regret twisted low. Mostly, it was the deep-seated anger in me, not too thrilled with my decision-making skills when he had other things in mind. I glanced down into my lap at the raging hard on I was sporting and cracked my neck.

  “Thanks, asshole.”

  Tanner was going to pay big for this one. I stabbed my finger into the speaker button that would call up my secretary’s disembodied voice.

  “Hi Sandy, um, would you mind grabbing me an ice pack from the breakroom fridge and a chocolate bar?”

  “Of course, Mr. Smith. I’ll be there in two seconds. Do you need anything else, sir?”

  “Yes, please hold all my other visitors for the rest of the day. And if Tanner comes up to the office bring him in here—right away. I would appreciate it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was a crackle and I knew the line disconnected between us. Without waiting to talk myself out of it, I hit a button on my phone and put it back to speaker. Speed dial was a blessing. When my hand moved to squeeze my cock in hopes of bringing it down to a normal level, the bastard did the service of picking up his cell making me retract my fingers as if I’d been burned muttering a curse under my breath.

  “Yo, what’s up, boss man?” Tanner shouted into the phone, but his voice was already morphing into laughter which I really didn’t appreciate.

  “Next time you want to send me a treat stick with a fruit basket, okay?”

  His laughter went from muffled to full-out snorts on the other end of the phone. Glad he could be so pleased with himself. I shot a glare at my phone, wondering when he would stop.

  “Aw, you’re no fun, man. How long did you let her stay?”

  “Are you coming back to the office soon?”

  “Yeah, just wrapping up my burrito to go now. Give me five.”

  Any mention of business and Tanner went to bodyguard mode, which was nice, given it was what I was paying for after my abduction at the hands of my attackers. My spine kinked up tightening as my muscle memory kicked into overdrive. I shook my head to dislodge the emotions pinging around my system for an outlet. Now wasn’t the time.

  “But seriously, bro, did you at least get a hand job out of it?”

  A low trickling groan rumbled out from between my lips as I subconsciously stared into the darkness of my soul. My eyes narrowed as though preparing for a fight, and my body tensed, ready for the coming conflict.

  “I suggest you lay off, Tanner,” the voice that slipped off my tongue was one that I didn’t recognize as mine, but it was there. Whether I liked it or not—that primal part of me had been awoken because of the incident, never to rest again. “I’m out of patience for the moment.”

  The slight burning through my insides still caught me off guard. I thought it would always be strange sharing your body with the fury and rage of a traumatic event. According to my buddies at Kick3 Sports, it wouldn’t feel as all-consuming if I would face it head on, and in some ways, be at one with what felt like my inner caveman. Being a prick wasn’t on my agenda. I tried to stick to deep breaths, rather than going full-on primal in my office, unleashing my deep, dark secret to Sandy and the two handfuls of workers who inhabited my office. That I was easily unhinged.

  “Sorry, man. I thought you’d enjoy the gift. You’ve had enough to deal with over the past couple weeks I thought a piece of tail would take your mind off shit. Guess I read wrong. My bad.”

  As much as I appreciated the apology, it didn’t change the fact that my hands had pry my nails from of the soft leather of my office chair. Yes. I was tightly wound. With a hiss, I focused all my energy on regaining control. I couldn’t cover that up if I tried. Sandy was bound to see the deep, finger-sized stretch marks in the leather. Squaring my shoulders, I got a fucking grip. None of these newfound hyper-reactions to unimportant shit was going to get any easier for me.

  “You really want to make it up to me?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “What’d you need?”

  A breath of air came out of my lungs in a rush and I knew if I went down this path, there was no going back. I’d been wrestling with the idea. Back and forth for at least two weeks ever since I’d hired the personal security arm of Kick3 Sports as bodyguards after my brutal kidnapping. My options were expanding significantly, now that Tanner offered to help me.

  “You can’t directly help me, but Chuck can.” I gave him a second to absorb this information before plunging into my proposal. “I need him to find a woman who I saw while I was…being held. She was not like them. I’d like some answers about it.”

  “You want to track town a sweet little accomplice, but not the men who did this to you? Why the fuck for?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  He shook his hea
d. “You got a name?”

  Short, sweet, and to the point. One of the many reasons why my association with Kick3 Sports were a blessing. These men didn’t have much use for chatter.

  “I overheard one of them call her Talia or Natalia. I don’t know anything else. Does he need more?”

  “Nah, Chuck’s a wizard. He’ll find your girl. Give me a beat and I’ll get the fucker on the other line, cool?”

  “Works for me.”

  The wait was probably only seconds—but locked in my head with an intense man staring down the tunnel of my soul always ready to strike—it seemed like a damn bit longer to me. There was crackling on the other end of the line.

  “Chuck here. What’s the what?”

  Tanner filled him in on our conversation. Granted, he used a lot more profanity than I would have to accomplish it, but the gist got done.

  “How about I’ll give you all the information I can drag up if you head over as soon as your free at the office. Can you do late afternoon? That sound good?”

  “Sure, I can make that happen.”

  “Good shit. Graham has been working on a surprise for you.”

  “Oh Jesus, another surprise? I think I’ve had all I can handle for one day in terms of surprises, Chuck—”

  “Oh shut up, pussy. It’s not another piece of ass. Although why you’d turn that down is beyond me. Back in my player days Faith and I went way back, she was one of my regulars—”

  “Whoa, cool it. We don’t need to hear that kinky shit, bro,” Tanner interjected, and I was thankful for the interruption. “If the man wants to pass on easy mode, he has the right. Even if that does call his manhood into question with the rest of the clan.”

  “Hey now—” I started to defend myself, staring at the thankfully wilting business in my lap before Chuck interjected again.

  “Okay, what is this, a junior high sleepover? This three-way calling bullshit is for the birds and I’ve got research to do for our main man. Liam, I’ll see you later, man. I’m out.”

  My lips curled and I closed my eyes. Never a dull moment with any of them. Sometimes I wondered if I kept them on as my security detail purely for the entertainment value. Granted, it was more expensive than a movie, but I never did things the normal way, even in my innocent days. The sharp contrast from a normal person to a monster made my chest tighten against my ribcage.

  I’d once been normal. Now, that person was just a fucking dream.

  “Hey, you okay over there? I’m hopping on the bike now to come back to the office. You need anything? Some ice? A Playboy?”

  “Nah, my secretary has the ice covered and those magazines stopped printing nudes a couple of months ago.”

  “What?” Tanner made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “What the fuck is this country coming to anymore?”

  I shrugged before realizing he couldn’t see me. There was a short knock at my door and I knew it was time to end the call before Sandy saw the rivets I’d dug in the armrests.

  “I got to go. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “Yeah, give me a debriefing on any schedule changes.”

  “You got it.”

  The line went dead between us as my secretary came in with the ice pack and a new cup of coffee—no doubt, made just the way I liked it. She was the only woman I needed in my life. If only I could get the rest of my body in line with my head, we wouldn’t have a problem. Unfortunately, being a newly freed man was similar to having someone else who wasn’t me running the show about eighty-five percent of the time.

  My life was crowded enough.

  Chapter 2 - Natalia

  There weren’t enough fingers on my hands or enough toes on my feet to count how many times I’d told Charlie a.k.a “Little Thor” not to body slam his pile of blocks. Yet here we were again. Same scenario, different day because Charlie was wearing a Ninja Turtle t-shirt, not the one with boats, and his face smeared with red juice stains, unlike yesterday’s chocolate milk. I closed my eyes and rocked the poor kid in my lap. He was balling so hard, I worried he’d hyperventilate as my hands smoothed down his small, hot back in what I hoped were soothing motions. Instead, he let out another shriek.

  I closed my eyes and held him closer, shushing too. From being practiced, I knew I had about two more minutes left of soothing before his small sticky hands would push into my boobs until he popped out of my arms. He’d wipe a tan arm under his snotty nose and run off to play at the water station. Kid’s brains were awesome, fearsome things. They could cling to fear for the longest time to where it broached into adulthood, or they could shrug it off and go on playing. Except you never knew what you were going to get with them.

  Made my life as a daycare worker both joyfully spontaneous and mind-blowingly chaotic. Toss of a coin to see what we would have today.

  As promised, Little Thor was shoving his fingers into my chest as if he could push out the back of my body. With a small smile, I let him go. I’d barely released him when he was launching himself into a full run across the room. Resilience got to love it. I stood up from my crouch with a wince surveying the other kids. All seemed in order. They were all at their different stations and no one seemed to be fighting yet. But it was early in the morning. No guarantees that things would stay quiet when those bastards ruled the roost.

  “You did good,” Heather, my coworker, nudged me in the ribs with her elbow. She was carrying a jumbo pack of extra strength paper towels and straightening up the arts and crafts room before naptime. “Cherry might give you a bonus if you keep it up.”

  Our boss lady and supervisor would be right on time to do her rounds soon. She did her thing about every hour and a half on the dot. For now, she was probably locked away, monitoring her millions of nanny cams installed around here. I didn’t care. I didn’t need a camera to do my job right. I actually cared for these kids. Heather knew that better than anyone. I offered her a small smile and went back to tidying up the side of the room where the little hellions hadn’t been for the past half hour. Even knowing given five minutes in the space, it’d be a train wreck all over again. What was life without a little chaos?

  “I honestly don’t know how you do it, Natalia. You’re way too Zen.”

  I shrugged one shoulder while swiping Charlie’s previously played with blocks into a wooden bin before stacking it back up high on the organized shelf. My mother always used to say that busy hands led to an easy mind. My lips twitched and I pushed the thought away. It’s been over ten years since her death, but her loss still left me hurting whenever I thought about her.

  Determined to push the thoughts from my brain, I settled on something else. The memory of the text from this morning washed over me in a fresh eruption of goose bumps. That, I hadn’t expected, or anything like it. At first, I’d been confused because I didn’t know the phone number that popped up on my screen and then after I read the message it was all downhill from there.

  Liam Smith wanted to meet me somewhere, my choice, to talk about what had happened between us. By which he meant my family’s role in brutally abducting him and holding him hostage. The memories still stuck with me in bits and pieces sometimes—and I hadn’t even experienced it. I’d merely been a bystander that wanted to help him. Had helped him, in so far as I was able, I had to remind myself. I swallowed and tucked my hands away so no one would be able to see them shaking from the remembered helplessness.

  “How the hell did he even find my number,” I muttered under my breath while keeping a close eye on two little tykes who were eyeing the identical toy train. I could tell it was a fight waiting to happen, and the only unknown was the question of when, how long, and how badly would the brawlers get hurt. “Or anything about me.”

  What did he even want with me after going through something like that at the hands of my clan? Revenge was the only thing that sprang to mind. Not on my watch. Still, I’d agreed to meet with him halfway between the daycare and my house thinking I could make a speedy getaway if needed and
it was a public place. My suspicions gave way to empathy as a little girl ran across the room straight at me and into my arms for a big hug.

  “Aw, thank you, Mady. That’s sweet of you!” The five-year-old dervish went spinning in the other direction.

  The main reason I’d agreed to see Liam was because I thought he deserved an apology. He was right to want an explanation for anything and everything. Maybe I could offer him some closure. At the least I could see for myself that he found some closure and was not traumatized or scarred for life. My curiosity was another motivator. I’d never thought to get in touch with him before he’d texted me this morning. Although I’d often thought about him, more than I wanted to admit to anyone, even my best friend, Julia, who I’ve known since fifth grade when we moved here from Spain with the rest of the bunch.

  “…you may want to pay attention to me in the next couple of seconds before Cherry does her rounds, honey.”

  With a blink, I refocused on the words that were coming out of my coworker’s mouth as she restocked and set up the painting corner.

  “I’m sorry, Heather, what were you saying?” I shook my head clear and took stock of the room from one end to the other as it bubbled over with sound. Never a quiet moment in this place, not even during naptime.

  “I was saying Mady’s mom wants to meet with you for a couple of minutes during her naptime to discuss her allergies. They got her tested a few weeks ago, and the results came back today. She just wants to follow up to make sure everything here is safe.”

  “Absolutely, makes sense.” I mentally filed away the meeting for noonish and went into the bathroom with cleaning supplies. “No dirty toilet left behind here…”

  While I got down and dirty with the sharp sting of bleach in my nostrils at least it gave me an excuse to shut my brain off. No more thinking about delicious, tortured, and complicated billionaires who wanted to have lunch with me. Certainly no analyzing the meeting tonight at the main house that my eldest brother Carlos had told me about this morning. He’d texted me too. Evidently, we were getting a new change in power, a temporary right-hand man. Now that our old one was busy hiding out to avoid getting a bullet in his neck during this fight.