“Thanks for coming.” Ric held out a hand, which Greg shook before kicking off his flip-flops and dropping to the tile beside Ric to dangle his feet in the pool. With his shaggy mane of black hair, tie-dyed T-shirt and cut-off jeans, Greg couldn’t have looked more out of place, but his supreme self-confidence allowed him to fit in anywhere.
“No problem. Watching a pretty girl at a swanky party isn’t exactly hard labor.” He downed his drink in a single swallow. “She’s a cutie.”
“Right.” It nearly came out as a growl.
“Relax, Ernie. I get the message. No poaching.” More than a few female heads turned their way at the sound of Greg’s rumbling laughter and Ric winced, hoping none of them had heard the irritating nickname.
“Subtle, Novak. Surveillance is supposed to be subtle,” Ric muttered between his teeth.
Greg laughed again. “Not the way I do it.” He waved at the group in the pool and winked at a sunbather in a skimpy bikini. Turning back to Ric, he lowered his voice.
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. Rin Tin Tin is on the job. So she’s the one you’ve been searching for, huh? Kind of anti-climatic running into her in my bar.”
“Yeah, well Fate’s a bitch with an odd sense of humor. I think she’s the one.” He stared at Meagan, who was still engrossed in the game, laughing and splashing with the teenagers.
Eyes shaded by mirrored sunglasses, Greg scanned the crowd. “Quite an accumulation of guests. There are a few types even I don’t recognize.”
And with Greg’s nose for strangeness, that was saying something. Ric snickered. “The gorilla tending bar is probably a troll.”
Greg grinned. “Cool. How about the old lady in pink?”
“Gnome.” Ric tipped his head toward the dainty woman in Chanel and her companion. “Dude with her is a djinn.”
“God, I love this place. Most parties, I’m the freak.”
“You’re always a freak, Spot.” Ric punched his friend in the arm. “Has nothing to do with genetics, just your charming personality.” As stressed out as he’d been, it felt good to be sitting in the sunshine bullshitting with an old friend. Still, his gaze never wandered from Meagan for more than a second.
“Yeah, well, you’re an asshole, but I put up with you anyway.” Greg snaked out one arm and shoved Ric into the pool.
Chapter Four
Ric’s surprised howl turned into a gurgle as his head disappeared below the water. Turning to look at him, Meagan missed seeing the volleyball that smacked into the side of her face. Caught off-balance, she tipped over sideways and got a dunking as well. When she came up sputtering, Ric was dragging his still-dressed friend in by the feet while the kids from the volleyball game cheered him on. She shoved her wet hair out of her eyes and waded over.
“Having fun, boys?” Even though she’d only met Greg for a few minutes, she was relieved to see a familiar face, especially one that looked almost as out of place as she felt.
Greg emerged from the water wearing dripping wet tie-dye and a distinctly feral grin. As soon as he noticed Meagan, however, the smile softened and the corners of his dark eyes crinkled as he held out his hand. “Hi there, Meagan. We meet again.”
Meagan knew that his growly voice and those intense dark eyes really wowed the women at his club and in his clinging wet clothes she could tell that his body, though shorter and broader than Ric’s, was nonetheless made of solid sculpted muscle.
As she shook Greg’s hand, she couldn’t help darting a glance at Ric and his luscious tan chest with its brighter gold hairs. He was slender, true, but his swim trunks revealed a taut, toned body. His lean muscles glided gracefully when he moved. Meagan felt a moment of panic as she wondered, again, just what the heck he was doing with someone as ordinary as her.
As if sensing her sudden onslaught of doubt, Ric wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her closer, dropping a kiss on her hair in a move so overtly possessive that even she understood it. Jealous again! She didn’t get it, but it was sure a kick.
With a short snicker, Greg pulled his soaked shirt over his head and tossed it to the side of the pool, where it landed with a wet splat. Then he winked at Meagan and moved off to take her place in the volleyball game, leaving her standing alone with Ric in the shallow end of the pool.
His skin radiated warmth along her side where they were pressed together and the intensity of the contact made her shiver, which caused his fingers to tighten around her waist. They dug into her flesh through the nylon of her suit and she was suddenly aware of just how little fabric actually separated their two overheated bodies.
Ric’s low chuckle broke the tense silence that stretched between them. “We could just quit fighting this and go upstairs now,” he offered, a wry note roughening his beautiful voice.
She swallowed hard. “We could,” she agreed. “It’s just…” Just what? What the hell was she waiting for?
“I know.” He turned her in his arms to face him, brought his other arm up to circle her waist as well, his hands resting dangerously low on her backside. “Believe me, Meagan, this isn’t normal for me either. Whatever is going on between us has me as confused as you are.”
Impossible. She stared up at him, shaking her head.
Her lips were dry and she flicked her tongue over them nervously, drawing a groan from Ric.
“Tell you what, sweetheart. Let’s move farther into the pool, okay. And do me a favor, walk in front of me while we do. This is kind of embarrassing.”
Of course she looked. She was only human. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the size of the erection that tented his trunks. Whatever she might or might not know about Ric, he was certainly every bit as turned on by her as she was by him. Or else he belonged in some kind of record book. The kind they only sold from age-restricted sites on the Internet.
Ric laughed again and turned her so she faced away from him. His massive erection brushed against her backside and she shuddered, taking slow steps toward deeper water.
“Mr. Thornhill!” A crisp, businesslike voice with the same accent as Ric and Aidan broke through the haze of intimacy and jolted them back to reality. Meagan looked up to see an impossibly thin woman with a blond chignon approach the pool. She managed to walk right up to the edge without a drop of spray marring either her elegant silk suit or her ivory Italian pumps. She cast a disapproving glance at the cheerful mayhem of the volleyball game, with slanting aqua eyes that exactly matched the color of her suit. Then she gave Meagan a glare that could have frozen the pool.
“Mr. Thornhill, Lo—I mean Mr. Greene wishes to speak with you in the library.” She lifted her perfect nose as she looked pointedly at Meagan. “Alone.”
“Tell him I’ll be along shortly, Fianna.” Ric was still kneading Meagan’s shoulders and showing no interest at all in the blonde.
“I’m afraid I must insist. Apparently it is a matter of great urgency.” The ice-bitch tapped her foot impatiently.
Meagan leaned back into Ric, enough to feel his warmth along the length of her spine.
Ric sighed and his talented hands stopped moving.
Meagan tipped her head back to look at him and met his gaze, full of resignation and concern. “Would you mind? Aidan doesn’t panic easily. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“That’s fine,” she lied.
“Hey, Meagan, we need you in the game.” Greg chose that moment to call from across the pool. She thought he caught Ric’s eye over her head and apparently some signal was exchanged between the two men, because Ric’s tense posture and his grip on her shoulders suddenly relaxed. “Jennifer left, so teams are uneven.” Sure enough, one young woman had just climbed out of the pool.
“Be there in a second.” She went up on tiptoe and pressed a quick kiss on Ric’s lips. “Hurry back.”
His return kiss was brief and hard. “I will.” Then he hauled himself out of the pool and followed the blonde.
He hadn’t returned when the game ended fifteen or twe
nty minutes later. Meagan sat at a tiny table under a rose-trellised pergola near the patio bar, sipping a frozen cocktail while Greg, her self-appointed babysitter, had ducked inside to, as he so elegantly put it, drain the lizard.
“I’m surprised to find such a lovely young lady out here all alone.” Meagan looked up to see a trim, dapper man with silver hair standing beside her. He wore a pale gray linen suit and one hand held a glass of white wine while the other shaded his eyes from the sun. “Would you object to some company for a few moments, my dear?”
“Of course not.” Meagan gestured to the chair Greg had vacated and smiled at the older man. His accent was more pronounced than either Ric’s or Aidan’s; he was obviously on foreign soil. He accepted the proffered seat with a courtly bow and smiled at her with such old-world charm that she could almost imagine herself wearing couture in a European ballroom, instead of a damp swimsuit on an American patio.
“Where are my manners?” he cried, shaking his head.
“Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Owen Ferris.” He held out a hand that was perfectly manicured and showed no signs of age. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the silver hair and a few thin lines by his ice-blue eyes, Meagan might have thought he was closer to thirty than the fifty his clothes and bearing suggested.
“Meagan Kelly,” she replied, meeting her hand with his. Instead of shaking it, he shocked her by pulling it to his face and kissing it. She knew it was supposed to be flattering, but somehow, it seemed a bit—well—icky. He held on a moment, until she awkwardly tugged it back.
“Ah, the artist. I saw your work in the foyer, my dear. Extraordinary! Regrettably, I’m told that Thornhill refuses to part with it. Would you happen to have any others available for sale?”
This kind of high-end demand could really make her career. She thanked him for the compliment and offered him the name of the gallery that sold her work. “I’m sure Elise would love to hear from you. I have some of her cards upstairs. I could go get you one.”
“Let me escort you,” he offered with a kindly smile.
“I’m sure you’re still a bit lost in this great rambling pile.”
She was, but she didn’t want to seem like a total peasant, so she wasn’t going to admit it. Besides, she was smart enough to not invite strange men, even kind-looking older ones, to walk her to her bedroom. Who was this guy, anyway?
“Are you a business associate of Aidan’s?” she asked as she began to scoot her chair away from the table.
“Not business, really. More of a…” He hesitated briefly. “A long-time acquaintance of the family. You could say we were practically related.”
“Owain.”
Meagan jumped. When had Ric come out of the house? His voice was harder and colder than she’d ever heard it. He stood behind her, one strong hand clamped down on her shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Simply chatting with our delightful young artist.”
Owen’s kindly features sharpened as he looked up at Ric.
“Is that a problem, Alaric?”
Alaric? She’d assumed Ric was short for Richard. She filed that away to think about later. Right now she was focused on the hostility between the two men.
“I don’t believe you were invited,” Ric replied. His grip on her shoulder was starting to hurt. Okay, time to separate these two before they came to blows at Aidan’s party.
“Mr. Ferris was asking about my painting,” she interjected. “Ric, maybe you could walk up to our room with me to get Elise’s business card.”
“Who’s Elise?”
Jeez, sometimes she forgot how little they knew about one another. “The person who sells my paintings. I’ve got her cards in my purse.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Meagan. I believe Mr. Ferris will be leaving.” There was so much menace in his icy tone and rigid stance that even Meagan was tempted to flee. That was assuming she could wriggle out of his death grip.
Ferris narrowed his own gaze in response. “My, my, the bard is being protective of his pet. How touching. Is she that good, or is screwing her merely a side benefit of your errand? What better way to influence her in favor of your boss than charming her into your bed? Have you even told her yet that your meeting was no coincidence? That she’s nothing more than your latest assignment?” He smirked at Meagan’s stunned look. “I didn’t think so.”
Ric growled, his fingers digging even harder into her flesh. She shrugged at the pain and he lightened up. “You are not welcome here.”
There was a torrent of words back and forth in some language she didn’t recognize. Maybe Welsh? Whatever it was, she was beginning to feel like a rope caught between two pit bulls playing tug-of-war. All the hairs on her arms were standing on end and it was starting to piss her off.
“Look, guys, this is really no big deal. Mr. Ferris, if you want to look at my paintings, contact Elise Sutton at the Parkside Gallery in Birmingham. Meanwhile, I think Alaric and I need to have a conversation in private.”
“Fine.” Still snarling, Ric waved his hand toward the enormous bartender, who nodded once, then set down his cocktail shaker and wiped his hands on a towel.
When the giant rounded the bar—with his shaven head, he looked more like a professional wrestler than a waiter—Ferris sighed. “Why must you always insist on dramatics, bard? It’s so positively human.” His shudder made sure the word was an insult. Then he turned a kindly expression on Meagan. “Don’t fall for his lies, my dear. His motives for finding you are far from altruistic and though I suspect he’s quite capable of using you for a dalliance, it isn’t your charming person that has drawn his attention.”
He handed her a card. “When you’d like to learn the truth about your situation, call this number. I’ll be happy to enlighten you.”
The burly bartender reached the table and Ferris sighed again, with a condescending sneer. “It seems I shall be going now.” With dexterity and speed unexpected in a man of his age, he ducked under the arm of the larger man and disappeared around a corner of the house. The bartender, or maybe bouncer was a better word, moved to follow, his pace steady and swift until he, too, rounded the corner and was out of sight.
Meagan whirled on Ric, confused, pissed and mostly hurt. “Care to explain what that was all about?”
“Not here, no.” His voice was colder than she’d ever heard it, sending shivers down Meagan’s spine, reminding her that she really, really didn’t know him all that well.
She was beginning to come to the conclusion that this whole weekend was a whopping huge mistake.
“Was he lying?” She met Ric’s gaze squarely, daring him to tell more lies. Her fingers tapped rhythmically on the table.
Ric opened his mouth, but winced visibly at whatever he’d been about to say. He closed his eyes, pressed his lips into a thin white line and tipped his chin as he seemed to make up his mind. “Not entirely, no.” Now he met her gaze and she thought she could see honesty shining in his eyes. If she hadn’t been so furious at his manipulation, she might even have been able to forgive him.
“But why me? I’m not rich enough to ransom or blackmail and you certainly don’t need to con women into having sex with you. Why pick me for whatever game you’re playing?” Pure indignation gave her the strength to speak past the lump in her throat.
“It isn’t a game, Meagan.” He flopped into the chair next to her, his voice pitched low, his tone rough. “Yes, I was looking for someone and I suspect it may be you. But that isn’t the only reason I asked you out. Whatever has been going on between us has nothing to do with the other, I swear it.”
“That still doesn’t explain why me.”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it more mussed than before. “Do you really want to do this here, in full view of everyone, or can we move it inside?”
She glanced around and realized they had attracted quite a bit of attention. She bit her lip and shook her head.
“Neither. A
ll I want right now is to go home. Maybe later, when we both cool off, you can call me and explain.”
“Fine. Let me get my car.”
“No.” She held up a hand to fend him off. “Call me a cab. Or maybe your friend can loan you a chauffeur, or something. I don’t want to be with you right now.”
Because anger was losing ground to hurt and she’d rather have hot needles poked into her eyeballs than let him see her cry.
Ric rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked torn, like he was weighing two equally unacceptable options. Finally, defeat registered in his amber gaze. “Would Greg be an acceptable chauffeur? I know he’s my friend, but I promise, you can trust him. You can even call your friend Jase and stay on the cell the whole way home. I’d feel better if you weren’t in some cab with a stranger.”
He really seemed upset by the idea of her leaving in a cab, so she caved. Greg seemed like a reasonable choice, as long as he didn’t spend the whole trip trying to convince her that Ric was a good guy. She nodded. “As long as Greg doesn’t mind leaving the party to drive me home.”
Ten minutes later she was in a battered red pickup heading out the back gates. Now this was much closer to her usual style. She leaned back against the seat, closed her eyes and tried to relax. After she’d wrestled her tears under control, she decided it was time to get some answers.
Greg remained silent, for the most part, answering direct questions with monosyllabic grunts, which wasn’t helping her temper any. The longest response he seemed capable of was the oft-repeated refrain, “Maybe you should ask Ric.”
She stared at her escort, trying to make sense of him, Ric, the whole situation. Then she giggled, despite her miserable mood.
“What?” His voice was low-pitched and sexy as hell, but it didn’t make her toes curl. That only happened with Ric-the-rat. “Do I have lipstick on my collar or something?”
“Not your collar. It’s on your ear.” He’d brushed his longish, tangled black locks behind his ear, revealing an ice-pink smear on the upper curve.
Motor City Fae Page 5
