by Hadley Quinn
“Yeah, I’ve had my share,” she shrugged. “For sure different than yours, but heartache is heartache… How can you really weigh and measure one demon versus another?”
Again his eyes captured every bit of her attention. In some ways she really liked how mesmerizing they were, but at the same time, it was hard not knowing exactly what he was thinking. And then there was that other emotion that seemed to creep right in there every time…
Desire. She wanted to know what it would be like to have him naked in her bed. He screamed sex appeal from the rooftops, and with him sitting there against the desk like that, she couldn’t help glancing at the crotch of his jeans, wondering exactly how big that bulge was and how it would feel inside her. Kellie actually felt ashamed for thinking that at a serious moment like this, but her mind was bouncing all over the place and she couldn’t help it.
“You can’t measure it,” he finally said.
Her eyes flashed upward to his as her pulse began to race. What in the hell, did he just catch her staring at his dick? Was he reading her thoughts again???
“Heartache?” Tate seemed to clarify with his eyebrows raised. He was most likely wondering why she looked so horrified at that moment.
She softly cleared her throat, feeling stupid that she’d misunderstood what he meant, and tried to refocus on the conversation again. “Um, no, you can’t measure or compare heartache to another,” she mumbled, finally remembering what they’d been talking about.
He smiled—like an actual, full smile—and continued to stare at her for a little longer. Fuck their previous conversation. Kellie didn’t want to dwell on shitty memories and sob stories when she had one of the sexiest guys she’d ever met right here in front of her.
Alone.
Chapter Six
Tate had to admit he was actually having a tough time keeping himself composed right now. Between serious references to their pasts and Kellie actually witnessing the aftermath of one of his weak moments, he’d never felt so exposed to someone before. It was one thing making brief mention of this or that when it came to issues in his life, but it was something completely different when he was faced with a gorgeous female that he wanted to pour his soul out to.
Gorgeous wasn’t even the word to describe her. There was more to it than just a physical attraction. This girl was like a magnet that had a pull he couldn’t resist; a fire he wanted to touch even if he got burned. Her dark hair with chunks of pink set off those deep blue eyes, eyes he couldn’t stop staring into. Sure, he mainly wanted to read more into what she was saying, but those dark blue diamonds were saying a lot more than he could comprehend at the moment.
When she would glance away, he’d take a chance to check out the rest of her body. She was wearing a navy blue tank top with black skinny jeans and lace-up boots. Her skin was sexy with the right amount of ink on it, and just the thought of where else she could be tatted made him worry about how tight his pants were going to get in just a matter of seconds if he didn’t do something to distract himself.
“I’m pretty hungry, do you, uh, wanna go eat somewhere?” he asked.
She cocked a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and it was sexy as fuck. He’d witnessed Jay do the same thing, but on a dude it wasn’t so hot. Kellie had a lovely mouth that completed the look and he felt his pants get a little more uncomfortable when her teeth raked across her lower lip. He eyed the Monroe piercing above her lip, just to focus on something other than what he’d like to do with that beautiful mouth of hers.
“Yeah, food sounds good,” she nodded.
Tate pushed away from the desk at the same time she leaned forward to set a stapler on it—the last remaining item she’d been holding from the mess on the floor. Their opposite movements brought them within inches of each other, and Tate had to hold his breath for a moment.
Instead of a quick change of direction to get out of each other’s way, they both seemed to linger for a bit. He moved his head slightly to gauge her reaction, only to realize she was staring right at him. Not just into his eyes, but then his lips, back to his eyes, to his lips…
There was no mistaking this attraction to one another. Her little kissing ploy in the parking lot the first day they met was humorous, but he hadn’t been able to rid his mind of the memory. And at Jay’s shop last week… Shit, he’d wanted to fuck her against the wall right then and there.
“You can stop trying to resist me,” she spoke all of a sudden.
Tate was taken by surprise, but he knew he shouldn’t be. This girl was all sass and wit, but she was giving him permission to take advantage of the situation.
“I’m not trying, just timing it right,” he countered with a smirk.
She moved so she was directly in front of him and pressed her body against his. She barely nudged him backward until he had no choice but to sit his ass back down on the desk. Then she wedged herself in between his legs until his hands automatically pressed against her waist. She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth like she was testing his reaction, but he realized how much of a turn on that was and wondered if she’d done it deliberately.
His left hand gripped her hip tightly while his other hand slid behind her neck and pulled her closer. Their lips completely locked at that point, and when they got to the little tongue teasing part where someone would normally pull away, it didn’t happen this time. With her body pressed between his legs and her tongue in his mouth, the kissing instantly heated up.
He was just about to ask how bad she was going to tease him before she made him stop, but Kellie McCallan didn’t seem like the type to do that. She was all hot fire on him right now, like she couldn’t get close enough to his body, and as soon as she had his pants unzipped, her lips were already on his cock.
All he could do was offer a low groan to go along with the pleasure. She felt so good he wasn’t even sure what to do next. His brain didn’t want to think, he only wanted to feel. He felt guilty for it, but he let her suck him off right then and there. For some reason he believed it was her intention to begin with, but still, he felt like an asshole for just taking from her without giving back.
She smiled at him when she stood. Not just a pleasant, I-hope-I-pleased-you sort of smile, but a confident one, like she was proud she did such an amazing job.
Tate slid his hand up her shirt, feeling her soft skin. His instinct was to unbutton her jeans and give her the return favor, but she took his hand and pulled it away.
“Not right now,” she winked. There was a gleam in her eye, somewhat coy and mischievous. It was sexy as hell but he didn’t understand her actions.
“I’d like to make you feel good too, beautiful.”
He shouldn’t have pressed it. Seriously, she could have been on her period or had some other reason for him not to get in her pants. It’s not like she’d deprived him of anything in the least bit, but he probably shouldn’t have set her up for an awkward explanation if that was the case.
He wasn’t exactly smooth with the ladies these days.
“How ‘bout later?” she asked with a smile as she stepped toward the door. “I want pizza right now.”
Pizza. Ha. Okay. Well that shouldn’t have surprised him, but for some reason it did. He was thinking steak and seafood or something more extraordinary and impressive. Kellie was the perfect size—athletic but not scrawny—but somehow he’d gotten it stuck in his head that she would be some sort of princess when it came to food. Maybe he’d unknowingly let that influence his thoughts after learning who her family was. He liked that she was so down-to-earth and shamed himself for making assumptions.
“Why does that seem so shocking?” she asked, noticing his surprise.
He barely shrugged but grabbed his keys from the desk. “Just thought you’d be ‘oh salad this, and salad that,’” he answered truthfully.
She laughed out loud, but it seemed a tad bitter. “Does it look like I live off a fucking salad every day?” she asked, motioning down her body.
He
was thoroughly confused. He didn’t know what she meant at all. “Uh, you look pretty damn healthy to me,” he shrugged.
“Healthy?” she practically scoffed. “Okay, if that’s what we’re calling it these days…”
“Calling what?” Tate asked. He was still completely lost.
She turned around to face him and shook her head, but then she walked out the door to the hallway. “I get that I’m not some skinny bitch with the body of a twelve-year-old boy,” she said as he followed her to the back door. “But I prefer to have curves, thank you.”
He scowled as Kellie pushed open the door to the back parking lot. He’d been staring at her ass the entire way, enjoying the view, so her comment threw him for one.
“Hold up,” he called, and he reached forward to grab her arm to stop her. When she faced him he asked, “You think I was implying something about, what, your weight or size or something?”
She eyed him for a moment. “You weren’t?”
His mouth literally hung open. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Again, that damn sexy eyebrow. He wanted to bite it and push her against the brick building right now to have his way with her. Somehow he was totally turned on again. But he felt like a major asshole for making her feel bad for something that he must have implied but didn’t mean.
“Kellie,” he practically sighed. “I’m sorry for whatever I said, okay? You are… There is nothing wrong with your body,” he motioned to her. “You’re gorgeous and just right and… I apologize, okay? I didn’t mean to imply anything. I guess ‘healthy’ was the wrong word to use.”
She let out a heavy breath of air and shook her head. “No, you don’t need to apologize. Jesus, I can’t believe I did that,” she added mainly to herself. She looked at Tate and shrugged. “I’m really insecure about my body, okay? I don’t know how much of that has come from my mom or how much of it is just my own critical opinion, but there you go. Shit, why the fuck would I tell you that? I don’t even know you. God,” she groaned. “Okay, I honestly don’t focus on it anymore, but something just…snapped in me, I guess. It was because…”
“Because what?” he asked softly, stepping closer to her. She was completely flustered right now and he could honestly tell that she regretted telling him. It made him feel bad because he could already sense her need for privacy.
She turned away so he couldn’t make physical contact with her, obviously aware he was trying to be sympathetic. He needed to remember that this girl didn’t do that kind of mushy shit.
“Maybe another time,” she spoke softly. “For now, I think I need some food in me.”
She gave him a smile but he could tell it was forced. This girl and her multi-faceted beauty was going to be his undoing, he just knew it. He had a strong desire to give her anything she wanted, but right at this moment—this very second—he felt selfish and decided to do what he wanted to do instead.
He reached out for her hand and she hesitantly allowed him to take it as she gave him a questioning look. He gently pulled her toward him until she was up against his body, and then he wrapped his arms around her tightly. When she laid her head against his chest, it felt good to just hold her. Nothing more involved in it physically but to just hold her.
After a minute he asked, “So what kind of pizza do you like?” and it resulted in Kellie’s laughter again. He didn’t care why she was laughing but only that she was, and he really loved the sound of that laughter.
“I’m not picky,” she finally said. “And I always make sure I have extra for the next day. So I don’t have to make anything,” she added with a grin.
That smile was genuine and it made Tate smile too. He offered to drive his truck, but when she asked if her car would be safe in the parking lot for a couple of hours, he decided against it and let her drive. It was weird riding shotgun in a chick’s classic muscle car, but Tate wasn’t going to waste any time thinking about it. Kellie ended up asking why he’d been at Beckett’s Restoration the other day, so he spent the drive explaining his run-in with Jay.
“I’d apologize, but I won’t,” she told him, trying to hide a smile. “I mean I put you in a scary situation with my brother, but sounds like you got something good out of it.”
“I sure did,” he smiled.
“I mean what are the odds that you have the exact car my brother has always wanted to—”
“I wasn’t talking about the car,” he interrupted, giving her a look that literally made her blush. It was fucking adorable and he made a mental note that he wanted to make her blush more often.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure a blow job in your office was a good turn around, then,” she added.
He frowned at her. “I wasn’t talking about that, either.” When he could tell she was trying to hide another smile, he added, “But it helped.”
Her laughter filled the car as they pulled into a familiar pizza joint that Tate liked quite a lot. Also something about being here again was bringing back a particular memory, and when they stepped out of the car and Kellie’s back was facing him, he was hit with a very strong flashback.
“Hey, can I see the tats on your back?” he asked suddenly.
“What?” she chuckled, turning around to face him. “You know if you want to get me naked, you can just hold off another hour or so—”
“Is there a unicorn on it?” he cut in.
Her mouth still hung open from being interrupted, but then her eyebrows furrowed. “Why?” she asked suspiciously.
He smiled and shook his head, trying to wrap his head around the coincidence. “Because I’ve seen it before,” he winked at her. “Right here in this parking lot. About eight months ago.”
She tilted her head as she considered his words. “How?”
He leaned his forearms on the top of the car and looked at her over the roof. “Do you or do you not have a tattoo of a unicorn on your back?”
“Maybe,” she replied evenly.
He took that as a ‘yes.’
“I was sitting in there one day,” he pointed into the restaurant, “and this girl was getting into a car out here in the parking lot—a gorgeous black Boss 429. I remember thinking she had the sexiest legs I’d ever seen, and an ass in a pair of cut-offs that I wanted to just…squeeze.”
She bit her lip to keep from smiling.
“She was wearing this top—it was light blue and the back was open except for a spot on the neck that tied it together. Yellow string bikini top underneath, too, but I saw this unicorn tattoo…”
Kellie shook her head. “This is kind of creeping me out.”
“So it really was you,” he stated with awe.
Good, his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him after all. He remembered that day clear as a bell right now. When he saw her, he’d never gotten a look at her face. She had on a black trucker hat and her hair tied in a messy ponytail. It was sexy as hell, but now these twists of fate were kind of starting to mess with him.
“Sounds like it could have been me,” she shrugged. “I have a top like that and a yellow bikini. Jay drove a 429 for a while until he sold it. Sounds like the day we went to the beach and grabbed pizza before he took me home. But, you know, could have been some other hot chick,” she teased. “You never know.”
“Nuh uh,” he shook his head. “Come here,” he motioned with his hand.
He was already coming around the car, but Kellie was in motion as well, almost like an automatic reaction to his command. His hand snaked around her waist as they stopped in front of each other. He pulled her close, but instead of asking her to show him the tattoo, he thought against it. He knew it had been her and he didn’t want to ruin the moment by making her prove it.
Instead, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. He didn’t even care that there were people in the parking lot or in the restaurant that could be watching, he just wanted to kiss her right now. He worked against her lips softly, taking his time to log another peaceful moment into his memory. There was tongue, but
just barely enough to be romantic, not sensual.
When he pulled back to look into her eyes, he hated the conflicted feelings that came with it. This was the type of girl he could see himself with. This was the girl that had popped into his life more than once without him even realizing it could be for a reason.
But…Fate was probably just wasting Her time teasing him.
Chapter Seven
Kellie chewed every bite slowly. Ever since the most recent parking lot kiss, Tate had been unusually quiet. Well he was a reserved guy anyway, but there was something going on in his head right now. Even when she pulled out a Billabong trucker hat from the back seat and made a joke about it when she put it on, he barely smiled. She always kept a hat in her car for times she made a quick run into the store or another business—it kept people from recognizing her in random moments—so it wasn’t like she did it just for his benefit.
“What’s up your butt?” she finally asked, getting tired of the awkward silence. Sure they were eating, but she’d found moments to talk in between. Tate just seemed to politely nod or make some other sound to pretend like he cared what she was saying.
He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “What’s up yours?”
With a smile, she went along with him answering a question with another question. “I asked you first.”
He finally smiled. “There is nothing up my butt,” he answered, just as his phone rang. It was probably the third call he’d gotten since they’d been out together, but the other two he’d just ignored. This time he said, “It’s my sister, so I need to answer it.”
“No problem.” She motioned for him to ‘go ahead’, thinking that he’d actually get up to answer the call. But he answered it right there in front of her.
“What’s up, baby girl?”
Baby girl? Well that was kind of a surprise. She eyed Tate discreetly as he listened to Rayne on the phone and picked at his pepperoni at the same time. Thankfully Kellie could peek at him from under the bill of her hat, just to watch his lips move. She’d been doing it earlier and was a little turned on, but then she caught on to his silence after a while and it kind of deflated her mood with worry.
