Piper fastened her robe belt and shoved her feet into a pair of fluffy yellow slippers. Jeez, by the scandalized look on West’s face, anyone would think she’d been sporting a skimpy Victoria’s Secret babydoll, rather than cartoon printed shorts and a tank top. Maybe the kind of women he bedded did wear ridiculously expensive lingerie that made your butt look fat if you were anything over a size eight. She snorted and scraped fingers through a severe case of bed hair.
West looking at her half naked shouldn’t make her insides feel all shivery and liquid—but it did.
She padded out to the kitchen, found him in front of the French doors, the kettle hissing on the stove. Their gazes connected briefly in the reflection, before she headed for the cabinets.
Piper snagged the last couple of mugs, her heart flip-flopping at the faded cartoon figures on one. A cluster of turkeys perched on a sad-faced elephant, and below, in a fancy font: Don’t let the turkeys get you down.
West took the mugs from her limp fingers. “Tea?”
“You kept it.” She bought the turkey mug for him thirteen years ago.
“I like it.” He switched the kettle off when it began to wail. “So I kept it. Just like you kept my Chilies shirt to sleep in. You still got it?”
“No.” She hoped he wouldn’t hear the lie in her voice. “I swapped to Animal, remember?” And then she remembered his reaction to her choice of sleepwear. Her face ignited. Fair skin, bane of her life.
Piper opened the fridge door and poked her head inside. “Yeah, I’ll have tea. You want milk?”
“Not if it’s the no-fat-no-taste stuff you drink. I’d rather take it black.”
“There’s a surprise.” The air wafting out from the fridge cooled the heat stinging her cheeks.
It’d lead him off the intended topic of Bill’s health, but curiosity got the better of her. “I found that mug in a little gift shop in Bluff. I had to borrow five bucks off Shaye because as usual, I was broke, and she’d been saving her pocket money for a rainy day.” Piper pulled out the bottle of regular milk and set it on the table, tracking him out of the corner of her eye.
West still wore work clothes—an untucked charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and khaki pants. His bare feet were long and wide, tanned from hours outdoors, a contradiction to the more formal attire he wore while managing Due South. Most other men in Oban dressed in whatever they grabbed off the floor each morning, but West never liked doing what his peers expected. The little touches of professionalism made her think of the proud sixteen-year-old boy who wouldn’t let anyone see how much he suffered when his family imploded.
“Right. It was just after Mum and Del left.” His tone remained light, as if his mother running off with her American lover and taking his brother to live in L.A. wasn’t important.
“I wanted to cheer you up. Because nothing anyone said would make you smile.”
West dropped a teabag in each mug and snared her gaze. This time his eyes weren’t the brittle shade of blue sea coral, but smoky blue and hooded. “You always knew how to make me smile.”
She ducked her head. “By being a pain in your ass, and not leaving you alone to mope.”
“Yep.” He turned away to fill the mugs with boiling water and the moment was lost.
Piper sat at the table, rested her chin on the heel of her palm. “Do you still hear from your mum?”
The teaspoon clinked against china as West brewed the tea. The broad lines of his back shifted under his shirt as tension braced his shoulder blades. “I didn’t speak to her for five years after she left.” He barked a short, harsh laugh. “I figured if I refused to talk to her on the phone, she’d come back to us. Didn’t work. She married Lionel, and had a new stepdaughter to cope with.”
He dumped tea bags into the sink. “Anyway. She did come back to Oban for a few days for my twenty-first—ambushed me. Now she calls a couple of times a year on my birthday and at Christmas. She talks, I listen. I know she and Glenna still keep in touch.”
“Well, they’ve been best friends since your mum first came out to New Zealand.”
“Men don’t do that sort of friendship. You walk away, cut your ties, and you’re off their Christmas card list.”
He would’ve scratched her name out of his address book back on the day he dumped her, then.
West carried their mugs over and sat in the opposite chair. “No sugar, right?” He handed her the plain blue mug, and took the turkey one for himself.
Impressed he remembered how she preferred her tea, she blinked. “No.”
“Still sweet enough, huh?”
“I was never sweet.”
“No, you weren’t.” He tempered the comment with a crooked grin which emphasized the fine lines around his eyes. He looked tired—dog tired—so she’d better get to the point. “I made Bill an appointment with the doctor tomorrow.”
West’s mug stopped halfway to his mouth. “He let you make a doctor’s appointment?”
“I can be very persuasive. Plus, I threatened to sic the church ladies onto him if he refused to cooperate.”
“Now why didn’t I ever think of that?” West sipped his tea.
“I threatened him with you first, but it had no effect. He’ll be pissed I’m even telling you about this.” Piper wrapped her fingers around the mug’s warmth and squeezed to keep her voice steady. “Your father’s not a well man.”
West’s nose crinkled. “It’s just the flu. Man flu as Shaye calls it. Take dose of harden the hell up and don’t whine about it in the morning.”
“Maybe it’s the flu, but maybe it’s something else. He’s not eating properly and it looks like he’s lost weight. Not to mention he’s worse than a woman ducking into the bathroom every half an hour or so.”
He studied her like a specimen in a petri dish. “You’re really worried?”
Yes, she was—and he needn’t look so insultingly surprised. Bill was a grouch and a slave driver, but she had a soft spot for the man who used to sneak her home-baked afghan cookies after a rough day at school.
“I just wanted you know what’s going on, so you can keep a check on him. It’d tick me off if your dad keeled over and I had to take on more prep stuff than I’m already doing. I hate cooking more than I hate dishes, so I know it’d give you great pleasure to make that part of your reimbursement.”
“Shaye’s capable of running the kitchen solo for the next few days while Dad’s not well.” He tipped his chair back on two legs and sent her a smile hot enough to cause sunburn. “And I have other ideas of how you can repay me.” His gaze zipped down to the v-neck of her robe which, judging by the cool air caressing her skin, gaped open.
Tugging the garment edges shut would only draw more attention to the hammering pulse at the base of her throat, so she kept her fingers clamped around the mug. “Oh? Since I’m already Bill’s all-purpose drudge, how could you demean me more?”
“As I said, I’ve other ideas, but I’ll save them for another time. Right now, explain why you pushed me off the dock.”
Her stomach churned the tea she’d sipped into choppy waves. West. Free-diving for the Nationals. God. “Because you’re a cocky asshole—and with dick for brains to boot.” Piper stood and walked to the sink, pouring the steaming remains of her tea down the drain.
“And you’ve formed this opinion because I choose to free-dive.”
She kept her back to him. “Actually I’ve known you’re an asshole for a number of years.”
The chair creaked as West rocked it back and forth. She wished it’d tip and drop him on his self-satisfied butt. She fussed at the sink, running hot water to flush the tea and rinse out her mug.
“I know what I’m doing. I’m not some amateur who’s bought a mask and fins and decided to see how far he can dive. I’ve trained for years.”
Piper twisted the water off so tightly it was a wonder the tap handle didn’t crack off in her hand. “So did Dad.”
“I’m not Michael.”
She turned back. “The risks of free-diving, especially free immersion, are high. Dangerously high if you’re pushing yourself.”
“I know my limit. And the biggest risks in free-diving are caused by inexperience and the lack of a good buddy to make sure you don’t suffer a shallow water blackout.”
“Hello?—talking to a police diver. I know the risks. So you don’t feel any urge to push the boundaries, to win the Nationals?”
“I have my own reasons for competing, and I know I can win.”
His own reasons? To prove his balls were bigger than any of the other men at Lake Taupo? She snorted, crossing her arms with a slight shake of her head. “As I said, you’re a cocky asshole. Which’ll probably get you killed.”
“Aw, baby. I didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t, other than in a professional capacity. I’m sick of pulling dead idiots from the water. Guys who think they’re so invincible they don’t need a lifejacket in an ill-equipped boat—the worst are those who bring innocent kiddies on board and don’t bother fitting them with lifejackets either. Or fishermen who are so gung-ho trying to catch the big one they forget how unforgiving the ocean is.” She clicked her teeth shut. Crap. She’d revealed much more than she intended.
“Sick of it, huh? So why do you continue to do it?”
“It’s my job. I have to.”
West lowered the chair onto four legs. “Have to?”
Blood pounded through her head, buzzed in her eardrums. “I told you the other day, I’m not discussing my career with you.”
He crossed his ankles, his steady gaze pinning her in place against the counter. “Fair enough. Let’s return to the subject of you worrying about my welfare. Was your overreaction at the wharf a desperate ploy for attention, like how you used to scare the bejesus out of Johnny Martin, hoping he’d chase you around the playground and try to kiss you?”
She stiffened, dumbstruck at the small crease of a smirk ghosting his lips. He thought she wanted his attention? Wanted him? Well, shamefully she’d started to, but damned if she’d let him know. “I was ten years old and I did not hope he’d kiss me! And FYI, I don’t need to push you off the dock to get your attention. You’ve been all but panting after me since I arrived back.”
West rocked back on his chair again, tilted his face to the ceiling and laughed. “Really? Who was eyeballing who in the pool the other morning?”
“I think your fancy swimming trunks showed the truth of that situation. You were the one sporting a hard-on then, and you were the one sporting a hard-on only minutes ago.”
“I’m a guy, these things happen. It’s nothing personal.” He folded his arms, the thin cotton of his shirt pulling against the contoured outline of his chest, the muscles in his forearms standing out in stark relief. Not that she noticed or anything.
“You weren’t my type then, and you sure aren’t now,” he said.
Nothing personal? Not his type? Well, no shit, Sherlock. But not being his “type” didn’t stop his penis finding her attractive.
So, screw it—she’d call his bluff.
Piper strode to the table, fisted a handful of West’s shirt, and tugged him forward so the feet of his balanced chair banged down on the floor. Bracing her free hand on the table behind her, she leaned in, keeping her eyes open to savor the flash of shock in his. She hesitated a breath away, drawing in the male smell of him. The remains of his cologne, a whisper of salt spray. Her fingers gripped his shirt, and the warmth of his chest pressed against her knuckles tingled like she’d grazed the side of a furnace. Always so hot, his fast metabolism used to drive her nuts.
Hot in more ways than one.
Piper dipped closer and pressed against warm and inflexible lips. Lips unwilling to part even a fraction to accommodate or welcome her.
Tough guy, huh? She nipped the slight swell of his bottom lip, and sucked gently— a trick which hadn’t been in her armory of feminine wiles at an innocent eighteen. No response. Her face flamed again.
Suddenly it was waaay too hot in the kitchen.
Congrats, Pipe. You’ve just made a complete fool of yourself once again, pawing at the man who, let’s be fair, warned you he wasn’t interested.
With any luck New Zealand’s propensity for earthquakes would kick in at this precise moment, cracking open a chasm beneath her feet which she could quietly slither into. She jerked her head back, but a large hand on her nape prevented her complete escape. West’s other hand landed on her hip and squeezed, freezing her in an awkwardly bent position.
“Let me go.” She tried to duck away, but his fingers snatched the soft toweling of her robe and held her still, like a kitten plucked up by the scruff of its neck.
“You grabbed me first, so you let go.”
She unclenched her fingers from his shirt. “Now take your hands off me.”
“But baby, you started this.” The hand on her hip tugged her closer, her inner thighs brushing against the smooth fabric pulled taut over his long legs.
She tugged at the fingers on her hip, wriggling at the same time, desperate to escape. “And now I’m ending it.”
“I’ll decide where it ends,” he said.
Her reflexes were wicked fast. As a police officer they needed to be. Moving fast could mean the difference between an arrest and a broken nose. Or a stint in hospital. So when West released her neck and yanked her robe open, plunged his hands inside and pulled on her hips until she tumbled onto his lap, she had plenty of time to react. Plenty of options to teach him to keep his hands to himself. She could’ve shoved him backwards. Kneed him in the nuts. Punched the Cheshire cat grin off his face. But instead her stony resistance melted, and she flowed onto him like lava.
His hands tugged the robe off her shoulders in quick, sure movements. She rested her weight on his rigid chest muscles, and shivered when his lips skimmed her collar bone. Hot, but not feathery light kisses blazed over her skin, and his teeth at the sensitive spot at the base of her throat nipped hard enough to blast any illusions of tenderness she might’ve had aside. This was lust, not desire. He wanted her, being pressed against his arousal left little doubt on that count. But the frost in his eyes as their gazes locked told her he didn’t want to want her.
Even so, she couldn’t stop from swaying forward until their lips were only inches apart. Her heartbeat soared, and her traitorous mouth parted in anticipation, yet she wouldn’t close the remaining distance. “I’m not kissing you again.”
“You’re not?”
“No. You’re not my type, either.”
He angled his head and his breath, warm and tinged with the faint scent of the bergamot oil in his Earl Grey tea, caressed her cheek. “Our radical deviation from type established, it still doesn’t change this—” He bridged the gap, and his mouth settled on hers.
Resist! Resist him! The order welled up in Piper’s brain in a fiery mantra. He resisted her kiss, she’d show him he didn’t affect her in the slightest either. She resisted, and by resistance she meant keeping her lips together—until his tongue flickered along the seam of her mouth.
On her soft gasp he wielded his advantage and urged her to open further, distracting her with his fingers sliding into her hair, positioning her exactly where he wanted. He played with her. Teased with kisses which retreated as soon as she capitulated and gave his questing tongue access. He caused her breath to hitch, her fingers to bunch into fists over his thudding heart. Bastard. But two could play this savage little game.
Piper linked her ankles around the chair back to keep their lower bodies aligned, one fluffy slipper falling off while she writhed on the hard ridge of his erection. Desperate craving swelled the tender flesh between her thighs as sensual heat scorched up from her core. She wanted him. Right now, right here, pride be damned.
Dropping her forearms from West’s chest, Piper’s breasts took their place. She took a second to luxuriate in his body shifting against her sensitized nipples. She shoved her fingers into West’s h
air either side of his ears and grabbed hold, dragging his lips back on hers. Bright lights exploded behind her eyelids as she shut them against the kaleidoscope of emotions fighting for dominance. Need. Lust. Anger.
This time the kiss West returned lacked teasing and playfulness. Harsh, demanding, his tongue dueled with hers. His hands left her hair, slid down her body and dived under the robe to grab her butt, shifting her impossibly closer as he angled his hips up. She wrenched away on a muffled groan, sucked his earlobe between her lips and bit down.
West surged out of the chair, her legs automatically clinging to his hips. He set her on the table edge and kissed her again, fitting himself between her thighs. Breaths backing up in her lungs, Piper couldn’t get enough oxygen into her system. Every gasp she managed to suck in was all West. His scent filled her nose, the taste of him silky and hot. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find a trace of herself left in this woman who moaned and writhed against him.
Wrong, this was all so wrong.
She ripped her fingers from West’s shoulders and flung her hands down, hoping to use the leverage of the table to push him away. Her left hand connected with a still warm object, toppled it. Hot tea splashed across her fingers, followed by a sharp crack as the mug hit the floor and shattered.
“Shit.” West jerked back. His heel connected with his chair and sent it skidding. “Are you okay? Did it burn you?”
Piper glanced at the liquid splashed across the back of her hand, the slight sting seeping into her knuckles, the bee-stung heat radiating from her lips and the deeper sting prickling the inside her chest.
Yeah, it burned all right. Her emotional control had turned to ashes.
“I’m fine.” Nowhere near the realm of fine. Blood stampeded through her body, and every vein carrying it seemed to be on a direct route to her girly-bits. If he touched her again now, wrong or not, she might spontaneously combust. “I’m not burned.”
Damp heat soaked into her thigh as the tea pooled over the table and pattered onto the floor. The turkey mug lay in half a dozen jagged pieces. She tipped herself forward to slide off the table—
Second Chances Boxed Set: 7 Sweet & Sexy Romances in 1 Book Page 10
