Red Lace (The Hard Men of the Rockies)

by Kym Roberts

  His hand followed the curve of her neck, his palm making her sensitive skin feel more alive than she could ever imagine. When his hand moved down the middle of her chest, Faith couldn’t help it; she closed her eyes and arched into his touch. But he denied her what she wanted, pausing only briefly to touch her breastbone.

  She whimpered. Never in her life had she whimpered.

  His fingers pushed upward between her breasts, and then back down the middle to finally capture her right breast in his palm.

  She moaned with pleasure as his lips met her neck in the most exquisite love bite she’d ever felt. Her head fell to the side, exposing her skin as his tongue played with her, tasting and teasing. His hand explored her breast through her sports bra, finding the hardened pebble of her nipple and opening up a part of her she’d yet to examine.

  She pushed back against the length of him, stroking and rubbing against the part of him she wished to possess. His growl thrilled her as he pressed into her.

  And then he froze. Denying her what she absolutely had to have. His breath hitched, causing Faith to open her eyes.

  The expression on his face had changed. The fire, although still there, had been dampened. His body stiffened as she heard a completely different kind of growl.

  One she knew very well. One that sounded like it had a mouthful.

  “Your dog.” Ty ground out between his teeth.

  “Kas?” She wasn’t sure why she asked. Of course it was Kas, but what was he doing? She looked down, but could only see her pet’s hindquarters visible behind Ty.

  Faith started to move, but Ty hissed as his lower body shook from side to side. Kas growled again.

  “Don’t move!” This time when he said it, there was nothing sexy about it. Ty’s whispered plea held the urgency of pain.

  Faith ignored him and slipped out from under his arms, where she saw Kas giving Ty the most painful love bite she’d ever seen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The doubt had returned. It was written all over her face. In the tightness of her jaw. The avoidance of her gaze. She still wanted to have sex with him; that heat was undeniable between them, no matter how much each one of them had tried to avoid it.

  But the problem stemmed from one thing—Faith didn’t trust him. Thanks to her dog biting him on the ass, he could see her uncertainty. She trusted Kas more than she trusted Ty and was probably wondering if the dog saw something she had missed. If maybe Ty really did have something to do with the death of an innocent woman.

  She trusted the dog’s instincts more than her own.

  The dog, however, was reading her fear. Acting upon her mistrust like an anxious police dog reading its handler.

  Ty didn’t want to complicate his life, or hers. But lying on her table as she went to get the first aid kit, he couldn’t help but want this to go further. Hell, the bite was nothing, if there hadn’t been ninety pounds attached to his ass, he would have ignored it.

  “I’m so sorry…I don’t know what came over him.”

  “It’s not that big a deal, I’ve had worse.”

  “You’ve had worse dog bites than this?” Her voice rose in disbelief.

  Ty couldn’t help it, he laughed. “No, I’ve had worse injuries.”

  “But you don’t understand. He’s never attacked a client before.”

  “I don’t think he saw me as a client at that particular moment.”

  She wasn’t listening. Too stuck on the threat of a lawsuit, she didn’t hear a word he’d said. “I’m sorry. I’ll have my attorney—”

  “Whoa.” Ty sat up, steeling himself against the ache in his chest as fear crept into her eyes. She backed away, a bottle of rubbing alcohol in one hand and a cotton square in the other, her anxiety erasing the delicate bond that drove them to do things he knew they shouldn’t. Things she obviously couldn’t do…with him. Her fear forced him off the table and toward the door.

  “I’m leaving.” He blurted out, trying to put her at ease. “I don’t want any money. Your dog was doing what I would want him to—protecting you from a virtual stranger.”

  She took one step forward then froze, her suspicions warring with the attraction that caused her to break her own rules. “He’s never done anything like that before.”

  “I’d like to say I’m flattered to have caused such a passionate response…” He tried to smile, but neither side of his mouth would raise. He wanted to tell her that he was flattered a woman like her had let him dream his life could be different; instead he thanked her and wished her luck. “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done for my recovery and I have no doubt the doctor will release me to work when I go see him in a couple days. So thank you, but I must get ready to go home.”

  “Home?”

  “South Carolina. I’m lead investigator for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in New Baden.”

  “Oh. I…I didn’t know.”

  Ty nodded and pointed over his shoulder like an experienced hitchhiker. “I’m going to go clean out my locker.”

  If he was expecting anything, it wasn’t what she did next. Faith took three steps in his direction and held out her hand. After having his mouth on her body and her breast in his palm, she wanted to end their acquaintance with a handshake. Ty reached out and took it. Desperate for any bit of contact she’d allow. He adored her strength, memorized her face and relished the last touch of the woman who drove him beyond his control.

  “It’s been an honor to be able to serve you at Achilles HeAl. If you come back to Fort Collins, you still have plenty of time left on the plan Adam purchased.”

  “I may take you up on that.” Ty let her hand slip out of his and turned away, knowing he’d just lost something perfect.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rosie became a staple in her life. At first she thought the elderly woman had shown up to give her a piece of her over-protective mind. But when Rosie walked in wearing what Faith learned to be her standard attire of yoga pants and a bright smile, she’d asked for one of Faith’s “delicious” fruit smoothies. And Faith had been hard-pressed to say no to the elderly woman’s smile. It lightened up her mood for the first time in days.

  When Rosie appeared the second, third and fourth time, Faith wasn’t about to turn away the one bright spot in her day. With the birth of a new routine, Faith broke rules she’d created for her business and gained a mother figure in her life. Rosie was a loving confidante with a generous ear, and a clever adviser who spoke from a lifetime of experience.

  Faith had lost everything when her parents were murdered. Except Khaos, who had become her world. He’d been an excellent older brother, but he knew nothing about the trials of being a single woman going through college or opening her own business. Or dating. All Khaos knew was, “Me big brother. You touch baby sister, me break your face.”

  The first year after their parents’ murder, she’d welcomed the protective shield Khaos offered. But then it started to get old, yet she’d always run to him at the hint of trouble. She was responsible for the walls surrounded her, not Khaos.

  Faith knew she was making a difference in Rosie’s life as well. Each day she would talk about her grandsons, so much that Faith felt like she knew all five: Ty’s younger brother Knox, the pro football player who had his own share of infamous behavior. Adam, whom Faith had known since her brother was in college and she was thirteen, had a few secrets Faith may have let out of the bag to his family matriarch. Jackson, a geo-archeologist, was always off on some grand adventure, but Rosie was sure he’d settle down and marry her neighbor Mya, if the two could stop arguing long enough to kiss. And Blake, a hugely successful internet entrepreneur Rosie insisted could help grow Achilles HeAl exponentially.

  But her oldest grandson was her favorite topic. Ty had been an honor bound child from the age of three. Protective of everyone in his life from his puppy, to his little brother, his mother, and even his high school sweetheart, who didn’t deserve an ounce of his loyalty. Yet everything had been done with a
big smile on his face.

  Faith wasn’t sure they were talking about the same grandson. The man she knew never got past a smirk, but Rosie assured her, the boy and the young man couldn’t hide his killer smile.

  That all changed when his dream career died a young death. On an advance security detail for the President, Ty was with a different group of agents than his normal team and became sick with food poisoning. Stuck in his room while team members partied, Ty was unaware of how out of control the night became. But when morning arrived, he found his team huddled over the body of a young woman, not one of them attending to the unresponsive girl, who’d barely reached the age of twenty. Ty attempted CPR while the others cleaned up evidence of her drug use and sexual activities with several of the men.

  When the police arrived, it was Ty who’d moved the syringe lying next to her body. Ty, who was half naked like the girl he worked on. And Ty, who the police immediately assumed gave her the drugs, while his teammates turned guilty heads in the opposite direction.

  And it was Ty who said nothing in his own defense, to protect the Service. Locked in jail in a foreign country, only a pardon between diplomats was enough to free him. Still, he had no peace. The public wanted justice, and the termination of the entire team did nothing to appease a nation in shock. Hounded by media, Federal Prosecutor Samantha Bennett fought to get him a job—and won. To this day, he owed his sanity to the woman who was now Chief Prosecutor of the Southeast District of South Carolina.

  “Sammie also owns his heart,” Faith advised.

  Rosie just smiled and patted her hand. “Sammie was safe. Taken. No threat to his heart or his ego.”

  “He called out to her as he was—”

  Rosie stopped stirring her smoothie. “As he was what, dear?”

  Faith turned and grabbed a wet towel to wipe off the counter. “Nothing.”

  “It’s not like you to hide.” Rosie coaxed.

  Faith laughed but there was no humor in her voice. “It’s very much like me to hide. I’ve been hiding for years.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you stop?”

  “It’s all I know.”

  “You could start by finishing your sentence.” Rosie looked at her with eyes that could read her like a first edition of a Dick and Jane reader: See Faith hide. Faith hides from everything. Faith must stop hiding.

  “You know how he was injured?” she started, too afraid to give up information Ty had yet to share.

  “Yes he was shot while trying to protect Sammie and her husband from a deadly betrayal.”

  Faith suddenly laughed at the events that weren’t the least bit funny. How odd that her parents had died at the hands of duplicity and Ty, the man she loved, because God help her she did love him, had almost died protecting a woman he loved from an act of betrayal.

  “Sorry. It’s just that my parents were killed by a drug cartel when they refused to ship their dope or take their money. My brother Khaos and I were bought out by my dad’s business partner after their death. The feds suspected he was working with the cartel, but before they could build a case, he disappeared. They now believe he’s dead.”

  “How many people have you confided that in?” Rosie asked as she reached across the counter and squeezed Faith’s hand.

  “Alena was my best friend, so she knows. And now you know.”’

  Rosie sucked in a breath of air between her teeth. “No one else?”

  Faith shook her head. “Some people know because they lived in town when it happened, but I’ve never discussed it with anyone else.”

  Rosie’s eyes rimed with tears, and all the pain threatened to surface once again. Faith looked away and then confessed. “I was the one who brought Ty to the hospital.”

  Rosie froze mid-wipe of her tears. “You what?”

  She straightened her shoulders and came clean. “I brought Ty to the hospital after he was shot.”

  “On the snowmobile?”

  Faith nodded.

  “Does Ty know that?”

  Faith shook her head, too afraid to tell Rosie her grandson had scared her half to death and that she almost left him in the snow to die.

  “You have to tell him.” Rosie’s chin dipped and rose in conviction.

  “It doesn’t matter now.” Faith argued. “He’s safe and back in South Carolina.”

  Rosie looked away, and Faith could have sworn she was hiding something, but before she could ask, Rosie replied, “He loves you, you know.”

  Faith blinked, confusion sealing her lips.

  “Ty’s infatuation with Sammie was safe, but it wasn’t love. Love is never safe. Love is dangerous. It makes you tear your heart out of your chest and lay it in the palm of another, while you wait to see if the other person will do the same. Not once did Ty take that chance with Sammie.

  “No, Faith. Love is messy. The down-in-the-dirt-kind of messy that only comes along once in a lifetime. There are a few who get a second chance, but for most, that jaw dropping, teeth grinding, sweaty passion only comes but once.” Rosie took one last drink of her smoothie, slurping the very last bit through her straw as she stood up.

  “Are you willing to risk losing that opportunity forever?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Faith didn’t recognize the man heading for the front door in a suit and tie. She given up hope of Ty returning and dreamed about a new man coming into her life and filling the void he’d left. That ever-elusive second chance Rosie had mentioned.

  Maybe this man could fill the ache she’d felt since Ty Beckinsale had walked out of her life. She’d been numb since that last touch of his fingers, the last glimmer in his eyes, the last bond she’d shattered out of fear. But her new customer certainly knew how to capture a woman’s attention. His swagger dripped of testosterone. His dark grey suit molded to a muscular, athletic build as he approached the door, his eyes shaded by aviator sunglasses. The shoulders hugged without pulling. The chest sculpted without rippling. And the pants, thank you Lord, the pants didn’t bag at the crotch or his butt. They showcased the length of him like a dream. The entire package left her wanting more for the first time since Ty had walked out and Faith couldn’t help but think he belonged on a fashion runway for the gods.

  The deep charcoal color of his jacket lent a crisp balance between his white shirt and red silk tie. It accentuated his sexuality and, coupled with the downright animalistic prowess of his gate, made her mouth drop open the tiniest amount in a sigh of satisfaction.

  Faith hesitated…dying to see more. She wanted to lift the sunglasses away from his eyes and see into his soul. To run her fingers through the dark ebony locks curling at his collar.

  She was so thankful that another man could stir the passion inside her, she was ready to let it loose—to take what he advertised without a single word spoken. He was pure-sex-walking.

  Faith shook her head. Obviously she was in withdrawal—craving, yearning, longing to have what she couldn’t. Okay, shouldn’t. There were plenty of clients willing to visit her bed, but she didn’t want the type of man who traveled for a career or had women lusting after him at every turn in life.

  She wanted one man who could share her empty home and fill it with love and laughter. Maybe a kid or two down the road, but for the first few years, she wanted to be his world, and vice versa.

  She wanted to heal, to find out what it meant to be in love, to adore and be adored the way her parents had. To accept the strengths of her partner and the God-awful flaws that made a relationship with him all that much harder, but worth every last tear. She wanted to experience the lasting devotion of a passion so strong that time and age would never get in the way.

  This man, however, was not that man. He was one night…two if she was lucky, of unadulterated, raw heat that would melt her core in a frenzy of sweaty bodies and screaming orgasms. And Faith found herself wanting to give in to it.

  But when he reached for the door, panic flowed through her body. Fantasies were one thing. Reality was a comp
letely different story. She didn’t need another temptation in her life that would lead to disaster. Ty had been bad enough.

  She buzzed him in without thinking. Just hit the button and the man was in her lobby. She must be out of her ever-lovin’ mind.

  The corner of his mouth twitched when he caught her staring. His tongue swept his bottom lip in a message Faith couldn’t possibly miss. Then his cheeks flexed, and one uplifted corner turned into a grin that radiated happiness—and something much more predatory. It was only when he pulled off the aviators and she could see his eyes, that she recognized the man. And the heat that was always present when he was in the room.

  She gasped. She couldn’t help it. It couldn’t be. In fact, it was downright impossible. There was no way the man approaching the front desk was the same man who’d kissed her two months ago. No way the man she had feared and wanted at the same time was the same guy she’d nearly drooled over as he came up to the front door. It wasn’t possible.

  Yet there he was. Ty Beckinsale.

  Kas barked and charged before Faith could react, his bounding strides closed the gap between them in a matter of seconds.

  “Kas! Here!”

  Her dog ignored her command and leaped at the man she’d missed more than she could possibly imagine—ruining everything before it began. Faith would have cried if she had time, instead she charged after him. Rounded the desk as Ty caught him in mid-air and Kas bit—

  He wasn’t biting.

  Faith stopped short, a mass of confusion and fear and hedonist delight making her head spin. Her dog licked Ty’s face. Like the man wore grilled steak cologne, or had bacon syrup smeared all over his beard and cheeks and nose. Kas covered every inch. Turning his snout this way and that as Ty scrunched his eyes and laughed.

  He laughed. A deep, joyful sound she’d never heard him make. It was so full of life, echoing through the lobby, filling the entire room with an infectious amusement.