Lady Killer (Tangled Desires Book 2) (16 page)

The short snap of anger subsides, because we want the same thing. To protect those we love.
I love his brother enough to run, but do I love him enough to roll the dice and let come what may?
“I want to protect them, too. Surely, you see that?”

“Then stay,” he says. “Or don’t.” He skirts around me and marches up the stairs. “Work out how much you’re willing to hurt Tommy boy, because if you go you’re definitely going to cause him pain.”

“And if I stay?” I don’t know why I ask that. It just seems like the most natural rejoinder. Staying is what I want.

“I’ve got your back, princess, and tabs on the enemy. You should know by now you can trust us to keep you safe.”

I chew my lip as the door shuts behind him. I do know that. Have all along. Isn’t that why I ran to Tom in the first place? Why being in his arms now brings a calmness that makes me never want to leave?

But I still see the moment of impact clearly in my mind, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take a chance. 

Tom

Gem’s at work when I get back from the gym, so I track down the last girl on my list. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to Lissa Henderson. Ten years, if truth be known. We’d dated for a while in high school, if what we did back then could be called dating. Then she’d dropped me for the captain of the wrestling team. God, that had pissed me off at the time, but sometimes when I’m feeling particularly amenable, I have to admit she gave me the motivation to take on the boxing world the way I did.

Hunting her down takes some Googling and a quick conversation with one of Mace’s contacts, since she moved to Australia within six months of our break-up. My chest is so fucking tight while I wait for her to pick up the phone, but when she does it’s like no time has passed. She’s still the same girl she was back then.

So I ask her whether she has any kids, wanting to break into the conversation gently. Hoping that if somehow she had my kid that she’ll admit it without me having to ask point blank.

“Oh goodness, no.” She laughs. “I’m twenty-five. There’s so much I want to do before I even consider whether I want to have a baby.”

Breathing becomes easier when she says that, and I stay on the phone with her long enough to be polite, because now my brain is going a million miles an hour. I’m free and in the clear. There’s no baby, no baby momma. My life just got so much easier. Still, someone sent me the pee-stick. Unless of course, it was meant for someone else. Questions pile in one on top of the other, but answers elude me.

Chelsea lets herself in while I’m trying to figure it out. “How are you going with that list?”

“She doesn’t exist,” I say.

“What do you mean, she doesn’t exist?”

“She’s not on the list. Whoever that stick belongs to… I haven’t slept with her. It’s not mine.”

“Maybe we have to dig deeper?” Chelsea says with a shrug. “Perhaps this isn’t a new development. It’s just the woman never came forward about it.”

“I don’t think so,” I say, scanning the list one more time. I’ve seen every woman on the list. Talked to them. Been slapped so many times. The whole thing is some ridiculous joke.

“This list only covers the last three months, right? So we need to look before that. I know you have a master list. One with all the girls.” Chelsea snags the crumpled paper from my hand and settles cross-legged on the bed while she scans it. “Shit. You slept with Lissa Henderson again? I thought she moved to Australia after high school.”

“Nope.”

“So she’s still in town?” She doesn’t glance up from the paper as she reads each crossed out name. All of them. She hasn’t even clued in on what she’s holding.

“No.”

Her brow scrunches. “Then what is she doing on this list? Shouldn’t she be in your little black book or something?”

I rest the back of my head against the wall, my arms crossed. How long will it be until she clues in? I start to count.

Her gaze races to my face. “This is your list, isn’t it? The whole thing?”

“Every single woman I’ve ever slept with.” I nod.

She scans the page again, flips it over to check the back, though it’s completely blank. Turns it over again. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“That’s all of it,” I mutter.

“Surely not. What about those meetings? What about all the women that were around before this pregnancy mystery?”

“Personal training sessions. One-on-one self defense lessons. Some meetings. Did you think I was out fucking the town?”

“Claire said…” She shrugs. “Then they dried up so quickly after you got the stick, I assumed.”

“Razer and Mace started working with me. My workload got lighter.”

“What were the meetings for?”

“It’s none of your damn business.” Scowling, I prowl over to snatch the list out of her hand.

“I don’t understand. Ten years as a single guy and that’s your entire list? What about your reputation?”

“It’s a fucking reputation. Built on a couple fuck ups and a whole heap of lies.” I don’t know why explaining this pisses me off so much. After the whole thing with Claire and that asshole ex of hers, I would have thought Chelsea would get that not everything is what it seems, but apparently my entire family has jumped on the
Tommy’s a manwhore
bandwagon. “There were a couple times at the start, and then the rest—”

“There were so many women. I don’t understand…”

Clasping my hands behind my head, I rock back on my feet. “This is going to sound insane. There was this one girl got so drunk after we got back to my place she stripped naked and passed out in my bed. I took the couch. Next morning, she thanked me for an amazingly dirty night, and we hadn’t done anything. After that… I guess I got a hell of a lot more choosy.” I shrug, not wanting to explain my history to her or anyone. “I’m no saint, but I don’t screw anything that walks.”

“Smoke and mirrors?”

“Some of them got more than a night in my bed while I slept on the couch, and some of them got a little further. There are a lot more ways to satisfy a woman than just dick, you know. Hell, I know you own a vibrator.”

She goes pink and splutters, “We’re talking about your list, not my sex life.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I never thought I would have to explain this to any of my family.”

“If you weren’t really into being that guy, why didn’t you ignore those women who threw themselves at you?”

“It was branding my coach, my sponsors were happy to use to their advantage. I needed them, so I went along with it. It was fucked, but what did I know? I’d already made my fuck ups, it wasn’t like anyone was going to see me differently.”

“So there are no other possibilities? You can’t possibly have gotten anyone else pregnant?” She chews her lip. “There’s absolutely no chance?”

“None.” I slash my hands in front of me. “It’s not mine.”

She’s quiet for a minute, dropping her gaze from me to her fingers, mumbling under her breath, but my attention’s drawn to the door, where Gem stands. I have no idea how long she’s been there or how much she’s heard but she shouldn’t have had to listen to any of it.

I stride across to her, take her hands in mine. “Shit, Gem. I’m sorry you had to hear that that way.”

Chelsea jumps up from the bed and pushes past me. “I have to go. I’ll see you guys later.”

Gem’s gaze follows Chelsea down the hall. “She okay?”

Pulling her into me, I rest my chin in her hair. She has to be thinking I’m fucked in the head after what she overheard. “Yeah. She probably wants to give us some space.”

“I don’t know.” Gem frowns, her forehead creasing. It’s fucking endearing, the way she cares about my friends and family.

Right now, Chelsea’s not the one I’m worried about. I draw her into the room and shut the door behind us. “There’s no baby, Gem. No Lady Killer. I’m a whole lot of bark with no bite, but everyone sees this guy who fucked any girl who crossed his path. I’m sorry that’s all that’s left for you, that I can’t change it.”

“So, it wasn’t so hard to go straight after all?” she asks as I wind my arms around her. There’s something about holding her close that makes everything inside me go calm.

“No, not so hard.” Lifting her chin, I stare down at her. There are no women here, just her, and I don’t want to rehash the past, the crazy way I went along with my reputation for so long. Or the fact I used that reputation to get laid when I did, but I guess I never expected to find someone who could see past it. “I still wish I could take it all back and give you a guy without the reputation.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” she says. As if it’s nothing that women will always flirt with me and have expectations of more. That some of them will throw themselves at me, even though I’m mad for her, and only her. “People will always believe what they want.”

“What do you believe, princess?”

“They don’t know you like I do.” Reaching up on tiptoe, she slants her lips over mine.

She tastes bittersweet, and a little bit wild, and there’s this look in her eyes that makes it hard to breathe, my chest tightening around the ever expanding feelings I have for her. I know she still considers running an option, but I’m not going to let her go now that I have her. “You’ve got me,” I say. “I’m all yours.”

“Mine?” She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, and I desperately want to tug it free with my thumb.

“Everything that I am.” I press her to the wall and kiss her, tasting her, while I try to satisfy myself she isn’t going anywhere. That she trusts in me enough to keep her safe.

Her breasts rise and fall against my chest, her hands bunching in my shirt, and I scrape a hand down her side to hitch her leg up over my hip so she can feel how hard she makes me, how perfectly we mold together.

“I need you,” she says. The way she says it, sharpened by desire, but with a tremble that gives away that it’s so much more than arousal, has me struggling not to drag her shorts down and sink into her. There’s a stinging sensation in my chest that makes me want to rub at the ache, but she takes my hand and places my palm over the corresponding point in her chest, and I know this isn’t going to end. She and I, we’ll never be over.

I won’t let her run from me. I won’t let anything happen to her, because she’s mine. Has been since the moment I first laid eyes on her.

And I’m hers. I trail my hand down over her breast, feeling the nipple peak under my palm, while I devour her mouth, until she gives this wicked little moan that has my cock aching. “You’re mine, Gem.”

“Yours.” She gasps as I slip my fingers under the waist of her shorts, down, down to the slick spot between her thighs. Her panties are soaked and she jerks in my hand, the leg around my hip tightening as I push into her.

I want her so much, I ache with it, but watching her face flush with desire is fucking magical. Her pupils dilate under heavy lids as I push two fingers inside her and fuck her in long, firm strokes until she’s shuddering, her pussy tight around me while she comes apart. Watching her cum is almost enough. Almost, but not when I need to know she’s here with me. Present, and mine. “I need you on my cock, Gem.”

I pull her other leg around me, her chest heaving against mine as I carry her to the bed and lay her out. Soaking in the sight of her, I peel her out of her shorts, shirt, and bra. Only lace is left between us, and it hides nothing of her. I take that, too, dragging her panties down her slender legs and tossing them aside.

Her gaze darkened with desire, she drags my tank over my head and discards it, her fingers tripping across my chest to rub across the ring through my nipple. I shudder from her touch, leaking a little in my pants from the pleasure that ripples down to my balls, making them draw up. I’m so close, and she’s barely touched me. It’s just the way she’s looking at me, like I’m everything she wants. She destroys me. I capture her hand, guide it down over the bulge in my shorts. “Take me, princess.”

Her breath hitches, then she drags my shorts down, boxers along with them, and wraps her hot little palm around me. “Mine,” she purrs.

“Shit,” I grind out between my teeth as I jerk in her hand while I reach for a condom. I need to fuck her now, need to be deep inside her. I tear the packet open and roll the latex over my cock before I fall over her, hitching her hands up over her head and notching my cock against her clit.

She whimpers, her hips curling to take me. She’s so wet, so hot, it short circuits my brain. Then she tightens her thighs around me, pulling me into her and nothing has ever felt this fucking good. Her tight muscles squeezing around me as she fits herself to me. “Tommy.” She gives a broken little cry, her head tilted back, her throat exposed for my mouth.

I lick and suck and bite up the column of her throat, until her mouth is under mine, her tongue touching mine, in a flurry of need that blocks out the world. I thrust into her over and over, while she moans into my mouth, delectable little sounds that I greedily eat up.

Her body rocks to mine, her legs so fucking tight as they hold me into her. I can’t last much longer. I’m so hard it hurts, my balls tight and heavy. Then she starts to clench around me, and my whole body goes rigid, my vision blurring as I cum harder than I ever have before.

Collapsing on top of her, I cover her with my mouth. Tasting her sweat, and inhaling the scent of our sex. Each day she chooses me is another day I fall harder. We stay like that until our breathing slows, our skin cooling. Then I pull her on top of me, not wanting to be anywhere else, and murmur into her hair, “Stay with me, Gem.”

This is it for me. The words are on the tip of my tongue, ready to flit from my lips to her ears. I don’t know what holds me back. Maybe, the fact I’ve never felt this way about anyone.

She strokes her fingers over the ink on my bicep, fluttering around the edges, her lips pursed while she studies the design. She has these long slender fingers, and short, square nails that tickle my skin. “So those meetings you won’t talk about? What are they for?”

I’m about to use the word love in relation to something other than my family, or boxing, or directly connected to the word fuck, and she wants to know all the little secrets I hide. It makes me want to hold her that bit tighter. “Curious?”