“Well, that’s good,” I mumbled.
He grinned up at me as he said, “Yeah.”
Then, frighteningly, he kept talking.
“Gear’ll like you, babe. My boy’s been a flirt since he could focus his eyes. The prettier the target, the more effort he gives it, which means he’ll put a fair amount of effort into it with you. Tatie’ll be harder to win over. She’s her dad’s girl. She doesn’t warm up quick to women around me.”
Oh dear.
This did not sound good.
“Um…Buck, we should talk about that,” I told him.
In response to this pronouncement, he twisted his hand around my hair and lifted his head to give me another lip brush.
Once he was done doing this, he curled up, taking me with him, moving me in his arms while he threw his legs over the side of the bed. He stood and put me on my feet.
When I was looking up at him, he stated, “Yeah, Toots, we got a lot to talk about. But we’ll do it over coffee and breakfast.”
Okay.
That sounded like a plan,
I nodded.
He grinned, lifted a hand to tug a lock of my damp hair and then he moved away, going toward the bathroom.
I stood still, watching him.
This was because he was naked, and my life might be uncertain and a little scary, but what wasn’t uncertain was the fact that West “Buck” Hardy looked really, really good naked.
It was also because I saw that his back was tattooed too, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, spanning his ribs and down his spine. It looked like an emblem and included snakes, flames, chains, motorcycle wheels and a poker hand.
And across his upper back, with flourishes (masculine ones, and those existed, trust me), in a kick-butt font, it said, simply, Aces High.
I had never been cool, never in my whole life.
Growing up, I tried to be invisible and I’d always been thought of by my peers as a quiet, dorky, geeky brain, even as an adult.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t know cool.
And that tattoo on Buck’s back was not cool, it was super cool.
It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in my life, not just the tattoo but the smooth skin and muscled back it decorated.
That tattoo was so cool, and Buck’s body was so hot, even in the state I was in, I felt it starting. My breasts swelled, my knees went weak and my feet really, really wanted to follow him to the bathroom.
I forced them to take me to the kitchen.
Ink had been right. Buck’s cupboards were far from bare. I had the feeling this was partially because he liked his food. It was also probably because he loved his kids and any good parent kept the kitchen stocked.
This, too, defined him and it, too, said good things.
Therefore, I smiled to myself as I made coffee and found some frosted cinnamon Pop-Tarts, my favorite kind. A definite treat.
Thus, I was sitting at a stool in the kitchen facing a window with a cup of coffee and a plate of Pop-Tarts, nibbling and staring at the scenery, when Buck strode in wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans, his hair wet from his shower, his cell at his ear.
That took no time at all.
Confirmation: West Hardy was not a man who primped.
His eyes came to me then dropped to my plate and the lines radiating from their sides deepened. I watched as he walked into the kitchen, and I twisted in my seat so my gaze could follow him.
He talked as he walked.
“You got a number?” he asked, pulling open a drawer and yanking a pad of paper out of it then going back to the drawer to dig around until he came out with a pen. He wrote something down and then said, “Right. Just go in, clear it all out. Yeah?” He paused then finished, “Later.”
He disconnected, but was immediately clearly reengaging, his eyes on the paper, his thumb moving on the screen of his phone. When he put it to his ear, he moved to get himself a mug.
He was pouring coffee when he spoke again.
“This Dallas Hill?”
I felt my lips part at the same time I felt my eyes get wide.
Why was he talking to my landlord?
Buck shoved the coffeepot into the coffeemaker and kept talking.
“This is a friend of Clara Delaney. You padlock her apartment yesterday?”
Oh God.
I closed my eyes.
I opened them again when Buck went on talking.
“Right, asshole, that padlock is getting clipped in about five seconds, and seein’ as we don’t have her keys, we’ll need to be creative gettin’ into the apartment. Now, take this as friendly advice, as of today, you don’t know Clara Delaney. She’s no longer a tenant. Her stuff’ll be gone in an hour and she ceases to exist for you in any way. That clear?”