Текст книги "Tangled Bond"
Автор книги: Emma Hart
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Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
The HOLLY WOODS FILES series:
Twisted Bond
Tangled Bond
Book 3 (coming September 2015)
The BY HIS GAME series:
Blindsided
Sidelined
Intercepted
The CALL series:
Late Call
Final Call
His Call
The WILD series:
Wild Attraction
Wild Temptation
Wild Addiction
The GAME series:
The Love Game
Playing for Keeps
The Right Moves
Worth the Risk
The MEMORIES series:
Never Forget
Always Remember
The BURKE BROTHERS series:
Dirty Secret
Dirty Past
“I’m-a worried about-a your blood sugar.”
“Why?”
“You eat-a all of-a the cup-acakes!”
I roll my eyes and look at Nonna. “When it passes the level my blood pressure reaches when you go all cupid on me, then we’ll discuss this. Until then…” I dip my finger in the frosting of my cupcake and suck it off.
“You need-a a man-a!” She scowls at me, and quicker than should be right for a woman of her age, she leans forward and attempts to swipe my cupcake.
Attempts is the important word there. Pssh. She’s an amateur if she really thought she could get it away from me.
“Nonna, I love you, but no woman needs a man. We already get periods—why the hell do we need something else in our life that’s going to force us to eat copious amounts of ice cream?”
“You should-a be married!”
“I should be working,” I mutter, peeling the case away from the cake.
“Noella!”
“Nonna!” I snap back. “What are you even doin’ in my office?”
She hugs her wrap around her shoulders and tilts her head back slightly so her nose lifts. She looks down at me, the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes more endearing than threatening as her gaze narrows. “I try-a to get-a you a husband!”
“I don’t need a husband!” I sigh, finally setting the cupcake down. “I’m an independent woman. I don’t need anything other than what I want. Least of all a dang husband!”
“Who will-a put-a your-a shelves up?”
“If I can’t use a drill after all my gun training, I shouldn’t be allowed to own a house.” Or a gun, for that matter.
“Build-a your-a furniture?”
I tilt my head to the side as a triumphant smile stretches across her face. “Trent, Devin, and Brody,” I reply. "You know, the crazy-overprotective brothers who still treat me like I’m six unless I bribe them with barbecued pork and beer.”
“What if-a someone breaks-a into your house?”
“Then I’ll chase them off with my gun. Again,” I add pointedly.
So what if I cried after that little incident? Tissue and blankets would have the same effect as crying into Detective Drake Nash, I’m sure.
It’d be a hug without abs and biceps…and a sexy, frustrating attitude.
“Is-a not-a safe!” Nonna fumes. “You need-a a man!”
“Nonna. I do not need a man. Thank you for your concern, but I still have nineteen months until my birthday, and that is enough time to find a boyfriend.” I take a bite out of my cupcake and look back at my computer screen.
I have no idea why she’s in my office except to bug me. Maybe she got off at the wrong bus stop.
“You need-a a man!”
“Nobody needs anything unless they actually want it, and I won’t settle for anyone less than perfect for me just because you’re afraid I’ll become a zitella, comprende?”
“You are-a a pain, Noella.” She huffs and heads toward the door. “You will-a be-a the death-a of me!”
I smile when she opens the door and shuffles through it. “Ti amo, Nonna.”
She pauses and glances over her shoulder. “Ti amo, bella.”
My smile grows even as she turns fully and meets my eyes again. So I resist the urge to roll my eyes like a petulant teenager, but same thing, right?
“What-a about-a Detective Nash?”
My smile drops. Holy hell, what’d she have to bring him up for? “Don’t worry about him.”
“You been on-a that-a date yet?”
“Nonna. I said don’t worry.”
“Is-a no,” she mutters with a heavy sigh. “I book-a you a table!”
Good luck getting that past Drake.
She closes the door behind her this time, and I get up to lock it. No more random drop-ins from her, thank you. Least of all when she has a bee in her bonnet. No—screw this. Where Detective Drake Nash—my sexy, pain-in-the-ass nemesis and guy I owe a date to—is concerned, Nonna has a swarm of freakin’ hornets in her bonnet.
There’s a small chance I may be ignoring his calls. And texts. And e-mails. And hiding in the bathroom under the masquerade of being “busy” whenever he drops by unannounced.
See, here’s the thing. There’s nothing wrong with the man. Physically.
He’s pretty. Real pretty. He has the awesome dark hair that’s floppy and fingers-running-through-until-forever soft and silky. He has the most arresting smile I’ve ever been faced with, not to mention that quirky little smirk that’s both sexy and intimidating. And the jaw… Oh, the jaw. That perfectly carved specimen of a jaw that’s always covered with the right amount of stubble. Let’s not forget the eyes now—the eyes that would give a snow queen a run for her money with her iciness. And that’s just the color of them. The emotions the man can portray in them are unreal. Anger, frustration, happiness, determination… Heat… Desire… Lust… Pleasure…
I shake my head. Snap the fuck out it, Noelle. Screwing the man on your kitchen table is not a case for repeated dreamy blackouts at lunchtime. Well, if we want to be technical, he screwed me, and what a damn fine screw it was.
So what is my problem?
Him.
We’re oil and water. Chalk and cheese. Snow and sun. Equally, though, we’re fire and gasoline, burning matches and fireworks, kindling wood and a bonfire. We’re opposite but explosive. Opposite but unhealthy. Opposite and possibly a little bit toxic.
A lot toxic, because the man riles me up like no other.
He’s arrogant and infuriating and oh-righteous-me. He’s the definition of Mr. Right, except he’s Mr. 50% Wrong At Least.
This I know, because when he’s wrong, I’m right.
I’d raise this to seventy-five percent, but I figure I have to give him some kind of personality trait.
Ugh, Noelle, you bitch.
I grab the cupcake and shove it in my mouth. The man makes me want to eat all the cupcakes and skip the treadmill. Put simply: I have no idea how I feel about Detective Drake Nash. And that’s scary.
Mostly because I’m scared of finding out how I feel, and the only way that’s going to happen is if I see him. But… Hell. It is so easy to avoid him, even in a small town like Holly Woods. My brothers have stopped telling me when he’s working, sure, but I’m a smart woman. I simply avoid the police station on the way to and from the station, and if he drives past me, then he’s gonna have to flash those nice little blue lights of his to make me stop.
I rub some frosting from my lower lip and open my e-mail. Nonna’s turning up to give me lecture number one hundred and fifty-six of this year—in April—has thrown me off. My inbox is filled with promotional e-mails from Coach and Louboutin and Victoria’s Secret. It pains me to click the little boxes and hit the delete button, but I’m being strong and resisting the urge to buy all the things.
Hey—I can always go into my trash folder and read them tonight when I’m curled in front of my TV with a burrito or two.
I finish the cupcake as an e-mail from Natalie Owens pings into my inbox. I narrow my eyes. We went to high school together, but despite us both being on the cheer team, she barely ever said two words to me. Now, I have a blank-subject-line e-mail from her.
I want to ignore it, just to be a bitch, but my nosy side ultimately wins out and I open it.
Dear Ms. Bond,
I’d appreciate if you could inform me of your earliest availability for a consultation appointment.
Yours sincerely,
Natalie Owens.
Well, how polite of her.
I could probably learn a thing or two.
I reach for my planner and flick through it to this week, noting an empty space tomorrow afternoon. Although… There’s every possibility I have something there that I forgot to write down. I grab my phone and dial the extension to Grecia, my Mexican assistant-slash-receptionist-slash-personal burrito-recipe-giver.
“Hello,” she answers simply. Good thing I know that her phone flashes with my name.
“Do I have anything at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon?”
Papers shuffle at her end. “Yes. You have an interview with Carlton Hooper for the tech job.”
Bastard. I forgot about that. Of course I’d have to replace Marshall. My deceptively sweet ex-tech guy is currently in the county jail awaiting trial for the murder of his old stepmom, her bit on the side, and her best friend and the attempted murder of his own cougar ex-girlfriend.
Not to mention the whole illegal weapon thing. The same one he pulled on me before I shot him first.
“How about after? Someone e-mailed me about a consultation. Does anyone else have any space?”
More paper shuffling. “If you can be done with the consultation in thirty minutes, I can reschedule with Mr. Hooper for half an hour later and tell him you have a family commitment.”
“Grecia, you’re wonderful.”
“I know. You tell me every day.”
“That’s because I mean it.” I grin although she can’t see it. “Um, could I get a copy of my schedule for the rest of the month to cross-check with my planner?”
I can hear her smile as she says, “I’ll bring you coffee and collect your planner.”
“You really are wonderful.”
She laughs and clicks off. I e-mail Natalie, somewhat prematurely, about the appointment tomorrow afternoon with a line about squeezing her in quickly, and I’ve just clicked send when Grecia opens my door and strolls across the room. Her black hair is pulled into a ponytail on top of her head, her dark, olive-toned skin making her brown eyes glitter brightly. She’s short even with four-inch heels on her feet, so she has to bend right over when she puts my coffee mug on my desk.
She grins knowingly as she grabs my favorite Erin Conden planner from next to me and strolls out.
I still can’t believe she’s dating my ex–FBI investigator, Mike. I shudder at the memory of walking in on them dry-humping in his office. That said, there hasn’t been so much as a hand-brush since I threatened them with their jobs.
I don’t pay people to get themselves off on my time.
“No!” Grecia shouts.
I stand up, my chair rolling back. Grecia’s yelling “No!” that angrily only means one thing.
Detective Drake Nash is here.
“All due respect, ma’am, I’m here on business.”
Aw, shit! I frantically look around my newly decorated duck-egg-blue office. From the potted plant by the door to the tub chairs in front of my antique-style desk to the flycatcher on my windowsill waiting for its lunch.
I have no time to run across the hall to the bathroom and lock myself in there.
Crappy crappy crap.
Who said that this avoiding thing was a good idea?
“She is busy!”
“I have a warrant.”
I clap my hand over my mouth and quickly turn the key in my door. I lean against it, breathing heavily.
Sweet fuck. I’m a grown woman. Has my vagina shriveled up into my bowel and died?
“Ms. Bond.” Drake raps loudly on my door. “If you’re in a meeting, I’m afraid you’ll have to cut it short. I’m here on official business.”
My phone screen lights up on my desk. I dart across the room—as quickly as one can in four-inch heels—and grab it. I open the message from Bekah, my best friend and first employee.
Official business, huh? I call bullshit.
Uh-huh, I reply.
“Ms. Bond! I have a warrant and will break your door down.”
You’re in trouble. BIG TROUBLE.
Captain freakin’ Obvious.
I fist my hand and hold it against my mouth, quietly putting my phone back down.
“Open the goddamn door, Noelle!” He bangs on it again, and I sigh, reserved.
Prepare your ovaries and gird your womb, Noelle. You’re gonna have to let him in.
I straighten my nice, new, red pencil skirt, make sure the girls aren’t popping out of my black blouse, and make my way to the door. I twist the key in the opposite direction and the lock clicks. Calmly, I open the door, and meet his raging, blue eyes.
“Good afternoon, Detective. Can I help you?”
His face is hard, and his eyes aren’t just raging. No—they’re stormy, a tsunami waiting to be unleashed. He barges past me, his elbow knocking mine, and I purse my lips.
“Why, come on in, sir. Can I have my assistant get you a coffee with your apology for your rudeness?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” he warns, turning and pinning me with his gaze. “Shut your door.”
“I think you mumbled your ‘please.’”
He retraces his path until he’s standing over me. He reaches above me and pushes the door shut, the handle easily falling from my grasp as it swings shut with a bang that ricochets through my office.
“Please,” he adds as the echo dies.
I glare at him, and yes. Now, I remember exactly why we don’t get along.
“Take a seat, Detective, and tell me all about your official business with your warrant.”
“I prefer to have my discussions standing.” He grasps my arm—not tightly, but strongly enough that I’d have to insert my Louboutin into his ballsac to get him to release me.
“From experience, you prefer most things upright.”
Slowly, his lips curve to one side, his smirk both sexy and infuriating. His eyes flash with the memory. “Especially where you’re concerned, Ms. Bond.”
I drop my eyes to his belt, allowing them to linger on the buckle before falling another inch or two to his crotch. “Don’t tell me you dropped in for a midday booty call.”
“Are you offerin’? Since you’re holdin’ out on me, I think you owe me.”
“Excuse me?” My eyes snap up to his, and the smugness reflecting in his gaze tells me that I fell for his trick.
Son of a bitch.
“Our date? It’s been two weeks since you agreed to go out with me, and call me obsessive, but I’m counting nine missed calls, ten missed texts, and five missed visits to your office.”
“You counted? Hell yeah, that’s obsessive.”
“Maybe I just really want to date you.”
“Or you want to return the favor of a bullet through the foot.”
His arm rests on the weapon at his hip. “That can be arranged right now, if you’d like to call it even.”
My fingers curl around the handle of the one at his other hip. “And I’ll up the score just as quickly.”
Drake laughs, his anger seemingly gone, and leans in. “Go ahead. It’ll give me the reason to get you in cuffs I’ve been waiting for.”
I’m ninety-nine percent sure my blood pressure has gone batshit crazy at his words. Hell, my pulse is much stronger than it was thirty seconds ago.
“Five minutes ago, you were yelling about a warrant,” I breathe, swallowing the burst of desire bolting through me. “Your official business seems far more personal, though, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Not at all,” he replies. He takes my hand from his weapon, but instead of releasing it, he keeps his grip. “I’m surprised you didn’t reach for your own gun.”
“And tell you where it is? I’m no amateur, Drake.”
“And still, I underestimate you.”
“Rightly so.” I remove my hand from his and reach up my skirt. Then I pull my favorite Tiffany-blue Glock from my thigh holster. The muzzle presses against his upper thigh, but to his credit, he doesn’t even flinch at the contact.
“I underestimate you,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing my waist. “But I don’t take you for stupid. You won’t pull that trigger. Not there. It’s too close to the part of me you like.”
“You assume far too much, Detective.” I drop the gun anyway and dart around him, strolling to my desk and setting it down softly on top of my latest case folder.
Drake comes up behind me, reaches around me, and rests his hands next to mine on the desk. I briefly close my eyes as his hard body melds against mine, because the man has one fine fucking body. I can feel it now—all muscle and tone and pure, hard strength. His biceps brush mine, except his are way more…bicep…than mine. Like, seriously, how does he fit those into that hot-as-hell white shirt?
This is what happens when he touches me. I go all giggly schoolgirl. Sweet Jesus though. It’s hard not to.
I know what that body looks like and feels like and acts like, and those memories can’t be erased. I can’t erase the memory of his body, slick with sweat, tensed with determined pleasure, moving against mine as I took everything he had to give me.
I take a deep breath, but despite my efforts to inhale slowly, it fills my lungs in a rush that jolts me. Drake feels it, because he drops his face to the curve of my neck exposed by my sleek topknot. Every part of me wishes I could unravel the hairbands and pins, but still, his lips against my collarbone… Oh, hell. They feel so good. So sweet and hot.
“This is highly unprofessional,” I manage, unwillingly tilting my head to the side and exposing my neck to him. “For your official business, I mean.”
He trails his lips up to my ear, where they brush the lobe, curving into a smile. “You are my official business, Ms. Bond.”
“Are you trying to seduce me into that date?”
“Is it working?”
Yes. “No.”
“Okay.” He straightens, the quick blast of cold air between us sending a shiver across my body. Just as quickly, though, he grabs me and turns me so my butt is perched on the desk and he’s right in front of me.
Oh, hell no. The last time we were in this position, cock-in-pussy and hell-yes-Drake-right-there-more-please happened.
I squeeze my legs shut although the chances of him parting my legs in this skirt are questionable. Mind you, I did have a gun successfully hidden up there…
Instead of parting them, he shoves them to the side so he’s coming at me side on, but his arm around me ensures that my breasts are still planted against his chest.
“Trying,” he says in a low voice. “Cute. Real cute.”
“Sure are, ain’t ya?”
He covers my mouth for a second before lowering his hand so only his thumb is pressed against my lips. “You should know by now that, if I’m tryna seduce you, cupcake, I’m gonna fuckin’ well do it. Right now, no, I’m not, but by the looks of your pretty little red cheeks, it wouldn’t be hard. What I am doin’ is collectin’ on the debt you owe me. And you owe me a date—so a date you’re gonna give me, whether you damn well like it or not.”
“Nonna called you, didn’t she?” I groan.
“I didn’t answer.” His eyes sparkle with laughter. “But since I’ve tried to get you for two weeks and you’ve been hidin’ in your bathroom to avoid me, I figured I’d force my way in.”
“You lied to me.”
“You lied to me,” he counters.
Damn, I hate it when he’s right. I huff.
“So. That date?” He smiles.
“Really? You’re gonna barge in here all alpha and start demanding things?”
“In case it escaped your notice, sweetheart, I am an alpha, and I’m not fuckin’ afraid to take your tight little ass over my knee and prove that.”
I want to glare at him, but instead, I clench my legs together.
This better be Mother Nature messing with my hormones.
“Fine!” I snap. “As long as Detective Alpha knows he’s takin’ Ms. Alpha P.I. on a date.”
He leans in, and his grin is evident as he touches his mouth to mine. It’s a simple sweeping brush across my lips that somehow seems to send a thousand lightning bolts through my body.
“Noted, ma’am.”
“And no ma’ams. I’ll ma’am your testicles.”
“Noted, Ms. Bond,” he corrects himself, his hand curving around my hip and pulling me against him despite my legs still being to the side. “I’m off the day after tomorrow. Is that good for you?”
“Umm.” I hesitate.
He laughs, stepping back. “Call Grecia.”
Am I that predictable?
I pick my phone up, staring at him in frustration, and dial her extension again. “Am I busy the day after tomorrow?”
“You have an interview at three,” she replies.
“I have an interview at three,” I repeat.
Drake snatches the phone out of my hand and lifts it to his ear, his eyes focused on me the whole time, the icy blue cutting through me. “Ms. Bond is otherwise preoccupied on Thursday and will be indisposed all day. Please rearrange all her appointments for another day. Thank you, Grecia.” He hangs up without waiting for a response, I’m guessing.
“I… You… Did you…” I sputter, staring at him in disbelief. I’ll be “indisposed?” “Otherwise preoccupied?” What the hell is wrong with him? “Did you seriously just do that?”
Drake grabs my hands and forces me to stand, his arms easily going around me as my hands press against his chest. One of his hands finds its way from my back to my butt, and he pulls me into him there, too.
“Yes. Indisposed, all day. Completely and utterly preoccupied. You owe me a date, Noelle, and I’m collectin’ in approximately thirty-six hours.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Agreed. But I want to see if we can last more than two hours without a fight.”
“I’m going into this passionately, so that’s unlikely.”
“You mean pissed off.”
I scowl. “Passionate. I’m part Italian. I get passionate, not pissed off.”
He dips his face, grinning. “Sure. Passionate. I can think of plenty of other emotions for you to apply your ‘passionate’ to, but whatever.”
“I swear to God, I will—”
Do absolutely nothing, because he kisses me to shut me up. And fuck, he kisses me. It’s nothing more than a point-prover and a point-scorer, because it’s hard and hot and his lips move across me with such speed that I can barely comprehend where his kiss starts and mine ends.
My fingers are curled into his formerly crisp, white shirt, and his are digging into me in an almost desperate yet sinfully hot grasp that has goose-bump-filled shivers steaming across my skin until every hair is standing on end.
He releases me, leaving me gasping for air, angry, pissed, high on his formidable kiss. “Ten a.m. Thursday morning. Be ready, Noelle.”
“Like I have a choice,” I murmur as he releases me with a light tap to the ass and opens my office door. “Asshole,” I add more loudly.
He stops, turns. That smirk is back, and his eyebrow is curved upward in his amusement. “Bitch,” he counters. “Bring that on Thursday. It’s kind of hot.”
I reach for the nearest item—a hot-pink Sharpie—and launch at him seconds before he shuts the door. The loud laugh reassures me that I’ve hit him, and I allow myself a second of smugness before the silence envelopes me and reality hits.
I really have to do this—a date with Drake.
Jesus.
I need a miracle.
