This was a problem.
There was a reason I never kicked Hawk out of my bed and that was because, usually before I could speak, he was kissing me.
And he was an excellent kisser. He could do a lot of things with his hands, his mouth and other parts of his anatomy that were mind-blowing but even if he only ever kissed me it was highly likely I would be ruined for any other man.
Yes, he was that good. Really.
Therefore, when he finally lifted his head (and as humiliating as it was, he took his time and I let him), I had one arm tight around his back and one hand curled on the side of his neck both in order just to hold on. When his tongue was working my mouth, that was all I could ever do, just hold on.
“We over, Sweet Pea?” he whispered to me.
“I do not like you,” I whispered back, still holding on.
He did that deep, amused, manly chuckle again, his hand moved out of my hair and became an arm wrapped around my shoulders before both his arms tightened, bringing me even closer. “Got things to do now, the boys’ll be workin’ here but I’ll come back, take you to lunch.”
Take me to lunch? We’d never even had a date and now he was casually telling me he was going to take me to lunch?
“I can’t go to lunch. I have three deadlines and I only worked for a few hours yesterday. I have to go flat out if I’m going to make them. I’m eating lunch at my desk.”
“I’ll bring something. What do you want?”
God! What was with this guy?
“I have food in my fridge.”
“Tom Yung Goong and Pad Thai, J’s Noodles,” he said and I stared.
Two of my favorites. I had many but Tom Yung Goong soup and Pad Thai noodles from J’s were very high on the top of that long list. And I usually bought them takeout to eat at my desk when I had a marathon workday going.
Then I stopped staring and I felt my eyes get squinty.
“How do you know everything about me?”
He didn’t answer my question but it was unnecessary for him to do so since evidence was suggesting he watched me like… well, a hawk.
Instead, he asked his own question. “You didn’t sleep last night?”
“My house got broken into,” I reminded him.
“Thought you went to your Dad’s to feel safe,” he replied.
“I can feel safe and still toss and turn because I’m obsessing about watching a man’s hand push open my bedroom door at the same time worrying if I’d break my happy kitty snow globe when I had to clock him.”
His arms gave me a squeeze. “That was last night, babe, this is today. You’re good. It’s over. Get it out of your head.”
Was he high? Did he seriously think I could do that? Did he seriously think any woman could do that? I had at least twenty-five years of obsessing about last night left before I could get it out of my head.
“It’s not that easy,” I informed him.
“It’s just that easy,” he informed me.
I glared up at him.
He smiled down at me, with dimples and shit, I liked those dimples.
Time to get to work.
“I need coffee and I need to fire up my computer and get to work.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, dropped his head and before I could avoid it, he brushed his lips against mine. Then, murmuring again, he said, “Later,” let me go but leaned into me to grab his shades then he prowled to his Camaro, all badass cool, on his way tipping his chin to the commandos. Then he folded into his kickass car and purred off.
I stood by my car for awhile watching the street where I’d last seen him thinking one word.
Shit.
Then I grabbed my shades, avoided busy commandos, made my way inside, set a big pot of coffee to brew and when it was done I poured out about five mugs for various hardworking commandos.
Then, finally, I went to my office to fire up my computer.
Chapter Six
To the Rescue
I’d hit my zone and was able to focus even with a bunch of commandos banging around in my house when I suddenly felt my hair shifted off one shoulder, swept across my neck and over my other shoulder.
Then I felt lips at the skin at the back of my ear.
A delicious tremble radiated from my ear going up, down and out and my eyes on the computer screen unfocused as I came crashing headlong out of my zone and careened happily into an entirely different zone. The lips left my ear and, dazedly, I saw a brown paper bag accompanied by a white plastic bag hit the desk by my keyboard. I looked at the bottom right of my computer screen to see the time was twelve forty-seven.
Lunchtime.
I swiveled in my chair and looked up to see Hawk standing there, tearing open the folded over and stapled top of the bag.
I didn’t say anything because I was too busy freaking out because this was the subject matter of a daydream. When I said that I meant I had actually daydreamed this and now I was living it.
Okay, not the Thai food but, many a time, I’d drifted off and dreamed about what it would be like if my Mystery Man showed in the light of day, coming up to me silently while I did the dishes in the kitchen and he slid his arms around me. Or while I was in the shower and he joined me.
Or while I was working and he snuck up on me and kissed my neck.
Just like I liked in the spot that I liked.
Exactly like he’d just snuck up on me and kissed my neck.
Just like I liked in the spot that I liked.
And it was better than a daydream and not only because J’s Noodles was a welcome addition but because it was real.
Damn.
He started pulling food from the bag as I struggled to pull myself together. I saw him reveal a lidded cardboard cup of soup and another container of noodles, both of which I knew, from experience with J’s takeout, were for me. Next came chopsticks in paper and then he took out another container for him. Then he picked up the bag, dropped it on the floor and rifled through the other bag that had familiar red, orange and green logo on it. He took out a bottled water which I knew was for him when he set a can of diet grape soda by my food.
I stared at the soda. Then I looked back up at him.
“What? Do you follow me?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he answered and I felt my eyes get squinty. “Sometimes my boys do it.”
He turned away from me and went to my couch, sat down, set his water on a side table and opened the top of his food container.
“So do you have a big, fat file on me at your base?” I asked, tearing the paper off my chopsticks then picking up my soup and pulling the lid off.
“Nope,” he replied, “verbal reports. ‘She went to J’s, got soup and noodles, then to 7-Eleven for a diet grape.’ Shit like that.”
Unreal.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why?” he repeated.
“Why did you and your boys follow me?”
“Babe,” he replied then he dug into his noodles with his chopsticks as if this was nothing, him and his boys following me, sharing reports about my food and beverage preferences, intruding into my life without my knowledge. Then my eyes dropped to his food and his noodles looked like nothing but noodles and veggies. No sauce. No cashews. No peanut bits. No succulent shrimp. None of the good stuff. Nothing. Just noodles and veg.
This reminded me of the first time I saw him when we were at a restaurant. He had a steak, baked potato and steamed vegetables. I remembered noting then, somewhat drunkenly, that he didn’t have anything on his potato. Not sour cream. Not bacon bits. Not cheese. Not even butter.
“What are you eating?” I asked.
“Noodles and veg,” he pointed out the obvious then shoved some into his mouth with his chopsticks.
“Just noodles and veg?”
He chewed, swallowed and said, “Yep,” then shoved more noodles in his mouth.
“No sauce?” I pushed.
More chewing then swallowing then, “Babe, I ate like you, I’d get a gu
t. In my work, you can’t have a gut.”
I felt my blood pressure rise. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
The double dimple threat popped out and, chopsticks loaded with noodles and veg halfway to his mouth, he replied, “Sweet Pea, the way you eat means you got tits and ass. This is good because I like tits and ass. This is bad because Tack and Lawson like ‘em just as much as me.” Then he shoved his noodles and veg into his mouth and said with his mouth full, “Tack maybe more.”
Shit.
“I need to focus on work,” I announced.
He stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossed his feet at the ankles, clearly planning to stay awhile, and replied, “Then focus.”
I glared at him. This was bad since he looked good stretched out in my office like that. Tracy and I had painted the walls white but I’d had the guy at the hardware store squirt a hint of orange in the paint so the white had warmth to it. My desk was long, white, sleek, narrow and girlie. My shelves were white and likewise girlie. The narrow, square tables on each side of the couch were equally white and girlie. My couch was cushiony and salmon-colored with chartreuse and peacock blue toss pillows. I’d decorated heavily in light wicker and had white ceramic, circular, lacy shaded lamps dotting the space. It wasn’t OTT girlie, all pink and ruffled, but it was definitely feminine space.
Sitting on my couch like that, Hawk looked like an invading conqueror enjoying a meal, bulking up before expending the effort to rape and pillage. Except he wouldn’t have to rape, all the townswomen would line up for their turn.
Shit.
I swiveled to face my desk and sniffed my soup. Lemongrass. Yum. I swirled it with my chopsticks then took a sip.
Then I asked Hawk, eyes on my computer, “What’s your real name?”
“Cabe Delgado.”
He answered without hesitation and my head turned to him in surprise.
“Cabe Delgado?”
He shoved more noodles into his mouth and didn’t answer.
“What kind of name is Cabe?” I asked.
He swallowed and captured more noodles, muttering, “Who the fuck knows? Ma’s a nut.”
His Ma was a nut.
Interesting.
“Is Delgado Mexican?” I pressed.
“Puerto Rican,” he answered, again without hesitation.
“You’re Puerto Rican?”
“Look at me, babe, not full-blooded Scandinavian.”
Nope, he was definitely not that.
“Were you born in Puerto Rico?”
“Nope. Denver.”
A rare Denver native. Surprising.
I, on the other hand, was not a native. Dad had moved Meredith, Ginger and me to Denver from South Dakota when I was ten but I didn’t share this piece of information because Hawk probably already knew that.
“So your parents are Puerto Rican.”
“Dad is. Ma’s half Italian, half Cuban.”
No wonder. Puerto Rican, Italian and Cuban – the perfect ingredients for a hot, bossy, badass cocktail.
His brows went up. “Is this focus?”
Guess someone was done sharing.
I turned back to the computer, fished in my soup with my chopsticks, secured a big prawn, pulled it out and ate it.
Fresh, spicy, brilliant.
I washed the prawn down with another sip of soup. Then I tried to focus on work with Cabe “Hawk” Delgado stretched out on my couch. Unsurprisingly, I was completely unable to do this but hopefully I was successful at pretending I could.
I’d finished my soup, leaving the mysterious bits uneaten in the bottom (I loved that soup but those mysterious bits freaked me out and I never ate them), taken a sip of my grape in preparation for the next culinary delight and opened my noodles when Hawk approached my desk, bending as he moved to snatch up the discarded bag.
He shoved his container in the bag while I pretended to ignore him and he was reaching for my soup container when I heard, “Hawk.”
I twisted to see who I suspected was Hawk’s Numero Dos, the slim but cut man that Hawk was talking to outside earlier. He looked to be the same ethnic cocktail as Hawk and, even shorter and slighter, since he’d shared his name was “Smoke” and he had a scar that went from his temple into his dark hair, I figured he was probably not someone you messed with.
“Company,” he said to Hawk, his eyes not coming to me even for an instant then, like his name, poof! he vanished.
Hawk moved, dumping my soup container into the bag and the bag into my garbage bin as he went. I moved too. Putting my noodles on my desk, I followed him.
When I hit the hall, Hawk stopped suddenly and turned so I ran into his front.
I took a step back, looked up at him and before I could say anything, he asked, “Any chance I tell you to stay up here you won’t give me lip?”
“No chance at all,” I answered.
He stared at me a second then shook his head like I was intruding on his greeting company at his house rather than me walking down the stairs in my own damned house to greet my company. Then he turned and proceeded walking to the stairs.
I followed and heard him before I saw him.
Then I remembered it was Wednesday and Wednesday afternoons were Troy Days. We had a standing Wednesday afternoon appointment for coffee or beer or whatever since he had Wednesday afternoons off because he worked Saturday mornings.
Shit.
“Who are you guys?” Troy asked as I walked down the stairs. “And where’s Gwen?”
He came into my line of sight but by the time he did, Hawk had come into his line of sight and Troy was staring at him as I would guess anyone would have a tendency to stare at Hawk, Hawk being all that was Hawk. Then he jerked like he was pulling himself out of a trance and his eyes came to me.
“Gwen, honey, what’s going on? You didn’t tell me you were having work done.”
“Hey Troy,” I greeted as I came to stand several feet to the side of where Hawk was standing several feet from Troy.
Hawk, however, didn’t like this distance and I knew this when he closed it and he didn’t close it by moving to me. He closed it by leaning to me, grabbing my forearm and giving it a tug so I had no option but to teeter sideways. I slammed into him, his hand left my arm and he caught me by clamping his arm around my shoulders.
“Wednesday,” Hawk muttered when he’d accomplished this feat, his eyes on Troy. “Shit, I forgot.”
Troy stared at Hawk, then he stared at me, then he stared at Hawk and me and he did all of this with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open much like, I suspected, I looked on more than one occasion recently.
However I didn’t struggle against Hawk’s hold because I was catapulted back to yesterday when Hawk told me Troy wanted to get into my pants and therefore I was standing there, staring at Troy with his sandy blond hair and blue eyes, wearing his suit from the bank, and comparing. He was a Loan Manager. He wasn’t tall but he wasn’t short, he was, however, taller than me. He didn’t have a bad body but he wasn’t ripped by any stretch of the imagination. And he was so far from a commando it wasn’t funny.
Troy finally settled his gaze on Hawk and asked, “Who are you?”
“He’s –” I started but Hawk spoke over me.
“Hawk, Gwen’s man.”
Shit! I wished he’d quit saying that!
“Gwen’s man?” Troy whispered, now his face had paled.
Shit again!
“Troy, it’s not –” I began.
Troy’s pale face moved to me.
“You have a man?”
“Well… um –”
“Gwennie!” We all heard shouted and through the front door flew Tracy.
Troy turned to the door and all the commandos stopped dead. That happened a lot when Tracy Richmond entered a room and I was unsurprised that even commandos weren’t immune to Tracy’s charms.
This was because she looked like a model, no joke. She was tall, taller than me by two inches. She had natural blonde h
air that was long, sleek and straight as a sheet. She had dancing green eyes. She had perfect bone structure. She had a symmetrical face. She was thin with long, long legs and long, graceful, thin arms. She was not tits and ass. She was a human mannequin of the beautiful variety. Fashion designers the world over would be in throes of ecstasy, they caught sight of her. That was why any retail store in Denver hired her even though she was flighty and got bored easily so her average length of employment was around eleven months. If she told you something looked good on you, you’d visualize that you were her because you wanted to be her with every fiber of your being, you’d believe it and then you’d buy it.
“Cam called and said that Leo said that you got broken –” Tracy skidded to a halt beside Troy when her eyes caught sight of Hawk. Those eyes widened, her jaw went slack and she stared at him. Then, before I could do anything about it, she got the way wrong idea, her face lit with sheer delight and she screeched, “Ohmigod!”
Then she jumped up and down and clapped while the commandos took in the show and she tore her gaze from Hawk and grabbed my hand still jumping up and down.
“Gwennie! Hurray!” she cried.
Shit!
I took hold of her hand and squeezed firm, “Trace, it’s not what you –”
Before I could finish, she dropped my hand and looked up at Hawk. “I know you! And I knew it! Cam called me and told me you’d come over yesterday and Gwennie got broken into last night and here you are! To the rescue! Hurray!”
Shit, shit, shit!
“Trace –”
She looked at me. “I told you! Didn’t I tell you?” She looked at Hawk and informed him, “I told her, like, a bazillion times!”
“You got broken into?” This was Troy breaking into Tracy’s glee and I stopped looking at Tracy and started looking at Troy.
“Um… yeah but it wasn’t a big deal,” I lied.