Wild Man

Chapter Three Kentucky

Three months later…

I was in my kitchen when I heard the knock at the door.

My eyes went to the microwave.

Holy crap.

Martha was early. Martha was never early. In fact, I told her to be there at three because I actually needed her to be there at three thirty. Martha kept a steady schedule of being at least fifteen minutes late but had an average of being half an hour late (I’d known Martha a long time, long enough for it to happen so often I could actually calculate that average which I did) and therefore it wasn’t unheard of for her to rush in, winded and filled with excuses forty-five minutes or an hour late.

It was ten to three and I didn’t even have the cake ready.

Damn.

This meant one of two things.

Man trouble or wardrobe malfunction.

Both of these did not bode good things for both of these meant Martha would be in more than the usual Martha tizzy. And the usual Martha tizzy which was set to spinning constantly in the crazy, out-of-control life Martha lived was bad enough.

Fuck.

“I’m elbow deep in icing, honey!” I shouted toward my front door, bending back over the cake with my pastry bag. “Let yourself in, it’s open!” I finished as I continued to dot every third fluffy, white, buttercream frosting star with a point of pale yellow icing.

The door opened and I spun the cake around to get to more stars.

I was standing at the island in my kitchen, my head bent to the cake when I felt her presence hit the room but stop in the doorway.

“I’m running a bit late,” I told the cake. “Get yourself a pop or something. In fact, get me one. Cherryade. Crushed ice,” I ordered, dotting more stars at the top border of the cake then moving down to the bottom.

Martha didn’t move.

My eyes lifted to her and my mouth opened to say something but the words and my breath got clogged in my throat when I saw Jake Knox, arms crossed over his wide chest, one broad shoulder resting against the doorjamb, lean hips hitched to the side, motorcycle boot clad feet crossed at the ankles.

I said not a word and didn’t move as I took in all that was him.

Ratty-assed, faded black t-shirt with the peeling words “Charlie Daniel’s Band” over an equally peeling American flag fitting just right over his torso, a pair of mirrored shades shoved in the collar by an arm and dangling down. Jeans so faded they were their own unique shade of blue with frayed bits around the pockets and delicious worn patches at his crotch, the length of them fitting loose or snug in all the right places on his slim hips and long legs.

Unruly, dark hair about an inch longer than I remembered so it was curling low on his neck and around his ears. Below his sharp cheekbones, along his strong jaw and chin and down the column of his corded throat was, from my experience, at least three days worth of stubble.

Silvery-gray eyes pointed right at me.

Fuck.

I straightened, filled pastry bag in my hands and stared at him.

He stared back.

He did it better.

So I blinked and when I was about to say something, do something, maybe even yell something, he got there before me.

“You ready to talk now?”

I blinked again.

Then I whispered, “Sorry?”

“Talk, Tess.” His deep voice rumbled across the kitchen at me. “You promised we’d talk. I wanna know if you’re ready to do it now.”

I dropped my pastry bag filled hands to the counter and kept staring at him.

Then I asked, “Have you lost your mind?”

He ignored my question and told me, “Name’s Brock Lucas.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head as that knowledge filtered through me, knowledge I laid awake at night wondering about, knowledge that had been kept from me as I fell in love with an imposter.

“Tess, babe, eyes,” he growled. “Now.”

My eyes opened and my head came up as I felt a shaft of steel rip down my spine.

Then my eyes narrowed on his hard face as the electric feel of his mood in the room finally made it through the cocoon of surprise shrouding me and sparked against my skin.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” he bit off. “I was angry with you, seein’ as I fucked my woman for the first fuckin’

time, she made me a promise when my cum was still inside her and then just hours later she reneged on that promise. Now I’m here ‘cause there’s a goddamned for sale sign planted in your front lawn and I walk in here and see you lookin’ like this so, gotta say, babe, I’m not angry. I’m fuckin’ pissed. ”

Did he…?

Did he…?

Did he just fucking say what I thought he just fucking said?

“Sorry?” I whispered again but this whisper was different.

He didn’t repeat himself. Instead he asked, “Where are your glasses?”

“What?”

“Your glasses, Tess. Where the fuck are your glasses? You never decorate a goddamned cake without your glasses.”

“I got contacts,” I snapped.

His head tipped back and he clipped to the ceiling, “Jesus,” before I saw his jaw get hard.

Why in the hell were we talking about my glasses?

I didn’t care. Nope. I didn’t.

I only cared about one thing.

“Get out,” I ordered, his chin tipped down and his eyes locked with mine.

“No.”

I felt my eyebrows go up. “No?”

“Yeah, Tess, no.”

“You have,” I told him. “You have lost your mind.”

He ignored me again and asked, “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“What am I wearing?”

“Yeah, babe, what the fuck are you wearing?”

I looked down at my t-shirt and jeans then I looked back at him.

“T-shirt and jeans…” I hesitated then spat, “Brock. ”

“No one calls me Brock, they call me Slim.”

I blinked and something about that took me right out of our current scenario and into la-la land.

Therefore, I breathed, “What?”

He pushed away from the doorjamb while speaking. “No one calls me Brock. Mom, Dad, brother, sisters, friends, since I was a kid called me Slim.”

“You’re not slim,” I told him although he was lean he wasn’t what I’d call slim.

“No, I’m not and I wasn’t when I was a baby seein’ as I was over ten pounds when I was born. It was a joke ‘cause I was a big kid. My family’s screwy that way.”

Whoa. He was over ten pounds when he was born? That was one huge kid.

He was tall, at least six one, maybe six two. And muscled. He wasn’t slim at all, his body was built of lean, compacted muscle that had some bulk to it, sure, but I wouldn’t call him huge.

Since babies didn’t come out muscled, I wondered if he wasn’t a big baby but a long one.

It hit me then he’d rounded the island and was getting close and I stopped thinking about his weight as a baby and his current size and started retreating at the same time I came out of la-la land and back into our current scenario.

“I want you to leave,” I stated firmly.

“Yeah,” he replied, still coming at me and I hit the side counter as he kept coming and talking. “I get that but clue in, Tess, I ain’t leavin’.”

Then he was right there. So right there I could feel his heat and I had to tip my head way back to look up at him seeing as I was barefoot and not six foot one or two but five foot six.

“Please leave,” I stated a far bit less firmly.

He leaned in settling his hands on the counter on either side of me and I lifted my hands (and the pastry bag) between us.

He also again ignored me. “You didn’t call.”

I stared into his angry eyes. “I didn’t call?”

He glared at me with his angry eyes. “No, babe, you didn’t call.”

“I didn’t call,” I whispered, my heart, already beating fast, started to pound.

“Three months,” he declared but said no more.

I stared into his glittering, silver eyes.

Then I lost my ever lovin’ mind.

“Are you nuts? ” I shrieked.

“Tess –”

“Fuck you!” I shouted and pushed at him with my pastry bag filled hands, a thin stream of pale yellow icing shot out onto the floor beside us as well as on his Charlie Daniels tee and then I found the bag not in my hands and watched him twist his torso and toss it on the island next to the cake and twist back to me. That was when I put my hands on the hard wall of his chest, shoved and repeated on a shout, “Fuck you!”

He rocked back a couple of inches then moved right back in, his face got into my face and he growled, “Fuckin’ listen to me.”

“No!” I yelled. “No way. No fucking way. You used me.”

“It’s my job,” he ground out.

“Do you think I give a shit?” I asked.

“Maybe if you’d calm the fuck down and listen for a goddamned minute you’d understand why I do think you should fuckin’ give a shit.”

“I can assure you, Brock Lucas, that nothing you can say will make me understand why I should give a shit,” I informed him.

“Your ex, Tess, that motherfucker needed to be taken down. That motherfucker is serious bad news.”

My body went completely still at his words and I held his eyes as my next words trembled.

“I know that, Brock. I know.”

And it was then I watched with rapt attention as his eyes immediately melted quicksilver and his hands moved from the counter to my head, palms at the base of my neck, fingers in my hair and his face dipped an inch away from mine.

Then he whispered a ragged, tortured, “Baby,” and that one word cut through me like a jagged knife.

Oh God.

He knew.

Of course he knew.

Of course.

Of course, of course, of course.

That thing tight in my belly uncurled, filling me up, slinking up my throat and this time it wasn’t filled with the paralyzing poison of fear or despair. It was something else.

Panic.

I tried to tear away but Brock held on, one hand still at my head, the other arm sliced around my back, he shuffled me down the counter and pressed me into the corner.

With no way to escape, I held my body tight, hands pressed against his chest and kept my eyes glued to his throat as I whispered, “Let me go and get out.”

“No one knows that shit happened to you, do they?” he asked softly.

“Let me go and get out.”

“You haven’t told any of your girls.”

Eyes firm on his throat, I demanded, “Let me go, Brock, and get out.”

“Kept that shit buried deep,” he murmured.

My eyes lifted to his and I screeched, “Let me go and get out! ”

His arm around my back tightened and his hand shifted so his fingers were still in my hair but his thumb swept over my cheekbone.

“I was the first you let in there, wasn’t I, baby?”

Oh God.

“Let me go and get out,” I whimpered.

“Tess,” he whispered.

I fell silent.

“You need to let that shit out,” he advised and my gaze slid to his earlobe. “Eyes,” he ordered and my gaze slid back.

I still didn’t speak.

He held my eyes.

Then he said softly, “I held back takin’ us there, Tess, I didn’t want us to go there until the shit with Heller was done and you were cleared and we were good to move on. But your goddamned glasses and that cute fuckin’ look you’d get on your face every time I kissed you that made you look like you just experienced a fuckin’ miracle, shit.” His hand tensed on my head. “Shit, baby, you got to me and I couldn’t hold back.” His thumb swept my cheekbone, his eyes went from warm to hot and his voice went deep when he told me something but he said it like he was talking to himself, “That look gets way fuckin’ better after you come.”

“Please let me go and get out,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “It’s the job and it’s a shit part of the job and I’ll tell you, Tess, I knew he violated you, no way I’d have played you. No way, Tess.” His voice got lower and his face got closer when he said, “You gotta believe that, babe. I wouldn’t have played you if I’d known.”

“But you did,” I said quietly.

His hand tensed on my head. “I didn’t know.”

“You still did it.” I leaned into the counter, pulling back my head. “I didn’t play you. I never played a single game with you. But you played me from start to finish.”

His hand tensed on my head again as his eyes started glittering. “That’s not true, Tess, and you fuckin’ know it.”

“You’re right, Brock. Earlier with what you said, you’re right. You’re the first person I let in there and when I did, I didn’t even know your fucking name.”

“That fuckin’ guy had to go down,” he growled.

“Yes, he did but it doesn’t warm my heart to think the first man I trusted with my time and attention after a very, very bad marriage was with me only to investigate my possible criminal relationship with my definite criminal ex-husband.”

“It started like that, yeah, it did and that lasted about a goddamned hour. You cannot stand there lookin’ in my eyes and tell me you don’t know the fuckin’ second it stopped bein’ that because, you do, you’re a goddamned liar.”

He was not wrong. I knew. I knew the exact second. I’d lain in bed at night thinking about that too.

Therefore, I didn’t respond.

He kept speaking. “I had a job to do and we wanted a clean sweep. I knew you weren’t gonna be swept up in that but I also knew they had to make certain so I had to make them certain before they hauled your ass in and you finished them off.”

“So you’re saying you did what you did to protect me?”

“No, I’m sayin’ I did my job, you weren’t dirty, no need to protect you. And I’m sayin’ for four fuckin’ months I liked my job a whole fuck of a lot.”

That took my breath away. So much so, I couldn’t speak.

Brock didn’t have the same problem. “You didn’t have my name, Tess, but all that time you had me and you know it.”

I looked back at his throat.

“Baby, eyes, ” he growled and my eyes lifted to his.

“Why are you here?” I asked quietly and he sighed.

Then he asked back impatiently, “Honest to God?”

“What do you want from this talk?” I pushed.

He shook his head but as he stared at me I saw his eyes light and felt the sharp flickering voltage of his mood shift out of the room as the sweet hum that came with his humor started pulsing through it.

“How many conversations do you think I have with women I corner against a counter, hold in my fuckin’ arms and do it with icing all over my favorite fuckin’ tee?” he asked.

Oh God.

I had to move this away from Brock being sexy and amused back to Brock being out of my life somehow so I did the best I could do.

“I don’t know. Turns out, I don’t know you very well.”

He held my eyes and replied, “Well, lettin’ you in a little more, the answer to that question is none. A bitch throws attitude at me, shouts in my face and gets icing on my Charlie Daniels tee, that bitch isn’t you, I walk out the door.”

“I’m not fond of being referred to as a bitch,” I snapped.

His face dipped close and I saw his eyes were now full on lit with his amusement. “And right now, darlin’, you’re just holdin’ on to hold on and we both know it.”

Damn. He was right.

I held his eyes.

Then I tried a different tactic.

“I can’t do this now. I’ve got a cake to finish decorating, I need to change my shirt because now that icing is on me and I have a baby shower to get to,” I informed him and his lips tipped up as his hand at my head became fingers that slid through my hair then it moved down and around so he was holding me in both arms.

Damn, I missed this. He could be sweet, a lot. When he got in a good mood it was the best, the best ever. And he could be touchy, a lot. He held me, he held me close, he held me loose, he held me while he laughed, he held me while I laughed, he held me while he kissed me and he held me just because.

And I missed it.

Damn.

“When’re you gonna be home?” he asked.

“Later,” I answered.

“When later?” he pressed.

“Later, later,” I evaded.

His arms gave me a squeeze and he said low, “Tess.”

Crap.

“I don’t know. Later. Seven? Eight?”

“I’ll be back at nine,” he declared.

Damn.

“Why don’t we make a date to meet for coffee?” I suggested.

“Maybe because I’m not stupid?”

Damn!

I was totally going to bail on coffee and he knew it.

He kept speaking. “But right now you’re gonna tell me why you put your house on the market.”

“I need a change,” I told him.

“Yeah,” his arms gave me a squeeze, “I see this. You’ve shifted ten pounds that looked better when it was on your ass and tits. You’re in a tee and jeans and not your fancy-ass clothes and heels. You lost the glasses and got contacts. The only thing I like, babe, is the hair. Looks good longer and lighter.”

He liked my hair.

I tried not to let that make me feel tingly but it ended up more like me pretending I didn’t feel the tingles that made me feel.

“Brock, seriously, can we talk about this later?”

“Where you movin’?” he asked telling me that no, we couldn’t talk about it later.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I lied and the pulsing hum of his humor and good mood went flat as his eyes narrowed.

“Christ, Tess, did the three months you spent lickin’ your fuckin’ wounds erase the four months we spent together so you don’t remember you can’t pull shit over on me?”

My eyes narrowed too and then I informed him, “That was not cool.”

“No, what was not cool was you taking three fuckin’ months to lick your wounds and makin’ me haul my ass to you but we’ll talk about that tonight.”

I felt my body go stiff. “If that’s why you’re coming over tonight then don’t bother.”

“Okay, no,” he said on a low rumble. “I see this shit shook out some sass in you, babe, my Tess was sugar sweet from the minute my eyes hit her to the minute I kissed her goodnight. I know what happened was fucked and it fucked with your head so I’m willin’ to ride that with you but you gotta know now, once we clear a bump, you’re not draggin’ us back time and again so we become intimately acquainted with it. We’re over the bump, we move the fuck on. We’re agreed I’m over tonight, nine o’clock, we sort shit out we shoulda sorted out three months ago and see where we are. But right now, you’re tellin’ me where you’re movin’.”

“We didn’t agree anything, Brock. You said you were coming over. I want to have coffee.”

“Don’t shit me, Tess. You’ll bag on coffee.”

“See!” I cried. “Is this sinking in that maybe I’m trying to move on in a variety of ways including moving on from Jake Knox slash Brock Lucas?”

Way, way, way wrong thing to say.

I knew this when one of his arms got tight, the other one slanted up my back, his hand cupping the back of my head as he leaned deep into me, pressing me over the counter and his face got in mine.

“I was observing,” he snarled. “Calhoun promised he’d handle you with care and I was keepin’ an eye on him ‘cause, he didn’t, I told him I’d rip his fuckin’ throat out and I wanted to make sure, he fucked with you, I didn’t fuckin’ delay.”

My body froze except my lips, which parted, and my eyes, which I felt grow round.

Brock kept talking.

“He didn’t. He pushed and you broke and what you said when you broke, babe, I didn’t know. Calhoun didn’t know. No one fuckin’ knew. But I’ll tell you this, those four words you said I’ll never fuckin’ forget. Those four fuckin’ words soldered themselves deep in the walls of my gut in a way they’ll never be cut loose. They had to drag me outta there so I didn’t go after him or try and get to you. Then you walked away and I knew you needed that even as it pissed me off you did it and broke your promise to me when you did. But you needed it. Then you stayed away and I see now you took that time to build your wall but I don’t give a fuck.

That night, I found out my woman had been violated and for three fuckin’ months I’ve lived with that and I’m done livin’ with it and lyin’ awake wonderin’ where your head is at. I’m done, Tess. So tonight, at nine, I’m back, we’re talkin’ shit through and then we’re gonna see where we’re at. You’re clear of Heller, you don’t know dick, you aren’t a part of that investigation and we’re free and clear and we’re gonna explore that but now… now darlin’, you’re gonna tell me why you got a goddamned for sale sign in your yard when you told me you love this house so much you didn’t mind livin’ in it until you die.”

“The crash,” I found my mouth whispering and I watched him blink.

“What?” he bit out.

“During… when Agent Calhoun… when I…” I stopped and licked my lips. “There was a crash outside the interrogation room. That was you.”

“Yeah, babe, that was me throwing a chair against the wall.”

That was him throwing a chair against the wall.

That was him.

That was him.

That was him throwing a chair against the wall.

I closed my eyes and did a face plant in his chest as my body relaxed in his arms.

That was Brock throwing a chair against the wall when he heard me admit to being raped.

As this knowledge flowed through me, it did it like a warm gush of clean water wiping away years of filth.

Oh my.

“Tess,” he called as his hand at my head tensed and his arm around me gave me a squeeze.

I opened my eyes and saw tee.

“Is this really your favorite tee?” I whispered against the fabric.

I felt his body still for a brief moment before I felt his whiskers pull at my hair as he slid his jaw down the side of my head.

Then he whispered in my ear, “Yeah.”

“It’s old and ratty-assed,” I informed him.

“Exactly,” he informed me.

I closed my eyes again. Then I smiled. Then the smile faded from my lips as I opened my eyes and tilted my head back, his came up with mine and I looked into his quicksilver eyes.

“Do you want me to stop by the store and pick up some Bud on the way home from the shower?” I asked softly and the mood shifted in the room again. It got warm and heavy, sultry, sweet.

My favorite mood of his. Bar none.

Damn, I missed that too.

“Yeah, baby,” he answered softly.

“Okay,” I whispered.

He closed his eyes then he opened them and dipped his head.

Then he kissed me, light and gentle at first then warm, heavy, sultry and sweet.

My toes curled and my fingers did too, right into his ratty-assed tee at his back.

Okay, okay. Seriously.

I missed this most of all.

He lifted his head and his hand at mine shifted around to the side of my neck, taking my hair with it, his thumb moving out to catch me under the chin and keep me facing him.

“Where you movin’, darlin’?”

“Kentucky.”

He did a slow blink. Then he asked, “Kentucky?”

I shrugged.

He grinned.

Then he said quietly, “All right, baby, we’ll talk about that later too.”

“Okay,” I said quietly back.

His eyes moved over my face then his hand shifted up so his thumb could glide over my cheek then my lips then he dipped his head and put his lips where his thumb was for a brief touch then he pulled away.

“Later, babe,” he whispered.

“Later, Slim.”

That got me a full blown, striking, white smile.

My toes curled again.

Then he was gone.