Dakota Cassidy - Talking After Midnight

Em snapped her fingers under his nose, the clicking interfering with what was going on in Marybell’s office. “Taggart Hawthorne, where are you?”

He blinked to refocus, catching Em’s confused gaze. Tag let his head hang low to show appropriate shame. Em had given him work he damn well needed, and he was too busy hunting Marybell like prey to pay attention. “Sorry, Em. Just distracted. Won’t happen again.”

Em’s finger rose in lecture pose just as he heard another noise coming from Marybell’s office, blotting out everything else.

Her office window. He’d know the sound of a latch snapping unhinged on a window from a hundred paces.

Oh, the hell she’d escape him this time. That thought made him spring into action. He swooped down and grabbed his toolbox, skirting around an annoyed Em with a grin of apology. “Entryway. I’m on it.”

* * *

She fell into a thorny bush just outside the window of her office, catching her nose ring on the brittle end of one of the limbs before dropping into the mulch surrounding it with a grunt she tried to muffle.

Her shaking fingers reached up to attempt to untwist the small hoop when she heard an amused “Good thing I brought my chain saw. I’m happy to help. Just say the word, and I’ll rev her up. Vroom-vroom.”

Surely there was no one looking out for her up there. Hadn’t she just expressly prayed for the umpteenth time in the past week, to whoever was in charge, to allow her an easy escape? Or had she been slacking off? She’d lost count of the times she’d sent skyward the pleading wish to avoid Taggart Hawthorne.

Knock-knock, is anyone home?

Would he ever be done with whatever it was he was doing and go away? What kind of contractor was he if it took him this long to do what Em had labeled “minor repairs”?

The sheer terror she’d fought all week long while Tag banged around outside her office door rose in her throat like cream to the top of a cup of coffee.

But you have the “people shield” on, Marybell. Relax.

How could she relax when her entire life was a lie? Seeing Tag confirmed that, drove that point home as sure as he was the hammer and she was the nail.

Since she’d recovered from the flu, and reasoned her fears away without the influence of cold medication, she’d taken a deep breath about the situation with Tag and had decided avoiding him was better all around.

There was no reason why she couldn’t do it, she’d told herself. Even though she and Em were friends, and there’d be occasions when she’d have no choice but to mingle with him, it didn’t have to be difficult if she didn’t make it difficult.

Except Tag had made it difficult, probably without even realizing he had. First, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him and his tea, which tasted awful. But the gesture still made her heart quicken and soften.

Second, it wasn’t just his awful tea lingering in her house. Tag’s rugged sexy had hung around long after he was gone, and she couldn’t shake it. Every time she thought she had her lusty thoughts contained, the fantasies of his calloused hands on her flesh, sweeping along her skin to part her thighs, reared their ugly heads in the way of an erotic dream or seven—if she kept count.

She’d spent hours wondering what his lips tasted like—felt like. Was he a sloppy kisser, his tongue doing that awkward slap at hers? Or was he an expert with a tongue like the god of sex and sin?

Since Em had told them all he’d be doing some work around the office, she’d been on pins and needles, avoiding him at every turn while he breezed in and out of Call Girls. Not just because he might somehow recognize her even with her “people shield” in place, but because just the sound of his voice beyond her door made her knees weak.

“Marybell?’ Tag rustled his way into the bush, sitting on his haunches and leaning over to bring his face into her line of vision.

It was such a great face. Almost classically handsome, but not quite. Angled, defined, rough. That was the word that came to mind every time she thought about him.

His sharp jaw caught the light of the half-moon, his eyes, heavily fringed with black lashes, full of playful amusement. “Here, let me,” he offered deep and delicious, lifting that calloused hand to her nose, the one she’d spent a ridiculous amount of time recalling.

Swallowing her hysteria, Marybell protested, raising a finger to ward him off. It was trembling, but she waved it for all it was worth, anyway. “No, no. I’ve got this.”

Tag grinned, infuriatingly wide, deepening his boyish dimples, that were a stark contradiction to the rest of his face. “You’re pretty hooked on that limb. One move the wrong way and you’re gonna lose a nostril.”

She attempted to twist her finger up under the hoop to no avail. “Nostrils are overrated. I can always breathe through my mouth.”

His hand went to her nose, anyway, shooing hers out of the way. “You should always have backup,” he teased, far too gravelly and sex-on-a-stick-ish for her panic’s comfort. With easy fingers, Tag plucked the limb from her nose ring and grinned again with his success.

Free from the limb, Marybell scrambled to her feet, cursing her clunky work boots when she tripped over the cement Buddha statue Sanjeev, Dixie’s friend and house manager, insisted each of the Call Girls have beneath their office windows.

Tag’s hands, strong, so incredibly solid, went to either side of her waist, settling there to right her. An unfamiliar thrill shot straight to places Marybell was unused to having thrills.

She flattened a palm against his chest to protest—a chest like a hard wall of granite. This would be so much easier if his chest was more on par with something mushy—say a bowlful of Jell-O maybe. Yet the firm surface of muscle through the wall of his thermal shirt set her palm on fire.

Tag’s breathing picked up, shooting a stream of condensation from his hard line of a mouth, slicing the chilly night air. Had that hitch in his breath happened because of her hand? She marveled at the notion.

No. It couldn’t be. Marybell dismissed the thought entirely. She was a sex-starved fool. That’s what she was. There was no siren in her, no unique song she sang that brought droves of men to flounder at her feet as they did at gorgeous Dixie’s.

She wasn’t carved-in-stone pretty. She was gothic and dark with a touch of glam to motivate her to continue this charade she’d long since outgrown.

Then Tag’s skin was touching hers, his long fingers, as calloused as she’d remembered them, snaked around her wrist in a loose hold. “You have nice hands,” he commented clear as day. “Interesting color choice for nail polish.” He inspected her fingers one by one, holding them so close to his lips Marybell shivered.

“You don’t like gunmetal with gold flecks?” she croaked, acutely aware this hard, rough man was sucking her into his blatantly sexy aura.

“Oh, no. I like gunmetal, but I really love gold flecks,” he teased. “I like the green and red in your hair, too. I also like that you still have a nostril because of me. It evens out your face. Why don’t you thank me for saving it over dinner?”

Marybell’s breathing became rapid and choppy similar to the function of her brain. “It’s ten o’ clock. Too late for dinner.” No, no, no. No dinner. No tea. No contact.

But he doesn’t recognize me...

And we’re going to keep it that way. How do you feel about losing everything plus putting the people you love in a circus of media?

While she battled internally, they had somehow become pressed impossibly close together. His breath on her face, warm and minty. His thighs touching hers—thick and insanely hard. His scent—so Tag, clean, spicy. Tag’s everything mingled with her everything.