Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (32 page)

“Mm,” I mumbled.

“Never had better,” he muttered in my ear, my head jerked from his and twisted so I could look at him.

“Never?” I whispered.

“Nope,” he answered, his arm curving more fully around me, he pulled me to my side and into his body. “Woman detonates like that for man, fuck, Ace.” His mouth touched mine before he pulled away. “That’s how I know you didn’t give it to that asshole the way you give it me. You did, no way in hell he’d ever…”

He stopped speaking, his head came up and it tilted.

“No way he’d ever what?” I prompted.

Tate’s chin jerked and his eyes narrowed.

I wasn’t paying much attention to what Tate was doing. I was intent. I wanted an answer because that answer was important. Almost as important as me finding out he’d never had better, not with Neeta, not with anyone.

“Tate, no way he’d ever what?”

“Shit,” he clipped suddenly and rolled off the bed. “Stay there,” he ordered as he grabbed his jeans and started dragging them on and I sat up, holding the sheet to my chest. “Don’t move, I’ll be back.”

“What?” I asked, looking around the room. “Tate –”

But he was exiting the room still buttoning his jeans.

“What on earth?” I asked the door he’d shut behind him.

I sat there, staring at the door and wondering what just happened.

Then I heard the voices. Tate had company. He must have heard them approach the house. I’d only been to his house once, I didn’t know the noises and I was focused on what he was saying. I hadn’t heard a thing.

Then I heard the voices get louder, they were male, one Tate’s and one…

Then I heard Wood shout, “
You are fuckin’
shitting
me!
”

Then I heard a loud crash.

Without thinking, I threw the sheet back and jumped from the bed. As alarming noises came from the living room, I searched frantically for anything to cover me. I grabbed Tate’s t-shirt and pulled it on. I found my undies and stepped into them, hopping, skipping and running while I tugged them up on my way to the door.

I ran down the hall (three bedrooms, one bath, Tate’s room had a master bath, none of which I’d had time to explore) and hit the living room to see Tate and Wood locked in mortal combat and the living room had been turned into a warzone.

Until that moment, I had never in my life seen two men fighting, not even pansy-assed ones.

But neither Tate nor Wood were pansy-assed and neither of them, from my unpracticed eye, were holding back.

There were grunts of effort and there was blood.

“
Stop it!
” I shrieked, Tate connected with Wood’s jaw and blood flew from his cut lip, turning my stomach with nausea at the same time my lungs froze. I sucked in oxygen and repeated a screeched, “
Stop!
” when Wood connected with Tate’s bared ribs, Tate’s body jerking from the blow.

Again without thinking, I ran into the fray just as Wood swung wide, Tate ducked and Wood’s blow landed on my temple.

I saw stars, the pain radiated throughout my skull and I fell straight to my hands and knees on the floor. My head was swimming so much, I had to go down to my forearms and I rested my head on the back of my hands which were palms down on the floor.

“Laurie,” I heard Wood say from far away, his voice barely penetrating the fog which formed around the acute pain.

“Get her ice,” Tate ordered.

“Baby –” Wood said gently.

“Ice!” Tate bit out.

Then there was a hand on my back and I felt fingers pulling my hair away from my face, sweeping it across my neck.

“Ace,” Tate called.

I didn’t answer, I was busy blinking.

“Babe, sit up,” Tate demanded quietly.

“Um…” I mumbled just to be nice and let him know I was alive.

“Laurie, baby, do me a favor and sit up,” Tate insisted.

I pulled in breath and sat up, settling my behind on my calves as my left hand went up to cradle my temple.

I saw Tate’s face in mine.

“Take your hand away.”

“Um…” I mumbled again, confused even though the fog was lifting and the pain was dulling.

“Laurie, I gotta see.”

I dropped my hand. His came to my cheek and carefully tilted my head to the side. His hand slid up and his thumb probed my temple gently.

I winced at his touch because it darn well hurt. Outside of the pain, all I could think was that those two taking repeated blows with that kind of power behind them and staying standing was a fucking
miracle.

“Ice,” I heard Wood say and I tilted my head back and blinked at him.

He looked both concerned and pissed. His lip was cut and still bleeding. There was redness around his cheekbone. He’d have a shiner the next day.

“Can you get to your feet?” Tate asked and my eyes turned to him.

He was crouched beside me. There were droplets of blood leaking from his nose into his beard. Other than that, he looked okay.

“Yeah,” I whispered and got to my feet with Tate’s hand at my arm and hip supporting me.

I got up and stood steady. Then I took in a deep breath.

Tate turned to Wood, tagged the ice from his hand and then came back to me, lifting it and pressing it gently to my temple.

“Laurie,” Wood called, my eyes went to him and my mind snapped to sharp focus.

“You didn’t tell me she was sick,” I whispered, my hand going up to take over the ice from Tate. His hand let mine hold the ice, he moved to my side and slid an arm around my waist.

“Lauren, I –” Wood started.

“You what?” I interrupted, still whispering. “You didn’t give me the full story, Wood.”

“Baby, there’s a reason.”

“Really?” I asked. “I spent ten years with a man who kept things from me, Wood. I’m not going to start something with another man who’d do the same.”

Wood’s arms crossed on his chest, the gentleness went out of his face and he jerked his head to Tate. “
He
tell you everything?”

“We haven’t had
time
,” I reminded him. “My father being sick, Tate needing to work. You haven’t told me everything either and you and me, Wood, we had
time
.”

And we did. Me having dinner with him, sharing my breaks with him including my dinner breaks, necking on my bed. We’d had time.

I’d felt like a heel the last three weeks because I was a nice person and I found it hard to live with what I did to Wood. It hadn’t occurred to me that what he did, with him knowing what it meant for me to be on the back of Tate’s bike, wasn’t nice either.

“I’m sorry it happened this way,” I told him, still being nice. “I wish it didn’t.”

“I do too,” he agreed instantly and walked straight away as I blinked at him, shocked by his sudden departure. I thought he’d get angry or at least have something to say like “Sorry I acted like a Neanderthal, fighting with Tate in his living room, and punched you in the head.”

My body moved to watch him and Tate’s moved with mine.

Wood stopped at the still open sliding glass door and turned, his eyes leveling on me.

“You don’t burden a good woman with that shit, baby. You find out, you’ll know. You get a shot at her, you hook her deep,
then
you lay that shit on her,” Wood stated and I felt my lungs freeze again but he wasn’t done. He jerked his head at Tate and went on, “He’ll tell you shit about me, if he hasn’t already. And all of it’s true. But none of it was true with you.”

Then he disappeared into the night not even bothering to close the door.

I stood staring into the darkness even as I heard his bike roar. Tate let me go and walked to the door, sliding it closed.

When he turned and started back to me, my eyes went to his.

“What was he talking about?” I asked.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Tate replied.

“Tate,” I said when he stopped in front of me.

“Bed, babe,” he repeated. “You need to lie down and I need to clean up.”

I didn’t know what to do in this situation. I was losing patience with Tate being so cagey. He’d just had a no-holds-barred fight in his living room with my kind of ex-boyfriend, a man whose picture was on the wall in Tate’s house, a man who used to be his friend, a man whose sister used to be under his skin. Now neither was true and Tate wasn’t talking about it, wasn’t sharing with me. And I’d told myself not to be a shrew, I’d made the decision I didn’t want to fuck this up.

How on earth did I proceed?

“You just fought with Wood in your living room,” I told him cautiously.

He came to my side and slid an arm along my waist, propelling me forward.

“Long time comin’,” he muttered.

“That wasn’t about me,” I stated and Tate stopped us both at the mouth to the hall.

I looked up at him and held my breath at the fury I saw stamped into his features.

“Yeah, Lauren,” he said and it sounded like a snarl, “it’s all about you.”

I braved the snarl and asked quietly, “How can that be? I haven’t been around long enough for something like that to be a long time coming.”

“You need to lie down,” Tate reiterated and I could tell it was straining his patience to do so.

“Tate –”

Tate pulled in breath on a hiss and I stopped speaking.

“Put it together, Lauren, at least part of it,” he demanded, definitely with strained patience.

“Sorry?” I asked, definitely with confusion.

“In my life, three women have been on the back of my bike. One was his sister, who fucked up my life. One was his ex, who fucked up my life. Now it’s you, who’s been in his bed.”

All of that didn’t pull together for me in any way mostly because, just like with Wood, I had the bones but none of the meat.

“Tate –”

“Babe, Christ,” he clipped. “You just took a power punch to the fuckin’ temple. I got blood leakin’ outta my nose. Can we talk about this goddamned
later?
”

No strained patience now, he’d lost it. I could read it in the line of his body and in his face.

Even so, even though this was frightening, that scary energy emanating from Tate directed at me, I wanted to tell him we couldn’t talk about it later. I wanted to tell him we were definitely going to talk about it
now.

But something stopped me and instead I whispered, “Okay, Captain.”

Chapter Fourteen

Your Own Brand of Trouble

“And all of it’s true. But none of it was true with you.”

My eyes opened and I stared at the dark pillowcase.

I was in Tate’s bed with Tate but he was far away. I could feel Buster’s little body weighing the covers down between us.

We hadn’t slept together very often but every time we’d done it either Tate held me close or I snuggled into his back.

Not that night.

After our exchange, he’d led me to the bed, made me get in it and ordered me to keep the ice on as long as I could. This was difficult since it was getting really cold but also I was uncomfortable because Tate still seemed really angry.

I’d lain there, holding the ice to my head while Tate cleaned up in the bathroom. Buster kept Tate company in the bathroom until he came out and then he left the bedroom without a word, Buster prancing after him. I heard Tate righting furniture and Buster came back, obviously not a big fan of hanging around while Tate was righting furniture. Buster leaped on the bed and curled up with me, I gave her scratches, saw the lights go out in the hall and Tate came back.

He took off his jeans and climbed into his side of the bed. He turned out the light and didn’t move to me, touch me or speak to me. He settled on his back with one arm behind his head, Buster abandoned me, walked over my belly and curled up against Tate.

He took his hand from behind his head and started rubbing Buster.

Then he said in a low, menacing voice, “I tell you to stay where you are and not to move, Ace, next time, do what I fuckin’ say.”

I blinked in the dark, my eyelids the only things that moved. The rest of my body was statue still.

There was a lot there I didn’t like. Firstly, Tate again telling me what to do and expecting me to do it, even when he was in a fistfight in his living room! Secondly, the intimation that my getting hit was my fault because I didn’t do what he told me to do when I was breaking up a fistfight in his living room! Lastly, Tate was again
telling me what to do
and he was clearly infuriated I didn’t do it.

If I had my car, I would have gotten up, gotten dressed and gone right to it.

Fuck that and fuck him!

I was better off at the hotel. It was below average but Ned and Betty never told me what to do
and
they had a pool.

But I was stuck in a house in the hills. It was night, it was dark and I had no way home.

So instead, I got out of bed and walked to his bathroom, dumped the dripping ice into his sink, rinsed and wrung out the kitchen towel Wood had put the ice in and hung it on a towel rail. Then I went back to bed and got in on my side, turned so my back was to Tate and closed my eyes.

He didn’t say another word and neither did I. He fell asleep way before me and still didn’t roll into me or reach out to me.

Apparently Tatum Jackson could be angry even in his sleep.

I eventually fell asleep and woke twice while words he’d said drifted through my head. I was able to get to sleep both times but this time, with Wood’s words floating through, words I didn’t understand but words I knew somewhere deep meant something huge, I knew I wouldn’t.

I tried, adjusting my position to my back, then my belly, then my other side and finally a combo of side and belly.

Nothing doing.

Instead of waking Tate with my fidgeting, I carefully got out of the bed and just as carefully walked through his bedroom, down the hall and into the living room. I went straight to the couch, stretched my legs out, pulled the blanket there over me but I twisted my upper body toward the window. I crossed my arms on the back of the couch, put my chin on them and looked out the window.

The moonlight made the trees and terraced plants silver.