Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (38 page)

I had known whatever had happened, the history and bad blood between Tate and Wood was big.

Now I knew it wasn’t big. Whatever it was was colossal.

I wanted to go to him, stretch out beside him, hold him close in my arms and watch television, not in a loverly way, in a way I sensed he needed.

But that would be bad.

So I turned and walked to Tate’s room.

Chapter Seventeen

What Do You See?

My body jolted awake when I heard the loud bang on the window, a sound like the strong, angry crack of knuckles.

“
Bitch! Get out here!
”

After the shrieking female’s words, the bang came again and I sat up in Tate’s bed, holding the covers to my naked chest, looking toward the window and staring in shock at a ghostly face framed with a mass of dark hair staring into the window.

She lifted a fist and banged again, so hard it was a wonder her hand didn’t go through the glass. My body jumped with the sound.

“
I said, get the fuck out here!
” she screeched.

The outside light went on and she was illuminated.

I’d never seen her up close and her face was twisted with fury, making her not at all attractive. Even so, I knew when it untwisted, she’d be a knockout.

“Yeah,” she shouted, “I see you, bitch!”

It dawned on me Tate needed curtains. Badly.

“Jesus Christ, Neeta, what the fuck?” I heard Wood’s angry clip.

Neeta’s head twisted to the side, it jolted with surprise and then she glared.

Then she screamed, “
Traitor!
”

“Get away from Laurie’s goddamned window,” Wood ordered.

“Fuck you!” Neeta shouted back.

I sat there immobile, shocked at what was happening and unable to move considering she could see me and, as Tate had demanded, I was buck naked between his new, high thread count sheets.

“What’s the matter with you?” Wood asked loudly, with anger and frustration clear in his tone. “Honest to God, Neeta, I wanna know.”

“And what’s the matter with you?” she shot back. “Honest to God, Wood, I wanna know,” she mocked, threw out an arm and her knuckles cracked alarmingly against the window also making equally alarming clinking noises because she was wearing rings. “I thought she was yours.”

“Get away from her goddamned window!” Wood shouted.

“Just like you,” she snarled. “got no fuckin’ balls. Never had any fuckin’
balls.
Word is, Tate nailed her
right under your nose.
”

This wasn’t exactly true. This also pissed me off.

Not thinking, I left the bed, dragging the sheet with me. I wrapped it around me, rushed to the dresser, pulled open the second drawer down, grabbed the first t-shirt of Tate’s on top (one I’d laundered, folded and replaced just that day), yanked it out and then pulled it over my head at the same time I clutched the sheet to me. Once I got it on, I dropped the sheet, hurried to the closet, pawed through my open suitcase on the floor, grabbed some panties and yanked them on. Then I dashed out of the room.

Buster was close at my heels. She’d been sleeping with me and now she was sticking with me. This was probably because there was more shouting, more hurling of abuse and a fair amount of obscenities coming from outside and I guessed Buster probably had met Neeta but I figured Buster wasn’t a big fan of shouting and obscenities and I knew she wasn’t a big fan of having her sleep disturbed.

I hit the sliding glass door, which was open, slid through it and tugged it closed, using my foot gentle on Buster to keep her back so she wouldn’t get out. I turned to the left and saw Wood was dragging a fighting, hissing Neeta by her upper arm down the deck toward the end where her convertible was parked, top down.

Of course. Neeta drove through the night with the top down.

Neeta saw me, jerked free of Wood and came at me, launching herself my way with such velocity, she nearly bent double when Wood’s arm wrapped around her stomach, halting her progress.

She yanked up her torso, her eyes slashed the length of me and she threatened, “I’ll rip that shirt off you, you fuckin’ bitch.”

My eyes went the length of her too. Another very short mini-skirt. Another tight tank. A pair of flip flops. Full makeup even though it was the wee hours of the morning, dawn only a promise.

Taking her in, standing on Tate’s deck, facing off against the Dread Neeta, for some reason I was completely composed. I’d never been in a catfight and would have been glad never to get in one in my life. But at that moment I didn’t care. It was likely she could kick my ass but maybe I could get a few licks in and I was kind of looking forward to it.

“What did I do to you?” I asked her.

She struggled against her brother’s hold, eyes fixed to me. “Take it off right now or I’ll rip it off,” she hissed.

“I don’t even know you,” I informed her.

“Laurie, get inside,” Wood ordered, his other arm wrapping around Neeta’s chest and he was dragging her back.

Neeta threw out a hand and grabbed the railing, successfully stopping Wood from retreating.

“You know me,” she snapped.

“I’ve never met you,” I pointed out the obvious.

“You live in Carnal, you
know me
,” she repeated. “You also know you’re tryin’ to take what’s
mine.
”

“He isn’t yours,” I stated calmly.

“He’s mine,” she shot back and threw out an arm indicating the house. “This house is mine.” She jabbed a finger at me. “That shirt is mine.” She strained against Wood’s hold and her eyes got squinty. “His
cock
is mine. He’s… fuckin’…
mine
.”

I looked to Wood and told him, “She needs medication.”

“
Fuck you!
” she shrieked, let go of the railing and struggled against Wood’s grip.

“You can’t really believe you can behave like this and think you’re going to scare me away. I know about you and I also know Tate wants not one thing to do with you,” I declared.

She stopped struggling and looked me straight in the eye.

“Yeah?” she asked. “He tell you that?”

“Yes, he did,” I answered.

“That’s what he says, bitch, then I whisper in his ear and open my legs and he likes the smell, the taste, and he’s right back in there.”

“Maybe so,” I replied. “But that was before me and he told me I was the best he ever had. He also told me, after two decades of you leaving nothing but bitter in his mouth, I was a sweet the like he never tasted.”

I was making some of that up but I thought the situation merited it.

At my words, she quieted in her brother’s arms. I watched her stare at me for a second then, when she had no response, I kept going.

“He admitted you were under his skin. He admitted he loved you. But he told me I’m under his skin now, he’s worked you out. Or, the way it sounds, you treated him so poorly you worked your own way out.” I shook my head and said quietly, “Stupid, honey, you should have done everything to stay where you were. I’m there now and, you have to know, it’s a good place to be.”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” she whispered, the words shaking with fury.

I ignored her.

“So, this house isn’t mine and this shirt isn’t mine, they’re Tate’s, but
he’s
mine.”

“
Shut your fuckin’ mouth,
” she screeched and started struggling against Wood’s hold again but we all heard the roar of the pipes and saw the headlight shine on the house.

I turned and watched Tate ride up the drive and park beside the convertible. There were lots of outside lights shining on the deck, the drive, the area around the garage and he was illuminated fully but he moved so quickly I didn’t see him swing off the bike and walk to the deck. It was just that he was suddenly there.

Wood and Neeta had separated but Wood had only moved a few feet away from her. They were facing each other but both of their heads were turned to Tate.

Tate stood there and he wasn’t that close to me but I still felt that scary energy sparking as his angry eyes took in the scene.

“Familiar,” I heard him mutter, “you two standin’ between me and somethin’ I want.”

I felt a chill enter my bloodstream.

“Send her away,” Neeta demanded in a way that it sounded like all she had to do was make the demand and it would be hers.

Tate shook his head. “I’ll ask once. Get in your car and go. You don’t, Neeta, you can stand out here shoutin’ the house down for a month and I won’t hear you. You won’t exist. Fuck, woman, you already don’t.”

“I exist,” she spat.

“Nope,” Tate replied.

“Right,” she drawled, leaning back and crossing her arms on her chest. “Baby, I roll my tongue around the tip of your cock, you’ll remember I exist.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that,” Tate returned. “Though, since, I’ve had a woman who knows how to use her mouth and doesn’t forget to check her fuckin’ teeth.”

Quick as a flash, she leaned forward and planted her hands on her hips.

“You love my teeth!” she hurled at him.

“Told you once, told you a million times, Neet, no man likes a woman’s teeth scrapin’ his dick. Christ, agony, somethin’ you’re good at dishin’ out in a variety of ways.”

“You never complained,” she retorted.

“I did, woman, you just never listened,” Tate fired back. “Gotta say, never knew what it’d be like to tag a piece I didn’t have to give instruction. And, damn babe, trust me, it’s fuckin’…
sweet
.”

She stopped speaking and I bit my lip, wondering how I felt about being referred to as “a piece” that Tate had “tagged” considering I was guessing he meant me.

Neeta changed tactics and when she did, the deck rocked under my feet.

“You fuck with me, you
never
see Jonas again.”

She barely got out the word “again” when Tate took four swift, long, angry strides, all of them right at her.

Her face visibly paling, she retreated on an angle at the last minute but Tate kept bearing down on her until he had her pinned against the railing, his body in her space, the line of it outright hostile. She stared up at him, mouth wide, eyes huge, body braced, she was staggered.

I watched this frozen with morbid fascination.

She’d fucked up his life but he’d never done that before.

Never.

He bent his neck so his face was in hers.

“Warning,” he growled. “You use my boy against me, Neeta, I swear to God, you’ll regret it.”

His boy?

I felt the blood drain from my own face and my head got light.

“And,” Tate went on, “I see you within hearing distance of Laurie, I’ll fuck with your life so much you’ll wish you lived on the goddamned moon.”

Neeta recovered and her back went straight.

“I got the papers, Tate, and you can tell your lawyers to go fuck themselves. After this shit, Jonas no longer exists for you.”

“He’s here next weekend or I swear to Christ –”

“You’re a joke!” she cut him off. “Do you think that any judge is gonna give custody of a ten year old kid to a bounty hunter who’s home two days a month?”

Oh my God.

Tate had a son. Tate and Neeta shared a child. And Tate was going for custody of his son.

“I got shit goin’ down in my life. I needed to be in my truck, on the trail of a murderer at the same time not seein’ to that shit and hemorrhaging more money seein’ as I was workin’ that on my own time and my own fuckin’ dime like I needed a fuckin’ hole in my head. You were a distraction.”

Here it was.

This was the shit going down in his life. This had something to do with why that night in the hotel, that night the day before he met me, was the night it finally ended between these two.

Jonas. Tate’s ten year old boy. A son he never, not once, mentioned.

A son, it was likely Neeta was right, no judge would give to a bounty hunter who was home two days a month.

Unless he had someone in his home to help out. Say, a high-class, good girl who was smart, worked hard and grew up on a farm. A woman he ran into the day after whatever happened, happened.

I took a step back and noticed Wood make a slight movement. My eyes slid to him and I saw he wasn’t watching Tate and Neeta. He was watching me and he was doing it closely.

“Right,” Tate bit out and my gaze went back to him. “And do you think any judge is gonna think that what I can give him here isn’t better than stayin’ with
you
, a woman with a record and a husband with no fuckin’ job who drinks himself sick every night? You promised you’d leave that fuckwad and get my boy outta that mess you call a home. You didn’t. I told you, you didn’t, I’d get him out. And, make no mistake, Neeta,” he got closer to her face, “I’ll stop at fuckin’
nothin’
to get Jonas out.”

“I’ll fight you ‘til I’m dead, Tate,” she retorted then her eyes slid to me as her arm lifted and she pointed at me. “No way I’m gonna let your whore raise my kid.”

Tate’s hand shot out and his fingers wrapped around her wrist, twisting it behind her back as she emitted a small cry. I did too just because I was surprised at the vicious way he handled her. But Tate didn’t hesitate. He stepped back, turned, moving her with him and pushed her off. She went back two feet and righted herself.

“Perfect, Tate, thanks,” she snapped acidly. “Got witnesses to
that
tender act from my kid’s Dad.”

“Get in your car and go,” Tate clipped, holding his body completely still.

“You carry on like this, with her, we’ll be free and clear for Blake to adopt the kid and you’ll never see him again,” she threatened.

“Get in your car and go,” Tate repeated.

She ignored him. “I’ll parade all your trash for the court.” Her eyes came to me. “You aren’t the first, darlin’, and, trust me, you won’t be the last.”

“Go,” Tate growled, “now.”

She looked at Tate and hissed, “Trash.”

“Yeah,” he replied, still growling. “I’ve fucked trash. Gotta tell you, Neet, after all those years fuckin’ you, you cannot imagine how good it feels to thrust my cock into somethin’ sweet and clean.”