Dirty Sexy Knitting (25 page)

He squeezed shut his eyes. The thing was, the almost-thirty-year-old virgin was a woman determined to make up for lost time. She wanted to do it everywhere, any way and any time that he suggested it. Not that he was complaining, but if one of them didn’t keep some control they were bound to be caught in a compromising position. The night before he’d thrown out the playful dare that she try to get him hard as he drove them both home from a grocery store run. She’d gotten that wide-eyed, dazzled-by-desire look that invariably took him under.

Next thing he knew, he was driving with one hand while the other stroked her hair as she slid her tongue along his suddenly erect flesh. “I win,” she’d whispered, then sucked the throbbing head into her wet mouth. He owed her payback for that, but damned if he would play tit for tat during business hours. All he needed was for her sisters to walk in on them. It seemed as if they already considered him just one notch above depraved.

“Gabe . . .”

He placed a finger over her lips and she sucked it inside. With a yelp, he jerked it from her greedy mouth, heat shooting down his spine and goosing his cock. “And to think you look so innocent,” he muttered. “Maybe the enforcers should be knocking on
your
doorstep.”

The dazed look in her eyes evaporated. “Enforcers? What are you talking about?”

He probably shouldn’t have said that. So he turned his back on her and applied himself to the task of putting up those shelves. “Measure twice, cut once,” he murmured, to explain why he wasn’t looking at her. Then he tossed out the really important piece of info. “I’m having a dinner party Friday night. Your sisters will be there. I hope you can make it.”

There was a heavy pause. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Creating some more storage space for you,” he answered. “I noticed this countertop was crowded and I thought I could help with that.”

She grabbed him by the back of the tool belt and yanked him around to face her.

“Hey . . .” he protested.

Cassandra stared him down, desire gone, determination sparking in her blue eyes. “What are you doing?”

He sighed. “The truth? I’m throwing a party where I plan to shut up every damn person who’s been looking at me like I’m a womanizing version of Vlad the Impaler.”

“Oh.” A little smile played around Cassandra’s enchanting mouth. “Is that why Nikki gifted me with a rope of garlic yesterday?”

“It will be silver crosses and wooden stakes next.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Christ, Cassandra, what have you been telling your sisters? Because they sent Noah and Jay over to the fish market this morning to buy cups of coffee and administer not-so-veiled threats.”

“I haven’t told them anything!”

“Yeah? Well maybe it’s Carver who sensed the way the wind was blowing the night the Tucker brothers were here. I invited him, too, by the way. I want them all to see that you’re with me of your own free will and that I’m not some kind of damn danger to you.”

“But . . . Well, first, you don’t know how to cook.”

He turned back to his toolbox. “I can buy ready-made kabobs at the deli and anything else I need. And you won’t be surprised to learn I know the location of the liquor aisle.”

Though he hadn’t felt the compulsion to drink—or forget—since Cassandra had joined him in his bed. He pawed through his tools looking for a pencil. “Now, get back to work so I can get up these shelves.”

She didn’t obey. As a matter of fact, she didn’t move and the silence between them grew long until she finally said, “I didn’t expect you to do all this for me.”

He swallowed his sigh. He wished he could say he’d do anything for her, but they both knew that would be a flat-out lie.

 

 

 

By Friday night, however, he was still determined to ease everyone’s fears. Though that didn’t mean he wasn’t above looking incompetent in the kitchen—actually, he pretty much was—so it ended up that professional chef Nikki volunteered to de-bag the salad and also jazz it up a little. Cassandra and Juliet stayed behind to keep her company while he and the men went outside with beers and salsa and chips to study the intricacies of the stainless steel barbecue sitting on the patio courtyard.

“Yo, all,” Carver Shields said, slipping out the French doors to join the male half of the party. “Sorry we’re late. I left Oomfaa gossiping in the kitchen. Nice digs.”

“Thanks,” Gabe replied, then decided to take the bull by the horns. “Later I’ll give you the tour, though it’ll cost extra to see the dungeon where I work at keeping Cassandra compliant. Thumbscrews don’t come cheap, you know.”

The three men sent a guilty look around their small circle. Gabe shook his head, refusing to take it as it hot potatoed his way. “Listen, if you think she’s unhappy—”

“She’s not unhappy,” Carver interjected. “That doesn’t mean
I’m
happy, but . . .”

“But I don’t give a shit about your feelings, Shields,” Gabe said. “And I suspect Cassandra would like you all to realize that she knows her own mind. She’s been taking care of herself for quite some time. So that’s why I don’t get how you seem so sure I’m doing something
to
her instead of
with
her.”

The men passed around another look. It was Jay who spoke this time. “Cassandra’s strong, you’re right. And so damn generous. What Nikki’s gotten out of their relationship . . . what
we’ve
gotten out of Nikki discovering a sister to love and trust . . .”

Noah stepped in. “Of course Cassandra can take care of herself. But she has more than herself to rely on now. We’re here for her and that’s part of what she went looking for when she sought out her biological siblings.”

“I know that,” Gabe said, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I’ve known her for two damn years. Longer than her sisters have known her. And I know her better than you do, Carver.” He avoided glancing at that fucking tattoo on the other man’s arm.

Though it seemed as if the drummer might have seen through that, because a grin broke over his face. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Gabe didn’t feel the least bit like smiling, because the problem was, six months ago, hell, a month ago, he would have been right with these guys in being absolutely certain he was no damn good for her.

But he wasn’t walking away now. Not yet.

He was offering her something, wasn’t he? They’d always been friends, and there was still that. But now, instead of sniping at each other to relieve the sexual tension, they had more pleasurable methods. Was that illegal? And she wasn’t complaining, was she?

Still, as intimacy with Cassandra felt so damn right, there was an edge of disquiet that kept slicing into his consciousness. Maybe it was just his usual grim temperament trying to horn in on his current contentment. Maybe it was something else.

Carver’s next question didn’t help matters. “They find those kids who started the fire at Cassandra’s?”

“No. I haven’t seen them around. Maybe they’ve moved on to prank elsewhere.”

Noah frowned. “Didn’t you have a problem at the beach house recently, Jay?”

“Yeah. Someone broke the lock on an outside door and got into the garage. Nik has a new fridge in there, locked, too, that she uses for work. That lock was jimmied, too, and she lost a bunch of expensive gourmet stuff.”

“Someone catered their own party?”

“No.” Jay shook his head. “That’s what was odd. They just left the door open and it all spoiled.”

“We had a couple of attempted break-ins when we were in Kauai,” Noah said. “The security company caught wind of them and sent a car out, but they didn’t see anything. Once Dean moved into the guesthouse, there wasn’t another problem.”

“Weird,” Carver said.

Weird, Gabe agreed, disquiet skittering down the back of his spine. He frowned, wondering if inviting the group over had been one big, bad idea. He’d decided on the party so he could ease everyone’s fears, but now the one feeling spooked, damn it all, was him.

 

 

 

If the phone call hadn’t reached Cassandra during Gabe’s party, when she was in his kitchen and surrounded by her sisters and Oomfaa, all discussing the details of her upcoming thirtieth birthday bash, she might have made different choices.

She might have found her way to confessing to Nikki and Juliet that she’d attempted contacting their biological father, Dr. Frank Tucker, and that she’d subsequently met his two adopted sons, Patrick and Reed.

She might have hurried on to say she was sorry for going behind their backs and suggested that if they still weren’t in agreement about a face-to-face with the man then she wouldn’t pursue the matter further. She would have promised to rescind that invitation she’d sent to him.

But when Gabe handed her his phone, she was unprepared for the identity of the person on the other end of the line. She was unprepared for anyone to find her at all, even though she’d used her telephone company’s service and forwarded any after-hours calls made to the Malibu & Ewe number to that of the closest landline where she could be reached. After the fire, it had seemed like a good idea, particularly since cell service in the area was so damn spotty.

But it was
him
, Dr. Frank Tucker. He was back in the States and wanted to meet her. With her sisters gazing at her with mild curiosity, she’d been swamped with guilt, leading her to a quick conversation and quick acquiescence to the man’s request so Nikki and Juliet wouldn’t discover what she’d done without their knowledge.

Then, hanging up, she was swamped by another crashing wave of shame. Because if she was honest with herself, given a do-over, she wouldn’t do anything differently. Both her sisters had been raised by men who they’d known and considered father figures. Juliet had adored her dad; Nikki not so much, but neither had quite the same gaping hole in her identity that Cassandra had sensed all her life.

So, the next morning she started a silent, early roll out of her bed, intent on getting this day, with its scheduled secret meeting, started. A large hand clamped around her wrist, leaving her with just a leg extending from the covers.

“You had a restless night,” Gabe said.

Making a face, she turned to look at him. His dark eyes were alert and he looked as handsome as a man could with dark whiskers peppering his face and a cat wrapped around his head.

As if suddenly sensing Moosewood’s presence, Gabe grimaced, and used his free hand to lift the slumbering cat. It hung in his grip, completely unconcerned about its fate as it slowly opened its ochre eyes. Gabe frowned. “I don’t like cats,” he said to Moosewood. “I especially don’t like cats who like me.”

He deposited the lump of sleepy feline onto the middle of the bed, and from there it leaped onto Gabe’s chest to circle, purring. “That’s it,” Cassandra’s lover groused. “We’re never sleeping over here again.”

Amused, she shook her head at him. After they’d cleaned up his kitchen after the party the night before, it had been his idea, after all, to come over and crawl into her bed. It was obvious to her—though unspoken—that he didn’t feel right about leaving the cats on their own every night. “What happened to my prickly, morose neighbor?” she murmured.

He’d heard her. “Now I’m your prickly, morose, horny neighbor,” he said, and yanked her over him with such speed that Moosewood was forced to leap off the bed. “Your prickly, morose, horny neighbor who stood up to your legion of fans last night and lived to tell about it.”

She wiggled against him. Maybe she should have been mad at last night’s guests for worrying she didn’t know her own mind. And would some other woman have been annoyed that her lover thought he should be the one to address it with them?

Maybe. But she loved each one of them only the more for caring that much. Even Gabe, she decided, leaning down to kiss his scratchy, whiskered chin. Not
love
love him of course, but love him in the way that you could love a neighbor and a friend who also just happened to be the guy who knew exactly how to get you off.

She wiggled more, a little ashamed of her own crude thought. But then his hand slid under her oversized T-shirt and tickled her ribs on the way to covering her breast. She sucked in a breath as he thumbed her hardening nipple and when she told him what she wanted to do next, she decided his grin made it clear that a little crude was A-okay.

Afterward, he brushed her hair off her face. “What’s up for today, Froot Loop?”

Smiling, she closed her eyes, enjoying the casual intimacy of the moment.

“Froot Loop?” Gabe kissed her nose.

She smiled at that, too, because it was such a sweet gesture, and for two years she’d seen Gabe in dozens of moods: desperate, grim, detached, drunk, but never sweet. Never until they’d come together in bed had she ever thought he had sweet in him.

“Hmm?” she asked.

“I want you to be careful, okay?”

Her eyes flew open. Did he know . . . had he guessed? She’d decided not to tell even Gabe about her scheduled meeting. He’d probably understand, but this was her decision, her need to fulfill. Her father.

She swallowed. “Careful about what?”

“Nothing in particular. Just . . . keep your eyes open.”

It was an easy promise to make. Keeping her eyes open, learning what and all she could about the man who’d fathered her was her prime goal of the day.

 

 

 

There was a small café on the premises of the medical building that housed Dr. Frank Tucker’s plastic surgery offices. He’d suggested they meet there, and because she’d been eager to get off the phone and eager to put no obstacle in the way of finally coming face-to-face with him, she’d agreed.

It was early, before his office hours, and the parking lot was nearly empty. As she pushed her way through the glass door and saw the seated figure of a tall, silver-haired man, her stomach jittered and her hands felt too empty. She should have brought her knitting, she thought. Or maybe Gabe after all.