Tickle His Fancy: Trident Security Book 6 (Trident Security Series) (9 page)

She hesitated, thinking it over, but when the corners of her
mouth began to turn upward into a smile, he knew it was a done deal. Leaning
over, he placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. “That’ll have to do for now, but
later, I’m going to kiss your lips for as long as you’ll let me.”

Turning on his heel, he left her gaping at him as he
sauntered out the door. Over his shoulder, he added, “See you at six,
Fancy-girl.”

Biting her bottom lip, Fancy trailed behind Brody as he led
the way to the front door of his house. She was so nervous about tonight but
also excited. The more she got to know the man, the brighter her world was
becoming, and, damn it, it was about time. Existing under a shroud of grief
over the loss of her husband was expected, but after three years, she was ready
to return to the land of the living. Patrick wouldn’t want her to be alone, mourning
him for the rest of her life, and now that she’d met someone who made her laugh
and smile so often, she didn’t want to be alone anymore either.

After Brody had left earlier, she’d begun to look forward to
this evening in earnest. She’d checked to be sure her staff had everything
under control, then made a beeline to the gourmet grocery store up the street.
While a little more expensive than her usual supermarket, she found the quality
of meat and other fresh food was worth the extra cost. She’d picked out two
juicy T-bone steaks, baking potatoes, fresh asparagus, and a beef seasoning rub
the butcher had recommended, along with the fixings for a salad. Then she’d
returned to the bakery and set about making a strawberry shortcake. Now, Brody
was carrying the bags from the store while she had the box with their dessert
in it. He’d begged for a peek when he’d seen the large, white, cardboard box,
but she’d told him he’d have to wait until after dinner for the surprise.

She’d followed him in her car to his house, which was located
in a nice, quiet neighborhood. The landscaping was well-maintained, and it
reminded her of the house she and Patrick had owned. Shaking her head, she
brought her mind back to the present. As Brody unlocked the front door, she
said, “Your house is beautiful. Have you lived here long?”

He pushed the door open and indicated with a tilt of his head
that she should go in before him. “About a year and a half now. Angie owns the
white house next door. When I first moved in, she was living there, and that’s
how she and Ian met.”

“Sounds like it was meant to be.”

Chuckling, he headed toward the large eat-in kitchen. “A
little divine intervention,
huh
? Well, despite a few bumps in the road,
in the beginning, Boss-man has definitely met his match. When Ang moved in with
him, she rented the house to a young couple with four-year-old twin girls.
They’re too cute—they call me
Mista Brophy
.” She laughed as he set the
bags on a granite covered island. “Now, what can I do to help?”

“
Um
. . .well, first, do you have an outdoor
grill or am I using the broiler?”

His eyebrows shot up. “I’m a guy. What do you think? I’ll go
light the grill.” He pointed to a drawer next to the stove. “Aluminum foil is
in there for the potatoes, and pots and pans are below that for however you’re
preparing the asparagus. I’ll be right back.”

As he passed through the large family room, she watched him
through the half wall cut-out separating it from the kitchen. He grabbed the TV
remote and turned on one of the music channels. Tim McGraw’s voice filled the
air. When he opened the sliding door to the patio, Fancy glanced around and
began opening drawers and cabinets looking for bowls, plates, utensils, and
anything else she needed to prepare their dinner. Brody returned moments later
and after washing the cucumbers and tomatoes she’d brought, he pulled out a
cutting board, then grabbed a knife and start slicing them.

They worked in comfortable silence for a bit, then he
suddenly smacked his forehead. “I’m sorry. Here you are slaving over dinner,
and I didn’t even offer you something to drink. Forgive me?”

She smiled at him. “Nothing to forgive. I'm all right.”

“I’ve got beer, wine, soda, sweet iced tea, and water. What
can I get you, Fancy-girl?”

Needing something to calm the butterflies which suddenly took
flight in her stomach at his endearment, she answered, “Wine would be great. A
red if you have it.”

“Is Merlot okay?”

Nodding, she rubbed the spices into the steaks. “Perfect.
Thanks.”

He set about selecting a bottle from a nearby wine rack and
opened it with a corkscrew before pouring two glasses. Fancy was surprised,
expecting him to have a beer or something else. At her curious expression, he
chuckled. “Yes, I like the occasional glass of wine. I do have a few refined
moments every now and then.” He placed her wine in front of her. “So, tell me
about Patrick. How did you two meet? I think you said something about him
working at your aunt’s bakery.”

Stunned, she gaped at him. “You-you want to know about my
husband? Why?”

Reaching over, he grabbed her hand, ignoring the fact her
fingers were covered in the rub, and pulled it closer to him. His thumb brushed
the skin of her wrist a few times. “Darlin’, I want to know everything about
you. Patrick was a huge part of your life, and your relationship and his death
helped mold you into the woman you are today. The woman I am very attracted to.
If you don’t want to talk about him right now, I’ll understand, but don’t
not
talk about him because you think it would bother me, because it won’t.”

He’d just wormed his way further into her heart with that
little speech. There were very few people to whom she could talk to about
Patrick and her loss. Her friends from back then didn’t know what to say to her
after she’d emerged from her coma, only to be plunged into a state of grief
that had resulted in her being hospitalized again. She’d lost touch with most
of them since then. And his parents wouldn’t talk to anyone about the loss of
their son. Her family didn’t bring him up either, and several of them,
including her cousin Kerry, had been pushing her to move on since a few months
after the accident. Corey, Aunt Denise, and Fancy’s best friend Suzanne, who
lived in Ohio, were the only three people who still talked about Patrick.
Everyone else had let him fade away into oblivion as if he’d never existed.

She gently tugged her hand from his grasp. Taking a sip of
her wine, she swallowed the sweet and pleasant liquid. He had exquisite taste
in wine, she thought. “Okay. . .
um
. . .well, yes, we
met at my aunt’s bakery. He was going to the community college for business administration,
and I was there for my liberal arts degree, but we’d never run into each other
before we started working together. He and Corey were the only two children
their parents had, and they were devastated when they lost him.”

“Understandable. Where did you go on your first date?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, but his expression told her he
was really interested in hearing all about Patrick. “A movie. The
Rocky
Horror Picture Show
to be exact.”

“‘Time Warp’ fans. Awesome. I love practically everything Tim
Curry was ever in, but
Rocky Horror
was his best.”

“I agree.” A grin spread across her face. “It was a midnight showing,
and we brought all the props with us. You know, newspapers, water pistols,
rice, toilet paper, the works.”

He laughed. “Oh, yeah. I remember all that. In high school,
my friends and I must have seen that movie a dozen times our senior year. We
brought everything too.”

Grabbing the potatoes she’d wrapped in foil and pierced with
a fork, he said, “Hold that thought. Let me throw these on the grill since
they’ll take a while.”

While waiting for him to return, she washed the rub from her
hands and realized everything else was set for when the steaks went on. The
asparagus she’d cleaned was ready to be seared in a splash of olive oil and
garlic in a pan on the stove. The salad was all prepared, too, so she picked up
both glasses of wine and strolled out to the family room just as Brody was
coming back in the sliding door. “Everything else was ready, so I thought we
could sit while the potatoes are cooking.”

“That’s fine. It’s too muggy outside to be comfortable tonight
so we can eat in the dining room instead. It doesn’t get much use with just me
in the house.”

Handing him his glass, she sat at one end of the brown
leather couch and got comfortable as he sat in the middle, turning his body to
face her. Martina McBride’s sultry voice came over the speakers. “So tell me
about Texas. I hear it’s hot and flat.”

“Definitely hot and flat, but aside from the occasional
tornadoes, it was a great place to grow up.”

“Do your brothers and sisters still live there or have they
scattered around?” She couldn’t imagine growing up with five siblings under one
roof.

Brody took a sip of his wine, then placed the glass on the
coffee table. “They’re all still in the same vicinity, within forty minutes of
each other. My oldest brother Brett was the only other one of us to leave at
all. He served in the Marines for four years and is now a cop in Dallas, but
lives in the suburbs near our folks. Everyone else went to college nearby and
stuck close to home.”

“You never thought about moving back there?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. But I love my job
and the family I have at Trident, too. I visit Texas several times a year, so
it’s kind of like having the best of both worlds. What about you? Ever think
about moving back to Ohio?”

“Not really.” Fancy shook her head. “A lot of my friends from
back then have moved on, and there’s not much for me up there besides my aunt.
I think if Corey weren't down here, I would have considered it after Patrick
died. But I love my shop and the people who work for me, and I love being close
to the Gulf and the beach. I kind of feel like I was always supposed to be a Floridian,
who just happened to grow up in Ohio.”

“Yeah, that’s something a lot of people down here say if they
grew up somewhere else. My buddy Marco is like that, having grown up on Staten
Island.” He paused and seemed to weigh his next words. “What,
uh
—what
happened that day? When you—?”

“The day Patrick was killed?”

His eyes filled with compassion as he nodded. Suddenly Fancy
felt a strength she hadn’t felt in a long time with someone. She couldn’t deny
her attraction to him any longer, and if they were going to date, then he had
the right to know about what she’d gone through. “We—” She cleared her throat.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be with him. We had been talking about starting a bakery
but hadn’t done it yet, figuring it would be a few more years before we could
afford to try it. Patrick was working in the sponsorship department of WRBQ
radio station, and I had a job in the cafeteria at St. Joseph’s Children’s
Hospital.”

“Making desserts?”

She grinned. “Yes. My cartoon character cookies were a big
hit there.”

“I’m sure. By the way, Marco’s daughter, Mara, loves the PAW
Patrol cartoon. Can you make any of those characters for her?”

“Absolutely—I’ll do some next time I make them—I’ll even send
some for your little fan club next door.” He chuckled, and she took another sip
of wine. “Anyway. Like I started to say, I wasn’t even supposed to be in the
car with Patrick that morning, but my car wouldn’t start—I’d left the interior
light on all night by accident, and the battery was dead the next morning.
Patrick was running late, and it was faster for him to drop me off near the
hospital instead of trying to jump the battery. The last thing I remember, we
were getting off the exit to the hospital. Then everything is blank until I
woke up in the ICU six weeks later. I never had the courage to look at the
pictures or video of the accident Corey told me were online, but from what I
know, the brakes failed, and we went through a red light. A truck T-boned us on
the driver’s side and. . .and Patrick was. . .”

She hadn’t realized she’d started crying until a sob escaped
her and Brody cupped her cheeks in his big hands, brushing away her tears with
his thumbs. “It’s okay, sweetness. Come here.”

He pulled her into his strong embrace and held her as she
cried. There was more she needed to tell him, but she couldn’t right now—it was
too much. This was the first time she’d ever told the story to someone who she
hadn’t known back when it happened. Her head rested on his shoulder as his
hands rubbed up and down her back. He was murmuring words of reassurance and
understanding. When her sobs eased, he pulled back so he could see her face,
and her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“
Shhh.
It’s fine. I think you needed that.”

She nodded. She had needed that. It had been a long time
since she’d relived what she knew had happened the morning her world had shattered.
“Still. This wasn’t what you expected when you asked me out.”

Grinning, he wiped the last of the tears from her face.
“You’ll find I’m an easygoing guy, Fancy. I go with the flow. I don’t freak out
when a woman cries. I just hold her until she’s done, and then do what I can to
make her smile again.”

And a little bit more of Fancy’s heart opened to him.

* * *

Agony wrenched Heather awake. Tied face down on the mattress,
her body was on fire from head to toe, but all she had the strength to do was moan.
It didn’t matter, though, because the ball gag was back in her mouth preventing
her from screaming in pain. But she’d screamed earlier—
for
him
,
the bastard.

He’d tied her to a St. Andrew’s cross on the other side of
the windowless concrete room and then taken a bullwhip to her body. She’d never
experienced it before—it was on her hard limits—but she’d seen Whip Masters and
Doms at the clubs wield them with expertise, which made the whips sing. They
never broke a submissive’s skin. She’d even seen
him
whip a sub
before—but never like this. She couldn’t see her back, torso, or legs, but her
arms bore the same slash marks she knew covered the rest of her. Dark blood
still oozed from the deep lashes. She didn’t think there was an inch of her
body that hadn’t been licked by the leather implement from Hell.