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  I blinked up at him stupidly as he moved even closer to me. I wasn’t prepared for the way his very innocent question threw me headfirst into a place I rarely visited since my father had died. I inhaled a sharp breath and winced at the way it made my nostrils flare. “It was actually my mother’s maiden name—Abigail Sayer. I think passing it on to me the way she did was a small way for her to keep a part of herself alive after my father took over her whole life.” I never talked about my mom. It was too hard, and all those things I tried so hard not to feel threatened to overwhelm me when I thought about her.

  His eyes narrowed a little bit as he considered me thoughtfully for a second. “I know your dad passed away not too long ago, but you’ve never mentioned your mom. Is she still around?”

  This was the last thing I wanted to be talking about, but considering I knew each and every single thing about him and the mistakes that had shaped him, I figured I could give him a brief glimpse into the train wreck that was my own past. I shifted my weight on my feet and let my eyes drift to the worn floorboards under the soles of my tennis shoes. “My mom died when I was a teenager. She committed suicide.” She left. Abandoned me knowing good and well the kind of monster she was leaving me with. A monster she had loved up until her dying breath. A bastard she had begged for love and affection until it killed her. To this day the memories still burned and the image of her blue, unmoving, and so obviously dead in the bath where I found her was etched forever into my mind. It never went anywhere, holding on to me just as tightly as the way my father had chastised me for crying hysterically at her funeral. I was making a scene and it was undignified. He was already mortified at the disgrace my mother had caused him by taking her own life, he wouldn’t abide by his child embarrassing him further. He told me to stop crying, so I did—forever. Instead of questioning how he handled me, or my mother’s passing, I had clear recollections of everyone at the funeral, friends and family telling my father how proud they were of him for handling the death so stoically and how impressed they were with how well behaved I was. I was conditioned and trained to be that way.

  “Shit. I’m so sorry.” He took a few steps closer and I lifted my head to meet his intense gaze.

  “It’s okay. I mean, it’s obviously not okay, but I deal with it and now I have Rowdy and Salem—and Poppy was an added bonus, so it kind of makes up for all that I lost back then.” It did and it didn’t, but I couldn’t really dig into all of that with him. That would be like rolling over and showing him my soft underbelly and I was already way too exposed where this dynamic man was concerned.

  He didn’t look like he believed me, but he didn’t push. Instead he walked over to one of the windows in the room and picked up a plain white bag off the ledge. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that it was in his hands I couldn’t miss a heavenly and obviously greasy and bad-for-you smell coming from within.

  “I was so behind today I didn’t get lunch, so I figured I would grab some brats from Home Depot while I was there getting the primer. I picked you up one if you’re hungry and not scared of hot-dog-cart food. There’s also some beer and a few sodas in the cooler in the kitchen.”

  I’d never had hot-dog-cart food before, so I didn’t know if I was scared of it or not. Again it was not something pre–Denver Sayer even had on her radar. Whatever he had in that bag smelled better than any five-star dinner I had ever eaten, so I held out my hand and he plopped a warm, silver-wrapped concoction into it. He motioned to another white bucket and I gingerly sat down while unwrapping my food. Immediately sauerkraut and mustard slopped down on my lap, making me swear and causing Zeb to laugh at me. I narrowed my eyes at him but was surprised that his amusement at my expense didn’t make me immediately freeze up. I asked around a mouthful of food, “How come you don’t drive your cool truck during the week?”

  Both his eyebrows shot up and I had to wait while he finished chewing to answer me. “My cool truck? The International? I know about a hundred sixteen-year-old boys that would disagree with you about the Jeep not being cool. Especially here in Colorado.”

  I shrugged a little and gave up trying to be delicate with the messy sausage. I was sure I had yellow all over my face, but I didn’t care. The Brat was delicious. Seattle Sayer had no idea what gloriousness she had been missing hidden in a hot dog cart.

  “I like the old truck. It’s pretty and it’s so neat to see something like that restored and well loved.”

  “I do love it. That’s why I don’t drive it to jobsites. Too many nails and other stuff getting carelessly tossed around. I try and baby her.”

  I made a face. “The truck is a her?”

  He laughed again and cleanly polished off the rest of his brat. I was amazed he did it all without getting anything on his face fuzz. That was real talent right there, I thought begrudgingly as I continued to make a mess all over myself.

  “Sure. She’s classy, elegant, made of sturdy stuff, expensive as hell to keep running and keep pretty. She’s only good to me if I’m good to her, so obviously she’s a girl.”

  I rolled my eyes and then wiped my hands on the outside of my pants when I finished off my own dinner. Briefly I thought my dad would be horrified at the action but I shoved that thought down and instead focused on Zeb and only Zeb, “How long did it take you to restore her?”

  He shrugged, got to his feet, and moved to pry open the massive bucket of white primer he had been using as a chair. “My buddy Wheeler sold the body to me for next to nothing when I got out of prison. We went to high school together and I think he knew I needed something to keep me busy because the only kind of work I could find right after being released was shit work for shit pay. Every week I would give him a few bucks here or there and he would find me a part or a piece of the motor and we slowly but surely got her all together. It was one of the reasons I knew I had to find a long-term way to support myself. Just because I had a record didn’t mean I wasn’t a valuable employee or a hard worker. I got really sick of being treated like a second-class citizen because of one mistake.”

  His eyes cut to mine and all I could do was nod in sympathy as he poured the liquid into trays and fished a couple of roller brushes out of a plastic bag.

  “I actually met Rowdy through Wheeler. He had done a bunch of Wheeler’s tattoo work, and when I told Wheeler I wanted something to remind me not to do stupid things that would cost me years of my life again, he recommended Rowdy and the Marked shop. Rowdy was the one that recommended me to the guys that own the tattoo shop when they decided to open and renovate the new location downtown. It all seemed very meant to be, ya know?”

  I did know. Everything was tied together with thin threads of fate, and when one loosened or tightened it was surprising how impactful it could be. Kind of like how I had ended up here with Zeb now.

  He motioned me over to the wall and showed me how to roll the primer onto the surface in a wide W pattern and then how to go back and fill in the spots. I must have looked as clueless as I felt because he was patient and calm while he went over his careful instructions with me a second time. After I felt like I got the hang of it all, I asked him, “So what tattoo did Rowdy give you to remind you to think first and act second?”

  He held an arm out and pointed with the roller to a broken hourglass that covered the entirety of his forearm and hand, all the sand pouring out of it and falling into bricks that built up a wall that circled his wrist all in a seamless flow. He flipped his arm over and showed me the tipped-over birdcage on the back of his hand and the swarm of black crows that were lined up on a barren tree all inked in black on the opposite side. “All kinds of reminders of how hard it is to be locked up while life moves on for everyone else without you. He did a great job.”

  I nodded and turned my attention back to the wall. “He’s very talented. I’m proud of him. I think it’s amazing that he found a way to make a living off of something he really loves. It’s amazing the way he gets to leave his mark on people for the better.”

&nbs
p; He made a soft noise. “It must run in the family.”

  That was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me, and if he wasn’t careful I was going to drop the roller and jump him. I muttered a soft thank-you but refused to take my attention off the task at hand. My resolve was already paper-thin . . . throw in his kindness and it became nonexistent.

  We spent the next hour or so in silence steadily working our way across one wall and onto the next. The repetitive motion and the sound of the roller across the wall was surprisingly soothing, as was whatever music was coming from Zeb’s phone. It wasn’t quite country and not quite rock, but something that was the best of something in-between, and I really liked it. We worked mostly in silence, just muttering a question here or there, and then there was the point where Zeb asked me if I cared if he took his shirt off. It was hotter than hell in the old house with no working air-conditioning even if it was late fall, so of course I told him it wouldn’t bother me. I was lying.

  It bothered me . . . in the best way possible.

  When he crossed his arms and peeled the cotton of his shirt over the seemingly endless amount of rippling muscles that adorned his chest and stomach, it made my mouth go dry. It felt like he was moving in slow motion, revealing more skin, more ink, inch by inch just so he could tease me with hints of his work-hewed body. I wanted to lick my lips and then lick him but that would let him know I was watching like a greedy voyeur. He was hard and colorful everywhere. I was having a hell of a time keeping my gaze off of all that decorated and defined muscle, so eventually I gave up and kept checking him out whenever he wasn’t looking in my direction.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the wings of the big firebird he had inked across his rib cage flex and move as he worked toward the top of the wall. I was also trying not to watch the way the pinup girl seductively sitting on a hammer taunted me with the words “hit it hard” every time his massive biceps flexed. There was ink and color everywhere on him and I wanted to soak every single inch of it in. I was so absorbed in trying to covertly check him out instead of what I should be doing that I missed that spot where I thought I had left the paint tray and ended up tripping over the stupid thing, which, of course, made a huge mess and had white primer oozing all over me and the floor. To make matters worse, the noise startled me so much that I lost my grip on the roller, which went flying like a weapon where it ended up hitting that pinup girl on his arm right in her smug face.

  “Oh my God! Zeb, I’m so sorry.” I immediately got to my knees and tried to keep the spill from leaking off the tarp he had laid down before I got there. “I didn’t want to make more work for you. This is a disaster.”

  “Sayer . . .”

  “I mean, seriously, who does that? Ugh . . . I’m not normally such a klutz.” I wasn’t listening to him, but I heard him say my name again. My hands were covered in white and so were my clothes. The stuff was everywhere and I realized I was making a bigger mess than I had started out with. It was his fault for being so . . . distracting, and sexy, and masculine, and simply perfect in all his rugged glory . . . Gah, of course I couldn’t focus on what I was supposed to be doing and had made a mess.

  I felt a heavy hand fall on my shoulder and I looked up at him in exasperation. He was grinning at me and I forgot whatever I was going to say when he reached down and swiped a finger down my nose. It came back covered in white. “You have paint everywhere.”

  I groaned and got to my feet, looking down at my paint-covered hands. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. The room is almost done and it was just an accident. The floors haven’t been laid yet, so even if you did get some primer on the subfloor it’s not a big deal. Okay?”

  I didn’t really believe him, but I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I lifted my shoulders and let them fall uselessly. “Okay.”

  He took a step closer to me and put his finger under my chin so that I had no choice but to look at that darkening green gaze. “You know what is a big deal?”

  Without thinking I put my wet hand on the center of his chest and watched as my handprint covered the place where his heart was thudding heavy and strong. He felt so vital and real, like everything I had had my hands on before him was just make-believe.

  “What?” My voice came out more of a whisper than anything else.

  “We hung out, I bought you dinner, we talked about our families and shit. We shared. This was a date, Sayer. Maybe not the best first date ever but it was still a date, so you know what that means.”

  I did? I was still trying to get my head around the fact that it really had been kind of a date when his head lowered toward mine and my lips tickled as his beard got close enough to brush against them.

  “It means we went on a date, so now you should absolutely put your hands on my dick . . . a lot. My gentlemanly tendencies only reach so far and with you they have about reached the end of the line.”

  I gulped a little. “Oh.” That sounded like so many different kinds of dangerous and delicious. I never asked him to be a gentleman, and frankly one of the reasons I was so attracted to him was because he seemed so rugged and untamed by the conventions I was used to and bored to death by.

  “Yeah, oh . . . which I fully intend to make you say over and over again while I’m as deep inside of you as I can get.”

  When his mouth settled over mine, it was an entirely different mess I was suddenly worried about. There was going to be no cleaning up the wreckage that was going to be left of my heart and body when this man was done with me and that felt entirely like a great big deal even though I was helpless to stop it. It was one mess I intended to embrace and not apologize for even if that went against everything I had ingrained deep down within the very core of me.

  CHAPTER 8

  Zeb

  The primer splattered all over the tarp on the floor was a minor catastrophe compared to the tragedy I saw brewing in Sayer’s eyes. I wasn’t going to give her time to think about what I was doing, about what we were doing.

  I also wasn’t going to give the nagging voice in the back of my head that told me that I needed to finesse her, needed to handle her with kid gloves, the chance to get louder than the blood roaring in my ears.

  When her back hit the wall and some of the wet primer smudged away with the impact, it became crystal clear why I had ordered the wrong color for the walls in the first place. The bright, blinding blue on them peeking back at me over her head matched perfectly the ocean-colored gaze that was locked on mine and filled with a thousand questions.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It didn’t matter how pressing, or how complicated the other stuff in my life was at the moment, Sayer occupied most of my waking and sleeping hours. The way she frosted over like an ice storm, and then thawed out like a warm spring day the moment I touched her, tore at me. I was caught up in the tempest of this woman and I was in no hurry to get myself free of her.

  After my first visit with Hyde, she’d created an obvious emotional distance between us, and as frustrated as that made me, I really wasn’t sure how to broach the subject without seeming like my priorities were all screwed up. I wanted my son more than anything. The need to have him with me, to be the one to care for him, was bordering on obsessive, but that didn’t make the want and the need I had for her any less. I wanted them both and I wasn’t sure how to go about telling her that without seeming greedy, so I let her drift off like a storm cloud. I let her put on her professional mask that seemed shatterproof, and I told myself I could tackle my attraction to the pretty lawyer after I had my kid in my home, where he belonged. I didn’t like it, but we had been dancing around one another for months and months now, so I figured a little more time and patience wouldn’t kill me. I was wrong.

  We were covered in paint, but Sayer didn’t protest. Instead she kissed me back and tunneled her fingers in the shaggy hair at the back of my neck, for sure leaving a trail of white paint all over me, while I continued to eat at her mouth and pressed my bare
chest into hers. The thin cotton of her top did little to keep the points of her lush breasts from rubbing across my skin, and I knew that even though she deserved a four-poster bed and silk sheets, she was about to get rough and raw up against a wall. I had told her we could do better, but now I wasn’t so sure, because as she whimpered into my mouth as I started to pull on the edge of her top, I couldn’t remember anything ever being more amazing or all-consuming than even this simple touch with her.

  I wasn’t nearly as covered in the white primer as she was. I had the drying spot on my arm where she hit me with the roller and a few spots on the back of my hands and across my chest where she had touched me, so I was careful when I started to pull her top off not to get any more of the stuff on me. I wanted to touch her—everywhere—and that meant I needed to keep my hands as clean as possible.

  When I pulled back from her hungry mouth our eyes locked as the stretchy and tight material cleared the top of her blond head. I sucked in a breath because she was so pretty and perfect she almost didn’t seem real. Girls like her, with wide blue eyes, a perfect pink blush, skin softer than a flower petal, and a set of breasts topped with the sweetest, perkiest pink nipples weren’t for guys like me . . . at least not normally. She was even more flawless seminaked, ruffled up, and flushed than she was in her power suits with her professional cloak firmly in place. I was careful not to break delicate things that I knew would cost a fortune to replace. I knew just how to handle them . . . and how to handle her if the way she moaned and pulled at me with impatient hands was any indication.

  I grinned at her as her fingers tightened in my hair. I bent my head so that I could nip at the curve of her jaw and lifted my hands so that I could brush the pads of my thumbs over the crest of both straining tips. “Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to taste these the last time I was this close to you? I bet they’re as sweet as they look.”