Page 21 of Temptress

I shook myself out of my melancholy and focused on the here and now, on catching up with a good friend.

“I feel you, brother.” I finished off that first beer and waved our waitress down, indicating I wanted another. “But other than that, things are good? Gypsy’s good?”

He grinned, his eyes taking on a glazed look at the mention of his woman. “Yeah, things are great. You’ll never hear me complain. Moving here and taking that job with Linc was the best damn decision I ever made.”

When he initially left the service, he’d been working with another mutual friend of ours, Ian, who headed private security for the world-famous band, Civil Corruption. Bodyguarding hadn’t really been his cup of tea, so Ian had hooked him up with Lincoln Sheppard who ran a security and investigation firm out here in Virginia called Alpha Omega. The job and the small town of Hope Valley had both been a better fit for Marco, and he never once looked back.

I lifted my beer bottle, clanking the neck of it against his. “Glad you found that, brother. Good to see you happy.”

“Thanks, Si. And what about you? How’s Kim doing?”

I filled him in on her new job in London and the chaos in my life recently. When I finished, his brows were high on his forehead, and he let out a long, low whistle. “I didn’t realize things were so crazy for you. Should have told me, man. I could have helped you find a place.”

I waved him off. “Nah, it’s all good. I wanted to do it myself, find something perfect for me and Darce. The house is pretty great, actually. Except for the paint color in basically every damn room. It would be great if I could find the time to finish painting. I can’t even walk into my home office without the color on the walls triggering my gag reflex.”

Marco laughed. “Text me your next day off and I’ll bring the boys out to help with that. Between all of us, we’ll get it knocked out quick.”

That was an offer I’d most definitely be taking him up on.

We finished our food a short while later—he’d been right, it was some of the best Mexican food I’d had in a long time—and I headed out. I had just enough time to get a little work done on the house before I had to pick Darcy up from school.

It had been nice to catch up with a buddy, and after hanging with Marco, I started to think maybe my life wasn’t as big a clusterfuck as I’d originally thought.

Maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to make this work for me and my baby girl.

11

SLOANE

As I sat out on my front porch, one foot propped on the white painted boards pushing the porch swing I was sitting in into motion, I stared out at the quiet street, replaying that earlier scene with Silas and the two security guards on a constant loop.

I hadn’t been expecting that kind of behavior from him. None of us had, actually, and as a few of the other girls and I sat at Muffin Top, drinking the best coffee in the whole state and eating the most delicious baked goods ever baked, they couldn’t stop talking about it.

It was a sad fact that behavior like that of those two overgrown frat boys earlier today was something we saw far too often. Bruce and Mac did their best to police their staff’s behavior but owning such a popular club pulled them in so many different directions that they couldn’t possibly catch everything.

The rest of the girls and I had no problem putting the men in their places when we caught them acting inappropriately, or even going to the bosses to tell them if it got too out of hand, but we’d witnessed someone dressing down the perpetrators so brilliantly. It was... well, there was no other way to describe it. It had been hot as hell.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so, but given that Silas Bridger had some weird kind of thrall over me, I was the only one who’d had to sit in the middle of my favorite coffee shop uncomfortably turned on.

It was so bad that, when I got home, I had a little session with my vibrator. A vibrator that was seeing alotmore action since my neighbor moved in than it had in months. If I wasn’t careful, the damn thing was going to break, and it was all I had. It wasn’t built for the workout it had been getting recently. As sad as it was to admit, I’d already had to change the batteries.

Thatwas what Silas was doing to me.

On that thought, I lifted my glass of iced tea and took a much-needed sip to relieve my dry throat before pressing the chilled glass against the side of my neck, hoping to tamp down the flush in my cheeks and chest.

God, I’d already gotten off once this afternoon, and just thinking about my grumpy neighbor was heating me back up all over again. This was getting downright ridiculous.

The sound of a car coming down the street jolted me from my unruly thoughts, and my heart let out a little skip as Silas’s SUV cruised past my house and turned into his driveway.

I held my breath as I stopped the swing’s momentum and pushed to standing, padding on bare feet to the end of my porch.

I waited on pins and needles for the passenger door to open, only heaving out a relieved breath when Darcy jumped out with a huge smile on her face. I returned her enthusiastic wave and beamed at the girl I’d been waiting the past half hour for. She’d been so nervous about her first day of high school that I couldn’t help but be nervous for her. I’d been thinking about her all day, counting down the hours until she got home so I could make sure all was good.

I started down the steps and to the edge of my yard, meeting her in the middle as she skipped over to me. “So? How was it? Did you meet any new kids? Were the teachers nice? They didn’t assign a ton of homework on the first day, did they?” I asked, rattling off one question after another in excitement.

She let out a little laugh and nodded her head. “It was good, actually. Better than I thought. I think I even made a few new friends.”

I let out a little squeak and a hop before pulling her into a massive hug. “That’s so awesome, sweetie! I’m glad your first day was a success. If you don’t have any homework, I blended up a batch of strawberry banana smoothies and made some peanut butter cookies to celebrate a great day.” I remembered her telling me strawberry banana was her favorite smoothie flavor and that her favorite cookies were peanut butter, so I’d made a quick stop at the grocery store to get everything ready. I had hoped we’d be able to indulge in celebration, but they were also my way to help numb the pain if things didn’t go as I hoped for her, so I was thrilled it would be for the former.

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