Torn Hart, page 3
Lydia shook her head and the dirty, desperate thoughts from it, then took a much-too-big bite of the spring roll. “Mhmm. Just fine,” she replied like an uncouth cavewoman. Fitting, since the thoughts she was having about the man in front of her were primal, carnal and involved less clothes than a loincloth. If T-Rex knocked her over the head with a mastodon bone and dragged her back to his cave, she wouldn’t complain one bit. Hell, she’d probably race him back to the cave and gather all the animal furs, leap on top and say, “Take me, big boy!”
“You sure you’re sober?” The look Rex was giving her was like she was crazy. Like he was calculating the steps and maneuvers he would need to get to the door unscathed and unmounted.
Triple fuck.
She swallowed the spring roll, took a sip of her water to wash it all down and smiled, praying that there wasn’t any food in her teeth. “I’m pretty sober now. I mean, I feel like I just drank almost an entire mickey of cheap rum, given my pounding head and overall feeling of blech, but cognitively I’m sober … ish.”
The mickey hadn’t been completely full when she started—thankfully. Because if it had been and she drank the whole thing—which she would have—she’d probably be getting her stomach pumped at the hospital instead of sitting in her kitchen with her dimpled and delicious neighbor.
She took another bite of the spring roll. “I don’t think I should drive anywhere, though. Not that I have anywhere to be. No boyfriend, no job. No friends, since I only just moved here a couple of months ago. My mom doesn’t live here. Where do I have to go? Nowhere.”
“I can be your friend.”
With benefits?
She told her libido to go stand in the corner and be quiet.
“Why? You hardly know me.”
Rex’s enormous shoulder lifted, which only caused those thick muscles that connected his shoulders to his back to bunch. If she remembered her biology class right, those were the trapezius muscles or “traps,” as the gym-bros called them. Not that she hung around with a lot of gym-bros.
Whatever they were, Rex had them, and the ones he had were big, sexy and well-defined. She kind of wanted to lick them.
Down, girl. Back to the corner. Sit down. Be quiet.
“I like to help people,” he said. “And I’m also a friendly guy.” Color bloomed in his cheeks. “Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Why can’t we be friends?”
Because you’re gorgeous and I don’t think I could just be your friend. Do friends always want to jump their other friends’ bones?
Quadruple fuck.
Her libido was not listening. She needed to drag that needy little brat into her bedroom, tie her to the bed and lock the door—which her libido would probably like, given her proclivities.
Quintuple fuck.
“I … I’m embarrassed about what I said earlier.” Well, that was true, though she was kind of wishing now that she hadn’t said anything. He was kind enough to act like it hadn’t happened. Why wasn’t she taking her cues from him?
“About propositioning me for sex?”
Lydia nodded, her cheeks growing hot—in fact, her whole body was an inferno. She reached for the belt loop of her housecoat and was in the process of throwing it off her body when Rex’s eyes went wide.
Sextuple fuck.
Oh, why did that word have to have sex in it?
“Shit! Sorry.” She tightened the housecoat around her body, leaped off the stool and ran to her room, nearly lopping off Pia’s tail with how quickly she slammed the door.
“No need to apologize,” Rex called through the door from the kitchen, an obvious chuckle to his tone. “I’ll never tell a woman not to take off her clothes in front of me. Though I was kind of hoping I’d get to take you on a date first.”
A date?
She located her fuzzy flannel pajama pants, the pink ones with the avocado halves turned into cats on them. Avo-cat-o. Get it? Then she found a black tank top with a built-in bra and tugged that over her torso. A quick pick-comb through her wavy auburn locks and she was opening the door and braiding her hair as she entered the kitchen.
“That’s cute, too,” Rex said, all dimples and devastatingly sexy smiles.
Her cheeks were now hot enough to probably fry an egg. She secured the end of her braid with a hair elastic from around her wrist and let it fall over her shoulder. “Sorry. I forgot I wasn’t wearing anything under the robe. You knocked as I was just getting out of the shower.”
There you go, girlie. Nice, articulate adult conversation. See, you are capable of having a normal conversation.
He held up a hand and shook his head in protest. “No need to apologize. Like I said, I’ll never discourage a woman from taking off her clothes in front of me. Won’t complain either. And for the record, that little bit of top breast that I saw … very nice.” He made the OK sign with his thumb and forefinger pressed together.
Lydia’s head dropped, and she stared at her lap. “Are you trying to mortify me even more?”
“On the contrary.” He actually sounded a little hurt. “I’m trying to make you smile, even laugh if you’re up for it. You had a shitty day. It can only go up from here, right?”
She lifted her gaze but kept her head down. He was back to smiling.
It was alarming how disarming his smile was. How much those dimples made her want to smile just as wide as he was. She smiled too. It was downright impossible not to when such a gorgeous specimen of a man was grinning that hard at you.
“There we go,” Rex said. “Is that so bad?”
Still smiling, though now it was more like a smirk, she twirled some chow mein around on her fork like it was spaghetti and shoveled it into her mouth. “No.”
“Good. Because you have a very pretty smile.” His own grin faltered. “Not that I’m one of those douchebags that tries to tell women to smile or that they’d be prettier if they smiled. I’m a woke man—or at least I’d like to think I am. My brothers and I were raised by a single mother who is a feminist and a sex and relationship therapist. If any of us boys told a woman to smile more or that she’d be prettier if she smiled, and our mother found out about it, she’d throw her slipper at us, then make us write an essay on women’s rights and the feminist movement.”
Now Lydia’s smile came as naturally as breathing. “Your mother sounds amazing.”
Rex’s smile was big again, his eyes wistful. “She is. You’d like her. And I think she’d like you.”
The thought of meeting Rex’s mum, of being introduced to her as … someone Rex was seeing, or even just as a friend, made tingles form in her belly.
“So, if you’re sober … ish,” Rex started, standing up and heading to the sink with his glass. He filled it up again from the tap, then leaned back against the counter and crossed his ankles. She had to keep her tongue in her mouth, otherwise it would fall out and she’d drool all over. “How about we go on a date?”
A date?
Her libido broke free from its shackles, picked the lock on the bedroom door and was now running around naked like a streaker at the Super Bowl, waving her arms in the air and cheering.
“A date?” she asked, needing more water. She drained her glass. He leaned forward, took it from her hands, their fingers brushing just enough to send all kinds of sparks and zaps to her cobweb-cluttered lady parts, and he filled the glass back up in the sink, then passed it to her.
“Yeah, a date. You just said you don’t have a boyfriend, and you did proposition me for sex earlier, so unless only drunk Lydia is attracted to me, I figured it was probably a safe bet to ask you out. What do you say?” He sipped his water and studied her over the glass, a brow bobbing as he said, “Wanna go out with me, Lydia?”
Chapter 3
Damn, she was cute. And not puppy or kitten cute—he’d been reprimanded by his mother enough times over the years to not call women cute. But Lydia really was cute. She was adorable, in fact. Honest and bright-eyed. Expressive and quirky. A refreshing change from some of the women he’d dated recently—all from a hookup app. Great body, no substance. They rarely got past the second date.
“Ever thought maybe you’re only meeting a certain caliber of women because of the app you’re using?” his mother had chided on more than one occasion. “Why not try an app not actually called Huukup? It’s in the name, for goodness’ sakes, you buffoon.”
“You want to go on a date with me?” Lydia practically squeaked, pressing her hand to her chest like she’d just won an Oscar and was surprised they’d picked her over Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet.
Rex nodded. “Yeah, is there something weird about that?”
“Well …” Her hazel eyes raked his body from loafers to bald head and back, growing wider as she casually slid her gaze over the V of his sweat pants, his stomach, chest and arms. Color filled her cheeks, and her pink tongue darted out and slid across her lips.
See? Cute. She was fucking cute.
Hot too, of course.
Smoking hot, actually. Like set your sheets on fire hot. But she was also fucking cute. Though he could tell she had a little wicked side too. The day-drinking out of a paper bag like some train-track hobo, propositioning a stranger for sex—those weren’t the actions of a virtuous girl next door.
Plus, the more time he spent in her apartment and glanced around the room, the more he noticed. Before he left earlier, he’d spied a photo of her dressed up for a burlesque show on the bookcase in the corner of the living room. It was a small frame, but he was trained in surveillance and observing his surroundings and all the threats that lurked nearby. Not that Lydia in a black bustier was a threat—well, maybe to the front of his sweatpants remaining flat. But she looked comfortable in the outfit, and something told him this woman had a wild side that only the closest people to her got to see.
“Let’s grab breakfast tomorrow,” he said, letting his gaze wander back to the woman sitting in front of him. He’d allowed his eyes to take in her burlesque attire one more time, committing that image to memory for later. The way her eyes had clung to his body and she questioned him so surprised-like made him wonder if she thought he was out of her league.
Au contraire, Miss Lydia, it is you who is way out of my league.
“Breakfast?” she asked, like she had never heard the word before and was trying it out for the first time on her tongue.
He pressed his lips together to stifle his amusement. “Yeah, you know, the first meal of the day? Usually consists of a big cup of coffee, maybe some eggs and bacon, or granola or cereal. And if you’re my little brother—all of the above, plus more. You do eat breakfast, right?”
She nodded. “I do, yeah.”
“Then let’s go grab some together. My treat. I don’t have any jobs tomorrow, and you, well …” He twisted his lips.
“Don’t have a job,” she finished, her shoulders slumping and face falling.
“I didn’t want to say it out loud.” He felt bad for her. He didn’t know much about her, but what he did know, he liked. And to be fired from a job you loved—well, that just sucked no matter who you were.
“You didn’t have to,” she said with a deep sigh. “It’s the truth whether we verbalize it or not. I’m jobless. It’s the first time I’ve ever been fired from anything. I’ve been employee of the month at other jobs, received nothing but glowing references and recommendations. I was named teacher of the year at the first preschool I ever worked at. I’m not somebody who gets fired. I’m just not.”
“We’ll find you another job. Trust me.”
“I don’t even know you.”
That was true, but she’d invited him into her home twice, propositioned him for sex, and he couldn’t forget her flinging herself into his arms down in the lobby and crying against his chest. As much as he hated to hear her cry and know that she was hurting, it did feel good to be that place of comfort for someone, to be needed. He always liked being needed.
He flashed her a grin that he knew made his dimples dig deep into his cheeks. “Then let’s change that. What do you want to know?”
She eyed him suspiciously for a moment but then seemed to relax and speared a piece of sweet and sour pork onto a fork and popped it into her mouth. “What do you do for work?”
“A few things. I’m a plumber when I’m not doing my other job.”
“Which is …?”
This was always where it got a bit tricky. Some women were either super attracted to a man with his “talents” or they were super turned off and ran for the hills. But he was all about transparency, and he’d dated women from every facet of life and the career world with no judgment, so he expected the same. If they didn’t like what he did, then they weren’t for him.
He wasn’t going to change who he was or the jobs he loved to make someone else feel comfortable. If a woman was going to love him, she was going to love all of him, just like he would love all of her.
Lydia lifted a brow and tilted her head in waiting.
Rex took a deep breath. “I was in the Navy for a while. Then my brothers and I were all recruited by Joint Task Force 2, which is basically like the Navy SEALs in the States, but in Canada. We were then recruited by a covert special ops team—off the record, ghosts in the night, doing the tough shit that nobody else wanted to do—and I did that for a while.”
Her hazel eyes went wide. Her chewing stopped too.
But as much as he was good at reading a situation and his surroundings, he still wasn’t the best at reading women. And Lydia was no different.
Was she turned on? Turned off? Intrigued? Terrified?
He swallowed. “After we all retired from that, we did work for a surveillance and security company—my brothers and I—for a few years based out of Victoria. But we were sent all over the place. Wherever the job was needed. But then Brock—my oldest brother—bought the company and now he runs it. Chase is our tech specialist, and Heath and I are kind of the grunts, though we all do a bit of everything. Heath is also our language specialist. He speaks six languages, including American Sign Language. I’m kind of the explosives specialist, too, you could say. I’ve done a lot of bomb-tech training.”
“And you’re a plumber?” she asked slowly, her eyes once again traveling the length of his body at the speed of a sloth on Valium. She spent a considerable amount of time studying the front of his sweatpants. A very considerable amount of time.
Rex lifted a shoulder. “Need something to fall back on. Won’t always be able to do this, won’t always want to do the hard, dangerous stuff. So when I wasn’t on a job, I was apprenticing with a plumber. Did the schooling when I could. Got my ticket when I was thirty-two, and I work on-call when I’m available for a guy here in town.”
“So you’re like”—she swallowed and licked her lips—“a real badass then?”
That made him snort, smile and turn away. The look she was giving him was one he’d seen before. She was turned on—big-time.
“We—I—get the job done,” he said, intentionally adding that innuendo, which caused her to suck in a sharp breath. “Got all the right tools.”
Eyes squinted at him, and lips curled into a sassy smile. “I bet you do.”
That had him grinning. She had a wicked side to her, he just knew it. “So breakfast?”
“Still don’t know enough about you, Rexington.” She stabbed a piece of broccoli with her fork and pulled it off provocatively with her teeth. “Favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“Favorite food?”
“You’re eating it.”
“Favorite animal?”
“Pit bull. Rescued one late last year. He’s upstairs. Fucking adorable.”
“Favorite—”
“Let me help you out here, hmm? Blue, Chinese food, pit bull—or dogs, I guess you could say—chocolate chip mint, July ninth, Barbados, nothing, cinnamon gum.”
“Cinnamon gum?”
“Can’t stand it. Makes my tongue go numb and feel weird.”
“And nothing?”
“I’m not allergic to anything.” He pointed at her. “Your turn.”
“Barbados?”
“Favorite vacation spot.”
She smiled and pushed her plate away, making a face like she was full.
“I hope you’ll eat that later,” he said. “Letting Chinese food that good go to waste is sacrilege.”
Lydia nodded and yawned. “I will. And thank you. It was perfect.”
He stepped away from the counter, grabbed the foil from the island and wrapped it back over the Chinese food before opening her fridge and stashing it inside. “Grab your water, go sit on the couch, and let’s learn all we can about each other.”
Who was this bald man with thick thighs and dimples for days?
A man fresh out of her fantasies, that’s who.
Normally, Lydia wasn’t a big fan of being told what to do by a man, but the way Rex did it, so casually and almost gently, she found herself obeying without even a second thought.
He took up purchase in the chair opposite her couch, cocked one ankle on his knee and studied her.
She squirmed under his scrutiny. Did she have sauce on her cheek?
A booger on her upper lip?
“So, what’s Lydia’s story?” Rex asked, leaning back in the chair and causing it to creak.
Damn, he was big.
And not fat big.
Hellllll no.
The man was pure muscle. And those arms and the way they were squeezing out of his T-shirt like sausage from a casing—she had a vague feeling she’d felt those arms around her at some point but wasn’t sure how that could be.
“Hmm?” he probed, giving her another smile that had her saying goodbye to her dry panties.
Oh, where to begin … there were parts of her life—a lot of them, actually—that she would rather forget, so to dredge those up now, particularly with a person she just met, wouldn’t be wise for either of them.
