Touch Me (18 page)

As he watched, she rubbed her eyes with her fists, and the tender feeling that surged in his belly stunned him. He wanted to run her a warm bath, towel her dry afterward, and then bring her breakfast in bed. Something sweet. Pancakes. Waffles. Rolls, gooey with cinnamon and butter. “Rose, why don’t you—”

“Hello,” his mother said, rising from the couch. “I’m Payne’s mother, Vanessa.”

Rose’s fists dropped, as did her mouth. She went from drowsy to alert in a heartbeat, her gaze darting between his mother and Payne. “Um, I…” Then her shoulders squared and she walked forward, her hand outstretched. “Nice to meet you.”

“This is Rose Dailey, Mom,” he said as the two shook hands. “Rose, this is Vanessa Yee.”

What the hell should he do now? Getting rid of his mother was his first choice, of course. “Mom—”

“How exactly do you know my son?” his mother asked. “And for how long have you known him?”

“Um… We, uh, met in high school, actually. I’ve been living in Seattle but when I relocated to California we ran into each other again.” Her gaze shifted to Payne, shifted back. “I understand you’ve been on a trip, Mrs. Yee. A cruise? Did you have a good time?”

“Why, thank you for asking. It was lovely. My husband and I adore the Caribbean.”

Rose smiled, as if she wasn’t embarrassed to be birth day-bare beneath the thin shirt. “How lucky you are. I’ve always wanted to visit there.” She flicked him another unreadable glance. “Now, may I make you and Payne some coffee, Mrs. Yee?”

“Oh, I can do it,” Vanessa began.

“No, no, let me,” Rose was already backing toward the kitchen. “It’s my job. I’m his personal assistant.”

He wanted to groan, though he had to admire her for brazening it out. As she turned to scurry off, the hem of his shirt fluttered, giving him a quick peek of her cute peach of an ass. He quickly glanced at his mom, and though he didn’t think she’d caught that glimpse of Rose’s naked butt, from the expression on Vanessa’s face, he knew he was doomed.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, in a theatrical whisper.

“Mom. Please. I’m thirty years old. I don’t need your mothering any longer.” Not that he’d had it when he’d actually needed it. In those years, Vanessa had been nursing her resentment and anger toward Bean, only to flood Payne with it when it overflowed.

“You’re sleeping with your assistant?” she hissed.

He barely managed not to roll his eyes. “My assistant slept here last night. Beyond that…sorry, Mom, it’s none of your business.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re sleeping with your assistant?” she repeated.

“I’m not saying yes or no, but reminding you I’m an adult.” He held onto his patience with all his might. “And that being sexually active is healthy.”

“You were sexually active as a boy,” she muttered. “It wasn’t healthy then.”

Ouch.
It didn’t help that on that point she was likely right.

Her mother rose from the couch, tucking her purse strap over her shoulder. “You probably want to get on with more of your
healthful
activities. So I should get out of your way, I suppose.”

He didn’t raise his fists in victory, but he didn’t try to stop her either. Instead, he trailed her toward the door. Pulling it open, he reminded himself she was his mother and that her experience with his father had broken her. Truly, he knew that. “Thanks for stopping by, Mom,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek.

Vanessa reached toward his front pocket. Too late, Payne realized part of Rose’s bathing suit was sticking over the edge. His mother pulled it free.

When he snatched the scrap of fabric from her, his mother gave a wry shake of her head. “She seems very sweet.”

“She is very sweet,” he said, shoving the material deep.

“Then does she know what kind of man you are?”

Standing in the street beside her car, Rose had just tossed her purse into the back seat when Cami Colson drove up in a classy older Jaguar. Braking alongside the sedan, the other woman rolled down her passenger window. “Going or coming?”

Coming
. Rose prayed that last word wouldn’t make her blush, but she couldn’t help but fiddle with the top she was wearing—now officially dubbed the Hawaiian shirt of shame. Lucky for her, she’d left a pair of old cropped jeans in the laundry room, so she wasn’t escaping in her wrinkled cover-up and the half a bikini she’d managed to find.

“I need to make a quick run home,” she said, hoping it didn’t sound like she’d spent the night.

Cami’s eyes narrowed. “You look like you could use some coffee.”

There was a pot in the kitchen. But she’d vamoosed when Payne headed for the shower right after his mother left. Rose didn’t feel like returning there before getting her own shower, a complete change of clothes, and alone time to gain some perspective following the staggering sex. “Well…”

“My favorite coffee place.” Cami took the decision out of her hands. “Follow me.”

In a few minutes they had seats around one of the bistro tables on the sidewalk outside a busy coffee bar, each with a paper cup in hand. Rose took a sip of her latté, sighed. “Okay. This tastes wonderful.”

Cami smiled. She was dressed in grunge-Bohemian chick, rugged boots, ripped jeans, and a delicate blouse dripping with lace. With her hair tucked behind her ears, Rose saw that she had a single ear-piercing, a tiny circle of diamonds at the top curve of her lobe.

Cami tapped her cup against Rose’s. “You looked like you could use something hot and strong.”

Rose choked, a hysterical urge to giggle rising up her throat.
I’ve just had hot and strong, thank you very much.

Looking concerned, Cami pounded her back until Rose held up a hand. “I’m fine, now. Thanks.”

“My brother would murder me if something happened to you on my watch.”

Rose looked away, wanting to avoid the topic of Cami’s brother completely. On the drive to the coffee place, she’d quickly devised a way to handle—at least temporarily—what had happened with Payne. In order to prevent any awkwardness, she was going to consider the sex an impersonal activity.

A session with a personal trainer, she’d decided.

Now a new thought occurred. It had been more like a spinal adjustment.

That was even better, right? Nobody felt weird if they ran into their chiropractor—or their chiropractor’s sister—the following day.

Pleased with the idea, she swallowed more coffee and heard the throaty rumble of an approaching motorcycle. To her interest, Cami straightened, going on alert until the vehicle came into view. Then she relaxed back in her chair, her shoulders slumping a little. Rose remembered what Payne had said about Cami’s secret guy.
Tat sleeves on both arms. Rides a Harley.

Hmm.

“So,” she said to Cami. “I think you should tell me all about you.”

Green eyes shifted her way, narrowed a little. “All about me…what?”

“Work? Life?” Rose paused. “Love?”

Cami set her cup onto the table between them. “Did one of my brothers put you up to that? They are so nosy.”

“No.” Rose laughed. “I was just curious.”

Just then a guy turned from the sidewalk, headed into the coffee bar. He glanced at the pair of them, then did a classic double-take, his gaze glued on Cami.

Rose sighed. Like all the Rock Royalty, she wore a mantle of careless glamour. Their tribe was comprised of wild yet elegant and exotic flowers. Around them she could only feel more like the common, boring rose.

The man disappeared, his head still turned over his shoulder as he walked through the door.

“Did you notice that guy checking you out?”

Cami glanced up from her coffee. “What guy?”

“Six feet, leather jacket, dark stubble. He wore a
thumb
ring and had pierced ears.” Rose frowned as the other woman started laughing. “What?”

“Thumb ring,” she said, with a little snort. “Pierced ears.”

“I never get the attention of the thumb ring guys,” Rose muttered, defensive. “I bet all your boyfriends have had thumb rings and wear earrings like pirates.”

Cami seemed to consider. “I once dated a guy with a pierced…you know.”

Instead of showing she was both appalled and intrigued, Rose gestured her closer and whispered. “It’s called a penis.”

Laughing, Cami sat back. “I didn’t want to offend you.”

Your brother wasn’t worried about that
, Rose thought, remembering what he’d said, what he done.

I think I should make you come for the first time right here, your bare ass against the cold glass while I eat out your sweet pussy with my hot mouth.

“Are you all right, Rose?”

“Yeah. Sure. Great.” A burning face didn’t mean anything was wrong.

“I have to admit I have an ulterior motive for inviting you here.”

Wary, Rose looked at Cami over her coffee cup. “Which is?”

“Payne.”

She wanted to groan. Yeah, he was merely her chiropractor, but that didn’t mean it was easy to talk about him right now, so close to last night. Didn’t a woman deserve a break? “I don’t really—”

“How do you think he’s doing?” Cami asked, worry written all over her face. “He claims to be nearly as good as new, but…”

Guilt shot through Rose. The sex—uh, spinal readjustment—had been vigorous. “He seems in very good shape. The doctor cleared him for workouts that are intense, at least in my book.”

“Good. Good.”

“He seems most bothered by the fact he’s not allowed to drive.”

“Yeah.” Payne’s sister fiddled with the insulation sleeve circling her coffee, frowned. “I wish we could convince him to give it up altogether.”

Good luck with that. “Sorry, I don’t see him turning in his driver’s license any time soon.”

“It’s the racing we want him to quit.”

“Oh.” Rose’s hands went cold. “You think he’ll go back to it? Even after the crash?” When she’d spoken to him about it that one time, he’d not denied his intention to return. But she’d put it from her mind, finding it much too hard to understand.

Cami’s brows lifted. “What do you think?”

“I just don’t get why he’d want to race and possibly…” The word stuck in her throat. “Die.”

“Yeah.” Cami sifted her hand through her auburn and gold hair and blew out a breath. “He’d say the idea is to race and live as long as possible.”

“Still…why chance cutting that ‘as long as possible’ short?”

Cami sipped from her cup. “The thrill, he says. The adrenaline jolt make him feel alive. Fills him up.”

“Seems like he could find a safer hobby,” Rose grumbled.

“I hope he’ll find someone who thrills him enough that he’ll be motivated to take better care of himself…” Cami settled her gaze on Rose’s face. “For her.”

Eeek
. Did Payne’s sister think that Rose had a chance to be that one? First, no. Second, no. Third, just no.

He might be an excellent spinal adjuster, but Rose wouldn’t count on anything long term with a player like Payne Colson. And really, how could a woman compete with an adrenaline addiction?

“Leopard, spots,” she said. “Even his own mother seems convinced he’s not the type to settle down.”

At least that’s what she’d thought his mom had insinuated about thirty minutes ago. From the kitchen, Rose had heard—and yes, she’d been straining her ears—the older woman’s parting words.
Does she know what kind of man you are?
Followed by,
Is she aware you’re not designed to be faithful?

Cami was frowning. “Vanessa’s been around?”

“Just this morning.”

“Ugh,” Cami said. “Nothing good comes from her. When we were kids Ren and I called her Vainessa.”

Rose didn’t think she should laugh. “She’s very beautiful.” Tall, slender, blonde, the other woman had a fragile, refined air about her.

“It’s not her looks, it’s her emotions that she’s obsessed with. Though she’s recently married, it took her years to get over our father’s refusal to put a ring on her finger.”

“Oh.” Rose grimaced.

“Ren, Payne, and I all did poorly in the mother department. Let’s face it, Bean has absolutely zero discrimination. You’d think when he was in his procreative years—and honestly, I swear that must have come about through some drunken and stoned pact amongst the Velvet Lemons when they hit middle-age—he would have been more careful about where he deposited his swimmers.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said, because nothing else came to mind.

Cami waved that away. “But Vainessa, she takes the cake. Signed away her custodial rights, but took full advantage of her visitations to scoop up her son for weekends here and there in order to rant at him about infidelity and her broken heart.”

“So she was in love with your father?”

“She’s in love with drama. Once I went to the zoo with the two of them and God, she could even make that afternoon a lesson in all the ways males can’t be trusted to stick around.”

“You should have visited the wolf enclosure.”

“Then she would have taken the opportunity to point out that a dog is better than Bean and his ilk.”

Rose winced. “That does sound unpleasant.”

“Well, let’s face it, she isn’t too off the mark with Bean,” Cami admitted cheerfully. “But she always piled on Payne, too. ‘You’re just like your father,’ she’d say. ‘You’re going to make women very unhappy.’ He still believes that crap. Says it’s in his DNA.”

A bad feeling settled in Rose’s belly. “He seems to get along okay with her, though.”

“That’s Payne. He gives her a pass because he says she was hurt. Damaged.”

Rose thought of how Lily had once told her that she knew Gavin would be a good husband and father because he was nice to his mother, even though she could occasionally be a trial. Vanessa sounded so much more than that.

Then Cami’s words came back to her.
Says it’s in his DNA.

She took a quick swallow of her cooling coffee to lubricate her throat. “Um, Cami?”

“Hmm?”

“That tattoo on Payne’s ribs. The dragon-headed twisty ladder?”

“Oh.” A light sparked in Cami’s green eyes. “You’ve seen that?”

No blushing! Rose commanded herself. “He went swimming yesterday, remember?”

“If I recall,” the other woman said, smirking. “He had a shirt on.”