Forgetting Popper (Los Rancheros #3) (3 page)

I turn to follow the little bird as she flits
down the hall toward a conference room at the end of the hall, not
waiting for my entourage.

“Can I get you something to drink, Ms.
Dinah?”

I lick my lips nervously, immediately pissed
at myself. “Water. In a bottle.”

“Of course, and you, sir?” My manager and
publicist give long-winded, complicated drink orders that make me
cringe as I scan the room. No lawyers. Just a man with his back to
the room, looking out the floor to ceiling windows. For some reason
I stare at him.

Maybe not
some
reason, he does think
he holds my fate in the music industry in his hands. But in his
perfect charcoal suit, he looks down on the world like a hawk. He
knows we’re here, yet he stays with his back to us. I know all
about intimidation, and this man is a master. Too bad I’m the queen
of this game.

Or so I thought.

When he turns around, his features are
catalogued almost in slow motion. Is he moving slower? Am I still
being affected by the drugs? I must be, as I see broad shoulders
give way to massive chest. Adam’s apple, tanned skin, clean shaven
face, strong jaw. Slight dimple in his chin, strong nose that may
have been broken once upon a time, high cheekbones. It’s the eyes
that gut me. Grey eyes that have stared into mine more times than I
can count. He has such expressive eyes. He asks a question and I
hear it without him ever saying a word. He reprimands and I feel
the lash. He praises and it warms my cold heart.

“Batty,” I croak. The sound of my own voice
is what gets me moving. I flash back to a conversation we had in an
elevator what seems like a million years ago as I stalk across the
room.

“
I’m trying really hard not to slap you
right now,” I growl.

He smirks and looks at the doors. “One day
you will. But it won’t be today.”

His eyes tell me he knows what’s coming, but
he doesn’t stop me. I think about balling my fist and ruining his
pretty suit, but even as I think it his eyes flash. Why does he
have this power over me even now? I want to erase the last five
minutes, go back to where he was my Sundays, and didn’t intrude
into my Monday.

The echo of my hand hitting his cheek sounds
in the room like a shot. My palm is instantly on fire, but I’m not
satisfied. I raise the other hand to get in another shot. Batty—or
Mr. Brennick
—catches my hand easily though, holding it
firmly, but not hurting me.

“One was enough.”

Hearing his voice, even though I can see
clearly it’s him, makes me want to fall to the floor and rock. If
his eyes speak to me, his voice vibrates through me.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Brennick. She can be a
little unstable at times, she —” Tammy attempts to smooth things
over in her publicist way, but Batty stops her.

“Both of you can go,” he says without taking
his eyes from mine. He won’t let go of my hand, despite my pulling
away.

“Oh, but we thought this was—” Brian pipes
up.

“Leave. You’ll be called in when you’re
needed,” he orders. My traitorous body comes alive with that
tone.

As soon as I hear the door click, I use my
free hand to push against his chest. At the same time, he lets go
of my other wrist and I stumble back. I turn to walk the length of
the room along the table. When I turn back, he’s got his hands in
his pockets, watching me.

I grit my teeth and point to him, snarling,
“You!”

He does a head tilt to the side, his version
of a slight shrug. “You can’t deny I’ve been trying to get you into
this meeting since before we ever met, Sadie.”

“My name is Popper to you,
Mr.
Brennick
,” I say nastily as I stalk back to his side of the
room. I pull out a chair. “You got me here. I hope you’re
satisfied. Talk.” I cross my arms and fume. My body is shaking at
the loss of Batty, the man who found Sadie in the first place at
the cancer ward of a hospital. That he could go through all of the
highs and lows we have knowing who I was is more than I can
take.

He pulls out a chair, slowly lowering himself
into it. I watch him unbutton his jacket as he sits. Never in a
million years did I picture him in a suit, but fuck if he doesn’t
fill it out like a CEO should.

“Sadie—”

I sit up abruptly and lean toward him. “I
just told you my name was Popper. Get it straight.”

As my back hits the chair, he leans forward
and puts his finger down on the table between us. “I have never
once in my life called you Popper. Sadie is your name and that’s
all I’ll ever fucking call you.”

“Then we’re done.” I stand up to leave, but
his look freezes me. It’s one I’ve never seen from him before,
though on other people plenty of times. Judgment. Maybe
disgust.

“Do you really want to be Popper for the rest
of your life? What’s so great about her? She dresses like a bum.
She talks like a man. She gets herself into situations that hurt
her out of pride and arrogance.” He hisses the last part, following
me as I back away. Never have words hurt me more, and I’ve heard a
lot.

“This shirt cost over five hundred dollars,”
I choke out the only immediate fact my brain throws at me as my
back hits the door.

He’s an arm’s length away when he says, “And
yet it looks like it came from Goodwill.” Another slash. I take it
like he did the slap, moving my cheek to the side. I expect there
to be blood from the blow, but I only feel his hands when they lift
my face to his. He rubs his shaven cheek against mine and whispers
in my ear, “Sadie is beautiful. Sadie doesn’t need makeup to make
her brave. Sadie doesn’t need anything but a smile and a
laugh.”

I shudder against him, our bodies pressed
together. My eyes are closed, my mouth slightly open. He has this
effect on me, always. When he doesn’t say anymore, I bring myself
to say, “Sadie still talks like a man.”

I feel his cheek lift as he smiles before
moving his lips to my neck. “Popper is cold and shut down. Sadie
feels.” He opens his mouth on my pulse and sucks the skin, laving
it with his tongue. My breath catches in my chest. “You felt that,”
he whispers against the wet skin, causing goose bumps to rise up my
back. “Who are you now, baby?”

“I still hate you.”

“No. Let’s stay on one topic at a time. I
don’t think we were ever introduced.” He shifts his erection away
from me, just as I was about to push back against it, to hold out
his hand. He bites his bottom lip between his teeth.

“I’m Finnigan Brennick, but you can call
me—”

“Batty,” I say, pushing myself off the door,
knocking his hand away to get to his body. I bite the lip that he
recently let go of, groaning as his taste fills all of my empty
spaces.

“Mmm. I was going to say Finn. You’re still
calling me Batty?” he says against my lips.

I yank on his tie. How do you get these
things off, anyway? “You’ll always be Batty.” He takes over
slipping his tie off, so I move to his belt.

“Does this mean you’re Sadie now?”

I slide the belt through the hoops with a
hiss. “I don’t fucking care. Shut up,” I say deliberately.

“Goddamnit, you always do this.” He pulls my
stretchy pants down my legs then bends me over the conference
table.

“What do I do?” I breathe against the table.
I hear him opening a condom wrapper and swallow, knowing he’s going
to be filling me in a different way.

“Always trying to top me. When are you going
to learn, Sadie?” He fists my hair and pulls as he drives into me.
I groan deep in my throat. I relish the feel of his weight in me
and on top of me as he leans down to growl in my ear, “You always
get what you want when you’re on the bottom.”

When he moves too slowly out of me, I grip
him internally, not wanting him to leave. His hand fists tighter in
my hair, but it’s a pain that accentuates everything else. Batty
has always loved my hair. Always pulled it. When he powers into me
again, he tilts his hips perfectly so that his balls stroke my
clit. I open my mouth and scream into his hand that’s suddenly
muffling my cry. “Remember that game we played the last time I bent
you over, baby?” he says between kisses from my ear and down my
neck.

I nod as I pant behind his hand. He bent me
over my Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series, my precious three hundred
and fifty thousand dollar car. But it was in the parking garage of
the hospital, and when people came out of the elevator, he didn’t
stop.

“Can you be quiet like that again, Sadie?
I’ll give you everything you want if you keep it in.”

“Just keep my mouth covered,” I insist,
trying to push back against him.

“But my hands are needed somewhere else,
aren’t they?” he asks, bringing his hand around the front of me,
first putting his fingers on the lips surrounding his cock then
moving up to circle my clit. “Do you want this? Or do you want me
to cover your mouth?”

My mouth opens, but I cut off the air so the
sound doesn’t escape as he plays my body with practiced perfection.
I grit my teeth. “I’ll be quiet. I’ll be quiet,” I say quickly.

“See,” he pants, working himself faster,
harder into my body. The table is well made, steady, and doesn’t
make so much as a squeak. His thighs slapping against mine are the
only sound in the room besides our breathing. “I told you I would
give you what you want. Now come for me.”

“Is it weird that you talk to me, about me in
the third person?” I ask while pulling up my pants. I turn to see
Batty sliding the condom off with a Kleenex then wiping his
hands.

“I’ve got that hair shit all over my hands.”
He scrubs harder before finally looking at me. “You are two people.
I don’t know Popper. She’s not the woman I drive home every Sunday.
I don’t think you like her very much, either.”

I pull my hair from where it’s choking me and
pile it on top of my head, securing it with an expensive looking
pen. I just had sex in a leather jacket. Holy shit. Batty walks to
a sideboard and pours water into two glasses. I stare at it when he
tries to hand it to me.

“It’s not drugged. Here,” he says, taking
sips from both glasses. I finally take the cup. My throat is dry,
and I quickly drain it. “More?”

I shake my head, taking a seat again and
resting my chin on a fist. “So what’s this really about?” I twist
slightly in the chair, waiting for him to come back to the
table.

“I got your text the other night.” He pulls a
phone out of his inner jacket pocket and slides it across the
table. I catch it, seeing the message pulled up already.

Sadie: I quit

I smirk and slide it back, maybe a little
harder than necessary. He catches it anyway. “You must have been
laughing your ass off this whole time. Months and months you were
pulling this over on me.”

He leans back in his chair. “Don’t be stupid.
If you had met me in the first two months I asked, you would have
known who I was at the hospital. But no, you had to be stubborn and
prove what? That you didn’t take orders from the man? Well, guess
what? You take orders from me, don’t you?”

“Fuck you.” My voice stays civil. I’m proud
of that.

“So soon?” he shoots back quickly.

I laugh and put my head back on my chair.
“Oh, that’s right. You’re more of a one and done guy, aren’t you?
It doesn’t take five minutes until I hear your car leaving my
driveway again. Is that a performance issue?”

His look tells me he’s not impressed with my
questions.
“That was me not making things more
complicated than they already were issue. I didn’t like you until
that day. You have to realize I didn’t expect to sleep with you
that first night. ”

“
You need a ride?”

I look to the right at my car then to the
left and up to meet his eyes.

“
Yup.”

My psychiatrist had told me I didn’t have an
appreciation for how short life is, then handed me a card. From the
first look, Batty had me hooked, dressed in his Batman costume. I
immediately left and returned as Robin. Not only Batty, but the
kids in that cancer ward changed my life. They gave me something to
look forward to: Sundays.

“When my shrink suggested going to see the
kids, I didn’t think it was going to be like that,” I admit.

“It wasn’t like that at all, until you got
there. Now look at what we’ve been able to do. You inspire me,
those kids, everyone.”

That visit I looked away, uncomfortable at a
little boy’s appearance, and panicked at the hurt in his eyes. We
went on an adventure that would be the first of many for us, but
for most, it was the last dream they had. Their one check on a
bucket list made too small by age and circumstance.

“So what did you call me in here for?” I say,
getting to the point.

I watch Batty get to the point; he shifts
nervously. “This is—” He places his hand on a manila envelope that
seems to suddenly take up the rest of the room. “This is something
I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but you didn’t give me the
opportunity.”

“So what is it?” I ask greedily, wanting to
get this over with.

“Have you looked at your financial statements
at all?”

I look at the envelope and pull it toward me.
“I don’t understand.”

Batty licks his full lips and looks decidedly
uncomfortable. “That’s what I’ve been trying to draw to your
attention the last few months. At first it wasn’t serious, but it’s
gotten to a point I can’t ignore.” I watch him warily, finally
pulling the papers the rest of the way toward me.

I slide them open, slightly recognizing my
bank account number. “This is my bank?”

“Yes. It’s your bank statements for the last
year, though the most evident would be the last six months.”

“So you had me investigated?” I ask,
indignant that he would look so far into my finances.