Tease Me (11 page)

“Are you okay?”

“What?” It was his turn to shake his head. “Fine. I’m fine.”
Or I will be as soon as I figure out how to keep you from leaving me
. “Listen, will you come to the park, talk with me?”

She looked at him closely. He’d have given a large sum of money to know what she was
thinking. But when she nodded in agreement, he didn’t care. She wasn’t leaving yet.
For now, that was enough.

They completed their walk to the park at something faster than a stroll but not quite
a dead run, with Tucker urging her on this time. He didn’t want to take any chances
of her changing her mind. Which was also why he kept his hands to himself.

He ran a quick gaze over the park, the sumptuous landscaping, the winding paths, the
large white gazebo positioned in the center, where he imagined evening concerts were
held as the sun set over the dazzling expanse of the gulf laid out before them. He
zeroed in on the first empty bench he saw and headed in that direction.

As soon as they were seated, he turned, facing her, locking his gaze with hers. He
might as well start at the beginning. “I’m not really a masseur,” he said without
preamble.

Her face paled, leaving bright spots of color blotching her cheeks. “Wha—what?”

She started to rise and he reached out to stop her. “Lainey, wait, let me ex—”

She yanked her arm out of his reach and stood, eyes blazing as she looked down at
him. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me this back in front of the café? You could
have saved us both some time.” She stepped back and raised her palm when he began
to rise. “I was wrong. You are another lousy decision.” She rolled her eyes and let
out a short, humorless laugh. “Boy, can I pick ’em or what?” She looked back at him.
“You know, I could have you arrested for impersonating a … a …”

“Service professional?”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t you dare condescend to me. I could sue your
nice tight butt all the way to kingdom come and back. How dare you massage me like
that!”

“It wasn’t very difficult at all, actually.” He caught her hand as she swung it at
him. “Lainey, let me finish.” He had to work harder to hold on to her than he’d expected.
She was going to hurt him or herself, so he settled it the only way he knew how. He
tugged hard, yanking her off balance. She fell hard against him, landing in a sprawl
in his lap. She tried to scramble off him, but he wrapped his arms around her tightly.

Tucker knew he shouldn’t be enjoying this. In fact, he could kick his own “tight butt”
to kingdom come for handling the situation so badly. But he’d be lying to himself
if he said he was upset about where his poor judgment had landed him. Or, more to
the point, where it had landed Lainey.

“Let me go,” she said, struggling against him. “I’ll scream and bring park security
down on you so fast—”

“There’s no need for that. Stop. If you’ll just let me—Ow!”
She landed a toe to his shin. “Now cut that out before one of us gets hurt.” He held
her more tightly. She squirmed harder.
Don’t think about those soft curves pressed against you
. It was a lost cause. His throbbing shin took a distant second place to the throbbing
he was beginning to feel elsewhere.

She all but bared her teeth at him, but she eventually stilled. “Let me go,” she said,
speaking each word slowly and distinctly. “And I’ll forget the whole sordid affair.”

He smiled. Bad idea, he realized immediately, and clamped her closer to him. “I’m
sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Too late for that.” She twisted around so that she could look straight at him. Her
eyes were vivid green—and deadly serious. “Now let me go and I’ll promise not to hurt
you, either.” She nudged her knee, which had somehow made its way up tight between
his legs.

“Threat understood,” he said. “And believed,” he added quickly when she exerted a
little pressure. He talked fast. “But if I let you go now, you’ll leave without hearing
me out. I handled this badly and I owe you an apology, but there is more to the story
and it has to do with your aunt Minerva and several of Lillian’s clients. You can
sue me or punch me or do whatever you think you have to, but first hear me out.” She
didn’t say anything. “Please?”

He wasn’t sure whose heart was pounding harder. He deserved the knee in his crotch,
and part of him was even proud of Lainey for not surrendering easily. She was more
sensible than she gave herself credit for. But there was something in her expression—or
maybe he simply wished there was—that told him she wanted to listen to
him. He hoped she’d give in to her impulses at least one more time.

“Let me go first.”

“But—”

“You want me to trust you? Then you have to trust me.”

He eyed her warily.

“Sorry, but it’s the best I can do.”

“Your best is pretty damn good, Lainey Cooper. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
He loosened his hold, half bracing himself for a lung-sucking blow between his legs,
but she slid easily, if not gracefully, from his grasp and wobbled to a stand.

She folded her arms. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“It’s not a short story. You might want to sit down.”

“I’ll sit when I want to. Start at the beginning.”

He hid a smile behind his hand—her feet were still well within kicking distance—then
rubbed his chin. No matter what anyone said, Lainey Cooper wasn’t anybody’s fool.
“I started at the beginning a few minutes ago. Promise to let me finish this time?”

She merely glared at him.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go back a little further. I’m an old friend of Lillian’s. In fact,
I’ve known her all my life. She was my mom’s best friend. She helped raise me after
my mother died.”

Lainey instantly sat down next to him, her face wreathed with concern. “Oh, Tucker.”

Tucker wanted to shake his head. She was nobody’s fool, but she was also a softy.
It was hard to believe those caring green eyes had only moments earlier been spitting
fire. It was no wonder she got herself into trouble. For all her sensibility and intelligence,
she had a heart as big as
the moon. He wanted to tell her not to fall for every sad story she heard; he wanted
to rail at her to do a better job of protecting that warm, wonderful heart of hers.

He wanted to be the one to protect that heart.

“How old were you?” she asked.

His attention jerked to his knee, where she’d laid her hand over his. “Eight,” he
answered automatically. Her hand looked small on top of his, yet he felt cared for,
protected in a way, by her real and honest concern. Perhaps size had nothing to do
with the ability to provide security. Perhaps her heart wasn’t the only one that needed
protection.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I lost my folks when I was twenty-five. I can’t imagine
enduring that kind of loss so young. You still had your father though, right? Did
you have any brothers and sisters?”

“No siblings, just me. And, yes, my dad did the best he could for me, but we had a
fairly tough time of it. I spent my summers with Lillian until I graduated from high
school. My father died of a heart attack a few years after I graduated from college.
So Lillian is basically the only family I have.”

Lainey sat silently for several moments, then said, “I haven’t known Lillian that
long, but Minerva has spoken fondly of her since she moved to Sunset Shores about,
what, six or seven years ago now?”

“Seven.”

She had been staring at their hands but shifted her gaze to his face. “Are you still
close? I mean, have you visited Lillian in the last seven years? Because I’m fairly
certain Minerva doesn’t know anything about you, or she’d have told me when I was
talking about you yesterday.”

He smiled. “You mean when you were telling her how wonderful my … technique was?”

Her skin colored a bit, but then her brow furrowed and any color staining her cheeks
at that point was due to anger. “I guess I’d better explain that part next, huh?”

“Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me? Do you have any idea how hard
it was for me to make an appointment, much less see it through once I got a look at
you and realized—” She snapped her mouth shut and glanced away.

“Looked at me and what?” Probing was probably not a smart thing to do, but, hell,
he hadn’t handled anything else real intelligently with her. And besides, he was curious.
“Realized what?” He waited, but she didn’t look at him. He was at least smart enough
to know that touching her could likely cost him the use of a body part or two. “You
realized that you were attracted to me and that I was going to be rubbing your body?”
he ventured. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Hell, I was wondering how in the hell
I was going to get through the session without embarrassing myself like a teenager.
Why do you think I was so relieved when you decided to call the thing off?”

She looked at him then. “Really? I didn’t know. In fact, it was your obvious relief
that you didn’t have to deal with me that made me decide to stay.” She looked down
and muttered something under her breath that sounded like “stupid impulses.”

Tucker had to curl his fingers into his palms to keep from reaching out and touching
her. His resolve lasted about two seconds, but before he could reach for her, she
lifted her head and met his gaze.

“Why did you do it? Does Lillian know you’re not a licensed masseur?”

“Of course she does. She’s the one who asked me to do it.”

Obviously confused, Lainey straightened. “Lillian is far too smart a businesswoman
to risk a lawsuit or anything else. Why on earth would she ask you to pretend to be
a masseur?”

“Because she’s worried that your aunt Minerva and two clients of hers, Betty Louise
Strickmeyer and a woman named Bernice, are in trouble. Lillian’s worried about you,
too, Lainey,” he said, studying her closely. He was disappointed when she quickly
masked her surprise. Her expression grew more shuttered by the second. “She saw Minerva,
Bernice, and Betty Louise talking to a strange man in the alley behind the café. She
also saw you talking to the same man.”

“Tucker, listen—”

“Who is he, Lainey? What’s going on?”

SIX

Lainey hadn’t expected the tables to be turned on her, much less so swiftly. She needed
time to think. Tucker was obviously not happy. Actually, a peek at his face showed
he was downright upset.

Information and revelations were swirling inside her head, and she struggled to put
them into some semblance of rational order. First and foremost was the fact that Lillian
had seen her talking to Damian. Lillian knew that Damian was involved with Minerva,
Betty Louise, and Bernice. And Lillian had hired an old friend to play masseur at
her salon.

In the face of Tucker’s glare, her own eyes narrowed. “Lillian hired you as a spy,
didn’t she.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t wait for an answer. She stood, took
two steps, then rounded on him. “How dare she! I can’t believe she’d stoop so low
as to—”

Tucker shot to his feet. “Now hold on there. Lillian does as she damn well pleases,
but she didn’t stoop to anything other than trying to protect her friends.”

As he stormed at her, it occurred to her that Tucker
was even more magnificent when he was being fiercely protective. She spent a second
being tempted to tell him that but decided she was too angry at the moment to get
any real satisfaction from his reaction. “She has an odd way of showing it,” Lainey
shot back instead. “Minerva is her closest friend. If she was so worried about what
she found out while snooping around the alley, then why didn’t she come out and ask
her?”

“She was
not
snooping.” Tucker stopped and took a visible breath. When he spoke again, his voice
was quieter, but there was no mistaking the banked temper behind his suddenly remote
eyes. “Lillian would hate being defended this way, and she’d be hurt to think she
had to be defended to you at all, but since you’re being so hard-headed about this,
I’ll explain.”

Lainey folded her arms and ignored the sting of his well-aimed barb. “Please do,”
she said coolly. He wasn’t the only one who could contain his anger behind icy reserve.

“As I understand it—and I have no reason to question the facts as she told them to
me—Lillian went into the alley behind her salon to dump some delivery boxes in the
trash and saw Minerva, Bernice, and Betty Louise talking to a man she’d never seen
before.”

“And from this she created a grand conspiracy?”

“I’m going to ignore that because you’re angry with me and because you’re scared.”

“Scared?” she all but sputtered. But he was way too close to the truth—and she knew
she’d only prove it if she argued the point. After a slow, calming breath, she said,
“You have no idea what I am feeling at the moment. Finish your story.”

He stared at her for another long second, then complied.

“She waited for Minerva to mention something about it, but that didn’t happen. Lillian
figured it was probably someone who was lost and asking for directions. But that didn’t
explain what Bernice and Betty Louise were doing in the alley with Minerva or why
the conversation they were having with the stranger looked more intense than giving
directions would necessitate.”