The Strongest Steel (36 page)

Laughing, she pulled his arms tighter around her waist. “It’s okay. You’ll just have to make it up to me later.”

The majority of her belongings had gone into Trent’s storage locker in the building’s basement. The rest was still packed in boxes around his condo.

An impromptu thank-you dinner for Cujo and Drea was fast becoming an all-out party. The pizza boxes were open and partially demolished on the countertop, music was blaring in contrast to the Heat game that was playing silently, and a line of empty beer bottles was starting to grow.

“That would be my pleasure.” The warm breath against her ear made her shudder.

“You have a lot of friends.”

“
We
have a lot of friends. We’re in this together, you know?”

And man, did those friends know how to overstay their welcome. It was well past midnight and Trent was on a mission to get everyone out of his damn apartment. Never did he think he’d see the day he’d be thankful that his beer fridge was starting to run dry.

Nudging people to get them on their way took another twenty minutes. Turning the lock on the last partier, he breathed a sigh of relief and went to look for Harper.

He found her in the kitchen. Her dark hair was in a messy plait down her back, and her gray T-shirt was sliding off her shoulder, revealing the top of her tattoo. One more appointment, a small one at that, and she was done.

He wondered if he could persuade her to have something personal, just for him, scripted across her hip bone. Maybe he’d bring his gear home and tattoo her naked, on his bed. Now that would be hot.

Trent got hard thinking about it and was just reaching down to adjust himself when Harper turned around from the sink.

“Are you getting off watching me wash dishes, Mr. Andrews? Because that’s kind of creepy.” Her smile warmed his insides as she turned to get a dish towel out of the drawer. The sight of her very tight ass in even tighter denim Daisy Dukes was doing nothing for the compression he was feeling in his cargo shorts.

Harper giggled as he rubbed his hands up and down her butt. “Make yourself useful and take all these pizza boxes to the garbage chute.”

“Are we doing domesticated already? I thought we had a honeymoon period where we get to mate like bunnies before we get all honey-do list.”

The T-shirt slid farther down her shoulder and he kissed the trail of skin it revealed. Harper picked up the final plate to dry it, but leaned her head to one side, enjoying the benefits of granting Trent better access.

“I like you here,” he said between kisses.

“Doing your dishes?” Harper laughed as he wrapped his arms around her waist. She put the plate to one side.

He grabbed her, lifting her to sit on the now-clean counter. How on earth was he going to keep any control when she was looking at him like that? He stroked the loose strands of her hair over her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her clavicle, licking over and under the little bone with quick flicks of his tongue.

“Yeah, the dishes and the cooking.” Harper tried to push him away and Trent laughed. He ran his fingers along the side of her ribs slowly. “Or it could simply be every part of you is so incredibly sexy, Harper.”

Her legs curled around his hips, pulling him closer as she moaned softly. “And every part of you is incredibly hard,” she whispered, biting on his ear.

Harper’s lips melted against his as he reached to open the button on her shorts. He lifted her with the palms of his hands and slid the shorts and her tiny thong down her legs.

“Ahh. Cold,” she shrieked as her butt hit the cold granite. Trent laughed, continuing to undress her.

His fingers slid up her inner thighs, and he grinned as she opened wider for him. A soft groan passed between them as he circled the top of her thighs, sliding up under her T-shirt to open her bra.

“I love you, Harper Connelly.”

“And I love you, Trent Andrews,” she said with a squeal as he picked her up and carried her to his …
their .
. . bed.

Chapter Twenty-six

“Holy. Fucking. Shit!”

Trent turned to see what had Pixie cursing like a sailor.

Dred was standing in the doorway, his huge frame filling it completely. “Thought I’d come by and see whether you were really any good at this shit.”

Grinning, Trent went over and shook his new friend’s hand. “Great to see you, man. What are you doing in town?”

“We’re playing in Tampa tomorrow night. Thought I’d come in early and get some new ink from you.”

“No way, that’s crazy. You shoulda said you were coming in.”

“Yeah, well, figured I’d surprise you. See what you can do on the fly rather than having time to think about it.”

“It’d be my pleasure. Wanna take a tour of the studio?” Wow. Dred Zander was standing in the middle of Second Circle. He was totally having a lame-ass fan-boy moment.

There was a black Escalade parked outside on the street, and two burly security guys stood just outside the studio entrance. Good thing. The studio had a limit of fifty people, and he didn’t need the fire marshal breathing down his neck.

Pixie was still looking a little shell-shocked when they walked over to the desk. “This is Pixie, our studio manager. She’ll take your details when you’re ready.”

“Hey, Pixie, pleased to meet you.” Trent had never seen Pixie so inanimate. She didn’t move to take the hand Dred had offered.

“Pix?” Trent smirked as she quickly collected herself with a shake of her head, reaching her hand out.

“Sorry. Miles away. Welcome to Second Circle.”

“Nice tattoo you got there, Pixie. What are those?”

“Flowers,” she mumbled. What the hell was up with Pixie? They’d had famous people in the studio before.

Dred laughed. “I can see that. I was curious what kind.”

The phone rang and Pixie jumped all over it, effectively cutting Dred off.

“Sorry,” Trent apologized. “Fortunately, we’re generally pretty busy here. Want to take a seat and we can figure out what you’re looking for?” Trent started to walk to one of the beds toward the back of the studio. “We have a setup in the room back here if you want a bit more privacy.”

Realizing Dred was no longer with him, he turned to see him still staring at Pixie’s back.

“Hey dude,” he whispered, “we charge extra for checking out the staff’s asses.”

“What? Oh … right, yeah. How much? I’d definitely pay extra for a closer view.”

*   *   *

Harper looked at her brand new phone one more time. It had been charging for nearly ten hours and still showed a practically empty battery. Damn it. She’d only just given the number to Lydia and her parents. She’d have to take it in to the store to get it replaced or repaired.

Fortunately, money was no longer quite as tight as it had been. The meals Joanie cooked for her in lieu of payment were delicious, the money she’d saved from tutoring was a godsend, and her living expenses had gone down since she’d started sharing with Trent. It was a simple pleasure to walk up to an ATM and know that it was going to give her cash if she wanted it.

Her nearly dead phone rang.

“Hey, Frankie.”

“Hey, Harper. Can you do me a favor? Would you mind picking Anton up from his buddy’s and bringing him with you to the gym? It’s on your way from Trent’s place. I got a problem here I need to take care of.”

Of course it wasn’t an issue. Logistics exchanged, she hung up.

Her early morning shift over, Harper futzed around the condo. She’d already done two loads of laundry. The kitchen had been cleaned, and the freezer was now stocked with cup-size portions of pasta sauce and soup.

She grabbed her sports bag and filled it with what she needed for her self-defense lesson that evening.

An oven timer buzzed loudly. Dropping her bag on the kitchen counter, she grabbed an oven mitt out of the drawer.

Two dozen perfectly round, double-chocolate-chip cookies were sitting in the oven, waiting to be removed.

Moving them onto a rack, she decided that once they had cooled, she’d put a dozen in a plastic container and take them to the studio on the way to the gym. It was getting late, and Trent never took time to stop for something to eat on nights when he was closing the studio. Plus she’d get to see him a few hours earlier than planned. Bonus.

There was quite a line of people peering in the window of the studio when she arrived.

A big, bald man in a suit stopped her from entering. “Do you have business here today, ma’am?”

“No,” she started but the man put his hand across the door. “I mean, my boyfriend is in there and I just need to see him.”

The guy didn’t move. “I hear that excuse a million times a day,” he responded in a monotone voice.

“My boyfriend is the owner, Trent Andrews. I brought him cookies.” She realized how lame that sounded.

“So you’re his girl, huh?” he asked with a wry grin.

“I hope so,” Harper responded with a smile. “Do you know differently?”

“He was all boo-hoo, missing you in LA. Glad it worked out.” Harper smiled. She knew it was wrong, but it gave her a tiny jolt of pleasure that he’d been as screwed up as she’d been about their fight.

“Hey, Harper. He’s on the back bed,” Pixie shouted over the noise.

Harper walked over to her reception desk. “What’s with the Tyson look-alikes out there? I almost couldn’t get in here.”

Pixie frowned. “Better go ask your boy-o. Famous rock star in the house.” Pixie accentuated her comment with the poke of her pen.

Jeez, he was huge. And built. And shirtless. Okay, enough staring. Well, maybe just for another second. Trent was leaning over the guy, and she could tell from the wide-reaching spread of purple transfer lines that he was just beginning a sleeve on the other man’s lower arm. The guy in the chair might well be a rock star—although Harper would never admit she had no clue who he was—but he was wincing. Harper could totally feel for him.

Trent was in his usual position—hat on backward, gloves on, and perched on a stool.

Harper approached them nervously. The big guy’s size and presence were a little intimidating.

“I don’t bite.” Oh God. He was talking to her.

“Excuse me?”

He sucked air in between clenched teeth. “I said I don’t bite. You can come closer.” His blue eyes were sparkling as he studied her closely.

Trent looked up. “Hey, darlin’,” he said, putting the tattoo machine down and reaching for her hand. “Dred, this is my girl, Harper. Harper, this is Dred Zander from the band Preload. He’s one of the other judges I told you about.”

Wow. Not that she knew much about the kind of music that Trent listened to, but even she had heard of Preload. That certainly explained the security outside.

Dred reached out his hand and shook hers. “Nice to meet you, Harper. And a pity. For a minute, I thought you were coming over to see me.”

“No,” Harper exclaimed quickly, looking over at Trent, who was grinning at her. “I mean, no, I was just bringing Trent some cookies.” Holy shit. Was she really that lame? It was like that moment in
Dirty Dancing
when Baby told Johnny she carried a watermelon.

Dred turned and smiled enigmatically at Trent. “I see what you mean, man.”

“Give.” Smiling, Trent held out his hand. Reaching inside her bag, she pulled out the cookies and handed the container to him.

“Seriously, dude, she’s the best fucking cook on the planet.” Trent paused to take a giant bite. “You got to try one,” he mumbled, offering the container over.

Harper watched, mortified, as a modern-day rock legend bit into one of her cookies.

Dred chewed and groaned. “These are almost as good as sex.”

Harper laughed.

“Not quite,” Trent responded, giving her a look that made her burn. “You should try her pot roast. Could bring a grown man to his knees.”

He nodded his head toward her bag. “Where are you off to? Frankie’s?”

“Yeah. I’m picking up Anton from one of his friends’ houses on the way.”

“Okay, text me when you’re done, and I’ll come get you.”

“Would love to take you up on that, but I can’t. My phone died. We’ll need to get it fixed tomorrow, I think, which sucks. I’ll ask Frankie if I can call you from his place.”

“See you later, darlin’.”

“Bye, Trent. Nice meeting you, Dred.”

His mouth was stuffed with another cookie. “Nish meeting you too,” he mumbled, crumbs going everywhere.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“And I’ve got
another
paper to do,” Anton complained glumly as they walked toward Frankie’s studio through the deserted parking lot of a medical center.

Harper smiled, and looked up at the remnants of what had been a glorious sunset. Kids always thought they were overwhelmed with homework. “What’s this one on?” she asked.

“The Battle of Antietam.” She guided Anton around a giant pothole filled with brown water. The overhead streetlight flickered indecisively. Too dark to be off, too light to be on.

“It was in 1862. The most gruesome day of battle to happen in the U.S. There’s so much to write about.”

“I can either write a biography of General Lee or of General McClellan, or I can write about how the battle happened.” All good questions with plenty of scope for research, structuring, drafting, and writing a great essay.

“Hey!” Anton yelled as he was pulled away from her. Harper reached out, managed to grab the bottom of his sweater, but it slipped through her fingers. She ran into the narrow alley after him.

“Get in the van, Taylor.” Harper fixated on the knife blade pointed at Anton’s neck. Nathan stood in the shadows, his back to the wall, with Anton held firmly in front of him.

She glanced to the end of the alley, past the overfilled Dumpsters, at the brown van parked on the curb, and tried to slow her breathing.

“Don’t hurt him, Nathan. Please.” She looked around for anything that would help. A piece of wood or a discarded metal pipe. Something.
Anything.

Nathan was high. She’d seen that crazed look before—eyes so wide that his pupils had overtaken the blue of his irises. His breath was coming fast and furious, a harsh gasping to draw in enough air. There was a sheen of sweat across his upper lip despite the cool breeze of the evening.