Flame Read online

  “It’s something.” I don’t let my gaze linger too long because I don’t know this chick or if she has a man inside her apartment who’d be willing to go five rounds because I looked at his girl wrong.

  “New here?” she asks, sliding closer but still leaning.

  “Moved in last week.”

  She extends her free hand, but I don’t move a muscle. “I’m Cadence, but my friends call me Cady like Katie.”

  She wiggles her fingers, not getting the clue that I’m not interested in niceties, especially at this hour. “Well, Cady like Katie, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “I won’t bite,” she says with a small laugh.

  I’ve known plenty of women like Cadence, and they always bite. They take their pound of flesh in the end, and I am not particularly looking to have any more scars.

  “Pike.” I take her hand, giving her a quick handshake and nothing more.

  “Well, Pike, I’m always around if you’re looking for company.”

  “Sorry, Cady, I’m a taken man,” I lie because it’s easier than telling her I’m not interested.

  She doesn’t look like a woman who takes no for an answer. The way she’s staring at me, I can tell she wants a piece of me for breakfast.

  “Such a shame,” she whispers and withdraws her hand from mine. “But if you change your mind…”

  “I know where to find you.”

  “Nice ink, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” I leave out the part about being a tattoo artist. The last thing I need is Cady’s ass planted in my chair at Inked, tits hanging out, coming on to me in front of the entire Gallo family.

  She gives me a once-over, eyes hungry and still burning as her gaze slides down my arms to my crotch. “You have a good day now, ya hear?”

  “You too.” I hold my breath, not daring to move until her screen door closes behind her.

  I’m halfway back into my apartment, one leg still outside, when the patio door on the other side opens, and a familiar voice catches my attention.

  “I know, Tamara. Can you believe this shit? Pike just shows up out of nowhere.”

  Well, fuck me.

  If Gigi thought I was stalking her before, wait until she realizes I’m living next door to her. Out of all the places in this small-ass town, why in the fuck did she move in to my complex and right next door?

  I pull my leg into the apartment but stay near the door and out of view. I don’t dare shut the door because the last thing I want is for Gigi to see me or catch me listening to her.

  “Yeah, he still looks delicious,” she tells Tamara over the phone.

  I fucking knew it.

  “Tam, be serious for a minute here. Don’t worry about Pike’s big dick. Think of all the ways this shit can go south and bite me right in the ass.”

  There’s nothing she can say now to wipe the big-ass grin off my face. Nothing. She can call me an asshole all she wants and pretend she doesn’t want me, but I know the truth. She clearly told Tamara everything and is laying it all out for her again.

  “You’re so fucking funny.” Gigi snorts but quickly sobers. “What if my dad finds out about Daytona? He’ll fucking have my head.”

  Ah. The girl has a secret. Besides sleeping with me, her dad has no idea she was in Daytona last year for Bike Week. He’d probably shit a brick. I know if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t let her anywhere near the place. Not when there’re guys like me around. No fucking way would that ever happen.

  I peek around the corner, getting a full view of Gigi’s ass in the most spectacular pair of cutoff jean shorts ever. She’s holding a coffee in one hand and her phone in the other, leaning against the railing near the corner.

  “I can’t sleep with him again.”

  I stand a little straighter.

  “Because we work together, and Pike isn’t the type of guy who settles down. I don’t want to be someone’s booty call forever, Tam. I want love. I want a relationship. I want what my parents have. What your parents have.”

  That’s where she’s wrong, but damn it, I can’t set her straight right now. It would ruin everything that we built on yesterday. By the end of the day, she wasn’t ready to rip out my throat. We’d made progress, and I wasn’t going to do anything to fuck that up. And I most certainly wasn’t going to scare the piss out of her by walking out on the patio and interrupting her most telling conversation.

  “I’m not going for another ride on that cock just because I haven’t been laid since the last time.”

  My eyes widen, and everything around me seems to disappear. Her words slam into me like a ton of bricks.

  She hasn’t slept with anyone else?

  “My fling with Pike was a one-time thing because Mallory wouldn’t shut the hell up about how I was a prude. I’ve embraced my prudishness now. I have exactly two notches on my bedpost, girl. Erik was a cheating asshole, and Pike is Pike. Best fucking sex of my life or not, I’m not rolling around with a man who can’t commit.”

  To say I’m dumbfounded is an understatement. Very little surprises me in the world anymore, especially the shittiness. But goddamn, I was only the second guy Gigi had ever slept with, and she hasn’t been with anyone else since.

  How is that even possible?

  I know three things for sure in this moment.

  First, Gigi isn’t exactly what she seems. She’s not a party girl and has never been one to sleep around. I was the exception and outside her norm.

  Second, I still have a shot with Gigi. She wants love. She wants romance. I could do those. I could be whatever she wants me to be. She is that badass. She is soft and hard, sweet and salty, and everything I want in a chick. She has balls and a mouth on her that could break a man’s heart or have him panting with need.

  And third, I need to find a way to make Gigi mine without getting my ass shot by her badass father. I know I could break down Gigi’s walls, but Joe… He is another story entirely.

  “Trust me. The women basically throw themselves at Pike. They go all stupid around him. It’s ridiculous.” Gigi pauses for a moment. “I did not go stupid around him. Shut up, Tamara. He scratched an itch, and that’s it.”

  I don’t know what Tamara is saying, but I sure as fuck wish I could hear her. Having one side of the conversation is fine, but damn…I want it all. I wonder what she told her cousin. How open she’d been about the things we’d done and how fucking fantastic it had all been.

  “I’m not full of shit,” Gigi barks.

  Oh, but she is. She hasn’t been honest about a damn thing with me since the moment I met her, and she continued the lies yesterday. Her mouth was saying she hated me, but now, talking to Tamara, she’s saying the opposite. I knew by the way Gigi stared at me that she still wanted me.

  “Anyway, when are you getting here? My mom’s flipping out because I’m living alone and I told her you’re staying with me for the summer until school starts again.”

  Fuck. Tamara could be a wrench in my plans to win Gigi over. But maybe not. From the sound of it, I think Tamara believes Gigi and I should be together, even if only sexually. I’ll take what I can get, trying to win Gigi over piece by piece, orgasm by orgasm. Whatever it takes. I’ve never been a quitter, and when I see something I want, I go after it…full throttle.

  “I’ll have the place ready, but I’m only giving you two weeks to get your ass here. I don’t know what the hell you’re still doing up there.”

  I now have a timetable. I have two weeks to see what I can do to win the girl over before her cousin crashes the party. Maybe I can use the time to my advantage. If her parents, specifically her mother, don’t like her living alone, maybe if they knew I lived next door, they’d feel better about her living arrangements. Knowing there was a friendly face and coworker right next door in case shit went bad wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?

  “Dump Hank. He’s a loser, Tam. You could do so much better, and you know it. You said you were breaking up with him a month ago, but there you are, staying a
t FSU for him.” She pauses again, and I’m still plastered to the wall just inside the doorway. “You have two weeks to break his heart and get your ass here, or I’m telling your daddy you’re there getting your brains banged out of that pretty little head.”

  I reach out, slowly sliding the patio door closed and engaging the lock. I keep my body out of sight, not knowing if she’s looking but taking no chances either. I need to get to the shop, and I want to be out the door, on the back of my bike, before she has a chance to leave. The last thing I need is for her to find me here, thinking I’m following her ass around.

  I have to find a way to let her know I’m living here without her also knowing I was listening in on her conversation.

  It’s a giant clusterfuck, but a damn good one too.

  I’m halfway to my bike when a door opens behind me, and I freeze.

  “Pike?” Gigi calls out. “Is that you?”

  Fuck. I rub the back of my neck and turn to face her. “Hey.” I wave with my other hand, keys dangling from my fingertips like a dope.

  She looks stunning in the early morning sunlight, the rays shining around her hair and illuminating her like an angel. But the look on her face isn’t sweet.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asks as she stalks toward me, arms swinging at her sides with each hurried step.

  “Headed to the shop.” I wait in the empty parking spot next to my ride.

  “No.” She crosses her arms, the anger coming off her in waves. “I mean, what are you doing here at Sunshine Vista?”

  “I live here,” I answer flatly, laying out the truth.

  “Here?” She points to the cement.

  “There.” I point toward the building. Our building.

  She narrows her eyes. “Which one?”

  “On the end.”

  Her eyes widen. “Right fucking next to me?”

  My eyes widen too. “No shit. Really? What a crazy-ass coincidence.”

  Please for the love of God, I hope she didn’t hear my sliding door close, figuring out I was listening to her conversation. I’d like to get to work with my balls intact and my voice in a normal octave.

  “You say you’re not stalking me. But for real, Pike, it sure as fuck seems like you are.”

  “I signed the lease two months ago, and I moved in last week. You?”

  “I’m just moving in this week,” she tells me, balling her fists at her sides, and I slide backward because she looks like she’s about to throw down.

  “Why here?”

  “There’re only two apartment complexes in this small-ass town. The other place was…”

  “Gross,” she finishes my sentence, and I nod.

  “Wasn’t going to plant my roots in a shithole like that. So, I wasn’t stalking you. This was the only place within a twenty-mile radius that was worth renting. Nothing more. Now, you want a ride to work today or not?”

  “Not,” she hisses.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Pike, how would I explain why I’m on the back of your bike when we get to the shop? Think about it for a minute.”

  I slowly nod and swing a leg over my bike, sitting my ass down on the seat. “I wasn’t thinking about much other than having you on the back of my bike, those sweet thighs rubbing against mine and your tits pressed against my back.”

  She tips her head toward the sky and groans, followed by a slew of curse words I haven’t heard strung together in quite as creative a way before. “It’s so not happening ever again,” she tells me as she brings her gaze back to mine instead of the fluffy clouds floating above our heads.

  Yeah, it will, darlin’. I don’t utter those words out loud because she’ll just deny how she’s feeling and tell me I’m fucking crazy. But I heard her talk to Tamara, and I know the truth.

  “Just go. I’m not ready for work yet. I have to do my makeup. I just ran out here to grab my makeup bag from my car.”

  My lip curls. “You don’t need any of that shit on your face, babe. You’re looking beautiful right now with the sunshine streaming through that brown hair of yours, kissing those cheeks.”

  Her cheeks turn a bright shade of pink, and the attitude that had been running all through her body seems to evaporate. “You’re full of shit.” She waves me off. “Go, and I’ll be a few minutes behind you. Don’t say anything about being here.”

  “Lips are sealed, darlin’.”

  “Gigi,” she says as I throttle the engine, ready to take off.

  “Sure thing, darlin’ Gigi.” I smirk, unable to hear her scream even though her mouth is open over the bike. I slide on my sunglasses, lift my chin to her, and walk the bike back slowly out of the parking spot.

  She doesn’t move from the spot she’s standing in. Her eyes are on me, hands on her hips, body looking smoking hot in those jean shorts, showing off the perfect amount of leg. She looks like a goddess with her brown hair blowing in the soft breeze, watching me like a hawk as I pull away.

  11

  Gigi

  “We’re all going out after work to celebrate,” Izzy says as I walk into the office to grab a cold drink after my last client of the evening finally leaves.

  “I don’t know,” I mutter, reaching into the small fridge near the doorway. “I have a lot to do at the apartment, Auntie.”

  “We’re celebrating you and Pike joining our team. So, there’s no getting out of this one, kiddo.”

  I twist the lid off the soda as I turn around, gawking at my aunt as she sits at the desk. “I’m not new, and I don’t think Pike will be here for very long.”

  She draws her eyebrows inward. “Why do you say that?”

  I lift a shoulder. “Just a feeling I have.”

  She taps her fingernails against the wooden top. “Are you ready to tell me how you really know Pike?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I will deny the shit that happened between us for as long as humanly possible.

  She pushes back from the desk and stalks toward me, crossing her arms, which is never a good sign. “I’ve been watching both of you for two days. Want to know what I see?”

  “Not particularly.”

  She gets right in my face. “I see two people who know each other and know each other well.”

  I laugh, but it’s a shrill, nervous one. My aunt’s eyes flash, and I know I have to divert. “I don’t know him. He’s just hot, okay? It’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone, and he’s the only guy in the shop I’m not related to. It’s that simple.”

  She stares at me, lips twisting like she’s chewing on what I’m saying but not buying a word. “He is hot. I’ll agree with you there, but there’s more to the story. There’s something you’re not telling me. And about Pike…” She grabs my shoulders, moving closer. “He’s sticking around, kid. He signed a one-year lease on that chair, and he’s planting roots.”

  “Planting roots,” I mumble because Pike has said those same words so many damn times over the last two days, I could scream.

  “That man has been trying to get a chair here for three years, but we weren’t ready for new blood. Now, we’ve got a spot for him, and he’s staying as long as he wants unless he does something to fuck up majorly. But if he does, he still has to pay for that chair for the duration of his contract. So, settle in, sweetheart, the hottie’s here to stay.”

  Three years? That kind of kills my theory that he tracked me down, following me halfway across the state to get me into bed again.

  “Fuck,” I hiss under my breath, and Izzy doesn’t miss it.

  “So, you might as well tell me how you know him and why you want him gone before those roots are firmly planted here.”

  I know if there’s one person I can trust to understand everything that happened and how I feel about it, it’s Aunt Izzy. She wouldn’t judge me for sleeping with a stranger, but she’d probably give me a lecture about safe sex and other uncomfortable topics I didn’t feel like talking to her about. Then,
she’d probably lay into me about being in Daytona for Bike Week, which I don’t feel like hearing. Not yet, at least.

  “It’s no big deal. We just ran into each other somewhere. He has an unforgettable face,” I lie because it’s easier than the truth.

  I don’t want to make waves for Pike. He didn’t do anything wrong. I took what he gave, and then I ran away without so much as a goodbye. If anyone should be pissed, it’s him. But he’s not. He doesn’t seem angry with me about the entire ordeal. Maybe I should tell him about the fact that I hadn’t done anything like that before and I wasn’t sure how to handle saying goodbye to a man I never planned to see again. But here he is, and he’s not leaving anytime soon.

  Izzy hasn’t moved, and she’s still staring at me like she’s a human lie detector, ready to call bullshit. “That’s it?”

  “Yep.” I stare her straight in the eye when I speak because doing anything else will be a dead giveaway.

  “What bullshit are you two cooking up?” Uncle Mike asks as he walks in the room, scaring the shit out of me.

  “Just talking to Gigi about today. Making sure she’s comfortable and happy.”

  Mike collapses on the couch behind me, kicking his feet up on the small coffee table and putting his hands behind his head. “She’s not new, Iz.”

  “Thank you.” I wave my hand toward him, proving my point to my aunt.

  “Well, she is, but she isn’t,” Izzy replies.

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t know why we have to go out to celebrate tonight.”

  Uncle Mike laughs. “After you have kids, you’ll understand that you’ll make any excuse necessary for a night out.”

  I cross my arms, feeling like my entire family is ganging up on me in some way. “I’m sure Auntie Mia would rather you be at home.”

  His laughter gets louder. “Mia will be asleep, and so will the kids. I’m sure she’ll be lying in the middle of the bed, enjoying the extra space for a few more hours. Pike’s finishing his last piece, so we’re out of here in thirty. Want me to close out the register?”

  “I got it,” Izzy says before bringing that hard stare back to me. “We’re not done, baby girl. I know you better than anyone, and there’s something you aren’t telling me.”