Page 17 of A Taste For Trouble
I placed my hands around her waist and pulled her even closer. She went up on her toes and wound her arms around my neck, and she let out a little hiss when I ran my palms firmly up and down her sides. I ran them down to grip her curvy ass and rocked her over my hardness.
Her long lashes swept closed over her gorgeous eyes as I dipped my head to claim her lips. And then, there was a loud knock on my door.
“Boss! You might want to see this,” called Trevor.
I rested my head against Rose’s and cursed under my breath. Could a guy not catch a break?
“Don’t you dare answer him right now,” she muttered against my lips, winding a leg around my hip.
In reply, I ground my hardness against her, and she whimpered with need.
“Mr Carlisle, this is important,” cried Trevore, and the note of panic in his voice made us both freeze and turn to the door as one.
Rose unwound her arms from around my neck and stepped away, her eyes darkening with worry.
I grabbed a bathrobe and wrapped it around myself before I opened the door. Trevor’s eyes widened when he saw Rose in my room, and widened further when he clocked the fact that I was in a bathrobe.
“Sorry to interrupt, guys, but there was an attempted break-in at Rose’s cottage,” he announced.
Rose gasped in horror.
“Who was it?” she asked.
“Joe Cheney,” he replied, looking at her sympathetically.
“Why would he try to break into my house?”
“Maybe to express his displeasure at how the relationship ended,” I suggested. “We’ll call the cops, Rose.”
“Already done, boss,” said Trevor. “Logan’s guys had just installed the burglar alarm and were still on the property when it went off.”
“Who’s Logan? And what burglar alarm?” asked Rose shrilly.
“Logan is my chief of security. I asked him to install a security system at your place because you cannot rely on yourfaith in the goodness of people, Rose. Not with creeps like Joe Cheney around,” I replied, and she glared at me.
“I know you like to think I’m a flake, Dom, but I’m not,” she snapped. “If I could afford a security system, I would have installed one ages ago. But the truth is that I cannot, so there!”
“Guys, can you squabble later? There’s some more stuff you need to know,” broke in Trevor impatiently.
“Like what?” I demanded.
“The burglar alarm went off when Joe tried to jimmy the lock on your front door, and it spooked him. He bounced before the guys from the security team could come around the house and grab him.”
“Can’t Logan have him tracked down? When did this happen?” I asked.
“It happened around twenty minutes ago. And as soon as the burglar alarm went off, Joe jumped into his car and sped out of there like a bat out of hell. Logan’s team tracked his car, but he drove out of the town limits five minutes ago and disappeared down Interstate 89. It’s going to take them time to track him down, but I wanted to give you guys a heads-up.”
“Thanks. Keep me posted on his whereabouts,” I said.
“I’m…I need to check on Sweetpea,” said Rose, evading my gaze as she walked towards the door.
She was clearly having second thoughts about what we were doing earlier, and I didn’t blame her. If Trevor hadn’t interrupted us, we would have messed up the fragile friendship we’d built up over the years. Besides, Rose and I were tied together through so many other relationships that would go up in flames if we had a casual fling.
She was very close to my mother, who would disown me if I broke Rose’s heart. Not to mention my grandmother, who was quite fond of Rose. Or Trevor. I shuddered to think of what creative form of punishment he would inflict on me should I hurthis friend, which was inevitable since there was no happy-ever-after in my future. And Rose was not the sort of woman who could handle a hookup. She was more the fated mate, destined to be together type. And I had no business giving in to the very inconvenient desire I felt for her. For her sake and mine.
Even if I was capable of loving a woman, Rose was the exact opposite of the kind of woman with whom I’d fall in love. I needed someone who was the mirror image of me. Calm, focused, and neat, as opposed to Rose, who attracted, created, and fostered chaos wherever she went.
But the main point was that I refused to have anything to do with love. It was the greatest weakness in the history of humankind, and ought to have been eradicated around the same time that we found a vaccine for smallpox. I couldn’t believe that despite all the advances made by modern medicine, we hadn’t found a cure for the delusion we called love. Maybe a partial lobotomy? Or a twelve-step program, even, because in my opinion, love was even more dangerous than cocaine.
