"Back in a flash," he said, pressing his thumb to the pad of the biometric sensor. Mechanized bolts and pins disengaged and the door swung open.
"Or at least in an hour or two," Christian corrected.
"Hey. A girl likes a guy who takes his time," Tripp said, stepping inside. The closing door cut off further contact, sealing him up like a hot dog in Tupperware.
Overhead lights switched on inside the high-ceilinged, four-walled enclosure outfitted top to bottom in soundproofing tile.
Funny about that.
The soundproofing.
The lack of outside contact.
How it still got to him after all this time.
The idea of help being within reach . . . but not.
It wasn't like he needed help, or that he was really cut off, as seconds later he punched the code and exited into the suite's bamboo and black-lacquer facade of a reception area. And the confining space wasn't an issue.
But the idea of being on his own sure was enough to cause a bitch of a hitch in his side.
"Fourteen-seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, ninety
, fifteen and twenty."
Glory Brighton counted out her customer's change. "There
ya
go, Wes. And you enjoy that new baby girl,
ya
hear?"
"No worries there, Glory," Wes said, lifting the white bag containing sandwich and chips in a parting gesture. "See you tomorrow."
"Yep.
Same bat time, same bat sandwich," she said, and Wes chuckled. Oh, yeah. She was absolutely hilarious. Really cracked
herself
up. Snort.
Glancing at the phone then just as quickly away, she shut the register drawer, straightened the stack of expensive tri-fold color brochures and take-out menus on one side, closed up the display case of freshly baked and individually
cellophaned
cookies on the other.
Two-twenty-five apiece, and people paid without thinking twice. And why should she complain? They cost her a fraction of that and made for quite the tidy profit.
She wasn't complaining.
Just.
. . having a bad day. No real reason she should be. Except for the fight she'd had on the phone with her mother this morning.
Which meant that her father, having gone home for his Thursday lunch of a meat loaf sandwich and potato pancakes made from last night's leftovers, and by now on his way back to the bank, would be calling before he sat down for the afternoon to review loan applications.
Your mother has your best interests at heart, Glory. She is thinking of your future. Her concern for your welfare shows how very much she loves you.
Nothing in there about Ann Brighton's dread at having to explain her only child's continuing lack of suitable matrimonial prospects to the ladies at the First Presbyterian Friday morning prayer circle.
The same group who two years later was still clucking over the fact that Glory had been taken in by that sweet-talking career criminal, Cody Scott, before he carjacked an undercover cop and got sent up the river to Riker's.
And nine months after the fact continued to sing a loud chorus of hallelujahs that she'd learned the truth of Jason
Piaggi's
affiliation with the "
Piaggi
Family" before it was too late.
Even now Glory couldn't help but roll her eyes.
Such drama over nothing.
Yes. She'd made two bad man choices in her twenty-seven years. A girl was allowed a relationship strike or two, wasn't she? Before being written off as a has-been?
"Hey, Glory."
She glanced to the right, down the long sandwich bar where Neal Baker stood rewrapping the ham he'd sliced up for Wes.
"Hey, Neal."
He grinned, but not at her so much as at their personalized "hey, you" routine. "You still need me to hang around while you inventory for tomorrow's order?"
Shoot.
The order.
She'd been so focused on the inevitable call from her father that she was on the verge of a screw-up bigger than her penchant for dating criminal losers.
She untied her apron, slipped it off over her head. She knew Neal's girlfriend's dance troupe's showcase premiered tomorrow night and tonight was the family-and-friends preview.
"Sorry, Neal.
I'll make it quick."
"
Mikki
appreciates it in advance."
"She damn well better," Glory teased, grabbing her clipboard from beneath the counter.
She made a quick visual sweep of the shop, took in the customers still eating, and glanced at the pickle-shaped wall clock.
Nothing going on Neal couldn't handle alone.
Hell, his efficiency made the lack of hers that much more obvious. Ugh. There she went again with the ridiculous self-deprecation.
She was plenty efficient, she mused, heading into the storeroom down the hall at the rear of the shop. Just look at the shelves in here.
A place for everything.
Everything in its place.
It was just the constant parental haranguing that enforced the sense of being less. Less a good judge of character than expected of a daughter of Ann Brighton. Less respectable than what she would be as the married daughter of Milt.
And now with the trickle-down effect, she was feeling less efficient than her own part-time employee.
The only time lately she'd felt like
more
was when staring into the beautiful green eyes of one Smithson Engineering project consultant.
That Tripp
Shaughnessey
.
Mmm-mmm-mmm
.
Definitely one to throw a curve at a girl's plans.
Before he'd shown up in her shop weeks ago, months actually, though it seemed like days, seconds even, since she felt that first tingling rush of attraction every time he walked through her doors . . . before he'd shown up in her shop whenever it was, she'd been thinking of giving her parents' matchmaking efforts another chance, or two, or three.
Now she was thinking about nothing but having Tripp's babies.
At least in a figurative sense.
Yes, she wanted to get married—eventually. Yes, she wanted to start her own family—when it was time. Yes, she wanted to test the proverbial boiling waters between Tripp and herself.
Right now, however, she needed to count the pickles so Neal could get going. The pickles, the olives, the paper napkins, the cans of tuna . . .
Could life possibly get any better than this?
she
mused.
And she was still musing ten minutes later when behind her the door to the storeroom slammed shut.
Two
Glory whirled around, hand pressed to the base of her throat. The click of the door latch still echoed as she stared at her intruder, glared at her intruder, watched as he reached down and turned the lock on the door, looking her way all the while.
Her gaze slid from his very large hand on the doorknob back to the face she saw every night in her dreams. She did her best not to sigh, to appear peeved rather than pleased, but it was hard when her tummy was tingling with blooming daffodil petals.
One eye narrowed, she pointed with the sharp end of her pencil. "You, Tripp
Shaughnessey
, are a very bad man."
"Ah, now, Glory, admit it. I'm not half as bad as you want me to be." He leaned his broad shoulders against the door, crossed his arms over his impressively buff chest, and grinned in that way he had.
That way that made her want to take off all of her clothes, piece by piece in a slow sultry striptease—a thought that sent the daffodil tingles tickling in deep dark places that seemed these days to have Tripp's name written all over them.
Returning her attention to the task at hand, she finished counting the gallon cans of black olives, marked her inventory sheet,
then
slipped the clipboard over the hook centered on the shelving unit's support rail.
It was time, she decided, once she'd filled her lungs with the air she needed to breathe.
Time to put her plan into motion.
Or to take it to the next level since she'd made the first move when she'd dressed this morning with Tripp specifically in mind.
She did that a lot these days.
"I
dunno
,
Shaughnessey
," she said, and turned. "I'm not sure any man has it in him to be that bad." She let her gaze crawl the length of his very fine body, smoothing her palms over the zipped-up and laced-up khaki miniskirt that hugged her hips and little more.
He took in the motion of her hands; heat flared in his bright green eyes. His thick honey-blond lashes came down slowly, lifted in another smooth upward sweep. His lips curved in a smile that said oodles about all the ways he knew to be bad.
It was the very look she'd been hoping for, had been waiting for, yes, had been planning for. She'd seen it—no, she'd
felt
it—so many times lately but never in the right place at the right time.
This, fingers crossed, could be both.
"Well, now. That sounds to me like a challenge," Tripp finally said after clearing his throat. He cocked his head to the side and considered her. "And here I thought you knew by now that I'm never one to back down."
She didn't know him at all. Not in the way she was determined to. In the way any woman would need to know the man she intended to become her intended as soon as she convinced him that he intended the same.
What she'd never counted on, however, was the sudden fluttering of nerves interfering with the daffodils and causing her to second-guess her brilliant master plan to seduce him, knock him senseless, leaving him desperate for more.
She thought of career criminals and mobsters and the First Presbyterian Friday morning prayer circle.
No. No second-guessing. It was now or never. She put her foot down on all her doubts, fortified herself with another monstrous nerve-settling breath, and took a step toward him.
"It's hard to get to know a guy when he sends his friends for his lunch."
One step closer.
"When he can't even be bothered to order his own turkey, avocado, sprouts and Dijon."
Another step, and nearer still.
"Or when he comes at lunch rush, and a girl can't spare a minute to flirt properly."
Tripp pulled in a deep breath, blew it out with a shake of his head. "Oh, Glory. If you don't think what you've been doing is properly . . ."
"So you like?" she asked, tilting up her chin just the tiniest, flirtiest bit.
He growled deep in his chest. "I'd like it a whole lot better if you'd give improperly a try."
She grinned, laughed under her breath, pushed a hand back through her mop of black curls and decided she might be able to pull this off after all. "Thing is,
Shaughnessey
, for improperly I'm afraid I'm going to need a lot more help than you've been giving me."
His brow arched upward. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other.
"That so?"
"Yeah.
Definitely so."
She took her time closing the rest of the distance between them, not touching him, not quite yet, waiting for that, wanting to savor first contact. To press her lips to that dip in his collarbone and linger.
To taste him.
To breathe him in.
Her fingers itched to slip between the snaps of his pressed khaki shirt. Instead of following through, she glanced down and away from the pull of magic in his eyes. Her pink leather, wedged Mary
Janes
contrasted fiercely with his big bad, black motorcycle boots.
She was Red Riding Hood to his wolf.
Little Miss
Muffet
to his spider.
Wendy to his Peter Pan.
He tempted her. He frightened her. She longed for him to sweep her away from the mundane and take her flying.
She was tired of making sandwiches and stuffing potatoes and inventorying supplies for reorder. Tired of having no social life except that arranged by her matchmaking parents who were determined she
make
a sensible match.