Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(11)
He’d instantly realized three things…
One: She was, in a word, stunning. Or in surfer lingo: a babelini, a California dime, a perfect ten. That is, if most guys thought a perfect ten came in a size ten—which he most certainly did. Not only did she have one of those heart-shaped faces and an Angelina Jolie mouth complete with a little beauty mark, but she also possessed Amazonian princess height and a set of curves with enough kinetic oomph to give a big wave surfer heart palpitations.
Two: She smelled like vanilla, which had worked to remind him that his own aroma left a lot to be desired. After a thirty-six-hour training exercise where he’d been forced to belly through a swamp, he remembered thinking Eau de Old Gym Socks and Unwashed Armpits pretty much summed it up.
And three, the most important thing: She was his commanding officer’s kid sister. Which landed her directly in the column marked “hands off.”
Of course, he’d instantly forgotten number three when she finally noticed him, turning those eyes of hers that were gray and turbulent—like the Atlantic after a storm—in his direction. He’d very astutely thought homina, homina, homina.
And then when she’d smiled at him? Word, it straight-up stopped his heart.
And that’d been the end of it. Right then and there, in the doorway of the Clover Bar and Grill, he’d fallen ass-over-teakettle in L-O-V-E.
Opening his eyes now, his stupid, lovesick heart thundered in his chest. He watched hungrily as she retook her seat and delicately lifted the wine to her killer lips. What he wouldn’t give to be that wine, sliding into that sweet-tasting mouth, over that soft, agile tongue…
Whoa.
Dock the love boat, Sommers.
He couldn’t let his mind wander down that prickly little path unless he wanted to pop an immediate chubby.
Which he so didn’t want to do.
Because then it’d be all over before he really got a chance to start. She’d take one look at his growing bulge and roll her eyes in that way she had, instantly dismissing him as the same skirt-chasing hound dog he’d been when she’d known him years ago. And that was the dead last thing he wanted.
Not if he hoped to win her. And he was determined to win her despite the fact that every time she looked at him, her expression filled with a wary kind of sadness.
Of course, not having those kinds of thoughts was proving nearly futile considering it’d been over two years since he’d been inside a woman, and she had to go and get more beautiful on him.
At thirty-four, Shell was fast approaching perfection. She was just hitting that sweet spot in a woman’s life when her body lost the last rough angles of youth and developed a certain soft magnificence a guy could really revel in.
He opened his mouth to ask her how she’d been, to tell her how much he’d missed her. But he was stopped when the shop’s back door flew open, and a short blur of denim overalls and blinking sneakers came streaking into the courtyard.
“Uncle Frank! Uncle Frank!” the blur skidded to a stop beside Boss, attaching himself to the big man’s leg like a barnacle to a battleship. He held a cherry lollipop in one hand and, from the red splotches around his lips and on his chubby little cheeks, it was obvious he needed to work on his aim. “That purty lady showed me the motorcycles, and I gotta sit on one. Not yours. But the red one with the fire. I like the fire. She told me she painted it. Can I have a red motorcycle with fire when I grow up?” He didn’t wait for Boss to answer before he pressed on, “But then I wanted to go upstairs and, and, and,” he stuttered in his excitement, “she wouldn’t let me. She said it was only for grownups. Why is it only for grownups, Uncle Frank?”
“Frank” came out sounding like “Fwank.”
Boss opened his mouth, but again he didn’t manage to get a word in edgewise before the boy was steaming ahead. “I don’t care anyway, ’cause I got a sucker instead.” He brandished the sloppy piece of candy frighteningly close to Boss’s eye as the big man bent to scoop the little curtain-climber up in his good arm.
So this is Franklin.
Jake had wondered if perhaps he might suffer a few pangs of jealously when he first saw the boy, but thankfully, he didn’t. Perhaps it was because it seemed somehow appropriate there should be a reminder of Preacher and Shell’s union other than his near nuclear jealousy when he thought about the two of them together. Or perhaps it was because no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t see one ounce of Preacher in Franklin’s little face.
The rug rat was 100 percent Shell or, more accurately, 100 percent Knight, because he happened to look exactly like Boss…if Boss wasn’t covered in half a dozen scars, that is.
“Well, there isn’t a single doubt as to who this little guy is, is there?” He pushed up from his chair and strolled over to Boss and the sticky little boy in his arms.
“Who’re you?” Franklin asked, steel-gray gaze sliding suspiciously over Jake’s shirt before dropping to his feet. “It’s too cold to wear flip-flops now,” he announced gravely. “Mama says so.”
“Yo, little dude.” Jake held out one hand and was surprised when Franklin tucked his head under Boss’s chin, suddenly going all shy. The kid had been Mr. Life-of-the-Party two seconds ago. He tried a different tack. “My name’s Jake. And your mama’s right. It is too cold for flip-flops, but I can’t help it,” he shrugged and made a face. “My toes like to breathe.”