Branded as Trouble (Rough Riders #6)(114)

“That’ll be a hundred bucks.”


“For a re-ink? A new tattoo doesn’t cost that much.”


“Ah, but those aren’t special Kat Von D tats, are they? I had to take extra care not to wreck her design, and that’s much harder than starting from scratch.”


“Seems a little pricey.”


India just hoped it hadn’t cost her everything.


Chapter Twenty-three


Rather than pace until India came upstairs, Colt found a vase and put the flowers in water. Then he paced.


Did he admit he’d overheard the conversation? Did he play dumb and see if she brought it up first?


Yeah, he’d go with that option.


He wandered to her bedroom. The bed was unmade. The sheets were twisted into a knot. Pillows were strewn across the floor, as if she’d thrown them. That made him smile. She was a restless sleeper.


The scents of cinnamon and lemon lingered in the air. His gaze landed on the silk scarves piled on the dresser. Between her scent and the memory of what he’d done to her with the scarves, his cock started to stir. Not good to greet her with a hard-on. He backtracked to the bathroom.


Makeup, washcloths, empty coffee cups littered the bathroom counter. He washed his hands and was looking for a hand towel when he saw the calendar.


Whoa. Why did India need a calendar in the bathroom?


Curious, Colt picked it up. Several days were X’d out. Some in blue. Some in red. He flipped the page. Days were marked for the following month. Not hard to figure out what the red days meant.


A weird feeling arose as he looked at the dates. A yes was scrawled on the blue X’d square three days ago. The night they’d had sex against the pickup. A yes was jotted in the blue X’d box for four days ago. The night she’d spent at his place and he’d f*cked her nine ways ‘til Sunday. A no was written in the blue X’d box for the last two days in which he hadn’t seen India at all. A blue X


marked today and tomorrow. Then nothing until four weeks from the first blue X. Exactly four weeks.


Son of a bitch. Colt knew enough about biology to understand why India was marking the days. This was a fertility chart and blue indicated her most fertile time.


I am getting what I want from Colt McKay.


He didn’t have to tax his brain to figure out what India wanted from him: a baby. She wanted a baby so bad she’d…steal it? She didn’t care if it wasn’t what he wanted?


Jesus. He wanted kids some day. He wanted kids with India, but he wanted a say in when and if that happened. Not for her to take away his choice by staging a “do me right here, right now”


stunt that ensured he couldn’t say no.


You could’ve said no. By saying yes you reverted back to the behavior you used to be known by. So are you really mad at India?


Or yourself?


Colt couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. Had he put his trust in the wrong person? He stumbled out of the bathroom. When he reached the living room, India opened the apartment door.



Her gaze zoomed to the flowers on the table and then back to him. “What are those for?”


“They’re not given out of guilt, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”


She frowned. “Why would I think that?”


Was India really going to play dumb? “I heard you and Cat talkin’. Brought to mind Ma tellin’ me when I was a kid that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves. Guess she was right. But then again, I didn’t exactly hear you leaping to my defense, Indy, when Cat started in on my character—both past and present.” He looked at her with a mix of misery and anger. “I expected more from the woman I’m dating.”