He swallowed around a lump of lust. He wasn’t sure what she was doing. Well, he thought he knew what she was doing, but right now thinking wasn’t easy. The blood wasn’t exactly flowing to the head on his shoulders.
Then, the diversion he needed happened. Three quick barks followed by a pathetic, high-pitched howl crept through the floor.
Rachel’s smile vanished as her top teeth stabbed her bottom lip. Suddenly she didn’t look like a tempting seductress bent on snaring a man in her web; she looked…worried.
“Is that what he does when I’m gone?” she asked, her voice small.
“Yeah.”
“The entire time?” Her pale eyebrows bowed.
“Pretty much.”
She blew out a breath and with it, sent some of her curls billowing in front of her gorgeous face. He narrowed his eyes and took her in, like he was seeing her for the first time. Something was off. He realized he’d officially met her in the morning so she hadn’t been dressed to go out, but he’d also spotted her out front of the apartment building and saw how she dressed normally. Sexy, yes, and in a skirt, but this…this skintight getup wasn’t her.
“What going on?” he asked.
Her eyes went to his face. “What do you mean?”
He lifted one of her blond curls, intending to drop it, but wound the silken strands around his finger instead. When he’d met her, her hair was wavy at best, not a tornado of curls. “This. What are you doing here dressed like this?” He gave her hair a gentle tug, then dropped it, figuring there was only one of two reasons she’d be at his door dressed like a decadent dessert. Either she knew he was a Crane and was an opportunist, or she was playing it up to teach him a lesson. He narrowed his eyes in thought.
He’d bet it was the latter.
“You thought I was a hooker,” she said, her top lip curling.
Tag chuckled. “I did not.”
“You did! I said Oliver was a regular, and you thought I meant one of my tricks.” She did air quotes and everything.
His chuckle turned into a belly laugh and he had to put a hand on his stomach to catch his breath. “No, sweetheart, I thought you meant you were one of his regular girls. Girlfriends. Not that you curled his toes for money.”
Busted, she blushed, and that made him happy. Definitely she was not doing Oliver. His day was looking up.
“I hadn’t ruled out you slept with him for perks, because he’s a wealthy dude and I’m sure he sees a lot of that kind of attention, but I didn’t think you were a working woman.” He smirked.
“It’s not funny.” She’d folded her arms, which had the side effect of pushing her tits together, creating enough cleavage that he nearly lost the thread of their conversation.
He pulled himself together by looking at her boots. Patent leather, shiny, pointy-toed.
“What were you trying to prove by gussying yourself up?” He gestured at her body, but he couldn’t dismiss her. She rocked that dress, even though he’d bet it was a size smaller than what she was used to wearing. Maybe it belonged to one of her friends. Rachel had amazing curves, and they were testing the limits of her outfit…and Tag’s ability to stay on point. “What were you planning to do, anyway? Were you coming up here to seduce me?”
A not at all unpleasant idea…
“You wish.” She snorted—an honest to God snort. “I’m not the least bit attracted to…” She shrugged, which was cute. “What you have going on.”
“No?” He felt his eyebrows lift. “Because this”—he gestured to his body—“has worked for plenty of women.”
“What women? Women who want to help you brush your hair? Women who are into the whole you-Tarzan, me-Jane scenario?”
Damn. And she was funny.
“I’m not opposed to role-playing,” he teased with a grin. She flinched, and he let the comment hang. He couldn’t remember a woman ever brushing his hair, save for his mom when he was a kid, but he’d let Rachel keep poking him. Tag knew women, and this one seemed like she had no idea what she wanted. Maybe she’d known at one point, but now…now she wasn’t sure.
“Rachel Foster,” she introduced, shooting a hand out for him to shake.
A handshake? Who was this woman? He took her hand and she answered that question, too.
“Oliver is a regular at the bar where I work. He found out I was saving money to move out of my roommates’ apartment and offered me a gig house-slash-dog sitting for him.”
So, completely professional acquaintance. He should have guessed. He’d always suspected Oliver was gay. He’d never seen him with a woman. Then again, he’d never seen him with a man, either, Tag thought with a mouth shrug.
“And you are?” she asked.
Was she playing him, or did she really not know? Her eyebrows were slightly raised in an expression of genuine curiosity.
“Tag,” he answered, letting go of her hand.
“Tag? As in you’re it?”
Tag as in Taggart, but he’d die before she found out he was named after his great-great-grandfather Crane.
“Yeah. As in you’re it.” They shared a not uncomfortable silence, eyes on each other. He could swear the air between them thickened. He opened his mouth to ask if she was going to give chase when Adonis’s bark killed the opportunity.
She gestured at the floor, beneath which was her apartment and a very unhappy pup. “What am I going to do about him? I work second shift, so it’s not like I can be home with him in the evening. I take him out five times, day and night, snow or sunshine.”
“He has separation anxiety,” Tag said over another of Adonis’s mournful howls. “The internet suggested a few things.”
“You…you researched it?” She looked confused and a little grateful, and now that he knew she wasn’t Oliver’s girlfriend, a whole lot tempting.
“Yeah.” After he’d spoken with Fi, he’d pulled up a few websites on his phone. “I didn’t want to file a noise complaint.”
“Thanks,” she muttered quietly, followed by an even quieter, “I need this job.”
A bartender who needed a side job. This smacked of a woman who was trying to take a bite out of success in the big city and the city bit back. He wondered what her story was.
“What’d it say?” she asked.
“What did what say?”
She frowned. “The internet.”
Right. He really needed to keep his thoughts on track when she was around, or she’d assume he was some idiot with a trust fund who was living in a penthouse because he was spoiled. She wouldn’t be the first person who’d underestimated him. When he was younger, being underestimated was his shtick, but then he grew up and opted to tell the truth. He was intelligent, he’d made his own millions, though his portfolio upgraded his title to billionaire by the time he was twenty-six, and he preferred the term blessed over spoiled. He refused to apologize for living the good life.
He crooked a finger and beckoned Rachel deeper into the house. She came, which gave him an immense sense of satisfaction. She closed the front door behind her and wobbled a little in her high, high boots, and he bit back a smile. He must have burrowed under her skin if she’d gone to the trouble of putting as much of her body on display as possible in clothes that weren’t hers. When she’d stumbled into him in Oliver’s doorway the other morning, she’d slammed into him about chest high. With the boots, she was almost to his chin. He tried not to think about where else they might line up, but the images came.