Chapter 9
Rocco stepped into the brightly lit, immaculate kitchen. One of the waitresses in the front had told him that Tony could be found back here, but…well, he’d never been inside of a professional kitchen before. Prior to coming to LowPoint, his meals had been mostly out of a takeout bag unless he cooked for himself.
As Rocco watched, Tony took several spoons off an overhead hanging contraption and put them into a metal drawer. He pulled some other stuff out of the pantry. Stuff Rocco was pretty sure didn’t go in that particular drawer.
“What are you doing?” he finally asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.
Tony looked up, but continued to walk around the kitchen, collecting various tools and items, dumping them into the drawer before slamming it shut.
“What do you want?” Tony demanded, turning and fisting his hands on his hips.
Rocco accepted that he deserved this belligerence. “I’m looking for Daisy.”
Tony shrugged his shoulders. “And?”
Okay, now the guy was pissing him off! “And,” he continued with sarcasm, “any chance you might know where she is?”
Tony threw back his head, laughing. When he was finished, he glared at Rocco. “After insulting my friend last night and hurting her feelings, do you really think I’m going to tell you where Daisy is now?”
Rocco rolled his eyes and turned around to leave. He thought about explaining, but then shook his head. None of this guy’s business, he thought and walked out of the kitchen.
His next stop was Marilee’s house, which was another mystery. Marilee lived in a massive Victorian mansion. The house itself had been perfectly restored with amazing attention to detail. The curtains and blinds were shut, so he couldn’t see inside, but he imagined that the interior was just as beautifully renovated as the exterior. Somehow, the house fit her but…it didn’t. Not really. Rocco couldn’t quite put his finger on the problem.
“What’s up, big guy?” Marilee asked as soon as she answered the door. “Wait!” she frowned thoughtfully up at Rocco. “Have you had coffee yet?”
Rocco rubbed the bridge of his nose, digging deep for patience. He wanted to see Daisy. He needed to speak with her. The longer it took him to find her, the worse it was getting. It was almost as if he could feel her hurt and anger building in the air around this crazy town. “I’m just looking for Daisy,” he told her.
Marilee took his arm and dragged him inside and Rocco tried hard not to pull away. He needed to find Daisy, but this sweet woman was obviously trying to baby him. He didn’t need to be babied! He needed Daisy!
“Sit!” she ordered and walked over to the kitchen countertop. Rocco stood, watching as she reached up and took a colorful mug from a cabinet and filled it with steaming coffee.
“Here,” she handed him the mug. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Rocco gulped down the coffee, immediately feeling the burn as well as the caffeine jolt. “I just need to talk with Daisy but she wasn’t home this morning. And she wasn’t at work.”
“She’s working,” the adorable woman countered. “Just not at the work site. She said the remodeling was ahead of schedule, so she was going to get the décor organized.”
As he gulped down the coffee, Rocco watched as Marilee pulled things out of her drawers and put them into the pantry. Pots in the pantry? That didn’t make any sense. Especially when she only pulled one pot out, leaving the rest. If the woman was going to re-organize her kitchen then…
Shaking his head again – he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately since moving here – he reminded himself of his mission. “Daisy? Do you know where she is?”
Marilee took spoons, a knife, a can opener and measuring cups out of a drawer, putting them on the middle shelf of her pantry. She’d already moved the cans of food on the pantry to the bottom shelf. Why? He had no idea. It would seem that the cans should go on the middle shelf so they were more easily accessible.
Then again, nothing made sense around here!
“She said she was going to talk with Ivy about some photos, hoping to put them….”
Rocco lifted his mug up and drained the rest of his coffee. He then moved to the sink and rinsed the cup, stuffing it into the dishwasher. He leaned down and kissed Marilee on the top of her head. “Thanks,” and he walked out, not waiting for whatever else the cute woman might say.
Ivy’s photo studio was on Main Street, right in the middle. He looked over at the odd shop across the street, wondering who owned that shop. It was filled with crystal items that were already sparkling in the early morning sunshine. Next door to that pretty shop was another picture gallery, this one filled with contemporary art. Rocco hadn’t ever understood art like that, but he supposed it was important in some weird way.
He stalked into the gallery and…stopped. Frozen. The pictures hanging on the white walls as well as from wires coming down from the ceiling were…incredible! These photographs weren’t just pictures. They were…stunning! Some were of people’s faces, capturing emotions that ranged from poignant sadness to hope to…terror. The pictures were blown up to bigger than life size and were…shocking. Stepping deeper into the gallery, he found others, these in full color but no longer of faces. These pictures were of places…the sun shining through snowcapped mountains, glaciers with the craggy ice fragmenting the light so it was a dazzling blue, an image of a jungle but looking up into the jungle’s canopy. Looking carefully, it felt as if the canopy was alive, filled with life. Birds, monkeys, a snake in one corner. He paused, staring at that photo for a long moment…transfixed. He could actually feel the humidity and the heat, smell the scent of the rotting jungle vegetation and…as he looked, he could almost hear the sounds.
“I took that one last summer in Brazil.”
Rocco swung around, startled by the soft, feminine voice. Ivy was standing behind and slightly to the right of him and it took him a moment to come back to the present. Turning to the picture, he shook his head slightly. “This is incredible,” he whispered, awe in his tone.
“Thanks,” Ivy replied, both of them looking at the enlarged photo for a long moment.
Finally, Rocco pulled his eyes away and looked down at the slender woman. “I’m looking for Daisy,” he announced.
Ivy only smiled, then walked back to her desk and Rocco followed. She started shifting colored pencils around. They were pointed downwards into a spiral holder that was currently perfectly organized by graduating color. The various pinks eased into the reds, then from light blues to darks. The color scheme made sense, but then Ivy started shifting the colors around. The blues were mixed with the reds and yellows, the darker colors shifted around to the lighter ones. Nothing was in order anymore.
“Why do you want to talk with her?” she asked, shifting two pencils around, putting a blue where the reds were and the red one in the yellow section.
Rocco pulled his eyes away from the colorful chaos and looked directly into Ivy’s eyes. “I need to apologize,” he admitted. “I hurt her, made some assumptions that were wrong.” He hadn’t said this to Marilee or Tony, but it was the truth. He hadn’t said it to the others because…well, he hadn’t realized how important it was to find her today until she hadn’t shown up at work. And because he couldn’t find her. He hadn’t thought of LowPoint as big, but even a small town apparently had a lot of places to hide.
While Ivy continued to shift around the colors, he waited, holding his breath. “Please,” he finally said. “I screwed up. I need to find her and apologize.”
Ivy leaned back in her chair and looked up at Rocco. “You promise not to hurt her again? She’s a good person. Better than most.”
“I’d like the chance to find out.” He should probably tell the woman that he and Daisy seemed to fight more often than not, but…hell, he didn’t think it was any of their business. What he had with Daisy was private.
“Fine,” she agreed, leaning forward and grabbing a piece of paper. She wrote down an address and handed it to him. “She’s at her warehouse where she keeps furniture and knickknacks for decorating the houses once the renovation is completed.”
Rocco took the paper and smiled at Ivy. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, then turned on his heel and walked out of the gallery.
Daisy pulled another box off the shelf and hauled it over to her workbench. The lighting wasn’t great here in the warehouse, which is why she normally did this kind of stuff in her house. But she didn’t want Rocco to find her. He didn’t know about this place and that was fine with her. She could do her work in the hours when he wasn’t at the construction site. Or maybe, she’d just work on designs for another set of houses and leave him with all the work at the current sites.
But she loved doing the detail work! Rocco and his crew were great at building the foundation, but the real thrill for her was laying the tiles, painting the walls, adding in furniture and details that fit the lifestyles of the people who would eventually occupy the houses.
Besides, she and her search team had worked really hard to find Jenny and Toby, the two who would live in the two houses that were under renovation now. Jenny had two kids from two different men. She worked as an administrative assistant during the day and her jewelry designs at night after she’d put her kids to bed.
And Toby…if Toby could get out of his situation, he might be able to prove to the courts that he was a good father, and maybe get his kids out of the foster system.
Both of them worked so hard and had so much to give the world. The world just needed to discover those two and everything would work out. Jenny and Toby were hard working souls that only needed a little boost to make their lives better.
She tumbled the kitchen utensils onto the large table that she used to cut fabric for special projects. The bits and pieces of stuff tumbled everywhere and Daisy’s fingers quickly pulled them closer and immediately started sorting everything into the plastic containers she’d brought for just this purpose.
The door to her warehouse opened and closed, but she didn’t look up. The only people who knew about this warehouse were Ivy, Marilee, and Tony.
But the heavy footsteps making their way through the aisles of decorations, furniture, and art weren’t Tony’s. He had a heavy footstep, but the cadence was wrong. For a moment, panic hit her and she looked up from her sorting to try and see who had invaded her space.
That’s when Rocco’s huge shoulders appeared between the mattresses that had been delivered yesterday and the row of new cabinets for the next set of houses.
As soon as he found her, he stopped, just looking at her.
Daisy wasn’t sure what to say. Obviously, one of her friends was no longer one of her friends. The rat-fink had given away her hiding place! Daisy was fairly sure it wasn’t Tony. Ivy was tough, but…
“What happened to your jaw” she gasped, dropping several porcelain drawer pulls and making her way around the table towards him.
Stopping in front of him, she reached up and touched his swollen, bruised jaw. “Who did this to you? We’ve been trying to hire a law enforcement official, but everyone has been dragging their feet. If someone jumped you then…”
His strong hands moved to her waist and his touch halted all of her words. The touch sent a zing of awareness through her body and she stared up at him for a moment, not speaking. Forgetting what she’d even been saying.
He took her hand in both of his, looking her in the eye as he said, “I’m sorry.”
She pulled back, remembering that she was mad at him and walked over to her table again. Her fingers reached out and started sorting, frantically putting each of the knobs and miscellaneous items into the various tubs.
“Sorry for what?” she asked, trying to appear as if she didn’t care what his answer was, but if he could hear her heartrate, he’d know that it was all a lie. She cared. Too much! And she hated that she cared. All the men she’d dated in the past could have ignored her and she’d just move on, not really invested in any of those relationships.
What was it about Rocco that changed her normally impervious attitude, she wasn’t sure. But as she looked across the table at him, she couldn’t stop the pounding of her heart. Even though she knew he was a jerk, she still wanted him. What was that all about? Wasn’t she supposed to be an enlightened female who wanted a thinking, feeling man who was just as enlightened?
Obviously not, she thought with increasing resentment.
“I’m sorry for the way I treated you yesterday,” he told her.
Daisy looked up at him, startled, but she couldn’t see his eyes very well since they were shielded by the dim lighting.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told him and bowed her head, trying not to start crying again. This was ridiculous! She shouldn’t be crying over a guy she didn’t like!
“Daisy,” his voice was soft, and instead of being on the other side of the table, he was right there, right beside her!
Spinning around, she gasped when she discovered that he was close. Way too close! “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I really am sorry. I saw…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she slipped away from him.
“I think it does. Would you let me explain?”
She shook her head and scooted further away. “No need for explanations, Rocco. We work together. That’s it.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer, his hand cupping her jaw as he gently but firmly held her in place. “Are you sure that’s all?” he asked softly. And his deep, rough voice asking her that in that tone of voice was her undoing.
She closed her eyes, squeezing them so the tears wouldn’t escape. “That’s all I can handle,” she told him.
“Why is that?”
She wanted to be honest with him, but she’d learned very quickly that honesty wasn’t something people could cope with. “Several years ago, something happened to me, to all of us, and we have learned to be…careful.” She sighed and pulled out of his arms. Instinctively, she reached for her sorting again. Tossing several things into the bins helped her focus and she breathed a bit easier.
He took her hands, stopping her sorting, and turned her to face him. “Daisy, I was jealous,” he explained.
She blinked up at him, not sure she understood. “Jealous? Of what?”
He released her and walked away, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. She waited, ignoring the mess on her table as she waited for him to explain. “I saw you yesterday morning at that small sandwich shop.”
She thought back to the previous morning, trying to remember what she’d been doing. “Eating breakfast at the small shop on Main Street? The one next door to Jane’s bakery?”
He sighed, bowing his head. “I don’t know who Jane is, but yes, the small shop on Main.”
Daisy still didn’t understand. She shook her head, lifting her hands in an effort to gain more information. “Should I not eat breakfast? I’ll admit, I’d rather not but…”
“It wasn’t the meal, Daisy,” Rocco interrupted, spinning around. His hands were on his lean hips, drawing her eyes to that area of his body. “It was who you were eating with.”
She blinked again, trying to pull her eyes away from his flat stomach. His muscular chest. Lower. “Who was I dining with, Rocco?” she asked, since her mind simply wasn’t working.
“You were sitting across the table from Tony.” He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.
Daisy blinked again, looking up at his eyes now. “I was eating with Tony?” she asked, then a small smile formed as understanding finally dawned. “And you were jealous.” This was a statement instead of a question. “So that’s why you ignored me yesterday?” She stepped closer. “And is that why you have a gloriously bruised jaw today?”
He grimaced. “Sort of,” he replied.
She laughed, her heart soaring as the reason behind his words and his jealousy sunk into her battered heart. “Sort of? Or really?”
He blew out another breath and stepped closer. “Here’s the deal, Daisy. I don’t share. So if we’re going to…try this…together,” he stammered out, feeling ridiculous since he’d never wanted to “try” a relationship with a woman before, and he wasn’t really sure how to go about suggesting it. “If we’re going to try something together, then I want…” He stopped, stumbling around for the right word.
“Exclusivity?” she suggested, and her heart pounded even harder. He was so tough and gruff and invincible looking. But at this moment, he seemed…vulnerable. Such a strange word to apply to a guy like Rocco, but…yeah. He looked unsure and worried.
“Exclusivity.” He tested out the word and looked down at her. “You’re laughing at me,” he pulled her closer, unconcerned with her amusement if he could touch her again. “What would you say if I admitted that I’d like to try a bit of exclusivity with you?”
Daisy laughed but he jerked her into his arms. Resting her hands on his shoulders, she grinned, feeling happy all of a sudden. “So, you were jealous yesterday that I was with another guy, and now you are asking me to eliminate all the other men I’m dating. Is that right?”
She felt his hands tighten on her waist and knew that she’d have to set him straight fast. “I’m kidding!” she laughed. “Totally kidding! I’m not seeing anyone else. Not even casually.”
“Is that because of what happened to you years ago?”
She tilted her head slightly. “Sort of.”
He waited, but when he only received silence, he bent lower, and lifted her onto the table. “You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?”
She laughed, but then caught her breath when his hips shifted, sliding between her legs while, at the same time, his hands slid down her back to her bottom, lifting until his denim covered erection was nestled right against her body. Tightly!
“No,” she admitted on a gasp, her fingers tightening on his shoulders.
“Fine. I can go with that.” His fingers slipped underneath her cotton shirt. “For now. We need to learn to trust each other.”
She pulled back slightly. “Perhaps we should learn trust before we…well, before we are intimate again.”
He laughed as he lowered his head. She felt his lips against her neck and shivered.
“I don’t think that’s possible. Besides,” he moved to a new place, nibbling and driving her crazy there, “if we don’t release the sexual tension between us, somehow, then the guys are going to quit on me. And then we won’t make your deadline.”
She closed her eyes, trying to think but the things he was doing to her neck, they should be illegal! “We wouldn’t want to miss the deadline, would we,” she sighed, then laughed when he nipped her earlobe.
“You’re mocking me when I’m trying to be considerate of the stresses in your life,” he admonished archly. “For that, I think I’ll have to punish you,” he warned.
She laughed, pulling back. “Yeah? What are you going to do to punish me?” she asked, not afraid of him. Not any longer.
He slid his hands up underneath her sweater. “I’m not sure. I think I’ll have to come up with something extra good for your punishment.”
Daisy laughed, feeling almost light headed now that she knew why he had been so upset with her yesterday.
She lifted her lips and kissed his jaw. “I think I might like a bit of your kind of punishment,” she whispered in his ear.
The growl in response caused her to laugh, but then she was lifted off the counter. She didn’t like this…until he spun her around. “You might not like it, Daisy,” he warned. At that moment, his hands slid higher along her stomach, cupping her breasts, his thumbs flicking against her nipples.
Daisy grabbed for anything that might help her handle the electric shock of his teasing. But there was nothing and she felt her body spiral higher. “I might like it,” she replied, arching her body so that her breasts pressed into his hands. “I like this.”
He chuckled. “So we’re exclusive, right?”
“Yes!” she gasped, wanting to rip her clothes off. No, she wanted to rip his clothes off! “Yes! I’m not dating anyone. I haven’t dated anyone for…” she paused, not wanting to admit to someone as handsome and amazing as Rocco how long it had been since she’d been on a date.
“How long?” he asked, but then her shirt came off. He carefully laid it in front of her eyes while his fingers left a trail of fire up her spine now that his hands were unfettered.
“A long time,” she admitted, biting her lip as she leaned into his touch.
“Me too,” he told her, his fingers deftly unsnapping her bra. He pulled it away by slipping his hands underneath the lacy material and Daisy moaned with heightened need. She leaned over, pressing her bottom against his groin, feeling his erection and smiling.
The smack was a shock. It wasn’t hard, but as she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, she realized that Rocco had just swatted her bottom. And even more shocking? She liked it!
He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at her bottom, his hand smoothing over the area where he’d just spanked her. Her breathing was rapid now and she pressed her bottom against his hand.
“Are you going to mock me again?” he asked, his hand going back and forth over her bottom.
Daisy bit her lower lip, closing her eyes as she debated how to answer him. In the end, she couldn’t stop the “Yes,” that came from her lips. This time, the smack was just a bit harder and she moaned, bending over the counter, almost as if she were offering her bottom for more.
“Ah, so you’re admitting you like laughing at me, huh?”
Daisy couldn’t speak, she was so turned on. His hand and the smacks were…they were so erotic.
She felt his hands curve around her stomach, sliding higher to tweak her nipples again before moving down to her waist. There, his nimble fingers unsnapped her jeans and pushed them down. “Lift your foot,” he ordered, his hand holding onto her ankle to help her balance.
When her shoes, socks, jeans and underwear were tossed away from her, she looked behind her because his hand was still pressed to the middle of her back. He was still fully dressed while she was completely naked. “Rocco!” she gasped, feeling vulnerable and loving it.
Then he smacked her bottom once again and she cried out, pressing against his palm. He did it again, slightly harder and her fingers curled against the counter.
That’s when his finger slid into her heat and she was shocked at the smooth, wet heat that surrounded him. Almost embarrassed at how turned on she was but then again, she didn’t care. She was beyond caring. All she could do was wiggle against his hand, silently begging him for another smack.
Instead, she heard the foil wrapper tear open. A moment later, his erection pressed against her opening and she pressed backwards, needing him to fill her completely.
Another swat and she threw her head back as he embedded himself fully inside of her. He was still fully dressed while she was completely naked. She couldn’t even grab her clothes if someone were to walk in on them and that thought pushed her desire even higher. Anyone could walk in on them!
“Did you lock the door?” she asked over her shoulder.
His fingers curled around to her stomach, going lower. Lower still. He was bent over her as he thrust into her, his rough finger against that nub, rubbing in time with each of his thrusts. “No. I didn’t lock the door.”
With that, she climaxed against him, her body convulsing again and again! Eyes closed, body arched against his hand as waves of pleasure hit her. He came right after that and she clung to him with her inner muscles for a long moment before collapsing against the counter.
“Daisy,” he groaned as his strong hands pulled her in closer. Closer still, cradling her as they came down together.