“What’s up Alex, long time no see. How’s the leg piece? Did it heal up alright?”

He laughed a big hearty laugh. Alex was a lawyer or something, he was in his early forties and pretty successful. I knew he drove a sweet Jag and had an awesome loft somewhere down in LoDo but he was cool as hell for a buttoned up kind of guy. I had done a couple big pieces on his leg and on his back and under his pressed shirt and silk tie I knew he had two full sleeves, one Nash had done for him and one Rowdy had done. He paid big bucks and was an awesome tipper. Considering this was the last place on earth I would have planned on running into a client I was stunned into momentary silence. I felt Shaw drop her hand onto my thigh and I covered it with my own.

“It healed perfect. I was actually thinking about swinging by in a few weeks and getting you to draw up something for my chest. So what are you doing out here?”

“I’m actually from Brookside but I’m here particularly because my girl is stubborn and trying to prove a point.” I inclined my head at Shaw and she narrowed her eyes at me. Alex looked around me at Shaw and snorted out a laugh.

“You’re dating Eleanor Landon’s daughter? I bet that went over like coal on Christmas.” I guess she hadn’t changed her name when she left Shaw’s dad or maybe it was just a better name for her political propaganda.

“Oh yeah she’s not a fan.”

“Well don’t worry about it she isn’t a fan of much from what I hear. Well it was good to see a familiar face at one of these shindigs. I hope she keeps you around, these people can use the culture shock. This stuff is normally so boring.”

We bumped fists and I turned back to Shaw to ask her how much longer we had to stay but now everyone in the entire room was staring at me like I had grown an extra face.

“What?”

She laughed and pressed her head against my shoulder. “Do you have any idea who that was?”

I poked a piece of orange in my mouth and pressed her hand harder into my thigh. “Alex. I tattoo him, actually we all do he’s a shop regular.”

She was laughing so hard there were tears running down her face. “That’s Alex Carsten.”

“I just said I know.”

“Rule, Alex is the State Attorney General. He’s the most influential legal person in all of Colorado. My mother helped get him elected.”

I ate another slice of orange and noticed Shaw’s mom was looking at me totally different now. “Weird. He’s tatted up like crazy, under that suit and tie is some serious artwork.”

“That’s just too funny.”

“Hey how much longer do we have to stick around here?”

“Let’s finish eating and then I need to pack my stuff up in my room. You can come up and help me.”

“You think the queen of the castle is going to let me in the ivory tower?”

She leaned in closer to me and moved her hand up even higher on my thigh, it made me almost choke on the orange I was chewing on.

“She might not want you in there,” her green eyes twinkled up at me with merriment, “but I sure do.”

This stupid brunch couldn’t end fast enough. I popped another piece of orange in my mouth and tried counting backward from a hundred to get my libido in check. I thought brunch with my folks was rough, I was starting to see why Shaw was so interested in pulling my fractured family back together, even as messed up as we Archer’s were, these rich people had us beat in crazy and nasty by spades.

Chapter 10

Shaw

I was doing my best to get away from my mother’s house but even though the plan had been to escape as soon as we were done eating Alex had shown back up at the table and hijacked Rule. He claimed one of his coworkers was interested in some custom artwork for his man cave and he thought Rule might be the perfect person to produce it for him, so there I was again the odd man out at one of my mother’s awful events while my tattooed, pierced boyfriend was making the rounds like some kind of celebrity. It was kind of funny and I was secretly thrilled it had to be getting under my mother’s skin, but I wanted to go. I wanted to get him alone and make up for lost time. It felt like things had shifted dramatically between us and I needed time to put it in perspective, need time to figure out what it meant to him exactly because to me he had defined the relationship by showing up here to apologize and I needed to know he felt the same.

My mother was working the room and Jack was tied up with the kids, Gabe was hanging out with the other future business leaders of America shooting killer looks at Rule, and my guy was in the middle of elegantly dressed men describing something with his hands that had them all nodding eagerly and chattering away at him. I saw my opportunity to escape for a minute so I slid through the kitchen and made my way up to my room. I shoved all my stuff into the bag I brought and tossed my broken phone on top. I think I would hold Rule to buying me a new one since he was the reason I had tossed it against the wall in the first place. I was looking around the bed for anything I might have forgotten when warm hands slid around my waist.

I knew Rule’s touch and this wasn’t it so I jerked upright and shoved hard against Gabe’s chest.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He grabbed my arm, hard, and tried to pull me towards him. “Get out of my room Gabe.”

“Well I figured it all out Shaw.” He kept pulling on my arm hard enough that I knew there was going to be a bruise. I was trying to push him away from me but he was exerting a lot more force and he was stronger than me. “You dumped me so you could have sex with Archer, well by now you should have screwed him out of your system. You never gave me a shot to show you what I can do. I think you need a fair comparison before you totally shut me out.”

I felt my eyes spring wide as I renewed my efforts to get free. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I didn’t sleep with you because I’m not attracted to you. I didn’t want to have sex with you then and I don’t want to have sex with you now. You need to go or Rule is going to murder you.”

He pulled my wrist tight behind my back so hard I yelped. He lowered his face until it was right in mine and grabbed my jaw with his other hand. I was starting to actually panic, my room was upstairs and on the other side of the big house, sure someone would hear me scream if I yelled but I wasn’t sure how the fall out of that kind of scene would be. I struggled to be released and he just laughed.

“I’m not scared of the street thug nor am I impressed by his artistic genius or whatever Carsten was going on about. He’s trash and not going to get in the way of what I want, and Shaw you belong to me you should know that now.” He gave me a hard shove back so that I fell onto the bed I immediately scrambled across the other side so that the entire mass was between us. “You better get on board with this, Shaw before it gets ugly.”

I was breathing hard and had a hand to my throat. It was shaking and so was I. He threw my keys on the bed. “I’ll get my own ride back to Denver, wouldn’t want you to spend any more time alone with tattoo boy than necessary would I?”

He strolled out of the room like he hadn’t just assaulted or threatened me. I shook myself out of the shock and gathered my stuff and bolted down the stairs. I found Rule wandering around the kitchen looking lost and clearly searching for me. I handed him my bags and hustled him out of the house without bothering to say goodbye to anyone even my mom and it wasn’t until we were on the highway headed home that I broke down. Out of the blue broken sobs wracked my whole body and I couldn’t stop crying. I was shaking so hard and making such a hysterical mess that Rule freaked out and pulled over to the side of the road. He kept asking me if it was my head but I couldn’t answer so I just crawled into his lap and cried and cried.

It took a solid twenty minutes for the deluge to stop and by then Rule was frantic and threatening to take me to the nearest emergency room.

“No. It’s fine just give me a minute.” He was rubbing my back and his blue eyes were crystal like frost. I pressed my forehead against his and pushed up the sleeves of my coat. Angry red welts and ugly purple bruises were encircling my entire wrist. “Gabe ambushed me in my room when I was grabbing my stuff. He shoved me around and threatened me, he said I needed to get on board with this, whatever that means before it gets ugly. He really hurt me Rule and he scared me. I don’t know what’s wrong with him but it’s getting really bad.”

He went still as a statue underneath me and he lifted one of his hands to grab my injured wrist. He turned his head to press a soft kiss against my pulse and breathed out in a tone that sent chills up my spine, “I’m going to kill him.”

“I know.” I let him sooth me for a minute before climbing off him and settling back in the passenger seat. “I have to go back to Brookside and get my car tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take Rome and we’ll go get it.”

“Don’t you have to work?”

“Not until one but I think I want to call Mark and ask him about getting you a restraining order.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I can’t believe you let us leave without confronting him. You should have raked his ass over the fire in front of his parents and all those people he was trying so hard to impress.”

“I was freaking out, I just wanted to escape. I just wanted you.” My voice trailed off in a whisper and he reached over to haul me up next to his side. Having bench seats in a big truck was nice.

“You have me Shaw, any way you need me, any way you want me, you have me.”

I pressed my face into the curve of his neck and exhaled. I think that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. “How about you being the bell of the ball today? I bet that made my mother furious. She looked like she was going to have a coronary.”

“I have a lot of clients that are out there in the business world, more and more of the general population is sporting some serious ink. She shouldn’t be so judgmental.”

“No she shouldn’t. I don’t want you to get into trouble over Gabe. I just want him to leave me alone.”

He gave me a one armed hug. “Don’t worry about me, Casper. I promise not to do anything overtly stupid. I just want him to leave you alone as well and I will make sure that happens. In the meantime I don’t think you should leave work alone so have Lou walk you out and if we can figure something out with our crazy schedules I want you to stay with me or I’ll be with you.”

“You don’t have to do that, I don’t want you to rearrange your whole life around because some guy is being an asshole to me.”

“Yes I do and not because I have to but because I want to. He isn’t getting his hands on you again Shaw. Not ever again.”

It was a nice thought so I didn’t want to argue instead I let him snuggle me into his side and absently ran my hand up and down his leg while he drove. I didn’t ask if he was taking me home or to his place and I honestly didn’t care until I remembered Rome was crashing on his couch.