Tied Bond - Emma Hart Page 0,2

probably knows more ways to use handcuffs than he does.” I prod Drake in the arm.

He shudders. “Can we not discuss this? When I took that damn rat of a dog back to her place last night, I was five minutes away from running into my ex-stepfather. It suddenly made total sense why I had to dog-sit.”

“Wally?”

Drake groans, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “Of course it was Wally. Who else would she be secretly screwing?”

Mom gasps.

“We should take this to your car.” I grab him and drag him down the path, much to Mom’s annoyance.

Oh boy. She only wishes she could hear more.

Damn gossiper.

We get into the car, and I shoot Mom a glare as I slam the door. Defiantly, she grabs Lucifer and hangs him on his tree.

“That thing is weird.” Drake looks right past me at it. “I might have to be sick for the next two or three Fridays.”

“Just the Fridays?” My lips slowly tug up on side one. “Isn’t that suspicious?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he mutters, leaning back in his seat. “I’ll look on Google.”

“The last time you looked on Google, you diagnosed yourself with a potentially life-threatening disease.”

“Hey.” He looks at me, his bright eyes glinting with restrained laughter. “The symptoms were identical. How was I supposed to know my appendix wasn’t about to burst and fill my gut with poison?”

I put my hand on his knee. “Honey, you had indigestion. And gas.”

“It was severe.”

“Oh, I know. I had to sleep with you that night.”

“Shut up.” He flicks the back of my hand, a grin on his handsome face.

I try to keep my raised eyebrows and half-pursed lips, but his smile is so infectious that I can’t do anything but return it. Damn him.

“Okay,” I say. “Now, tell me about your mom.”

“She’s…busy,” he answers vaguely, scratching at his jaw.

“With Wally.”

“And Derrick Hugh.”

“At the… At the same time?”

He stops scratching and, instead, rubs his hand down his face. He cuts his eyes to me, and horror shadows them. “Don’t—why would you suggest that? She’s almost sixty, Noelle. That isn’t right.”

“She’s not that close to sixty. Old people have sex, you know.”

“She’d take offense at you calling her old.”

“You’re the one who thinks she’s too old to have sex.”

“And, once again, our conversations are going in circles.” He sighs heavily. “She’s seeing them both. Separately. And I’m not sure they know about each other, but when Derrick came in to fix the broken pipes in the station bathroom yesterday, he fuckin’ winked at me.”

My tongue darts out to wet my lips. “Winked at you, huh? Saucy.”

“Sweetheart, I love you, but I swear to God, if you don’t take this seriously…”

I laugh and kiss his stubbled cheek. “She’s a big girl, Drake. She’s old enough to make her own choices.”

“Historically, she hasn’t made good ones.”

“Neither have I, but you still put up with me.”

“I can’t get rid of you.”

“Excuse me. I seem to remember trying incredibly hard to get rid of you,” I point out. “You were the one attaching yourself to me like a limpet to a rock.”

He grins widely and leans over. His hand curves around the back of my neck, and when he pulls my face into his, he’s still smiling. “It worked.”

“Hmmm,” I muse back, smiling a little myself. Warmth spreads through me when our lips touch. “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“Yeah, but Nonna’s crazy actually saved me a phone call. Mom wants us to have dinner with her tonight.”

I wrinkle my face up. “Will Rat Dog be there?”

“It didn’t try to eat your Louboutins, Noelle. That mark is from when you threw it into your coffee table last week because your client’s deposit check bounced.”

“That was a lot of money. And that’s a total lie. I’d never treat my babies that way.” Except that I did.

What? I was pissed off.

“If you say so,” he says. “Still, I’ll pick you up at six, yeah?”

“And Rat Dog will be in a cage, right?”

He stares at me flatly as I get up. “Probably not. She doesn’t know I have a cage for it.”

I groan and slam the car door. He laughs, and I flip him the bird over my shoulder. I love his mom. She’s wonderfully quirky—the good kind, not the Nonna kind—and sweet, if you ignore that she gives my ring finger a pointed look every time I see her. I do. I’m used to it.

But that dog?

No.

I don’t even know what it is, hence its nickname of Rat Dog. It’s