Double shit!

  My feet forged ahead despite the horror that now consumed me. I searched the room for my clothes, panic rising after my eyes settled on the remnants of my pleather skirt. The material that I'd been dogging the night prior was practically in two pieces. I cursed the fabric and its downfalls.

  Now what in the hell was I supposed to do? I was in a foreign place, couldn't remember the events of the night prior that had ultimately led me here and my mouth was as dry as The Sahara Desert.

  I approached the door with caution. Although my body was desperate for water, my pride was desperately close to being shattered. I wasn’t alone – the running water proved it. I was fairly certain that it was Mick. Who else could it be? I fingered my temples, hoping that the gentle pressure would get the juices flowing and, hopefully, the minor details to follow closely behind.

  I spotted a white silk robe hanging from a wooden hook on the wall adjacent to the doorway. Grabbing for it, I slid my arms through the soft material and tied the belt into a snug knot, giving one final backwards glance to the bed and the twisted quilt. My stomach constricted at the sight, afraid of what the sheets meant. All too aware of what they normally did.

  Upon opening the door, I slowly extended a hesitant foot forward. The hallway appeared to be desolate. I ran on my tiptoes, hanging a right when I was left no other choice. The hallway gave way to an open area of living space and a country style kitchen to my left. When my eyes found the sink, I practically walked on air to get to it, turning the faucet on and plunging my face underneath.

  I would never again take for granted the benefits of water. I gulped the liquid down until it was absolutely necessary to stop for air, taking three lungful's before going back for seconds.

  "Mornin'," a deep voice drawled from behind me, hints of humor in the greeting.

  I froze, taking the exact moment to realize how short the silk robe was. Raising my protesting upper half from the water, I ran shaky hands across my backside in an effort to extend the fabric a few inches. I wasn't met with much success and as I turned towards the owner of the voice, hands under my backside pinning the silk to my thighs, water dripping down my face, I blushed ten shades of red.

  "Looks like I've got quite the…perky intruder in my house this morning," he noted, his tone growing as serious as the eyes that rested on the front of the robe.

  I looked down to see what he was referring to, humiliation washing over me. My nipples shone brightly through the silk fabric just as plain as day, standing to perfect attention, exactly as he'd noted. The rim of the sink had been wet and I'd apparently collected the moisture during my haste to rehydrate. I folded my arms across my chest, desperate for my unmoving tongue to form a response.

  "Better turn this off," he noted, closing the distance between us. I took hasty steps backwards until my bare calves bumped into cabinets. I was left with little other choice than to look at the tall frame that towered above me, my mouth forgetting how to close as it hung open at an unattractive distance.

  "I-" I began, fumbling for the right words.

  There were long moments that ticked by, silence filling the room as the air between us charged with electrical current. Because I could do little more than gape at him, I had ample opportunity to stare at his bright blue eyes. Something about them seemed familiar, like I'd seen them before.

  "Do I know you?" he questioned, his eyebrows lifting as he searched my face for recognition. "Or should I be calling the police?"

  "I-uhmm-no," I somehow managed, clearing my throat in between words.

  "No I don't know you or no, I shouldn't call the cops?"

  "No to both," I responded quickly.

  More moments of silence ticked by. His arms still held me caged in between them, the muscles in them flexing as he gripped the countertop behind me. My heart did a funky double beat as I managed to divert my eyes away from his. They landed on chiseled cheeks - high and perfectly aligned with a strong nose that crooked close to the center before coming to a fine point. His hair - the color of a raven and about an inch in length - curled slightly at the ends.

  My fingers twitched. The instinct to act impulsively and run my hands through the strands to test its thickness was very strong. Too strong.

  "Griffin."

  The man before me tensed, the muscles in his jaw tightening suddenly. There was a warring of sorts brewing inwardly that his eyes couldn't disguise. He recouped quickly, pushing off the countertop and shattering the force field that had been brewing between us. Turning his back to me, he strolled over to a coffee pot next to the refrigerator and grabbed a mug that hung beneath the cabinet, filling it to the brim.

  "Mick," he finally acknowledged.

  The tension that infused the air was thick, the hostility laced into both greetings not going unnoticed. My eyes pinged from one man to the other, trying to digest the situation. Mick stood in the living room fastening his blue jeans and avoiding my gaze, while this Griffin character stood to my right, a condescending gaze fixed on Mick.

  "It's so good to see you," Griffin said, humor seeping into his eyes as he took a long pull from the rim of the mug.

  "Cut the bullshit," Mick snapped. He had finished buttoning his jeans and was now desperately inspecting corners of the room. He looked helpless, something I'd have found humor in had the situation not been what it was.

  "You looking for something?" Griffin offered. I tightened my arms around myself, the distinct feeling that he was referring to me stirring inside, making me feel embarrassed and completely out of my element.

  "What would I be looking for?" Mick snipped, clearly annoyed that he'd been asked the question.

  "Oh, I don't know," Griffin drawled, shrugging nonchalant shoulders. "Maybe not something then. Maybe someone," he emphasized, shooting a glance in my direction.

  I prayed for a black hole to swallow me up, certain that Griffin was connecting the bad decision dots that I'd made. I didn't like not having a handle on the situation. I hated it even more that my current predicament was entirely my fault.

  If I had just said no. If I hadn’t been so focused on one-upping Mel. If I could've steered clear of the booze. Oh, the irony of hindsight.

  "Oh, Kennedy?" he questioned, his eyebrows gathering together at their peak. "No, wasn't looking for her. Actually, I was looking for my boots."

  My face burned hot. I wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or pissed off, so I settled on being a lot of both.

  "So my intruder does have a name," Griffin mused. "Lucky you, he remembered it. That is your name right? He so often gets them wrong."

  I stared at him blankly, the dryness in my mouth and the fact that my tongue now stuck to the roof of it, halting my ability to respond.

  "Yes, it's her name," Mick scowled. "Now, could you stop being the asshole that you are and help me find my boots?"

  Griffin's eyes stayed pinned to mine. There seemed to be equal amounts of annoyance, pity and…something else in his gaze. Something that I couldn't pinpoint. Something that was making me feel stripped down and more exposed than I already was, causing a shiver to snake down my body, my nipples to tighten and a blush to slide across my face.

  "Quit eye fucking my date and help me, Griff," Mick demanded. "I've got to be on that tour bus and downtown in less than an hour or Mitchell will have my head on a platter."

  Griffin's eyes left mine suddenly, all traces of that something I couldn't pinpoint gone. "Now what kind of brother would I be if I was, in fact, eye fucking your woman?"

  Brothers. No wonder his eyes had seemed familiar. They mirrored Mick's. But beyond that one feature, there were no other comparisons to be drawn. The two were as different as night and day.

  Mick stood upright, his intense search for brown leather halting momentarily. "The kind of brother that you are," he deadpanned.

  "And what kind would that be?" Griffin questioned, his coffee cup coming into hard contact with the countertop, its contents splashing over the sides.

  "The kind that wants what I have. The kind that's jealous over my success. The kind of man that can't stand that I've done something with my life and he hasn't."

  Great BIG balls of fire! This was going downhill…quickly.

  "You've got a fairly skewed view of the situation," Griffin offered. His tone was calm, his stance was not. He looked on the verge of pouncing. "Let me be an honest brother for a moment." He rounded the island countertop, approaching Mick slowly. This looked an awful lot like a television program I'd watched recently on the Discovery Channel - one where the lion was slowly stalking his prey, calculating his perfect opportunity to pounce. "You are selfish. You trounce around carelessly from city to city - your lavish parties and boisterous drinking habits leaving havoc in your wake. And the people around you are left to clean up your messes. That sound like a success to you?"

  "Yeah, well, at least I'm coping. How're you handling things, hmm? What's been your solution to mourning?" Mick questioned, his eyes channeling the devil. Before now, I didn't know blue could look so dark.

  "Your lifestyle doesn't leave me much time for mourning," Griffin countered. "Considering I'm being the man of the family, taking care of the responsibilities. Or have you forgotten about Sutter and Hannah?" he spat. Mick's face flinched, the muscles in his neck tensing. Griffin had struck a nerve - a very important one from the look of things. "And what about Callahan's?" he questioned, pressing forward. "You know…your idea, your baby, your grand creation?" He stopped short, pretending to mull something over before snapping his fingers. "Oh, that's right. It became just one more thing that you started but didn't finish. One more mess you left behind for someone else."

  "You're a real fucking prick, you know that?"

  "No, I'm pretty sure you've got that title all wrapped up," Griffin countered.

  One minute they were arguing and the next, Mick was charging towards Griffin like an NFL lineman with the quarterback in his line of sight. The two locked together and a struggle ensued. I was too in shock to act rationally. I could do little more than stand there and watch. Mick seemed to be the more aggressive fighter of the two, while Griffin seemed to be playing more of the referee. Mick shouted four letter words, while Griffin informed him of the immature idiot he was being. I had become so engrossed in their drama that I failed to fully comprehend how close their struggle had brought them to me.

  When Mick's elbow came into contact with my left eye, I saw stars. I released a cry of both pain and surprise, my hand coming up to clutch my face. Somewhere between the blow and trying to fight off tears, I had brought myself to a seated position on the ground.

  Griffin shoved Mick to the side, crouching down beside me to assess the damage. "Christ, Mick. Do you see what your carelessness caused?" he admonished, his eyes never leaving my face. He reached for my hand, stopping short when I shrank away from his touch. "I just want to see," he soothed, his fingers coming up to touch the back of my hand. "Dammit Mick, could you not stand there looking like an idiot and help the poor woman?"

  "Shit, I uhh-I'm sorry," he mumbled, directing his words towards me.

  "There are frozen peas in the freezer. Grab them and bring them to me," he instructed, clearly the more levelheaded of the two.

  Mick didn't argue, instead doing as he was told. He tossed them over to Griffin, fishing into his pocket to respond to the chirp that went off inside. In the distance, I heard a groan escape from his lips, but it was the farthest thing from my mind. Griffin had pulled my hand from my eye and was inspecting the affected area intensely. His fingers skimmed over the bone, starting at my brow and tracing along the curve of the socket before resting on my cheek.

  "Shit," he mumbled, his hand slinking away from my face before he replaced it with the bag of frozen vegetables. The cold sting of the peas made me cringe, the action further adding to my pain. "Sorry, I should've warned you," he said softly.

  "It's okay," I grumbled, taking the bag from his hands and pressing it to my eye. I needed the distance between us before I went and did something stupid like giving in to one of my impulses.

  "Dammit I'm coming, Mitchell," Mick growled from behind us, causing us both to look over at him. He pounded a response onto the touch screen, huffing aloud before shoving the phone back in his pocket. "Duty calls."

  "You're serious," Griff accused.

  "You know how big a pain in my ass Mitchell can be," he pointed out. "What would you have me do?"

  Griff motioned towards me. "Oh, I don't know. Take care of your responsibilities? That would be a good start."

  "I am," he said, motioning towards the motor coach that sat gleaming in the morning light through the kitchen window. "That's my responsibility and Kennedy's not a woman who's interested in being considered a responsibility."

  "He's right, I'm not," I managed, annoyed that I had to agree with him. I wasn't exactly on Team Mick at the moment, but he'd gotten lucky with his assumption.

  "I'll be back to get her," Mick said. "Until then, keep your jealous hands off. She's mine."

  "Wait, what?" I questioned, attempting to stand up from my position on the floor. I realized very quickly that my head was a little too swimmy for the action as I teeter-tottered ungracefully back towards the hardwood. I found myself being steadied in between Griff's arms.

  "Easy," he said in the same damned soothing voice that he had before.

  "What part of keep your hands off of her do you not understand?" Mick questioned, coming to my side for the first time since he'd elbowed me. I found myself sinking farther into Griff's chest. I had no desire to have the human wrecking ball any closer than need be, even if it meant diving into the arms of a dark haired stranger.

  "Don't worry, Mick, I got it," Griff seethed, fending him off. "Go and do your fame thing while I clean up your mess."

  "She's not my mess," he said, grabbing at my arm. His phone chirped again. "Shit," he groaned, fishing it back out, reading the screen before wrapping a frustrated hand around it and groaning. "I'm so sorry. I've got to go, Sugar," he said softly, his face taking on an unexpected look of guilt. "I'll be back later to get you."

  Not if I had anything to do about it. He planned on dumping me here, exactly as Griffin had predicted. I had news for him. I had no intention of being his responsibility, his mess or his problem.

  "Don't bother," I ground out.

  "Oh but I want to," he rushed to reassure me. "I just have to take care of some things first."

  His phone began to ring, causing him to release another strand of four letter words. "I'm coming," he yelled as soon as he answered, hitting the 'end' key immediately after. "I'm really sorry," he apologized again. He headed towards the door, turning when he reached the threshold. "I won't find you within ten feet of her when I return," he called to Griffin before spinning on his barefoot heel and heading in the direction of the waiting bus.

  I watched him walk across the front lawn and climb onto the bus like I was watching someone else's life entirely…in slow motion. I couldn't quite fathom that this was actually happening to me. Embarrassed and pissed off was just the tip of my mood iceberg.

  "That son-of-a-bitch," I finally mumbled, anger rising above its competing emotion.

  I tried calculating my options, but came up short. With no car to take me anywhere, no apartment to return to, short on cash and missing the appropriate attire to get me there, I was in a little more than a pickle. I needed to think of something quickly.

  "Yes, he's a son-of-a-bitch," Griffin agreed. "And I'm in no mood to be dealing with one of his strays," he mumbled.

  The Callahan men certainly had poor taste in names. While Mick seemed intent on calling everything with two legs something sugar related, Griffin, apparently, had a thing for the derogatory. I didn't particularly care for being referred to as a stray and his words seemed a little more callous than what was deserving.

  He stood from my side, halting the snarky comeback that was brewing within me. Moments later his hand connected with a wall, a slew of cuss words following after. I glanced towards his curled fist, blood smeared across his knuckles. He flexed his fingers and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.

  Despite the insult that I'd just been dealt, I had a bizarre urge to go to him. I stopped the thought dead in its tracks. The only thing that I needed to be doing was figuring out a way of getting my broke ass back on tour so that I could ensure my source of income and figure out my next move.

  "I don't have time for this crap," he grumbled, making his way over to the coffee cup that he'd slammed onto the counter earlier. He emptied the rest of its contents into the sink, running water into it before tossing it into the dishwasher. He whirled around to face me when he was done, fury in his eyes. "Go put some damned clothes on," he fumed. "Your nipples are beyond distracting."

  He looked exactly the way that I felt: disgusted.

  "I can't," I confessed, looking back down at the front of the robe to confirm that the material had barely made any progress in drying. I hugged my free arm across my breasts, the peas still firmly on my face, the anger subsiding and the embarrassment taking over.

  "And why the hell not?"

  "Because I don't know where they are," I admitted. Humiliation wasn't something I handled very well. "I-I-"

  "You. What?" he questioned slowly, his opinions towards the situation and what he thought I'd done were very obvious. "Maybe had a little too much to drink? Slept with Mick in the process?"

  I flinched because the words hurt, but I didn't argue because they were probably true. Hadn't the fact that I'd woken up naked underneath a pile of twisted sheets been reason enough for me to believe that that was exactly what had happened?

  "That's what I thought," he grumbled. He wiped a rag across the coffee stained countertop, taking his time to assess the surface afterwards. "You got some things on his tour bus? Did he pick you up along the way?" he questioned, almost sounding like he was being sympathetic.