House of Payne: Sage Read online

  HOUSE OF PAYNE: SAGE

  (House of Payne #11)

  Stacy Gail

  HOUSE OF PAYNE: SAGE

  Baby steps…

  Mads Daniels may have landed at House Of Payne, but she sure as hell doesn’t want to be there. Her tattooist father started out with Payne, and his tales of the boss stealing artists’ work freaks her out in a big way. If Payne ever attempts to steal her art, she’ll have no choice but to unveil him as a fraud. And that could bring down House of Payne itself.

  Step by step…

  Sage McCormick never had a stable home until he joined House of Payne. It’s such a sweet gig he’s even willing to get involved in events like its annual charity auction. Everything is just about perfect, except for the newest recruit, Mads. She refuses to fit in, and he’s determined to find out why. Getting her sexy ass involved in the auction is only the first step in getting close to her… in more ways than one.

  Leap of faith

  The cocky charm Sage exudes like a pheromone bowls Mads over straight into his bed. But as Sage tries to coax her into thinking of the House as her new home, she realizes she has a decision to make—listen to the poison her father spews, or put her faith in the man she loves.

  88,000 words

  ***This standalone contemporary romance contains lots of cursing from both the hero and heroine, multiple sex scenes, and a protective Alpha male who will use any trick in the book to get his chosen woman out of her shell. No cheating, no love triangles, no cliffhangers. HEA guaranteed, along with a satisfying epilogue. Due to adult language and sexual content, this book is not intended for people under the age of eighteen***

  Discover Other Titles by Stacy Gail:

  Bitterthorn, Texas Series (Carina Press):

  Ugly Ducklings Finish First

  Starting from Scratch (novella)

  One Hot Second

  Where There’s A Will

  Earth Angels Series (Carina Press):

  Nobody’s Angel

  Savage Angel

  Wounded Angel

  Dangerous Angel

  House Of Payne Series:

  House of Payne: Payne

  House of Payne: Scout

  House of Payne: Twist

  House of Payne: Rude

  House of Payne: Steele

  House of Payne: Max

  House of Payne: Tag

  House of Payne: Ice

  House of Payne: Styx

  House of Payne: Loki

  House of Payne: Sage

  Scorpio Duology:

  Year of the Scorpio: Part One

  Year of the Scorpio: Part Two

  Brody Brothers Series (Carina Press):

  Branded

  Braced

  Bruised (Indie published)

  Broken (Indie published)

  Novellas:

  Crime Wave in a Corset (Part of the steampunk holiday anthology, A Clockwork Christmas)

  How the Glitch Saved Christmas (Part of the Sci-Fi holiday anthology, A Galactic Holiday)

  His Princess (A House of Payne Novella)

  Connect with Stacy Gail

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  Copyright

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters and names of real persons who appear in the book are used fictitiously.

  Copyright ©2020 Stacy Gail

  Cover image ©2020 by Oleksandr Zamuruiev. Shutterstock photo ID: 553075219

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Paige Danielle, niece of my heart, amazing human being and much-adored mini-me (who’s actually taller than me now, but whatever, heh). I wish I could get rid of your neighbor as easily as I got rid of Mads’s neighbor in this story! Thanks for allowing me to borrow a few of your creepier anecdotes, sweetie. (What can I say? You mess with the loved ones of a writer, you’d better be prepared to wind up in a book.)

  Also, thanks so much to Laura Myers and Mechelle Ross, two lovely ladies who gave a name to Serena (Rena). I love the antonym feel of the two sisters (Mads and Serena). What a stroke of genius, ladies!

  As always, thank you to author extraordinaire, Jade C. Jamison, for asking me to write a novella for a tattoo-themed, indie-published anthology. Without you, I never would have created the House of Payne world. Love you, girlie! <3

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Connect with Stacy Gail

  Chapter One

  “Shit.” With every breath creating a foggy cloud in the frigid midnight air, Mads Daniels closed her eyes long enough to offer up a silent prayer. Then, as her teeth began to chatter, she turned the key in her Corolla’s ignition once more.

  Vrrrrrrrrmm.

  Vrr. Rrr.

  Silence.

  “Shit.” Furiously she hit the steering wheel with her mittened hand. When that didn’t help, she loosed another fog-creating breath and tried to think. Obviously she should have gotten this taken care of earlier, when she’d had trouble starting her car before heading into work. But at the time all she’d wanted to do was to get to House Of Payne so she wouldn’t let any of her clientele down. Now that her shift was over, and the employee parking lot was almost empty—and the temperature was now in that oh, so fun range where the term negative was a necessity—she could lament her shortsightedness at her leisure.

  Damn, it was cold.

  A sharp knock on her window had her nearly jumping out of her seat.

  “Hey.” Breath fogging in the night lit by security lights, a scowling man bent to peer through the driver’s window. “You need some help?”

  “Uh.” For a full second, Mads stared at the shadowy figure. Hulking shoulders, dark stubble that bordered on being a beard, seriously strong dark brows that Zachary Quinto would have killed for, and a black newsboy flat cap covering thick, dark brown hair. She’d only been working at House Of Payne for about four months, but this was one face she knew better than her own.

  Sage “the rage machine” McCormick.

  “Sage.” She said his name out loud for the first time ever, then wondered if she was crazy for thinking how good it felt tripping off her tongue. “Geez, you scared me.”

  “What’s that? Roll down your window, I can’t hear you.”

  One push on the window’s button told her what she already knew. Her car had di
ed, and it was now nothing more than a big-ass paperweight.

  Because of course.

  “Fuck.” Grinding her teeth, she opened the car door and stepped out into the bitterly cold night. Dirty ice crunched under her booted feet, and she ducked her chin into her scarf in a feeble attempt to hide from the icy wind. “I said, you scared me. And, uh, my car won’t start.”

  “And your windows won’t roll down, obviously.” He flicked a gloved hand toward the door she’d just closed. “Pop the hood. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  “Pop the…? Okay.” Trying not to sound too dubious, Mads crawled back behind the wheel, then took a second to figure out where the hell the Corolla’s hood latch was. Aha. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but since when does a tattooist know his way around a car?”

  “Since the tattooist in question spent his teenage years in a family-owned garage a few blocks off the Vegas Strip,” came the absent reply as he felt for the safety latch and hauled the hood up. “I was helping with tune-ups and oil changes at Woodbridge Automotive before I could drive. Your terminals are all corroded, by the way. How old is this battery?”

  She climbed back out of her car to stare at him, her mittened fingers curling around the car’s doorframe. “Before I answer, I have a serious question. Do people usually know the age of their car’s batteries? Because I find that weird.”

  “Translation—it’s old. Probably too old to safely give it a jump, considering all the corrosion build-up.” He stared into the mysterious depths of her car a moment longer before nodding once and dropping the hood back down into place. “Okay. Get your shit. I’ll drive you home.”

  Whoa. “Wait, what? You mean it’s not fixable?”

  “Don’t get excited, Daniels, it’s totally fixable. Just not at fucking midnight.”

  Daniels? “Yeah, but…”

  “But what? Hurry up, I’m freezing my balls off here.”

  She stared at him, wishing she didn’t find his angular, scowling face so damn fascinating. “Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll just call a tow truck—”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  She shot him a wary glance. “Care to explain that?”

  “On a night like this, with subzero temps and the wind making it even worse, there’ve got to be hundreds of stranded drivers across the city, calling for help because of dead batteries. You’re going to be waiting here at least a couple hours for a truck, in the dark and in the cold. That is, if they can get to you at all. In good conscience, I can’t leave you here when I can just drop you wherever you need to go.”

  Mads searched his scruff-shadowed face, secretly grateful for this rare opportunity to drink him in without anyone thinking she was weird for staring. Maybe it was the set of those brooding, strong brows, or the contrasting soft blue of his eyes, but there was just something about his angular, unsmiling face that riveted her attention in ways she couldn’t begin to explain. Especially since she had no intention of getting close to anyone at House Of Payne.

  After all, it wasn't like she had any idea if she was going to stay there on a permanent basis.

  A short huff escaped him, leaving a vapor trail in the night. “So, what’s the verdict, Daniels? You coming or not? I'm not standing out here in this fucking frozen hell all night waiting for you to make up your damn mind.”

  He just had to be the one who found her, she thought with an inward sigh. The guy who was her own personal kryptonite. No one else at the House tempted her to come out of her shell the way Sage McCormick did, so naturally fate just had to throw the charmingly grumpy-looking portrait specialist at her in her moment of need, just to trip her up.

  Too bad she was untrippable.

  “I appreciate it, but I’m good.” Reminding herself that keeping her distance from her coworkers hadn’t let her down yet, she took a half-step back. “Thanks any—”

  The metal back door to House Of Payne opened at that moment, and the person she did everything she could to avoid—Sebastian Payne, the founder and lead tattooist of House Of Payne—stepped out into the frozen night.

  Eeeeeeeek.

  “Oh, hey.” Glancing at them in surprise, Payne took a moment to lock the door before crunching his way across the dirty snow and ice toward them. “I'm usually the last one here when it's time to close up. Everything okay?”

  The moment she heard Payne’s voice, her already-formidable defenses slammed up stronger than ever. “Yeah, of course. Everything’s fine.”

  “Everything is not fine.” Sage shot her look that clearly questioned her sanity before he returned his attention to Payne. “Daniels has a dead battery, so her car’s going to have to stay in the lot overnight. I'll change the battery out before my shift starts tomorrow, so no worries on that score.”

  “Cool.” Payne nodded once before shooting her a questioning look. “You need a lift, Mads?”

  “Sage is giving me a ride home.” No way was she prepared to be in an enclosed space with the man who had shaped so much of her world.

  Not that he knew about that, but whatever.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sage’s quick glance, even as Payne nodded and tugged on a beanie with the House Of Payne logo on it. “All right, good to know you're covered. Call in tomorrow if you have a problem getting to work, and Scout will help you out with your schedule. Have a nice night, you two.”

  “I can pick you up tomorrow if you want,” Sage said after Payne had gone. “Where do you live, anyway? I guess I should know that since I'm suddenly back to giving you a lift home.”

  “Ukrainian Village. Sorry about that,” she added, again ducking her chin into her scarf. “I just, uh… I didn't want to bother Payne.”

  “But you don't mind bothering me?”

  That made her stiffen, and she turned away. “Yeah, good point. I'll just figure out what train I need to get—”

  “I'm kidding.” He was in her path before she saw him move, and his gloved hands snapped out to clamp around her upper arms to hold her in place. “Geez, it was just a joke, Daniels. Relax.”

  Mads’s skin prickled in humiliation as his words hit home. Shit. How many fucking times had she been told she was too sensitive? Her whole life seemed to be nothing more than one long string of moments where she was told that she couldn't take a joke.

  Apparently she couldn't.

  Especially when she was the punchline.

  “Look, my ride’s right over here.” He gestured toward a fire-engine red Jeep Cherokee before digging for his keys. “Ukrainian Village, right?”

  “Right.” Unsure if she should apologize for taking him—and the rest of the world—so damn seriously, she followed him to the Jeep. “Red, huh? I would have pegged you for a black or gray kind of guy, maybe even silver. But not red.”

  “Why not red?” He clicked the locks and surprised her by opening the door for her like some courtly gentleman. “Red’s my favorite color, so why not red?”

  She paused in climbing into the Jeep. “If I say a bright, happy color like red and a perpetually grumpy temperament don't go together, will you still give me a ride home?”

  Those mesmerizing blue eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure.”

  “Then I’d better not say it.”

  “Uh-huh.” He shut the door securely behind her, rounded to the driver’s side, and in a few seconds was settled in behind the Jeep’s wheel. “You think I’m grumpy?”

  She pulled her coat more tightly around herself as he turned on the Jeep’s heater. “I think I’m smart enough not to answer that, at least until I’m on my doorstep.”

  He made a sound that could have meant anything before putting the Jeep in gear. “I'd probably be offended by that if you actually knew me. But since you've been at the House since the end of summer and you haven't even bothered to say boo to me, I'm not going to take it personally.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I guess you decided Payne’s grumpy too?”

  Her defense
s inched back up as he headed out into traffic. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You practically jumped out of your skin when he offered you a ride. There has to be a reason for it.”

  Lovely. Could she be more obvious? “That's a good theory.”

  “Actually it isn't. See, you chose to ride with me, someone you think is grumpy, rather than ride with Payne because you think he's …what? What's worse than grumpy?”

  “Who said being grumpy is a bad thing?” she demanded, all the while hoping he wouldn't notice she’d ducked the question. “If there’s such a thing as a grumpy spectrum, I’m on it myself. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m all about baby steps when it comes to socializing. I’m not exactly a people-person.”

  “No shit.” He kept his speed down as he drove through Chicago's night-shrouded streets, his attention clearly focused on searching for patches of black ice. “Usually when newbies come in, they’re like eager puppies, wanting to make friends with everyone they meet, but not you. As far as I know, you haven’t made a single friend at work. You don’t talk shop with your fellow employees during those rare downtimes. You don't even eat in the breakroom with the rest of us. What's up with that?”

  Was it weird that she was oddly excited over the possibility that he’d been watching her all this time? “Maybe I like the diner across the street.”

  “No one likes the diner across the street.”

  “I do. I mean,” she added grudgingly, “it’s not completely awful. At least I haven’t died of food poisoning.”

  “Yet.”