Liza hung up without saying goodbye, leaving Kendall staring at his phone. “Maybe my day hasn’t been so bad, after all.” The moment the words crossed his lips, a crash sounded from the bedroom. “Come on!” he yelled, charging off to see what Amos had done now.
Chapter 18
“So help me, cart, if you even think about breaking down, I will not be responsible for my actions.”
Liza had made it to the end of Ray’s driveway before the blasted thing had stalled out. Assuming that golf carts worked the same as anything else, she turned it off, waited several seconds, and turned it back on again. The motor fired right up, and to her relief, the cart rolled into motion the moment she pressed the gas.
Torn between reaching Kendall’s at his requested time and preserving her date-night look, she drove at a moderate-enough pace for the wind to chill her cheeks but not whip her curls into a mess. At her destination, Liza parked in front of the garage door, just as Kendall had nearly a week ago, and exited the cart.
After running a quick hand through her hair to dislodge the few tangles caused by the drive over, she hurried up the stairs, giving the time a quick check on her phone. Only five minutes late. Not bad considering how high up her thighs she’d had to shave.
Pausing at the door for one last deep breath, she knocked three times, instantly insecure about her outfit choice. What if Kendall was wearing shorts and a ratty old T-shirt? Liza would feel like an idiot, looking as if she’d dressed for a night out in Manhattan.
Not that she spent many nights out in Manhattan. Or any, for that matter.
Before she could beat a hasty retreat, her date opened the door wearing dark jeans and a black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing muscled forearms that did funny things to her insides.
What was it about those flexing muscles that pushed a girl’s buttons? Whatever it was, Kendall had it in abundance.
The part of his ensemble she hadn’t expected was the full-length apron hanging from neck to knees, reading IF YOU’RE GOOD, I’LL LET YOU LICK MY BEATERS.
“Nice apron,” she said, forgetting any concerns about her own choice of clothing. “That’s an enticing offer.”
Mouth gaping, Kendall stood motionless in the doorway, offering neither a greeting nor an invite to come in.
“I got ready as fast as I could,” she said. “I hope my timing didn’t mess up dinner.”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean, no. You’re right on time.”
Liza couldn’t tell whether he liked the dress or not, but feared she’d gone too far.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“I have a better idea.”
Instead of stepping aside to let her pass, Kendall joined her on the porch, strong hands caressing her face as his lips lowered to hers. In contrast to the feverish kisses of the night before, this one built slowly, with long, drawn-out moments of perfection that muddled her senses and turned her limbs to jelly.
Drawing back, he flashed a wickedly sexy grin. “You’re gorgeous.”
Relief weakened her knees even more. “Thank you. I was hoping you’d like it.”
“Like is an understatement.” A timer went off inside, and Kendall ushered her in, catching his first glimpse of the back of the dress. Or lack thereof. “Damn,” he whispered, a trace of awe in his voice. Grasping her hips, he pulled her back against him as the timer beeped again.
“Shouldn’t you get that?” Liza asked, slanting her head as he kissed her neck.
Kendall buried his face in her shoulder. “You even smell fantastic.”
Speaking of smells. “Is something burning?”
“Shit.” Sliding around her, he raced to the kitchen, lifting a pan off the stove with one hand and turning the timer off with the other. “Looks okay,” he said, surveying the contents of the frying pan. “A little singe on the shrimp, but not too bad.”
“Shrimp, huh?” Liza inspected the other items on the stove. “Does that go in the pasta?”
“Yes, ma’am. Toss it all together, add a little Parmesan, and we’re ready to eat.”
Now that the pan was off the heat, a more tantalizing smell filled the air. “Quite impressive, Mr. James. What other talents are you hiding?”
Placing a quick kiss on her lips, he murmured, “I make a pretty good cheesy omelet.”
An excellent reason to stay for breakfast. “I’d love to try it sometime.” Sometime being in about twelve hours.
Working the kitchen like a pro, Kendall set the frying pan on a back burner, drained the pasta, combined the ingredients with a practiced hand, and sprinkled cheese over the delicious-looking concoction.
“Dinner is served.”
She turned to find the table already set, tall candles burning in the center and napkins folded neatly on the plates. Crossing to take her seat, she spotted Amos looking pitiful on the other side of the glass door.
“Should I let him in?” she asked, surprised she hadn’t noticed his absence before now.
“Absolutely not.”
“But the coyotes . . .”
“Don’t come this close to the water.” He placed the pasta dish on the table. “That dog has broken two lamps today. His ass can stay outside.”
Liza tried to ignore the exiled beast, but he kept watching her with those pleading puppy-dog eyes. Her heart couldn’t take it. “Kendall, I can’t eat with him looking so sad and dejected. Look at him. He’s totally calm. I’m sure he’ll be good now.”
Her host carried two bottles of soda to the table. “What happened to the woman who wouldn’t get in a golf cart with that animal?”
That woman had changed quite a bit over the last two weeks. “Come on, Kendall. Look at his sweet face.”
As if he knew redemption was in sight, Amos lifted his head, tilted it to one side, and rolled his expressive brows in an obvious display of repentance.
Kendall set the drinks on the table and ran a hand through his hair. “If I let him in, no feeding him under the table. He’s spoiled enough as it is.”
Schooling her features, Liza said, “Would I do that?”
“Hell yes. Don’t think I don’t know what you give him when I’m not around.”
A little ham wasn’t going to hurt anyone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t.” Kendall opened the door, and an excited Amos ran straight for Liza. She greeted him with a thorough scratch behind the ears before his owner ushered him from the room. “Come on, boy. You can stay in the bedroom until after dinner.”
Liza felt good about her victory on the dog’s behalf and settled into her chair feeling even better about the night ahead. So far, she’d managed to reach Kendall’s house without any catastrophes, and the dress had been a success. Now to make it through the impending meal without wearing her food.
When Kendall returned, apron now removed, he caught her stealing a piece of shrimp from the bowl. “Good, isn’t it?” he asked, joining her at the table as if they did this every day. “Take as much as you want.”
Careful not to knock over a candle, she scooped a spoonful of pasta onto her plate before handing over the ladle and accepting the basket of bread he passed her way.
“That’s all you’re taking?” Kendall asked, heaping two helpings onto his own plate.
“This is enough,” she said, preferring not to eat herself into a coma before endeavoring to seduce her dinner-mate. Liza had never seduced anyone in her life, and even thinking about trying to do so was making her nervous. The one time she could have used a little liquid courage and she found herself staring down a glass of soda. “I’m surprised you aren’t serving wine.”
Loading up his fork, Kendall replied, “You don’t like wine.”
Liza froze. “How do you know that?”
Her dinner partner shrugged. “You didn’t have any on movie night, despite having a dozen bottles to choose from, and you didn’t order any last night.”
Quite observant of him.
“Thank you for noticing.”
“I also noticed the faces you made that first night at Ray’s when he served you a glass.”
Oh no. “Was it that obvious?”
One corner of his mouth curled up as he twirled pasta around his fork. “If you’d puckered any harder, I was afraid you were going to swallow your lips.”
Well, crap. “That means I must have looked like an idiot at all those cocktail parties.”
“Cocktail parties?”
Liza pushed a shrimp around her plate. “When my book came out, Vanessa—that’s my agent—dragged me to half a dozen cocktail parties where everyone drank wine and talked about wine and waxed poetic about wine. At the first party, I walked around with a glass of water, and they all gawked at me as if I’d spit in the canapés.”
“So you walked around with a glass of wine.”
She pointed with her fork. “Exactly. A glass I pretended to drink, which resulted in my being parched by the end of the evening, but at least I was no longer the outcast with uncivilized tastes.”
Kendall shook his head. “I’d rather be the outcast.” Easy for him to say. He wasn’t a debut author trying to earn credibility with the New York literati. Setting down his fork, he asked, “What’s the point, anyway?”
Now he’d lost her. “The point of what?”
“Trying to fit in. You’re obviously better than those pretentious assholes. Where do they get off making you feel like a turd in the punch bowl?” Not exactly how Liza had phrased it, but just as accurate.
Initially taken aback by his reaction, she belatedly realized he was angry on her behalf. How incredibly sweet.
“No one had outright insulted me. And maybe if I’d been more confident, I’d have tolerated the judgmental looks and stuck with the water. So really, I’m the problem here.”
“You are not the problem.”
Liza begged to differ, but Kendall said, “You haven’t pretended to like the stuff here. Not since that first night, anyway. That makes the snobs at those parties the problem.”
Liza had to admit, he had a point. She’d felt the pressure to fit in, in New York. Here on Haven, she didn’t feel pressure at all.
“Some of them were nice,” she felt the need to add, as a few of the individuals she’d met had been very kind. “But there were a lot of pretentious people at those parties. And I bet I wasn’t the only guest there who didn’t like wine.”
“I’d be surprised if you were. I can’t stand the stuff.”
Liza had been well aware that she felt different on Haven than she had in the city, but she’d failed to recognize how different. Here, she could breathe, and not only because of the clean air. In the three short days since the book-club meeting, Liza had jotted down nearly a dozen plot ideas, and she was actually excited about several of them.
It was as if the fog that had settled over her brain had finally cleared. Throughout the day, as she’d worked on Ray’s memoir, Liza had found herself stopping several times, drawn by one shiny new idea or another. Her fingers itched to dive into one in particular, igniting an excitement she’d feared might never return.
Trying to be practical, Liza took a breath and reminded herself that two weeks on Haven Island wasn’t nearly long enough to make the kind of decision she was considering. What if she was wrong? What if she moved, and in three months, she hated it? Or couldn’t write in the new setting any more than she could write in New York?
“There’s a cookout up at the Welcome Center next Saturday,” Kendall said, eyes on his food. “Nothing too fancy. Burgers and dogs, and a little dancing in the evening.” Brown eyes met hers. “Want to go with me?”
Liza had been around the natives long enough to know that she’d be welcome at such an event with or without Kendall’s invitation. But the invitation meant something. It meant letting everyone he knew and cared about know that they were venturing beyond friendship.
Just like that, Liza’s doubts fell away.
“I’d like that,” she replied, holding his warm gaze. “Thanks for asking.”
Kendall grinned and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “Good.” He returned his attention to his meal, repeating, “That’s good.”
“Thank you for the delicious meal,” Liza murmured as Kendall loaded the dishwasher. She carried the large serving dish and basket of bread to the counter. “If you point me to the storage bowls, I’ll empty this dish for you.”
“Bottom shelf of the pantry. Right side.” As she moved gracefully across his kitchen, Kendall hoped she wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave. He only had two more weeks to give her a reason to wait for him. To wait until he was free.
“This one?” she asked, holding a glass bowl with a dark-blue lid.
“That works.”
They worked in silence, side by side, arms brushing now and then. Appreciative smiles were exchanged. When she stepped closer to rinse the heavy bowl, Kendall gave in to temptation and dropped a kiss on the delicate skin beneath her ear. Liza bit her bottom lip but didn’t respond, and he opted not to push his luck.
Once the dishwasher was loaded, she asked, “Should I let Amos out of the bedroom?”
Kendall had been too distracted by the beautiful woman in his kitchen to remember his troublesome dog. “Yeah, go ahead and let him out.”
She slipped from the room, taking her subtle scent with her, and Kendall took the opportunity to tighten his control. The last thing he needed was for her to think he was only after one thing. Like getting her out of that dress and driving into her until she screamed his name.
“Not helping, dumbass.”
“What was that?” Liza asked, opening the sliding glass door for Amos.
“Nothing,” Kendall replied, sounding like a twelve-year-old caught with a dirty magazine.
Liza pointed toward the door. “Do you mind if I step outside? I know you can’t see the sunset from here, but I’ve grown to love this time of the evening, when the air cools and all the creatures fill the silence.”
Kendall could use a cool breeze himself. “I’ll come out with you.”
Instead of going out before him, she waited and took his hand to step out together. Amos had already located his favorite toy—a colorful stretch of rope with a small tire on the end—and was tossing it in the air.
“He’s a happy dog,” she said, stopping at the edge of the porch. “That’s a testament to you.” Liza turned his way. “You’re a good man, Kendall.”
Warmed by the sentiment, he squeezed her hand. “That’s not what you were saying a couple of weeks ago.”
Her laughter mixed with the night sounds, as natural in the setting as any of the others. “Very true. I just needed a little more time to get to know you.” His sentiment exactly. “You know, you forgot an important part of dinner.”
Kendall ran through the meal, trying to think of what he’d overlooked. “What was that?”
Closing the space between them, Liza wound her arms around his neck and rose up on her tiptoes. “Dessert.”
The moment Liza pressed her lips to his, Kendall pushed her back against the wooden post, his body hot and hard against hers as he drove her mad with his touch. Gentle hands explored her back and hips and every curve in between. The dress shifted higher when he pressed a denim-clad thigh between hers.
Their tongues entwined, sucking and licking, both of them giving as much as taking, but when Liza slipped the hem of his shirt from his jeans, Kendall pulled away.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, breathing heavy but holding his body in check.
“Yes,” she gasped, sliding her hands beneath the soft cotton. “Yes.”
Thankfully, Kendall didn’t need any further convincing. When they reached his bedroom, Amos whimpered in protest as the door slammed in his face.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Liza teased, struggling with the buttons of his shirt. Impatient, Kendall tugged the black button-down over his head and tossed it into the corner. Like the night she’d found
him half-naked in Ray’s kitchen, her body tightened with need. “You’re so perfect,” she whispered, aching to feel him against her, skin on skin.
Eyes dark with desire, Kendall ignored the compliment, pulling her to him and reaching around to find the zipper on her dress. But instead of freeing her from the garment, he searched her gaze. “We don’t have to do this, Liza. This isn’t why I brought you here.”
She appreciated his need to have her full consent, but right now, Liza needed him to move things along. Cupping his face in her hands, she pressed a kiss to his lips. “I want you, Kendall. All of you.”
As if she’d found the magic words, Kendall kissed her back, his arms tightening before he finally loosened the dress, which fell forward off Liza’s shoulders. His thumb rubbed across one nipple, and her body rocked.
“Is that good?” he asked. She nodded, unable to speak. “What about this?” Slowly, Kendall bent to lick her nipple, hands firm against her bottom, holding her core against his erection.
“Oh God.” Liza’s head dropped back, the curls tickling the small of her back.
Kendall sucked harder, heightening the pressure pooling between her legs. Running on instinct, she ground against him, mindless with overwhelming need. When he slid her thong aside to caress her wet folds, Liza’s body tensed with instant release, forcing her to cling to his shoulders or land in a heap at his feet.
Lungs burning, she rode out the last shivers of orgasm seconds before Kendall shifted just enough to let the dress fall away. Left with nothing but her lacy thong, Liza expected to feel vulnerable and exposed, but instead she felt cherished. Powerful. Sated.
“You’re very good at this,” she purred.
“I can do better.”
Kendall walked forward, urging her along until a soft material touched the backs of her knees. Still amazed she’d had her first orgasm before they’d even reached the bed, she sat down and scooted back, but before he could join her, she rose to kneel before him.
“Not so fast.” Reaching for the button on his jeans, she held his gaze. “These need to come off.”
Ask me to Stay Page 17
