Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology

by Violet Vaughn

  “Ewww.” April shivered in her seat. “We don’t need to be that close.”

  “That’s not close. If you were back there too, that would be close,” Kieran added.

  “You joke about that all the time. I think you’re really angling for a foursome,” I teased.

  “Why not? We’re all friends.” Kieran was stone-faced.

  “Because Brant already said he wouldn’t fuck me if I paid him and that would leave just you and Claire. I’m sure if you wanted to, you would have already done it by now. So, that takes that off the table.” April said this without rancor and for a moment, it was like we were back in familiar territory—territory where we weren’t sniping at each other over dick.

  For some reason, that brought to mind what Kieran had said—that he was only good for his body, his cock. My gaze was drawn back to him, but he wasn’t watching the road. He was watching me in the mirror again.

  “Sure, why not?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Really?” Brant whispered in my ear. “Who do you want to fuck? April or Kieran?”

  My face flamed. “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Were you?” He wasn’t judging me. No, not by a long shot. He was turned on. The ridge of his erection pressed into my leg.

  “You’re a little twisted.”

  “A little?” He leaned closer. “If you knew the things I’ve already watched you do in my head…”

  “You’re so wrong.” But I giggled like I was twelve.

  “Sometimes, you have to be wrong to be right.”

  “So this orgy… tonight work for everyone?” Kieran’s tone was casual.

  “I have to work tomorrow, so no good for me.” April was just as cavalier.

  “On a Sunday?” I asked.

  “Yeah. My boss is being a douche. He wants a new proposal by Monday, and I mean, I guess I could have worked on it Friday, but it was my birthday. I’m only going to be twenty-four once.”

  “No, when you’re thirty, you’ll try twenty-four again.” Kieran grinned.

  “Of course I will, but it won’t be the same. The people we are right now, at this minute, we’ll never be again. Half an hour from now, we won’t be the same because we’ve had other experiences, stimuli. Every moment we’re given is unique and can never be repeated.”

  “That’s pretty fucking profound,” I agreed.

  She was right. I wasn’t the same person I’d been last night, none of us were. Every experience changes our perceptions. Maybe it wasn’t noticeable, but it was like a river cutting through rock. Because of the constant wear, that rock was never exactly the same shape it’d been even minutes before. The changes were miniscule, but they were changes nonetheless.

  “Every once in a while, I’m good for something.”

  That sounded a lot like what Kieran had said. Maybe they were right for each other.

  “I was reading something last night that said you should never say anything about yourself that you don’t want to be true,” Brant said.

  “You read?” April snorted.

  “Of course I read. Your buddy Gavin isn’t the only one doing this gig to pay for school. You think I want to do this forever? That any of us do?”

  “I’ll do it until I break a hip, maybe even after. I love this job,” Kieran offered.

  “I didn’t say I don’t love it, but it’s like anything that relies on your physicality. Eventually, you get old. In this business, middle-aged might as well be dead.”

  “What are you going for?” I asked him.

  “Biomedical science. I’m interested in research.”

  And here all I wanted to do was design clothes.

  “Biomedical science? Really?” April turned all the way around in her seat. “And here I thought you were just a pretty face. Have you thought about your investment portfolio?”

  “Actually, I have. I invest half of what I make at the club.”

  And I had all of my money tied up in Chubbalicious. If it failed, I was fucked, not to put too fine a point on it. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be that together at twenty-three, Brant.”

  “He’s obviously not because he’s not with Bausch.” April teased.

  “Landell gave me an extra percent.” He shrugged, referring to their biggest competitor.

  “I could have fixed that for you. Why don’t you come in and see me this week about your portfolio? We’ll see if I can get you better terms.”

  No, no and more no. April had Kieran, she didn’t get to have Brant too. She saw he was making money, he was smart, he could play in her league and now suddenly she was interested in his “portfolio”? Yeah, right.

  “I’m pretty happy where I am.” He pressed his lips against my neck.

  I shouldn’t have felt like that was such a victory, but I did.

  5

  After breakfast, Kieran dropped April at her car and Brant seemed to take that as his cue to leave as well.

  I was surprised that I didn’t want him to go, but he had a paper he had to finish. We agreed to see each other next Saturday and go out after the photoshoot for Chubbalicious. Both Rosa and Hollie texted to say they were game. Everything was coming together.

  “See, didn’t I tell you that you guys would hit it off?” Kieran said and poured himself a cup of cold coffee left over from the morning.

  “We did. He is a nice guy.” I bit my lip.

  “But?”

  “But nothing.” I shrugged.

  “When you bite your lip like that, there’s always a but.”

  “I’m terrified, okay?”

  “Of what? Did he do something shitty, because if he did…” He let the threat hang in the air.

  “No, nothing like that. I like him.” But I knew I was going to fuck it up because of my feelings for Kieran. I couldn’t even tell him about that part.

  “Is there someone else?”

  I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to hide much from him. We’d been friends too long. “I don’t know.” I bit my lip harder, trying to keep those words inside my mouth. “Maybe.”

  “You should tell him.”

  “Which him?” If I bit my lip any more, I was going to bite through it.

  “The guy you think you have feelings for.”

  “Why would I do that? If he wanted me, he’s had plenty of opportunity to tell me.”

  “The same could be said about you,” he said pointedly.

  “It doesn’t work that way. I’m the female. The male pursues.”

  “Why does it work that way? Why is all the pressure on us?” Kieran sat on the couch and I plopped down beside him. “Is it someone I know? Does he work at the club? You know it’s different for dancers. You have to tell us if you want something from us.”

  “Brant didn’t need me to tell him anything.” I liked that about him. I liked a lot of things about him. It made me wish that sitting this close to Kieran didn’t make my hands clammy and my heart race like the flutter of hummingbird wings.

  “That’s Brant. He’s a different breed all together. None of the other guys at the club are good enough for you anyway.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I changed the subject. When in doubt, talk about something—anything—else. “Thanks for agreeing to do the shoot with the girls for Chubbalicious.”

  “Anything for you, Claire-bear.”

  Anything for me? If only. I bit my lip again and winced because it actually hurt. “Damn it.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m glad my pain amuses you.” I snatched the remote and turned on the DVR. We had episodes of American Horror Story to gorge on.

  “Stop chewing your lips, lass. Then it won’t hurt.” He put his arm around me like he’d done every Saturday afternoon since we became roommates.

  But something was different.

  I was different.

  And he could tell. “What’s this now?” His accent grew thicker, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was relaxed, or he was trying. “Shagging Brant d
oesn’t mean you’re not still my bird.”

  I laughed. “I am definitely not your bird after last night. It was April who was singing.”

  “She wasn’t the only one.”

  “I’m not apologizing. I figure all those nights I had to sleep with earphones, you had it coming.”

  “I had her coming.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I should have expected that one.”

  For the briefest second, everything was normal again. He wasn’t the embodiment of any fantasy, he was just my friend. He was Kieran.

  “Yeah, you should’ve. Now come here.” Even though I was already next to him, he pulled me even closer. “You’re too far away.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. A distance between us now that wasn’t physical, but it was there nonetheless and I didn’t know if it was something that could be fixed. A switch had been flipped and like April said, we’d never be the same.

  After a long pause he spoke, “If you don’t want me to see April again, I won’t.”

  The thrill that shot through me was so wrong. So very wrong. A part of me was tempted to say that I never wanted him to breathe the same air as she did. But that was ridiculous, immature, and petty. All things I didn’t want to be.

  “Why would you say that?” I ventured.

  “Seeing April is the only thing I can think of that would change us, and we are changed. I don’t like it.” He sighed. “That was the one thing you asked of me—that I not shag your friends.”

  “Kieran—” my sigh matched his “—I want you to be happy. If April makes you happy, then be with her.” Those words might as well have been razorblades on my tongue. I did want him to be happy. I just didn’t want it to be her that made him happy.

  Who was I kidding? I wanted it to be me, and now he’d handed me all this power. I still wasn’t happy because he didn’t want me the way he wanted April. He needed me, he loved me, but he didn’t want me.

  Meatloaf was wrong. Two out of three was all kinds of bad.

  “She’s not what I want.”

  Relief splashed like cold water on a sunburn. “What do you want?”

  “It’s so far away, I don’t even dare name it.”

  Something nagging at the back of my brain told me not to push this one, but I wanted to encourage him. “There’s nothing stopping you.”

  “Only my good sense.”

  “I’ve never let that stop me. I mean, how insane is Chubbalicious?”

  He turned to look at me. “It’s not insane at all. It’s fucking brilliant. There are a lot of curvier women who want to dress up, who want to feel good doing it. You’re going to give that to them. Supply and demand.”

  “But is it going to be enough to support myself? I dropped out of college. I’m going both feet first. What if I fail?”

  “Then you’ll go back to university. You’ll get loans. But you won’t fail. The shoot Saturday is marketing genius.”

  “Thanks for believing in me.” How had this turned into a conversation about me? “You know that I’m here for you, too, right?” I put my hand on his.

  “I know and I hope I never lose that.”

  “Why would you think you could?” My heart thudded and trepidation snaked around my ribs squeezing ever tighter.

  “Because I fuck up everything I touch. I get it dirty and then I break it.”

  “That’s bullshit. Don’t say that.” There was so much pain in his words made all the more poignant because he really believed it to be true. The sky was blue. The grass was green. Kieran broke things. It was an absolute in his mind.

  I tilted my head to look up at him and turned his face toward me. I wanted him to see the truth in my eyes when I spoke.

  “You don’t dirty anything. You don’t break things. Other people break themselves on you and that’s their cross to bear. Not yours. Never apologize for surviving. Or for being who you are.”

  The intimacy of our position hit me hard. Intimacy between us was commonplace, but not like this. I’d cupped his jaw when I turned him to face me and his hand was in my hair. If this were any other couple, a crashing of mouths was what would happen next.

  But it wasn’t any other couple.

  It was me. It was Kieran.

  My lips parted and I was vaguely aware that I’d wet them in expectation. I’d have blushed at the trajectory of my thoughts, if I’d remembered to breathe. It was like we were underwater, everything moving in slow-motion.

  For a nanosecond, I thought he was going to kiss me.

  He dipped his head slowly, his green eyes gone dark like the cold Irish sea, his lips parted.

  And oh Jesus, I was dying. Expectation, desire, fear—everything it was possible to feel rolled over me in wave after wave. My belly tightened and I was afraid if he did kiss me, I might shatter right there in his arms.

  But if he didn’t…that would break me too.

  He buried his face in my neck, his hand still tangled in my hair, and his breath hot and taunting on my skin.

  Shame burned. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss me. I knew he didn’t want me that way. It was April and girls like her. After all, Kieran could have anyone he wanted. Why would he ever choose me?

  I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around him. “It’s okay, Kieran.” I had no idea what I was telling him was okay. Maybe I was really telling myself that it was okay for me to have had that stupid thought, that demon hope.

  Even now, my body ached for him, knowing there was no chance for anything more. My stupid brain stored up every touch. The way it felt to be with him like this, that magnetism between us I’d imagined—all for my pretty little fantasy world.

  Why did I do this to myself?

  I stroked his hair, enjoying the silky texture. I tried to concentrate on that, on something that would calm my breathing. He had to feel the slam of my heart against my ribs, it was almost like it was trying to jackhammer from my flesh into his.

  His heart beat wildly, too. His breath was a staccato rhythm against my throat.

  Maybe he’d been afraid I’d try to kiss him and he didn’t know how to tell me no. Even that thought wasn’t enough to make me let go of him, to surrender this moment to the past. It was mine. I was going to hold on to it as long as he’d let me.

  “If only you knew.”

  “I do know. I do,” I assured him.

  He broke the embrace. “The shoot Saturday. You told Brant that you’d do some scenes with him. Do one with me.”

  “What?” That was the last thing I’d expected him to say.

  “You’re the designer. You should have shots with all of us.”

  “I’m not putting them on the site.”

  “You might change your mind. Then you’ll have them.”

  That little voice in the back of my head screamed no, that this was the bad idea to end all bad ideas. But what could it hurt? It wasn’t like I was going to actually put them up.

  “Okay.”

  Except after I said it, I felt like I’d just triggered some series of events that would cause the apocalypse.

  But that was dumb. It was just a couple of pictures on a car.

  We settled in and rewound the episode to catch what we’d missed. Except I couldn’t pay attention to what was happening on the screen—as much as I wanted to. I was hyperaware of everywhere we touched. Of the way he smelled—like Polo Black. The heat of him.

  I felt like the biggest asshole.

  Not only because I’d spent the night previous with Brant—I’d told him I didn’t want any sort of relationship or commitment. Even though I still felt guilty sitting here perving on Kieran. But because he’d turned to me as a friend, he needed me and I was too busy worrying about my pussy and the size of my ass.

  Really, Claire? I asked myself—as if somehow asking the question might change the answer.

  When the episode was over, he kissed the top of my head. So not what I’d been angling for. “I’m going to crash for a few hours. It’s going to be a late night.�
�

  “See you later.”

  “You could come.” He waggled his brows.

  “Watch you sleep? No thanks.”

  “No, you could do that little hair twirl you were doing earlier. It would put me right to sleep. Maybe pet my eyebrows?”

  “That’s a girlfriend job. If I have to do the work, I want the perks.” Fuck, why had I said that? My mouth was going to get me in more trouble yet.

  He looked like I’d just punched him. “What exactly are the perks you’re referring to?”

  “I have no idea. I was just talking shit.” Honesty might actually work here.

  “You think on that and let me know.”

  What was wrong with me? He’d invited me to go to bed with him. This was what I wanted. Why had I said no? He didn’t want to fuck me, but shouldn’t I take what I could get—I mean, if he was offering?

  That petty part of me spoke up again. She said that this was the thing I had over every other woman who came into his life—including April. I had this side of him. It was mine.

  “I’ll pet you to sleep, but you owe me dinner. And change the sheets,” I blurted before I could chicken out.

  “Done. I changed them before we left.”

  Ha. April had been scrubbed away as easy as that. I knew it was wrong of me to think of it like that. Hell, everything I’d done in the last twenty four hours was wrong, but I did it anyway.

  I followed him into his room and my hands were sweaty, my stupid pulse racing. I was just going to take a nap. We’d done this before too. This wasn’t any new territory.

  Kicking off my shoes, I got on the bed with all the trepidation of a virgin on prom night. He wrapped himself around me, his head on my chest just above my breasts.

  And I stroked his hair as promised, smoothed my thumb over his eyebrows. It was an odd thing to find comforting, but he said his mother had done it when he was little.

  When his breathing was deep and even, I didn’t stop touching him. I kept curling locks of his hair over my fingers, stroking my hand down his biceps, his back, enjoying the free rein I had with his body.

  Every now and again he made a low rumbling sound that I swear could’ve been a purr. I wondered if all guys in Ireland were like Kieran. If so, I could never go there. My panties would explode.