by L. D. Fox
He set his cup down, ran both hands through his hair. “I was delayed.”
“Delayed?”
“I went home. She was there. Angel. Angel was there. She… needed me.”
“More than I did?”
When he looked up, Kelly’s eyes were wide and unblinking, her face unreadable in its lack of expression.
He shrugged. “You knew. You didn’t stop. I knew. And I didn’t stop.”
There was silence then. Heavy, thick silence that pressed down hard enough to make his shoulders droop. Kelly dipped her cookie in her coffee, but she never ate it. Instead, she put it down on the counter and downed the rest of her coffee. Then she touched her fingertips to her lips, closed her eyes, and inhaled a chest-lifting breath.
“Could we write it off, then?”
He blinked at her. “Write it off?”
“What happened.” She opened her eyes, staring first past him and then straight at him. “That night. Can we pretend you just went home to an empty house and I went to sleep? Can we do that?”
His coffee had grown cold before he could summon the reserves to reply. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “I don’t know, Kelly. He’s my fucking brother. It’s not like—”
“—you chose some twenty-year-old over me?” Kelly cut in. She slipped from her barstool, turned away from him, and began haphazardly packing cookies into collapsed boxes. She moved with a dexterity that spoke of experience; either she’d loved baking cookies all her life, or she’d done this for a stint to earn a living. Perhaps before falling into money and out of love.
“Look, Kelly.” He stood, hoping the solidity of the floor under his feet would somehow ground his thoughts. “It’s complicated, okay?”
She threw him a glare over her shoulder. “Complicated is something I don’t need.”
And then she was tossing cookies into containers again, completely ignoring him when he came up behind her.
“You don’t get it. My brother… he’s a virus. He gets into your head, and the next thing you’re—”
“Enjoying yourself?”
“What?” He took hold of her upper arms, but she spun in his grip, facing him with a tight face and trembling lips.
“He was there, Drew. He was there, and you weren’t. Are you honest to God going to blame me? Because if anyone had a choice, it was you.” She made a walking gesture with her fingers, snatching them away before she’d finished speaking. “You could have gotten the hell out of there. Could have come back here. You had a choice.”
“So did you.”
Her chin darted back. “So did—” she laughed, turning her head aside and wrenching her arms out of grip. “You know what? I’m glad this happened. Because now I know how you handle situations like this. You immediately blame anyone else—”
“You really think this is my fault?” He was shouting, knew he had to stop, but he couldn’t. He grabbed her arms again, stopping her from slipping out between him and the counter. “All you had to do was cross your legs and not let him fuck you.”
“Why?” she yelled. “Why would I do that, Drew? It was obvious you weren’t coming back. So why would I? I’m forty-two. It’s not like men are lining up at my fucking door to have sex with me anymore.”
“So you’ll take whatever you can get?”
Her slap hurt like a jellyfish sting. He worked his mouth, turning slowly back to her. Instead of looking apologetic, her mouth had thinned, and she glared at him like she wanted to slap him again.
“Yeah,” she whispered fiercely. “I guess I’ll take whatever I can get. Because that’s just how slutty I am, you piece of shit.”
God, but his mind was a furnace. It billowed with thoughts of Juliet and Angel and his brother, all tangled and indistinguishable. The stab of jealousy he’d felt when he saw his brother leaving Kelly’s house. Now, that pang of concern when he’d realized Bryce was in his home. That Angel might be there too.
But Bryce was always there. Like a vulture circling in the sky. Waiting for him to weaken enough that he could swoop in and devour whatever was left.
Maybe it was time for him to do the same.
He slid his hands up Kelly’s neck and sank his fingertips deep into her hair. Where her eyes had been narrowed into a glare, they went wide. Her lips parted, and she pushed back from him, going onto her tiptoes as if she planned to climb over him to escape.
But he kissed her before she could.
And it was as if they’d never left that spot on her love seat outside; her lips were just as soft, just as warm. Her kiss just as ravenous. He leaned into her, and she melted under him, her hands climbing up his back until she gripped his shoulders.
And then he was scooping cookies aside with his arm to make space for her as he lifted her and deposited her on the counter.
She gasped.
Their lips broke contact.
And then sought each other out again, as voracious as before.
Her hands went to his shirt, unbuttoning so fast that she tugged the fabric against his back.
Drew yanked open her shirt — she had push-clips instead of buttons — and cupped her breasts, one in each hand. Her legs were around his waist, squeezing him against her as she slid closer.
He slid his hand down her stomach, opening the top button of her jeans. Her zipper didn’t need much encouragement to slide down, and his hand was already digging between that rough fabric and her underwear when she tore her mouth away from his and pushed him away.
“Wait. Drew, please. Stop.” Her voice was breathy and hoarse. She cleared her throat, tugged his hand out of her pants and swung her leg around him so she could slide off the counter.
Her fingers shook when she began clipping her shirt closed again.
“What… what’s wrong?” Jesus, his dick ached, and all she could do was give him a sidelong glance and a tight mouth? “Did I do something—”
“What I did on Wednesday…” she turned away from him and ran both hands over her hair. “I shouldn’t have come onto you like that. I’m not—” she gestured at the crumbly countertop where he’d been an inch away from fucking her “—this isn’t me. I don’t do this.”
Her chest expanded as she took a huge breath and faced him. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down like he was the school bully and she was tired of being given wedgies.
“I like you, Drew. I like you a lot. I don’t just want a one-night…” she glanced around, bit the inside of her cheek and shrugged, “a one-noon-stand with you.”
He was still facing the counter, unwilling to turn so she could see the boner she’d given him. He put his fists on the counter and leaned on them, exhaling hard enough through his nose that he stirred some of the crumbs under him.
“Couldn’t have had this conversation before I began feeling you up?”
“There wasn’t any time!” Then she put her hands over her eyes and inhaled aloud. “I’m sorry. You’re… damn hard to say no to. But I want something more than a mid-life crisis fling.”
Her hands slid down, and she blinked her olive-green eyes at him as if she wished he could see inside her mind so she wouldn’t have to explain herself.
That would be neat; it would prevent a helluva lot of confusion on both their parts.
“I’m too old for flings, Drew. I want this to mean something. And I need to know that you’re ready for that. That I’m not going to be some… some—” she waved her hand in a vague circle, the other going to her hip. “Just a distraction.”
At least his hard on had faded with the serious turn the afternoon had taken. He closed his eyes, let his head drop down, and inhaled a whole lot cinnamon and chocolate. Possibly some coconut, too.
Jesus, was there anything she hadn’t baked?
“Okay.” He pushed away from the counter and loomed over her. “I hear you. I do. But things are a bit… complicated at the moment, what with…” he pointed in the direction of his house. “With Angel and all of that.”
Kelly cocked her head at him. “No, it’s not. It’s really freakin’ simple.” She gripped the counter behind her, leaning back and looking for all the world like she hadn’t just blue-balled him with malicious intent. “If you want to date me — and I mean date me — then you can’t see her. She can’t live with you. She can’t be here, in this general vicinity.”
“What do you have against her? You don’t even know her.”
“I don’t want to. And I don’t have to. I’m not the sharing type, Drew.” She drew a breath, brushed away a strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “I thought you liked me. That you liked me enough to start a relationship and see where it led. I’m not looking for a fling, I told you.”
“Neither am I.” He swiped a hand through his hair. “Neither am I.”
“Well then.” Kelly crossed her arms and gave her shoulders a shrug. “Make it happen.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it again when he realized there was no way to put into words anything that involved Angel.
Because she electrified him. She made him feel like he was twenty again, and had the whole of his life to look forward to.
Kelly… Kelly made him feel every one of his forty-six years. Not in a bad way, but in a way that made him feel like the responsible, hard-working adult he’d always dreamed he would become.
Except… that was starting to feel like someone else’s dream. Not his.
22
Office Politics
When he left Kelly’s house a few minutes later burdened with a box of cookies she’d urged onto him, Bryce’s car was no longer parked in the street. Drew climbed inside his Merc and sat parked for almost fifteen minutes before he went inside his own house.
He put the car into drive, coasted down the road and up his drive, and parked behind Penny’s car. The engine was still rumbling to a halt when Kelly appeared at the hedge between their two properties.
“Uh… Drew?” She held out a cellphone to him.
He shrugged at her through the car window, and she stabbed a finger at the phone and mouthed something he couldn’t understand. So he got out, walked around the car, and gingerly took the phone from her.
She shrugged again at him when he frowned at her.
He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“There you are.”
“Bryce?” He glared across at Kelly, who looked away. “How did you get this number.”
“Friend of a friend,” Bryce said. “Where you at, bro?”
Drew glanced to the side, fully expecting to see Bryce’s car materialize where it had been parked. But the street was still empty.
“I’m here. At home. You were just—”
“Listen, you have to get back to the office, Drew. I don’t know what you’ve done, but Trent’s spitting fire.”
“He is? Why?”
“Don’t you think I’d be telling you if I knew? He stormed into my office and told me to get hold of you any way I could.”
“But…How? You were here. You weren’t in the office.”
“I was where?”
“Outside my house.” He caught a glimpse of Kelly’s startled expression and turned away from her so she couldn’t distract him. “You were inside my house.”
Bryce laughed. Long, and hard. “Come, don’t come, I don’t give a shit. I’ve relayed the message; job’s done. Been nice knowing you, bro.”
Drew opened his mouth, but there was nothing more final than the emptiness of someone ending a call while you still had your ear pressed against your cellphone like a dumb ass. He handed the phone back to Kelly, licked his lips, and turned to his car. Then he swung around, pointing into the street.
“You saw, right?”
She jumped a little and swung to the road. “Saw what?”
“His car. Parked out here. It was right in front of mine.”
Her eyes went wide as she faces him. Even wider as she looked past him at his Merc.
“Yours is in your drive.” Her head dipped a little. “Are you… you feeling all right, Drew?”
“His car was here! Silver Z4.” He stabbed into the street. “Right there. When I drove up here, he was right there.”
“Okay. So now he’s gone. What’s wrong?”
“He just said I’m wanted at the office. But he couldn’t know that because he’s not at the office. Because he’s probably still driving back to the office. After being here.” Each sentence was accompanied with a stabbed indication of the street, his house, the general direction of Trent, Morgan & Associates.
Kelly took a step back, biting her lip. “I’m going inside. Goodbye, Drew.”
“Kelly, wait. I didn’t—” He ran a hand through his hair. “Kelly…”
But she hurried up her porch steps without looking back. He spun to face his house, almost expecting the front door to be open and Angel to be standing there.
Why in the name of Christ would Trent want to see him?
He would have to go back. To fetch his phone, for one. To see what the hell Trent wanted, for another. And to give his brother a black eye, just for the sheer hell of it.
* * *
Trent & Morgan was surprisingly quiet when Drew arrived. While most of the adjusters would probably still be out on late lunches, that didn’t account for the hushed, almost anticipatory air that he stepped through to reach his office. He glanced inside and then stopped. He’d expected to see his phone laying on his desk.
Where the hell was it?
He stormed up to his desk and rifled through the neat stacks of files. Searched the stationery holder. Scoured his inbox.
Nowhere.
He picked up his telephone receiver and began dialing his cellphone, hoping that its battery hadn’t been on the way out so it would ring a few times before it died.
A hand on his shoulder interrupted him.
He turned. Slowly lowered the phone. Stared warily at his brother until the man spoke.
“What’s going on, Drew?” Bryce didn’t smile. Instead, he gave his head a slow, sad shake. “This just isn’t like you.”
“What? What isn’t like me?”
“You know you can confide in me, brother.” Bryce hugged him close. “You know I’m always here for you.”
“What? What the hell are you—?” he pushed hard against Bryce’s chest. His brother slid an arm around his waist, squeezed him tight, and then patted his left breast as he stepped away.
“Mr. Sugar?” Trent’s voice made Drew turn his dumbfounded expression from Bryce to Gregory Trent, whose face he’d never seen so severe in all his years of working at Trent & Morgan. “Drew Sugar,” he added as if to clarify. “My office. Now.”
Drew threw a last glance over his shoulder, hoping to catch sight of his phone. Where the hell had he left it? Had it fallen out somewhere in the car? When he made to follow Trent, Bryce stepped in front of him.
This time, he did get the smile he expected, that lazy twist of the lips that oozed self-satisfaction. “I’m gonna miss you, bro. Truly.” With that, Bryce gave him a hard pat on the shoulder and exited his office.
Drew stared at him for a second before shaking himself from his trance. Then he left his office and went to Trent’s. The door was closed. When he opened it, his blood turned to ice. Then it began pooling in his toes and fingers until they tingled.
A pair of security guards stood behind Trent, arms folded behind their backs. Trent had a tablet computer in his hands, but his eyes were on the door, on Drew.
Drew took a step back, gaze flashing between Trent and the security guards.
“What’s going on?”
Trent said. “There are more out front.”
“Out front? Why—What the hell’s going on?”
Trent cocked an eyebrow at him. “What were you expecting to accomplish?”
His heart knocked so hard in his chest, he almost couldn’t hear Trent’s words. He took an unsteady step inside, and grabbed the back of the chair in front of Gregory’s d
esk.
“Please, Greg, I have no idea—”
Trent’s mouth twisted into a sour grimace. He glanced down, touched the screen on his tablet, and then glared back up at Drew.
Noise streamed from the tablet. Then a voice, so loud that he jerked.
“Smile, Angel. That’s a good girl.”
Bryce’s voice.
His heart rate soared until he could feel his skin vibrating with every single pounding beat.
“W-What are you doing, Drew?” Angel. Sounding surprised. Sounding wary.
“What, this? Just forget it’s even here. All I need you to do for me is spread those pretty little legs.”
A pause. Angel gasped, then moaned. Another pause, and then the sound of flesh meeting flesh. More moans, not all Angel’s. Drew forced his eyes up from the back of the tablet, right into Trent’s condemning gaze.
“I thank you for your letter of resignation, and I’ll waive your two weeks, Mr. Sugar,” Greg said quietly. “These gentlemen will escort you from the premises.”
One of the guards came around the side of the desk. Drew took a hurried step back, raising both hands.
“That—That’s Bryce! I would never—”
“I recognize the voice.” Trent rose to his feet. “She’s the one that called you during our meeting on Monday.”
“Yes, but—”
“Was that call meant for your brother too?”
“I—No, but—”
“The video came from your phone, Mr. Sugar.”
Realization was swift. Ice cold. “He stole it.” Drew stopped, inhaled sharply. “He stole it from my office.” He shook his head, tried to gather enough air to speak.
The second guard advanced on him, now both with their hands on their tasers. He lifted a hand to each, mentally willing them to stay. “I mean, I think I left it here, and Bryce must have found it. Taken it. He was at my house—”
Trent tipped his head, narrowed his eyes. “You should have gotten your story straight before you came back.” He set the tablet down on his desk as he reached for his phone.
Drew’s eyes dropped. He could see an upside down Angel, naked, spread out on a bed.
