He didn’t have to move much to reach her lips since they were nose to nose on the pillow. He kissed her, a soft brush of his mouth over hers. “Sure you do. I’ll make you a promise. When we’re done in here, I’ll take you to my bed and kiss all the parts of your body I like better than hers.” He watched her, gaze steady. “Will that convince you?”
“Will it be more than my nose and my earlobes?”
The twitch of his lips told her he was about to smile, but he reeled it back in and had her on her back a second later. Startled laughter tittered from her throat. He tucked her beneath him and spread her thighs with one knee. Eyes on hers, he nudged her. She wasn’t surprised to feel him half-hard already. She wanted him again, too. To show it, she rubbed against him like a shameless hussy.
But he backed away, laying a harmless kiss on her forehead as he did. “Don’t break the rules. This is the talking bed.”
She pouted. “I hate this bed.”
He rolled off her but stayed close. “And to answer your question, I’m planning on kissing you everywhere but your nose and earlobes.”
Flattered, she smiled.
“Since we’re massacring the rule of discussing exes in bed, tell me about yours.” Back on his side of the bed, he shoved an arm under his pillow.
“My ex…”
Where to start? Not with the truth. She couldn’t very well tell him that she’d gone out after a particularly bad breakup with a guy she thought she’d loved with frightening intensity only to find out he’d cheated on her. At Gloria’s suggestion, Kimber had sought out a one-night stand to scrub Joey from her mind. She couldn’t tell Landon that she’d spotted shaggy, disheveled Mick Stringer across the room and decided yes, that will be who I turn and burn. Or that she’d failed on every level with Mick. She’d been attempting a fling with him, too, and had blurted out an I-love-you not in a dissimilar fashion as she’d done with Landon. And she sure as heck couldn’t tell him that.
But she’d been wrong when she’d made that declaration to Mick. She’d fallen into lust and had mistaken it for love. Had been trying to make him permanent since he’d moved in to her place and bought a business with her. Because without a commitment, all of that had seemed… wrong.
“Must be some story.” Landon’s expression was sullen.
She poked his chest. “Now who’s jealous?”
He smoothed his features. “Impossible. I am the Tin Man, remember? And you love me, so who would I have to be jealous of?” Before her face stoked enough heat to catch fire, he said, “Spill it. Or I’ll cut your kisses down to half as many.”
The threat, though an empty one, coaxed her into talking. “Because of a lapse in judgment, or debatable temporary sanity”—she paused to admire his quirked lips—“Mick owns half of Hobo Chic. Truth is I didn’t really think things through. We’d only been dating a year when we bought it. We broke up shortly after and now we’re stuck.” She shrugged. “Unless I agree to sell it.”
“Is it sellable?”
“Probably. But I don’t want to sell my shop. I want to keep it.”
“Is it profitable?” Whoa. Landon had snapped into business mode. His brows were drawn in concentration. He watched her like an eagle might watch a prairie dog. Intently.
“It does okay. Hobo Chic is a solid business; it’s in the black. But it’s not one Mick and I want to run together. He can’t afford to walk away, and I can’t afford to buy him out. Yet.”
She held up a finger to make her point, stopping short of saying, But I will soon, thanks in part to your monetary contribution. She knew it was silly to feel badly about having accepted money from him, but she couldn’t help it. Sure, she’d done a job and he’d paid for her nanny services, but the line had blurred between babysitting for Lyon and flirting with Landon. She couldn’t help struggling with separation.
“I can help you with traffic,” he said. “One visit to the store and I can assess several attributes, look at your numbers, find a way for you to advertise to your potential customers. Do you—”
She pressed her finger to his lips to shut him up. Landon at Hobo Chic, helping her advertise, giving her business advice… that all sounded very un-fling-like. Kimber didn’t need another man entrenched in the business she should be running by herself. She didn’t want him to be anything more than he was right now.
Unless he ends up being the father of your child.
The thought crashed into her brain like a runaway shopping cart into a minivan. She shoved it away. And ignored the dent.
Putting on her “Everything’s Okay” mask, she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. “Race you to your room. You owe me a few hundred kisses.”
As she rounded the bed, he lashed one strong arm around her waist and pulled her back in. Laughing, she bounced on the mattress as he arranged himself on top of her and kissed the underside of her chin. “There’s one.”
Her laughter ebbed as relief rushed through her. The intensity from earlier fading. If he was willing to overlook her verbal grenade, and the gaffe of failing birth control, so was she.
“This is the talking bed,” she teased as he licked a path to her collarbone.
“So, talk.” He kissed her arm. “Start with something like Oh, Landon”—he tongued her shoulder—“then yes, Landon.” He smiled, his teeth lightly nipping her flesh. “Maybe throw in a please and a don’t stop.”
As he slid down her body, she found herself murmuring those words in order, then out of order. Until there was nothing left but incoherent syllables.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This is how a fling works.” Gloria snatched the ringing phone out of Kimber’s hands and pressed Ignore. “You have to let it end. That’s the point.”
Glo had insisted that now was the best breaking-off point since Kimber and Landon had parted without promises or plans to see each other again. Just a kiss good night after they’d fulfilled the list, then her cab ride home.
“It feels immature not to answer,” Kimber said as her voice mail chimed, alerting her about a new message. “Even if it is to tell him it’s over.” She swiped her finger to unlock the screen.
Glo took the phone.
Kimber fiddled with her thumb ring. “Fine! I won’t check it!”
Her best friend handed over the phone and moved to a jewelry display on the other end of the counter. She lifted a pair of feather earrings to her ears and admired them in the small, round mirror by the display. “Is it over for you?”
Not unless she started her period, she thought with a tremble. Until they knew for sure she wasn’t pregnant, she and Landon were intertwined.
On a sigh, Kimber looked around. The store was empty. Neil was at lunch. She and Gloria were alone in the space. Kimber desperately needed someone to confide in. Despite the fact there was no one around to overhear, she whispered. “We had a condom break.”
Gloria’s ink-black eyebrows lifted. “Whoopsie.”
“Yeah. Had a little size issue.”
“Condom too big?” She asked with a smirk.
“Too small. I bought a box but didn’t know there were… sizes.”
Glo held her palm up for a high five.
Kimber groused at her.
“Don’t leave me hanging.”
“I can’t high-five you over his pen—”
The bell over the door rang, cutting her sentiment short. An advertising executive dressed in a three-piece suit and red tie strolled in, adjusting his glasses on his nose. Kimber swallowed, studying the buttoned vest with unabashed approval, which basically meant she struggled not to drool on the countertop. The man was a sexy beast.
“Holy Hot Pockets,” Glo muttered under her breath. She ran a hand through her sheet of silken black hair and pushed her breasts up in her low-cut top. Kimber had to bite back a smile. Because Landon had come here to see her, and that made Kimber feel sexy just the way she was.
He spotted Kimber and crossed the room casually, his long legs eating up the space be
tween them. When he reached the counter, he sent Glo a perfunctory, polite smile and Kimber a full body graze that made her stomach tighten. She loved it when he looked at her that way.
“Welcome to Hobo Chic,” Kimber said. “Everything we have is on the floor.” She tamped back the smile pulling her lips as he sent a sharp, inquisitive gaze around her shop.
He gave an approving nod. “Nice place.”
“She’s the owner,” Gloria interjected, stepping behind the counter to stand next to Kimber. “This is her baby.”
She kicked her best friend, who no doubt had carefully selected the word “baby.” Unless she was mistaken, Kimber didn’t think Glo had figured out who he was yet.
A secret smile tickled his lips. “You don’t say.”
Kimber had to bite her lip to keep from grinning.
“I can’t help but wonder,” he told her, his eyes locked onto hers, “if more people knew about your location you’d be busier.”
Fun as this was, it was about time to let Glo in on the joke. Kimber opened her mouth to introduce her best friend to her “fling,” but Gloria cut her off. “I agree. She’s tucked back here away from the main drag, but there is an excellent café across the street, and a jewelry maker, too. If more people knew about this neighborhood, Hobo Chic would be swamped.”
He focused his attention on Glo and offered a hand. “You must be her agent.”
So, he’d figured out who Gloria was right away. That sly devil. Evan must have done a good job describing her.
Gloria blushed, actually blushed, and took his hand. “I’m not her agent. But I am a literary one. Children’s books.”
He shrugged with his lips as if impressed and glanced at Kimber.
She rolled her eyes. Stop playing and tell her who you are. He ignored her silent suggestion.
“That’s impressive,” he said to Gloria. “I know a children’s book artist.”
“Do you?” She was still shaking his hand. “Does this artist have representation?”
A smile. “Yes. He does.”
“May I ask his name?”
“Sure. My brother, Evan. Downey.”
Gloria’s smile slid off her face like suds from a freshly washed car. She pulled her hand away. “Jesus.”
“Landon,” he corrected. “You must be Gloria.”
“You don’t look like your brother,” she commented.
He didn’t. Landon was taller by a few inches, his hair lighter, his refined way of dress and speak a far cry from Evan’s laid-back swagger.
“The shape of their noses, and their eyes, are the same,” Kimber said.
He flicked those eyes over to her—gray today. “I called.”
“I ignored it.”
He pressed a hand to his chest like he was hurt. “Ignored.”
“I told her to,” Glo said. “I was trying to tell her a story and didn’t want the interruption. I’m selfish that way. Well, I have to get back to my clients. She’s all yours now.” She gathered her purse from behind the counter, mouthing the words Call me on her way out of the store.
Once she’d gone, Landon faced Kimber. “Is that true?”
She smiled sheepishly. “Which part?”
“You don’t want to see me any longer.” It wasn’t a question, but he waited for a reply all the same.
“The idea was to walk away.” A clean break before she turned a spontaneous profession into a relationship doomed to fail.
“I know.” He plunged his hands into his pockets and studied the battered floor. “Okay, I’ll go.” She thought he meant he was leaving, but then he spoke. “I like spending time with you. I’d like to take you out again.” A mischievous twinkle sparked in his dark eyes. “I’d like to have you over again.”
“I’d like that, too,” she admitted. She’d like to laugh with him over dinner, to kiss him in the shower, to lie in bed and eat potato chips. But at what cost? “I thought, you know… we shouldn’t press our luck.”
“You mean because of what happened.”
He meant Condompocolypse. She didn’t exactly mean that, but he’d brought up a valid point. “Yes.”
He walked behind the counter and invaded her space, breeching her boundaries like he belonged there. Funny thing was, he sort of felt like he did. She knew Landon on a different level now. A level where no clothes were required and hectic breathing ensued.
“What if we’re extra careful?” he asked.
The in bed was implied. Like with a fortune cookie. But she was determined not to lay waste to another relationship—not to take what they’d had to its inevitable demise. No matter how she thought she felt about him.
“Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead,” she said.
He tipped her chin and watched her. The tingle from his touch shot all the way down to her toes. “Maybe you’re right.” She saw the sadness in his polite smile a second before he dropped a soft kiss on her lips. A good-bye kiss.
Then he turned and walked out of her store, leaving her to wonder if she’d cut her losses or made the biggest mistake of her life.
* * *
Landon digitally signed the approval sheet for the billboard and e-mailed it back to the designer. He smiled at the image, proud of the work. Work he’d pulled off with only Kirk and Janie assisting him.
In the weeks since he’d last seen Kimber, he’d been looking for a way to help her with Hobo Chic whether she’d asked for it or not. And he’d known she wouldn’t. She was probably avoiding him—regretting her unplanned three-word admission… but he’d taken her words with a grain of salt. She’d been sated and happy followed by terrified and worried. That situation could make anyone blurt out something they didn’t mean.
After that night, after he’d covered her body with kisses and they’d made love, she’d left. And she’d left him literally aching to see her again. He missed her. Not just the sex—amazing as it was—he missed talking to her, sharing a drink or a laugh. He missed her presence in his cavern-like penthouse.
Going home had become an exercise in frustration. When he and Lissa had split, he’d felt the opposite. He used to love returning to his empty, quiet home, his only mistress a glass of Macallan. He’d enjoyed his drink and the view on the balcony before turning in for a restful night’s sleep.
But now… now his place was a tomb. Devoid of his nephew’s laughter and clutter. Bare of Kimber’s warm presence. The scotch in his glass each evening only served to remind him of the drinks he’d shared with her; the night on the balcony they’d made love under the stars.
In a word, it sucked.
But it didn’t have to keep sucking. He had a plan to get her attention, to get her to come to him. The billboard he’d just signed off on ought to do it, or at least lure her into calling him.
In the hall, his secretary scuttled by with an armload of large, yellow envelopes.
“Cindy, I’m heading to lunch. Be back in an hour,” he told her.
The owner of Windy City potato chips, Otto Williams, was waiting for him at Grand Pine Café. Landon agreed to meet him, despite the fact that having lunch together was a pointless waste of time. Otto had approved Windy City’s designs a week ago. He’d signed off on the ads and had purchased a marketing package big enough to pad Landon’s retirement. But Otto, well into his eighties, had a way of doing things. When a deal was done, he liked to drink an Old Fashioned and bond over chewy steak at Grand Pine.
So, Landon set out to accompany him in both endeavors.
He paid the cab driver and strode to the door, nodding at a few passersby weaving along the busy walkway. The sun was hot and making him sweat—late August in Chicago—and he slipped his jacket off before he went inside.
A teenager nearly mowed him over as Landon reached for the door. The boy mumbled a rushed sorry and brushed by wordlessly, earbuds in, head down. Landon sent him an irritated glare before moving aside to let the woman following—his mother, he assumed—chase after him.
“Gregory,” she call
ed, then turned to Landon, he presumed to apologize or thank him. She did neither, instead froze in place, her mouth opened in a stunned gape.
Chicago was a big city. Because of that undeniable fact, the odds of running into someone he knew were slim. Slim, but not none. Apparently, considering he now stood eye to eye with his girlfriend from college.
Rachel.
Dressed in what could only be described as a power suit, Rachel Hannigan looked every bit the cutthroat lawyer she’d aspired to become when they’d dated. Her dark hair was cut into a sharp bob, her mouth—now that she’d closed it—a flat red line. The tightness around her eyes made him wonder if she ever smiled.
Only then, she did.
“Landon.” A professional smile.
Stunned, he continued to hold the door as a patron exited the restaurant. She stepped aside to let the other man pass.
“How are you?” he asked automatically. Numbly. Fucking Rachel. Unbelievable.
She nodded, a typical non-answer to the throwaway greeting. “This is my son, Gregory.” She palmed the boy’s shoulder and the kid lifted his head, hair sweeping his forehead and falling over his sunglasses.
He studied the teen’s sandy-colored hair, rangy build, and slouchy skater-wear. He couldn’t see his eyes and found himself wondering if they were hazel. Like his own. Landon swallowed, his gut churning, mind reeling.
“He turned fourteen today.” Rachel gave him a meaningful eyebrow raise. In other words: He’s not yours.
Landon’s lips twitched. It was a bitter smile. And the wrong time and place to resurrect that demon. He flicked his eyes back to Gregory who tapped on the screen of his phone, utterly undeterred. Another diner exited between them, giving a surly “Excuse me” as she passed by, clearly annoyed that they were clogging the entrance.
“Good to see you,” Rachel lied. He could see the untruth in every rigid muscle in her face.
He refused to echo it. “Happy birthday, Gregory.”
The kid tossed his hair out of his eyes and muttered “Thanks” as Rachel slid her sunglasses onto her nose and waved for a cab.
The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance) Page 17
