Kiss Me Once, Kiss Me Twice

by Kimberly Raye

  Skye eyed the SweetTart wrappers piled on the corner of her desk. “You’re not kidding.”

  “Anyhow, I know that I’m married now and things are a little different.”

  But she wasn’t. She was still the same Jenny at heart. The fun-loving, intuitive, thoughtful woman who knew a wooden dildo was a hundred times better than a T-shirt, at least to her sexpert boss.

  Relief rushed through Skye and she smiled. “I don’t really understand the whole wedding thing, but if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  “I’m very happy, and I may be part of a couple now, but I’m still here for you. And so is Little Duke.”

  “Little Duke?” Skye eyed the enormous penis before shifting her attention to Jenny.

  Her assistant smiled and shrugged. “You didn’t think I married him just because he makes a mean Caesar salad, did you?” Without waiting for a response, Jenny ran a red-tipped fingernail down the length of wood. “Not that Duke and I actually had sex before the wedding. But we did fool around in other ways and I knew what to expect. Little Duke definitely fits, but you can change his name.” She gave Skye a quick hug.

  “Not that you’ll be getting to know him on a first-name basis right now,” she said as she started for the door. “You’ve got the glow.”

  “I do not.”

  “You do, and it says you’re getting the real thing, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

  Jenny was right. Skye definitely had the sex glow going on. She was also right when she’d said that Skye wasn’t ready to admit it.

  Admission meant that it was worth talking about. And if something was worth talking about, that meant it was important. And if sex with Clint was important, it meant that Clint was important, and Clint MacAllister was not important.

  Even if Skye did make sure she was planted in front of her big-screen TV just as the sports announcer said the four most famous words in racing—at least according to the NASCAR for Dummies book she’d picked up at the bookstore.

  “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

  She watched as the red, white and blue Chevrolet painted like a Texas flag roared past the starting line and zoomed onto the track with the other cars. The Chevy settled into the front pack of the four leading cars as they went into the second lap.

  Skye sank down onto her sofa, her book on her lap and Earl Grey tea steaming in her favorite pale pink teacup, and her attention fixed on the screen.

  Research, she told herself. She wanted to get a jump on the last and final lesson coming up.

  Of course, she caught a few glimpses of Clint, too. Naturally, the race coverage consisted of more than just the cars driving lap after endless lap. There were cameras in the pit area with the racing teams, including one focused on Clint and his crew. He wore a royal blue racing jacket with MACALLISTER MAGIC printed in big bold red letters. Sponsor emblems lined the arms and blazed across both sides of the front. He paced the sidelines, a headset firmly in place. While members of the other teams would pause to offer a few words to the press, Clint didn’t so much as glance toward the cameras.

  She’d never seen him completely shun any sort of attention before. He looked so serious, so focused, so un-like the half-naked cowboy who’d grinned and hammed it up for the cameras in those notorious pictures. It had been well over fifteen years—she’d been seventeen and he’d been twenty—and he’d undoubtedly grown up since then. At the same time, he still smiled and flirted and soaked up the attention.

  Up close and personal attention. The one-on-one kind like the meet and greet at Jenny and Duke’s wedding reception.

  This, however, was the media and Clint seemed determined to keep his distance from the reporters and even the sports announcer who called out, “There’s the leader of the Wolf Pack himself. Hey, Clint! Come on over and tell the folks at home how you feel about number sixty-two’s showing today.”

  “We’ll talk later,” Clint called out, smiling and waving. But Skye knew from the determined light in his eyes that there would be no later. Despite his easygoing I’mthe-greatest-and-everybody-knows-it expression, there was an air of caution about him that made her think he wasn’t near as comfortable being in the spotlight as he pretended to be.

  Not anymore.

  The thought struck her as #62 roared into lap fifty and the camera shifted to the track. She watched the car take a turn and she wondered about Clint’s accident. A good thing, or so he kept saying, since it had opened his eyes and made him realize how empty his life was without a Mrs. Clint and a bunch of little Clints. But Skye couldn’t help but wonder how she would feel if, during one of her workshops, she were to suddenly drop Dinah or forget her handouts or something equally disastrous. Her confi-

  dence would certainly be shaken. Of course, she wouldn’t call it quits and give up her business just because of a little upset. But Clint had actually suffered an injury. Climbing behind the wheel didn’t just mean his livelihood. It meant his life.

  Or his death.

  The notion stayed with her as she watched cars roar around the track at breakneck speed. She was just searching in her book for the number of casualties the race world had suffered when she heard the commentator mention Clint’s car.

  “There goes MacAllister’s infamous number sixty-two Chevy out of the second turn and straight into a pass. And he’s doing it folks! He’s passing Jeff Burton and edging up on number eight. He’s out front now and he’s wide open, folks! Tuck Briggs is in the lead and he’s—holy Toledo, he’s buckling on the third turn!”

  Her head snapped up in time to see the car swerve and spin.

  “He cut it too short and—oh, no, he’s lost it, folks! Tuck Briggs has lost it and he’s out of control and—oh, no, he’s grazed number 8! The impact is sending him toward the center and—he’s stopped, folks! Number sixty-two is stopped!”

  Skye watched as smoke poured from under the hood and the driver crawled out. He hauled off his helmet and stumbled away from the car just as a small crowd of officials and fellow team members descended on him.

  “Looks like Tuck Briggs can kiss Loudon goodbye. There’ll be another winner today at New Hampshire International Speedway. Is it going to be Burton or Dale Jr.’s number eight? Stay tuned to find out...”

  A wave of disappointment welled inside Skye, particularly when she caught a glimpse of Clint as the camera panned in for a close-up of Tuck and his team’s owner near the smoking car. He looked angry and upset and sad—all at the same time—and Skye had the incredible urge to reach out and comfort him.

  Thankfully it was a television in front of her and not the real man, because comforting was not on her agenda when it came to Clint MacAllister.

  The phone rang and Skye reached toward the coffee table, her gaze fixed on the Caller ID on the display. She punched the Mute button just before she said hello.

  “Hey, Sis, what’s up—”

  “This is your mother,” Jacqueline Farrel’s voice floated over the line. “I knew you were checking the Caller ID, that’s why you haven’t been answering your phone when I call.”

  Skye punched the Off button and the TV went blank. “I do look at the Caller ID, but I can’t help it. It’s right there when I reach for the phone, and I have been answering when it rings—”

  “Really?” her mother cut her short. “I’ve been calling you for the past three days and the only thing I get is your voice mail after at least a dozen rings.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to call you back. I was out of town for Girl Talk business. What are you doing in Houston? I thought you were in California.”

  “That was last week. I’m en route to Harvard for an alumnae luncheon. I hopped a plane after I taped the show this morning—a segment called The Man Who Gives Me My Orgasms. It’s about men who are life mates who come to expect more from a woman than just sex. They get comfortable in the relationship and bam, they start acting like actual husbands. The problem is rampant and must be nipped in the bud before it starts. Why, when your
father starts being the least bit possessive, I completely cut him off from sex so that it shifts his focus back to what’s really important. If he isn’t getting any, then he starts to think about it more and more. Believe you me, he stops wanting me to rub his feet in hopes that I’ll rub his—”

  “Mom, I really don’t want to hear this.”

  “Nonsense. This is informative. I didn’t raise you to bury your head in the sand when it comes to such an important issue. Why, no daughter of mine would ever turn the other cheek while a man took advantage of her and—”

  “How long is your layover?” Skye blurted, eager to get them onto a safer subject.

  “Five hours, three and a half of which I spent on what should have been a twenty minute cab ride here to your sister’s. I visited for a half hour and my cab should be arriving any minute to go back to the airport. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, I’m here, but you haven’t been there.”

  “I bet Xandra’s thrilled that you’re in town, even if it is just a short visit.” She was going for the old avoidance technique.

  Hey, it worked the last time.

  “Of course she is. She answers her phone when her mother calls.”

  “When she’s home,” Skye pointed out. Okay, so she got lucky last time and her mother wasn’t falling for it again. “I told you I’ve been out of town and since I’ve come back, I’ve been really busy with work.”

  “Busy,” Jacqueline snorted. “That’s a fine how-do-you-do. Was I too busy to endure thirty-seven hours of stage two labor pains? Was I too busy to push for forty-five minutes straight during stage three? Was I too busy to change diapers and do midnight feedings and...”

  Skye wanted to tell her that her grandmother and her father had helped with everything after the pushing.

  “. . . too busy to gut every magazine in the house— even though drawing would have been much better for the eco-system—for your papier-maché project in the first grade? Was I too busy—”

  “I saw an advertisement for your next book in People,” Skye blurted. “It was full color with a write-up about the importance of female empowerment.” Hey, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. “And how you’ve revolutionized the entire movement by giving all females a voice.”

  “I wouldn’t say I revolutionized it, but I do pride myself on helping those less fortunate women who are still imprisoned by society and its social constraints...” Jacqueline’s voice went on while Skye closed her NASCAR book, reached for her cup of tea and wondered how far the reception on her cordless would reach if she opted to head downstairs and around the corner for a cookie.

  Or two. Or three.

  She’d fantasized about a full dozen by the time her mother finished her ten-minute womanist sermon and said a hurried goodbye because her cab had arrived.

  Skye made a mental note to send a donation to the cab driver’s union this Christmas and punched the On button on the remote control. The screen lit up and a close-up of Clint’s car filled the screen.

  “Why did you let her call?” Skye asked when Xandra took the phone.

  “As if I could stop her. Besides, I endured thirty minutes of preaching about everything from Mark to strange sperm to babies to Blow Pops. You’re the oldest. It’s only fair that you share in the misery.”

  “I’m the oldest which means I’ve been miserable a lot longer.”

  “Hey, I held her off for a full half hour. I could have made the suggestion sooner than I did.”

  “A-ha. You did get her to call me.”

  “I just suggested it.”

  “Traitor.”

  “Liar.”

  “Kiss-up.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Okay,” Skye said. “Bitch outdoes kiss-up. You win. I’m not upset.”

  “That makes one of us.”

  “Mark and sperm and babies, I understand,” Skye told her sister. “But Blow Pops?”

  “Remember my brainstorm about the lollipops in place of smoking? Well, I tried Dum Dums first, but they were too little. Not enough candy to get any real sucking action going, but the sticks did give my hand something to do. So instead of tossing in the idea, I figured I’d give my craving a little more to sate it. I switched to a bigger lollipop and then a gum-filled one. It’s a triple whammy. First sucking, then chewing and some hand action.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Before Mom arrived. Now my nerves are shot and I’m a woman on the edge and I’m ready to get myself a pack.”

  “You’ll hate yourself tomorrow.”

  “I hate myself right now. Mom actually spotted the three pounds I put on since I started trying to quit. I mean, I knew they were there, but I didn’t think anyone else could see them.”

  “It’s definite. Mom’s the original Big Brother. She knows all. Sees all.”

  “Mom’s a preachy, womanist nut.”

  “She’s passionate,” Skye said, always the first to jump to her mother’s defense. “But that’s no reason to call her names.”

  “She took my Blow Pops.”

  “She what?”

  “She told me I was obviously eating too much sugar and she took my Blow Pops. Stuffed them all into her purse and marched out to the cab.”

  “Okay, so maybe she’s a little nutty.”

  “She’s a lot nutty. She defines the word.” Silence ensued before Xandra’s voice came over the line again. “Then again, maybe she’s just looking out for my best interests. Maybe I should just give up trying to give up. I don’t want to smoke, but I certainly don’t want to be fat again. Mark hates cigarette smoke, but he really hates frumpy, fat women.”

  “You are not frumpy or fat and you’re not giving up. To hell with Mom and Mark. You’re quitting for you, remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “So stop doubting yourself, march down to the store, stock up on Blow Pops and lick that craving.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t know how it is to want something so bad you can hardly stand it.”

  Skye’s gaze shifted to the big screen and the coverage of the damaged race car now sitting off to the sidelines of the New Hampshire track. Dozens of people surrounded the car, but there was no mistaking Clint’s familiar form. He stood near the front, hands on hips, as he surveyed the damage to his #62 Chevy.

  Her mouth watered and her stomach grumbled, but the sudden hunger had nothing to do with a cookie and everything to do with Clint.

  She wanted him.

  She wanted to take him into her arms and hold him until the distraught look on his face disappeared.

  “Actually, I know just how you feel,” she told her sister.

  But not for long, she promised herself as she wished her sister good luck, hung up the phone and snatched up her purse.

  The SweetTarts hadn’t suppressed the cookie craving, so Skye had little faith that they would help the Clint addiction.

  She would have to find something bigger and more powerful to do that.

  “For the last time, it wasn’t me.”

  Tuck’s voice echoed in Lindy’s ears as she stood off to the side of the garage and watched the hotshot driver face off with Clint.

  A very unpleasant Clint, judging by the dark look on his face. He was oblivious to the reporters who stood just outside the doorway snapping picture after picture past the burly looking engineer who kept them from gaining entrance.

  Lindy had seen Clint mindless of the media only once since she’d come on as his personal assistant, and that had been when he’d given an interview to the editor of their hometown paper. The woman had brought up his less than stellar academic record. He’d been polite at first, steering her questions toward his success and how he’d risen above his handicap. But the old biddy had been hell-bent on making an issue of the fact that, however far he’d come, he still had a learning disability. Clint had finally cut her off, excusing himself and leaving the living room of his parents’ house where they’d been conducting the interview. He’d le
ft in a flurry of clicks and flashes, and he hadn’t stopped once. He’d headed out the door, into his Hummer and down the road before he’d done something disrespectful, like tell the old woman where to get off.

  Lindy had done that for him, in that tasteful, academic, over-the-head sort of way that left someone wondering whether they’d been flattered or insulted. Needless to say, the article had been mixed.

  He was just as mad as he’d been that day. But he wasn’t holding back now. He was about to unleash on Tuck and for a crazy second, Lindy almost stepped in.

  Almost, but she’d known Clint too long, not to mention this is what she’d been waiting for—to finally see someone put Tuck Briggs in his place.

  “The car wasn’t stable,” Tuck went on. “It wobbled coming out of the turn.”

  “Because you were following too close to the lead car,” Clint said. “You were disturbing the air flow off the car in front of you and you were hung out to dry all by yourself. You were out of the draft. There was no way you had enough force to pass.”

  “I could have made it. The car slipped.”

  “You shouldn’t have made the move without another car in back of you. That’s why you have to listen to the spotter. He can see what you can’t. Like the fact that you were too far out of the line of cars. You need the draft for speed if you want to pass.”

  “Look, I don’t need a lesson in passing,” Tuck said. Lindy had to hand it to him. Tuck had as much nerve as he had good looks. Clint had presence. Talent and power and confidence, and the three made for a very intimidating mix to other men. To females, it was a definite chick magnet. But men either wanted to buddy up to him, or stay out of his way. Tuck was doing neither.

  “It was the car,” Tuck said again. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “Until I believe it, which isn’t likely to be anytime soon. If the car slipped, it would have been slipping during practice. You didn’t say a word.”

  Tuck looked as if he were about to say something, but then he clamped his mouth shut, his lips thinning into a line and he shrugged. “What’s the big deal? We fix the car and we’re good to go.”