Kendra was composed of so many such layers he doubted he’d ever find his way through them all. This top surface—the one that glittered and shone and drew male attention—seemed almost calculated as a ruse. Because for all her pampered ways, he was coming to learn that what lay underneath was warmth and humor and a tenacity that intrigued as much as it scared him.
Though it didn’t scare him nearly as much as what could possibly be revealed in the next layer. And what he might give up to find out.
“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” he said, eyeing her warily.
“That’s because it isn’t,” she replied, and promptly positioned herself on the wrong side of the lathe.
Against his better judgment—against all the judgments he’d ever made—he dropped his hands to the soft curve of her hips and guided her around to the other side. Her sharp intake of breath at the press of his fingers should have brought him to his senses, warned him of the line he was not only crossing, but leaping over headfirst.
It didn’t. That sound only brought to mind—and body—the realities of heavy breathing and heavier petting.
They stood there a moment, not talking or moving, his fingers burning an impression where they lingered. It was all too easy to take note of how neatly she fit against his chest, of how the scent of her perfume wafted around him, slowly taking over his senses and his woodshop.
He should have kissed her. He should have buried his head in her neck and never come up for air.
He handed her a long block of hickory instead. “You start with a piece of wood.”
She fell into a burst of laughter. “That’s how every good story starts.”
There was enough distance between them that he felt only the illusion of her body against his as they set to work, but it was enough. They’d officially crossed every boundary set up to prevent just such a situation, blazed past intent to hurtle toward action. Tacitly, tentatively, they were setting aside the rules to enjoy a stolen moment over a lathe.
And he was powerless to stop it. Even if he’d wanted to.
“Be careful, Kendra.” He willed focus to come to him, pulling it from places he didn’t know existed. “Your story fails to take into account the part where you clamp the wood and lock it in place.”
His hands guiding hers, he showed her how to fix the wood to the rotating frame. Her hands felt small underneath his, impossibly soft, but with an underlying strength that was doing strange things to his concentration. She rubbed people down with those hands, smoothed over the skin, worked magic on their surfaces. Transformed beasts into beauties.
“Clamping and locking doesn’t sound so bad to me.” Her breath came short and fast, and even though he couldn’t see her face, he could feel the tension strumming along the lines of her body. “I think I could manage both of those things.”
This was a bad idea. A smarter man would stop things now, step away from the sharp tools, hide in a corner with a rocking chair and what remained of his dignity.
“Then you pump the pedal,” he said, his lips hovering above her ear. He nudged his knee just outside hers and began the up and down movement of his foot on the wood pedal. Slide, pressure, pump. Repeat. Every stroke of his leg along hers set his body tingling, but he couldn’t stop. They became reduced to nothing more than a pair of limbs, lightly touching, saying nothing.
“What happens next?” Kendra asked, not moving from the spot. He could feel the twitch of her muscles where his hand grasped her hip to hold himself stable.
“You gouge.”
“Oh, thank you.” She let out a whoosh of air, and Noah had to firm his grip—this time to keep her from falling over. “Gouging sounds much safer. Bloody and gruesome.”
“It’s not nearly as scary as it sounds.” He lifted the long metal tool, which was shaped like a handle with a chisel bit at the end, and lifted it to the spinning piece of wood. Grabbing Kendra’s hand and wrapping his own around it, he showed her how to hold the tool against the wood to carve out long, even pieces. It was easy woodworking, mindless repetition, the kind of task he normally found soothing.
There was nothing soothing about the way her hands moved under his—though there was everything mindless about the constant brush of his leg along hers. His body soon took over, until the increasingly small distance between the curves of her ass and his groin resulted in a rock-hard urge to forget woodworking and Lincoln and common sense.
Motherfucking common sense.
“Down, boy.” Kendra lifted her hands and arched against the solid wall of man at her back. She’d figured that of the two, laving would be much more dangerous than lathing—that a tongue would be capable of so much more than a woodworking tool when the medium was man.
She was so very wrong. Noah’s capable hands moved over hers, the muscled strength of his leg reducing her to a bundle of nerve endings, and she was pretty sure that no amount of laving would ever sate the monstrous erection pressing into her backside.
“I think maybe it’s time to stop.” She lifted her hand from the gouge, but he retained his grip on her, his fingers strong enough to bring on a swoon. “I feel like the Righteous Brothers are going to start playing at any minute. No woman can resist an ‘Unchained Melody’ moment.”
Noah laughed, his chest rumbling against her back, his breath warm against her neck. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Why?” She finally found the strength to pull away. It felt like ripping Velcro. Bloody, soul-binding Velcro. “What good will that do? So twenty years from now, when Lincoln has finally moved on with his life, we can meet up again in your workshop and see what happens?”
“Maybe I plan on storing it to woo other women.”
“You better not.” She punched him on the arm. She was no boxer, but she put her strength behind it—all that excess energy needing some kind of outlet. Noah, ever immovable, didn’t flinch. “If I gave you all my trade secrets, there wouldn’t be a woman alive who could resist you. It’d be like releasing a sexy backwoodsman plague on the world.”
He pretended to be hurt as he lifted his foot, and the whirring of the lathe stopped to fill the woodshop with a hollow, ringing silence. “Can’t I have one or two trade secrets? I promise only to use my powers for good.”
Noah looked so adorable—his lips pulled down in an exaggerated pout, sawdust in his hair, his pants bulging in all the right places—that Kendra couldn’t help herself as she lifted a hand to cup his face. His soft, scratchy beard felt perfect where it rested in her palm, and against all better judgment, she lifted on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his cheek.
“I’m going to regret this,” she said, unable to help herself. “Four tips. One. You’re cute when you scowl, but when you smile, there isn’t a single thing on this planet a hot-blooded woman would deny you. Two. Don’t be afraid to tell a lady exactly what you want in bed. Three. Compliment her underwear every chance you get. And four. Don’t you dare ever shave.”
That was the most important secret of all.
Her lips lingered against his face as she confessed her personal weaknesses, and it would have been so easy to move an inch to the left and finally feel the hot press of his mouth over hers. He wanted it. She wanted it. For the moment, they were all alone in the world.
But she didn’t dare.
Fortunately for them both, Lincoln’s voice rang in the distance, calling them to attention. Kendra pulled her hands away from Noah’s, giving in to the urge for one last squeeze, one last acknowledgment of the steady pulse of desire they were forced to pretend didn’t exist. And then she shoved Noah toward the machine and told him to start lathing.
“What are you guys doing in here?” Lincoln poked his head through the door. He frowned to find Noah fiddling with the lathe and Kendra toying with her bracelets as she surreptitiously slipped them back on.
Watching him, Kendra realized Lincoln was disappointed not to catch them in the act. Like picking a fight with the men at the bar, he was seeking an outlet for his frustration, searching for justifiable reasons to hate them both—and they’d been way too close to giving him one.
“Waiting for you,” Kendra said with false cheer. “Is Matt still here?”
“Naw. He left.” Lincoln kicked at the dirt. “I guess he called the station looking for me. He got a little panicked when they said I’d been gone all week.”
Kendra just stared at him. You think?
“It’s all sorted out now,” he mumbled. Then, hopefully, “Are you staying for dinner?”
Kendra looked to Noah for confirmation. A slight, difficult-to-interpret movement of the head was all she got in return.
“I think maybe I will,” she said, mostly to goad Noah. What would it take to finally get a reaction out of him? How far did he have to be pushed to give way? “And prepare to grovel at my feet for it. I brought real food with me this time. I stopped at the deli on the way and grabbed tabbouleh and falafel.”
Lincoln fell onto one of the hard wooden benches. “Oh, thank God. You won’t believe what Noah made me eat for lunch today.”
She caught Noah’s eye and laughed. “Was it alive less than twenty-four hours ago?”
“Twelve,” Noah replied, pointing a warning at her. “Tops.”
Chapter Eight
Kendra caught sight of the black Escalade about five blocks from home.
She wasn’t sure what tipped her off to being followed. It was early enough in the evening that several cars still buzzed about on the road—many of them dark, most of them just as expensive. That Escalade could have easily been a family heading home from dinner or a commuter pulling into Pleasant Park after a long work day, but a prickling sense of unease had her gripping the steering wheel and glancing in the rearview mirror for the umpteenth time.
One to two cars back? Check.
Followed her on that double left-hand turn to nowhere? Check.
Disappeared behind a stoplight only to reappear at the next? Oh, man. She really was being followed.
She reached down to grab her cell phone out of her purse, scouring her recent memories for anyone she’d come across who might harbor latent stalking tendencies. It wasn’t as odd as it seemed—there was something about the intimacy of the esthetician-client relationship that bred an awkward closeness. More than one woman had assumed a personal connection with her after a particularly brutal waxing.
She fumbled when her purse wasn’t in its usual position, tucked in a side pocket to prevent the contents from spilling out all over the floor. That’s because there is no side pocket in Lincoln’s car.
Lincoln’s car. Lincoln’s ridiculous, gas-efficient, oddly comfortable commuter car. Even though she was only supposed to be holding the vehicle hostage while he healed, she’d found herself strangely loath to part with it. Her own BMW got sixteen miles to the gallon on a good day—and while she didn’t mind paying the exorbitant gas rates, she’d started to feel consumer guilt creeping in.
That was what Noah and his oh-so-pure ways had done to her. He slit one tiny hole of doubt in her life, and all of a sudden she was ripped wide open and contemplating buying a Prius.
“Stupid Lincoln.” She decided to focus on the more immediate danger. Saving the environment was all well and good, but she couldn’t do it from an early grave. “How convenient that he didn’t mention those guys from the bar might still be out to get him.” She finally got a grip on her cell phone and dialed Whitney’s number. She wasn’t sure what Whitney could do to prevent her from being run off the road and into a borough side street, but her best friend’s voice had a way of soothing fears.
“Thanks for calling Whitney and Matt, but we’re not home right now. Or we are, and are just too busy to answer. You can guess why.” BEEP.
Kendra swore as she pulled up to another stoplight. Visions of large men with guns surrounding her if she dared put on the brakes had her contemplating running a red, but when she looked up, there was no Escalade in sight. She carefully stopped the car and checked all her mirrors.
Nothing. No dark cars, no sinister men with shivs. Just a young couple holding hands as they strolled down the street and a family whose stroller seemed to be stuck on a sidewalk crack.
A car behind her honked as the red light turned to green. Unsure what else to do, she pulled into the parking lot of a twenty-four hour-grocery store. And waited, her grip firm on the phone.
Nothing. No sight of anything suspicious. Not even an ominous bird flocking overhead.
“I must be losing it,” she muttered.
Of course no one was following her. Lincoln might get himself into trouble by acting like a cocky bastard at bars, but this was Pleasant Park. The worst that could be said about this place was that the people tended toward petty, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses competitiveness. She knew her neighbors by name, for crying out loud. Had farm-fresh produce delivered weekly.
Still, Kendra picked up the phone with a shaky hand and scrolled through her contact list, hesitant to go home alone. She prided herself on being a woman of the utmost common sense—and common sense told her that she would get no sleep tonight, jumping at every thump on the wall and imagining boogeymen lingering in the corners.
The problem was...who did she call? Whitney and Matt were clearly busy. Noah—strong and capable and already involved in this situation—didn’t own a freaking phone. Derek would come without having to be asked twice. Or there was Mark. Randolph. Pierre. Mmm. She hadn’t seen Pierre in a while. And he was an MMA fighter, which made him ideally suited for safety purposes. And comfort purposes.
She called none of them.
With a sigh, she pulled the car back onto the road instead. She was an independent woman, dammit. She was the oldest of four very opinionated siblings. She’d worked her way through an MBA. She owned her own business. The last thing she needed was a man to pull her into his arms and make it all okay.
So she went the one place where she could be sure that wouldn’t happen.
* * *
Noah watched the car pull up without moving from his post outside the front door. It was late—later than he normally stayed up, late enough that he’d probably regret it in the morning—but sleep had been impossible.
Lots of things that hadn’t seemed impossible before were rising up in front of him lately, insurmountable and growing by the second. And one of them was headed his way right now.
“Hey, Noah.” Kendra shut the car door quietly, her arms wrapped around herself as if warding off a chill. Before he had time to question the wisdom of his actions, he shrugged out of his jacket and helped her into it.
“Hey, back.” He dropped his hands the moment the sleeves covered her arms. There was no way he was touching her right now. Not with Lincoln sound asleep inside. Not when the only thing stopping him was his own feeble willpower. Always an untrustworthy bastard, he barely recognized it anymore. “I was just out trying to clear my thoughts. Did you forget something?”
“No, I—” Her arms shook where they pressed against her midsection once again. It wasn’t that cold outside—he barely felt the breeze in his T-shirt—and a frisson of alarm worked through him at the sight of it. “It’s probably nothing.”
She wasn’t doing much to lessen his alarm. “What was probably nothing?”
“What do you know about the guys who stabbed Lincoln at the bar?”
Okay. Now she was really freaking him out. Unable to stop himself, he stepped forward and grabbed her upper arms, lowering his face to peer more closely at her. Her arms weren’t just clattering from cold—her whole body was shaking. “I don’t know much, to be honest. No more than you. Why?”
Her face fell. “It’s just that I thought I might have been followed on my way home tonight. That’s ridiculous, right? Please tell me I’m being ridiculous.”
It took him a moment to make the connection. She’d been driving home from his house—where Lincoln was currently residing—and in Lincoln’s easily recognizable car. Anyone who might be trying to reach out and leave a message would definitely start there.
Fucking hell. None of them had even considered the possibility that those guys might still be after Lincoln. They’d been letting her drive around all week in that car.
“Oh, shit.” He pulled her to him in a crushing embrace, his arms holding her pinned against him, almost as if he could still her anxiety by sheer force of will. It didn’t work, of course, and her shaking only increased.
Kendra. Shaking. Scared. In his arms.
That simple action—hugging a person he cared about to bring her comfort—rattled him out of his apathy, jolted him to a stronger sense of presence than he’d felt in years. Once upon a time, he used to be good at this sort of thing, had overseen one of the largest PR crisis management teams in Philadelphia. Businesses had looked to him for disaster control, relied on his ability to take calm, detached command of a situation and assuage fears.
Of course, his career choice had turned out to be a monumental irony when his own life had taken a disastrous turn and he’d fallen to pieces.
Now, faced with another crisis so personal it practically reverberated in his skull, he could feel his control slipping away once again. Forget calm and detached. Forget taking command. All he felt was an overpowering urge to set Lincoln’s goddamn car on fire.
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