The Party Girl

by Tamara Morgan

  She tensed even more. “But he made it sound like you were at fault. He said you should have to sell your land to provide restitution.”

  “Yes. He did.” And in all fairness, he was probably right. In this part of Pennsylvania, land values meant something more than a few trees and rippling hills of greenery. Noah owned hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of real estate—was literally sitting on a reservoir of wealth amidst all his self-imposed poverty. “It wasn’t my scheme, but I should have seen it coming. It was run by my girlfriend at the time, Danielle.”

  She stilled. “The pretty one.”

  “The one who’s not as pretty as you.” He held her tightly, drawing comfort from the warm pliability of her body against his. With Kendra in his bed and in his arms, it was hard to remember that he inhabited a world of hard work and deprivation. “She was an investment banker, a successful, driven, strong one. A lot like you, actually, except for one small thing—she took me for almost every penny I had. She got my house, my car, my savings. All of it. The only reason I didn’t invest this land was that it was still in my grandfather’s name at the time. And I had a 401k I didn’t have time to cash out before she got caught.”

  “I had no idea.”

  Few people did—and he intended to keep it that way. “Some of the families she stole from think I was her partner, that I got off on a technicality. That my being childhood friends with a cop might have influenced my treatment.” He sighed. “It’s not true, but it might as well have been. I knew Danielle was greedy, that she could never simply be happy with what she had. She wanted the mansion on the hill and vacations in the Mediterranean. She wanted name brands and celebrity status. For the longest time, I let myself be blinded by her ambitions. I thought all those things were what I wanted too.”

  “And you think I’m also like her in that regard, don’t you?” Kendra asked. “That I’m vain. Selfish. Materialistic.”

  “Of course not.” The words felt thick on his tongue, a lie he could taste. “But I won’t ever go back to that kind of life again, and I don’t want you to get your hopes up thinking you can change my mind. I’ll never be that guy again. Not for anyone.”

  She paused, her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes not stopping their relentless search for something he couldn’t name but felt lodged deep in his gut. Just when he was sure she was going to rise from the bed and carry herself away—away from him—she nodded once. “Then I won’t open the suitcase. You can put it back in the car and we can pretend it never existed.”

  “Really? Just like that?” He pulled away and gestured at her face. “What about your...hair and stuff?”

  “Oh, I’m keeping the handbag.” She wrinkled her nose uncertainly. “Unless you don’t want me staying at all? It’s okay if you don’t. I can always go home for the night—I don’t have to sleep over. You just have to cry hermit.”

  His grip tightened. “No. I want you to stay.”

  The way she burrowed against him at those words made him feel like the biggest jackass in the world. He knew, on a cognitive level, that she wasn’t asking him to hang gold curtains and install an espresso machine, that she was doing no more than finding a way to make herself comfortable in an alien environment. On a visceral level, he felt more gut-roiling fear than anything else.

  Fuck. This was his fault. He’d never taken the time to get any further than the have-sex-with-Kendra part of his longings. And he had no idea what came next—especially since sex was rapidly turning into something more.

  “You could always come to my place every now and then, just for a change of scenery,” she said. The falsely casual tone implied this was something she’d been working up to. “If you were feeling very brave, you might even go out to eat with me.”

  He felt an icy hand grip his heart. It squeezed and didn’t let go.

  Kendra clearly didn’t understand what he was trying to say at all—that his decision was a final one, that there was no room for even the smallest concessions. Small concessions had a way of multiplying, of breeding behind closed doors.

  “Is that what you want?” He swallowed heavily. “Fancy dates and the comforts of home?”

  “You don’t have to sound so horrified. I can always have you back to your tattered rags and cinders by midnight.” Kendra kissed him, eyes open, watching him intently. “But I do still have to work. I have a life. And there’s the lingering issue of Lincoln and Nikki to sort through.”

  The vice in his chest wasn’t loosening any. This post-coital chat was veering straight downhill. “What lingering issue?”

  She pushed back and sat up, clutching a sheet to her chest. It was the first time she’d purposefully covered herself in front of him, and he felt it much deeper than the deprivation of a lovely view. “It’s easy for you to hide from them. Out here, they can’t intrude unless you willingly let them into your thoughts. But Nikki is my sister and Lincoln is, well, Lincoln—and I have to interact with them on a daily basis. It’s not fair to foist that all on me. The four of us need to sit down to dinner and talk things through.”

  Noah felt a horrified expression lower on his brow. “Why would we do that?”

  “Because we’re responsible grown-ups. Because it’s better to talk about sex than pretend it never happened. Because you need to see for yourself that what we’re doing isn’t some kind of dastardly plot to break Lincoln’s heart. He’s coping surprisingly well.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” he said slowly. He felt himself weakening already. Ah, that slippery slope to capitulation. How smooth and familiar the ride.

  “It’s one dinner, that’s all I’m asking. Tomorrow night? Come into town and eat food you didn’t strangle yourself?”

  “Strangling is very humane, I’ll have you know. They barely feel it.”

  With a laugh, she came back to him, sliding under the sheets and nestling close. “It’s a good thing you’re so cute, Noah Walker. Your thirst for blood is unsettling.”

  He had no way to respond to that, so he just held her tight.

  Because the truth was, it wasn’t his thirst for blood that worried him. It was his thirst for Kendra that was likely to be his ruin.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Lincoln’s apartment is kind of creepy, isn’t it?”

  Kendra lifted a brow. “Kind of?” The only addition that could make the monochrome IKEA showroom any more disturbing would be if he had cutouts of a perfectly beaming blond family staring at them from the corners. There wasn’t a speck of life in the place—not a single personal item aside from an oversized painting whose suggestive black-and-white swirls intimated at a giant, pulsing vulva. “This is a serial killer’s apartment. He probably puts a plastic sheet down before he pees to avoid leaving DNA evidence.”

  Nikki snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Do you think he irons his jeans?”

  “You were the one most recently inside them. You tell me.”

  “I didn’t notice any inappropriate creasing, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Kendra didn’t know what that was supposed to be a euphemism for, but her sister’s glinting eyes indicated it meant something. God, she hoped Nikki wasn’t talking about his balls. Some things weren’t meant to be shared between sisters. Sexual partners and testicle jokes topped the list.

  So far, they were zero for two.

  Kendra took a seat at one of the barstools—white—at the kitchen island—also white—and gestured for her sister to do the same. “Since this is the only time I’m likely to get you alone, we should probably settle a few things.”

  Nikki sat warily, perched on the end of the seat. “You said this was okay.”

  “It is okay.” A little weird, but that went without saying. “I have no problems with you getting your freak on at my house as long as you hang a sock on the doorknob or something
first. And as long as you use protection.”

  “You sound like Mom.”

  Kendra ruffled her hair and hunched her shoulders in an exact emulation of their maternal figure. “I don’t pretend to know why my girls insist on acting like harlots, but at least be discreet about your activities. It’s rare that a man can handle a woman with more experience than him—and performance anxiety isn’t likely to lead to a proposal.”

  Nikki burst out laughing. “She did not actually say that to you.”

  “It was implied,” Kendra said dryly. “Apparently, the only way to lure a man to the altar is to let him think he discovered your clit for you. That’s Khuso wisdom to live by right there.”

  “Lincoln’s not like that,” Nikki said swiftly. Just as swiftly, she clamped her mouth shut and turned her attention in the direction of the bedroom door, where the man of the hour emerged, his hair slicked up in its signature spikes, a shirt of questionable flammability pulled tight over his shoulders. As Nikki had borrowed Kendra’s white sheath dress and wore a push-up bra that did a fine job of making a medical spa’s work redundant, they made a good-looking young pair of lovers.

  Kendra surveyed her own clothes—a green silk asymmetrical top over leggings—and frowned. She normally played the role of good-looking young lover pretty well herself, but there wasn’t a single sparkle on her right now. Nary a swipe of shimmery bronzer. The constant running from Noah’s house to work and home again was clearly starting to take its toll. A client had even asked her if she’d recently had the flu.

  At least her heels were four inches. No woman could be called past her prime when she was able to clip effectively along in stilettos. Betsey Johnson was living proof of that.

  “Now, isn’t this something? Two gorgeous sisters in my kitchen, waiting for me to take them out.”

  “Ew, Lincoln.” Kendra ducked away from his proprietary arm. “Don’t be gross. We’re already frightened to death of your apartment.”

  “What’s wrong with my apartment?” Lincoln seemed genuinely confused as he looked around, his gaze skimming over the black and white reflective surfaces like a proud father showing off his progeny. When his glance landed on the door, they all jumped at the sound of a knock.

  “That must be Noah.” Lincoln’s calm appraisal of her raised a few goose bumps on her arms, and she rubbed up and down to stave them off. “I still can’t believe you convinced him to come out with us.”

  “What? This is as relevant to his interests as it is to ours. It’s not that hard to accept.”

  He didn’t blink. “I’ve been trying to get him to come into town for a night out forever. Ask me how many times I’ve succeeded.”

  Kendra didn’t have to. The answer—none—was all too easy to imagine, as were the implications of it. She’d accomplished in a few short weeks what Lincoln hadn’t been able to in years. Noah’s retreat from the world had been caused by a woman, and the only thing that might get him to draw back out again was another one.

  Of course, the implications of that were more difficult to understand. Especially since he’d been so freaked out yesterday over the idea of her bringing her own towels to his house.

  “Well?” Kendra asked. “Are you going to leave him out there forever, or are we going to eat?”

  Lincoln shook his head and pulled open the door to reveal Noah looming in the doorway. Looming was, unfortunately, a much better reaction than hers at that moment, which leaned much more on the side of openmouthed wonder.

  Noah dressed up well.

  Noah dressed up really freaking well.

  He wore no recognizable labels, didn’t even look all that fancy in a white collared shirt open at the neck, untucked and layered over a pair of darker wash jeans than she was used to seeing him in. He hadn’t shaved, his hair was still wild and a touch too long, and the brown shoes he’d traded his work boots for were scuffed from toe to heel. But damn it all if there wasn’t something about this feral man all buttoned up and contained that set her senses on full, tingling alert. It was like watching a grumpy bear being put in a cage and preparing to fight his way out again.

  “I hope you at least have a knife strapped to your thigh,” she said, drawing forward. “You might be mistaken for a civilized human being otherwise.”

  Noah accepted Kendra’s brief kiss with an almost audible sigh of relief. He’d wondered, on the way over, whether they’d have to keep the public displays of affection at bay, a tacit understanding not to flaunt their chemistry in front of a man who, until recently, loathed the very sight of it.

  Apparently, the answer was no, and he was glad to hear it. If there was going to be awkwardness, it was best to foist it out there where it could be properly attended to. Besides—people had double dates with ex-lovers to talk about sleeping arrangements all the time, didn’t they? Everyone had to eat.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am you actually came,” Kendra said. “If I was going to have to sit through an entire meal watching these two make googly eyes at each other, I was going to eventually carve someone with a spoon. Most likely myself.”

  Noah laughed at the image that evoked. He knew, from the way Kendra talked about her work, that she was capable of doing strange and painful things to people in the name of beauty. Who knew what she could do in the name of her sister?

  “How’d you get here?” Lincoln asked. He hung a little behind, looking at home in the sleek, urban apartment that brought a rush of memories back. Stainless steel appliances, large artwork on the walls, a less-than-tasteful aura of bachelorhood all around. Oh, yes. Noah could remember this type of existence all too well. His own house had been a historic fixer-upper—his project, his pet, his way of stepping away from the fast pace of his professional life and giving in to the inborn urge to work with his hands—but the trappings were the same. Affluence and ease in the form of electronic gadgets. Comfort and complacency in everything else.

  “I borrowed my neighbors’ truck.” He cast a look down at Kendra, who was stunning, as usual, her appearance flawless from her large hoop earrings to her pair of perilously high heels. “It doesn’t go over about twenty miles an hour, but my pride draws the line at being chauffeured around like a backwoods freak show.”

  She wrapped an arm around his waist and squeezed. “I like my backwoods freak show.” Turning to a younger, taller woman whose eyes sparkled with that same gray-green look of mischief he’d come to recognize, she made the introductions. “Nikki, this is Noah. Noah, my baby sister.”

  “Not so baby anymore,” Nikki said with a laugh. “And it’s always nice to meet a man of such impressive...girth.” The words—which might have just as easily fallen from Kendra’s lips a few weeks ago—solidified an already unsettling resemblance between the two sisters. There were enough similarities between the two to raise an army of red flags. It was weird enough, dating a woman who’d once slept with Lincoln. It was even weirder that Lincoln had only allowed it after he found himself an eerily identical replacement.

  “So.” He gave up the struggle to make this appear anything but the bizarre spectacle it was. This was going to be a very long night—he might as well accept that right now. “Am I the only one who finds this whole thing highly uncomfortable?”

  “Nope,” Lincoln said cheerfully.

  “Oh, it’s odd,” Kendra agreed.

  “And awkward,” Nikki said.

  “I think we should take a picture so we can always remember this moment,” Lincoln added.

  Noah groaned and knew himself for a goner as the group gathered up purses and keys and headed for the door. He stood back and held the door as they filed out, chattering about normal things like wine lists and Nikki’s apparently too-revealing panty line.

  No doubt about it—he was so far out of his depth he might as well be drowning. These had to be the three strangest, most blithely casual sexua
l beings on the face of the planet. And he alone floundered in their midst.

  Not that he couldn’t handle himself, of course. Mostly, he just prayed no one suggested they all climb into bed together.

  Noah didn’t share well.

  * * *

  “You’re holding onto that fork like it’s Excalibur.” Kendra gestured at Noah’s hand with a laugh. “The reason there are four forks at each place setting is so they can take the dirty ones away with each course.”

  “Strange though it may seem, I’m familiar with the process.” Noah refused to loosen his grip. “But I don’t care how unpronounceable this food is, four forks are overkill.”

  “Four forks are elegant,” she countered. “Is this where you start lecturing me on the wastefulness of our modern era?”

  “Does having a shiny new fork make your food taste better?”

  “No.”

  “Does it make you feel better as a human being?”

  “No.”

  “Does it bring you joy to think of all the unnecessary water waste required to wash four times as many forks as you need?”

  “Of course not.”

  He smirked as though he’d played some master argument-winning hand. “Then why bother?”

  “Because, Noah.” She leveled him with a stare, doing her best not to ogle that tiny patch of skin glistening at the open neck of his collar. It was unfair, really. All a man had to do to ooze sex was undo one button. It took Kendra hours and all sorts of hidden buttons to accomplish the same effect. “It shows an effort to please. It shows a desire to woo. This restaurant is wooing me into opening my purse wide for them. And it’s working.”

  Noah’s mouth turned down in a frown. Well, more of a frown, anyway. Since the moment they’d arrived at the restaurant, the corners of his mouth had been falling farther and farther, sinking into his beard in silent retreat. She wished she could say that it was the over-the-top elegance of the restaurant that did it, but he was surprisingly at ease among normal people, the vestiges of his old life clearly clinging firm. But from the way he kept throwing worried glances at Nikki and Lincoln, it was obvious his real issue was that he didn’t approve of the flirtation taking place across the linen tablecloth.