The Kissing Game

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Here she is.” Simon knew his sister's theory about why he was watching Frankie was shot to hell, and he smiled his triumph. He stood up. “Say hi to Jesse for me.”

  He could feel Leila and Marsh watching him as he crossed the room toward—he couldn't remember his date's name. Damn. He felt a flash of panic. What was wrong with him? He never forgot a name, let alone the name of a beautiful woman.

  Chloe. That was it. Thank God.

  As he offered Chloe his arm, Simon felt yet another pair of eyes upon him. He turned, and sure enough Frankie was watching him, but she quickly looked away.

  What had gone wrong?

  He'd spent most of the afternoon with Frankie down in the real estate office's basement, searching through files and records. At one point he'd been virtually certain that he and Francine Paresky were going to end up in bed together. Tonight. The thought was dizzyingly, heart-poundingly exciting. Frankie in his bed, in his arms.

  For months it had seemed as if his libido were out to lunch, but suddenly, just like that, his body was back on-line, ready to go. Really ready to go…

  So what had happened? They'd finished copying and highlighting the rental records. Frankie had flipped through them all but there were too many and it was too late to examine them completely.

  Simon had suggested going out for pizza and Frankie had hesitated just a fraction of a second before accepting.

  It was that—that little bit of hesitation—that made Simon realize this was no flirtatious game. This was real life. Frankie was his friend, not some stranger he could have a brief, passionate affair with.

  She'd practically grown up in his house—the entire Hunt clan taking warmly to the little girl with the southern drawl who lived in a tiny house with her gram. She'd had no parents. Her mom had died and her dad had split. Simon's own mother and father, while not exactly June and Ward Cleaver but damn close, had included Frankie in nearly every family outing. She'd always been around. Simon had assumed she always would be around.

  Unless he did something to drive her away.

  He couldn't play this game. The stakes were too high.

  Of course he was assuming Frankie would even allow herself to be seduced. Just because she hesitated before accepting his dinner invitation didn't mean anything.

  He was reading far too much into it. Three seconds of hesitation didn't necessarily mean that she took the time to imagine going home with him after dinner. It didn't mean that during those few seconds she'd delayed, she'd imagined the two of them, sans clothing, locked together in a steamy embrace.

  It was possible that her hesitation wasn't the result of any extra thought. It was entirely possible that she hadn't spoken right up because she'd burped.

  Besides, it wasn't even dinner—it was pizza, for crying out loud.

  Still, he wasn't sure which he was more afraid of, that Frankie would reject him or that she'd allow herself to be seduced and ruin their friendship. And he didn't trust himself enough to take her to dinner and then take her home. He knew himself well enough to know he'd finagle an invitation inside and then he'd be facing either rejection or disaster.

  So he'd rescinded his invitation. He'd made some lame excuse about how he'd just remembered a previous engagement. He'd told her he'd see her in the morning at the house on Pelican Street, and he'd gotten the hell out of there.

  He'd gone home and showered and changed and headed for the resort. That was when he met Chloe. She'd been wearing a gauzy beach cover-up over a microscopic bikini that was a polar opposite to the bathing suit Frankie had been wearing earlier that day. Chloe had accepted his dinner invitation immediately, boldly inviting him up to her suite while she showered and changed.

  He'd declined.

  What was wrong with him? He'd asked Chloe to dinner with the express intention of going back to her room with her tonight. It was an attempt to substitute a more experienced player into the game he'd started with Frankie. It was an attempt to curb this incredible sense of restlessness that was surely caused by sexual need.

  But it wasn't working—at least not the way he'd planned.

  Because despite her sexy dress and make-it-with-me shoes, Chloe left him cold.

  “Simon, isn't it?” Clay Quinn said with a smile, raising his voice to be heard over the dance band that had begun playing in the corner of the room. “Nice to see you again.”

  Frankie turned around to find Simon standing behind her.

  He was dressed in the island's version of semi-formal—lightweight ivory pants and a pastel-green polo shirt, sandals on his feet. The colors went well with his thick blond hair and his tropical tan. He looked good. Too good. Frankie forced her eyes back to her plate.

  “I didn't expect to run into you here.” Simon's words were addressed to her.

  She braced herself before she glanced back up at him. “I called Clay to say that I'd remembered Jazz's last name—it's Chester—and he invited me to join him for a bite to eat.”

  “Have a seat.” Clay moved the small pad of hotel stationery he'd been jotting notes on, making room at the table for Simon. “Join us.”

  “Actually,” Simon said, “I was hoping to steal my boss for just a moment, if I may.”

  “Of course.”

  His boss? It took Frankie a moment to realize he was talking about her.

  Simon took her hand and drew her out of her seat.

  “Simon, what are you doing?” He was leading her onto the wooden dance floor.

  “This is called dancing, Francine. Think you can manage to do it without standing in a line and wearing cowboy boots?”

  Frankie didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be clasped in Simon Hunt's arms, his body dangerously close to hers, moving slowly in time to the strains of an old romantic song.

  “I don't want to dance.”

  “Humor me,” Simon said. “I'm messing with my sister's mind.”

  “By dancing with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whatever this is about, I don't want to know, do I?”

  “Probably not,” Simon said.

  “But I definitely don't want to dance with you. Whatever trick you're playing on Leila, you can do it without my help.” Frankie tried to break out of his grasp.

  But he didn't let her go. “If you don't dance with me, I won't tell you the brilliant solution I've come up with to find Jazz Chester.”

  Simon was a graceful dancer, moving with a smooth confidence that told of years of experience. Frankie remembered how she and Leila had giggled when he had signed up for a ballroom-dancing class at the senior center one summer when he was home from college. He'd learned to dance and charmed his way into the hearts of many of the island's wealthy older residents, most of whom became the foundation of his antiques business's client list.

  On the rare occasions that Frankie had danced with Simon in the past, she'd closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. She'd let herself fantasize a perfect world—one in which Simon Hunt would change. He wouldn't change a great deal. He'd still be sharp-witted and confident. He'd still ooze sexiness and charm, and have that aura of danger, that heartbreaker's attitude. He'd even still break hearts—everyone's but hers. When it came to Frankie, though, he'd be radically different. He'd personify the word fidelity. He'd become the poster model for true, everlasting love.

  Talk about fantasies ….

  Tonight Frankie couldn't muster up the energy to fantasize. Not with the woman in the pink minidress—clearly the previous engagement Simon had suddenly remembered at the real estate office—standing next to the bar. The facts canceled out the fantasy, and the fact was, Simon was going home with this other woman tonight. Lord help her, but Frankie didn't want to think about that.

  “I had a great idea, but I didn't want to make any promises in front of Clay,” Simon told Frankie. “Tell me if I'm remembering correctly. Didn't you say your buddy Jazz went to Boston University?”

  Frankie nodded, allowing herself only the brief est glance u
p into his eyes. Great idea or not, she hated that he was dancing with her. She hated knowing that later he was going to dance with Miss Pink over there and compare and contrast his two dance partners. Or maybe he wouldn't bother to compare them at all. Maybe Miss Pink had no comparison. Maybe Simon didn't even consider Frankie to be the same species as the willowy redhead.

  “I have a friend who works at B.U.'s alumni office,” Simon continued. “He owes me a favor. If you want, I can call and ask him to search the computers for Jazz Chester's most recent address.”

  Frankie forgot about the redhead. She forgot that she was dancing. She forgot everything, including the danger of gazing for any length of time into Simon's blue eyes. “Are you serious?” she said, staring up at him. It was a great idea.

  “Absolutely.”

  He was incredibly handsome, with laugh lines crinkling around his eyes, with his perfect white teeth and slightly crooked smile. His eyes were an almost unearthly turquoise shade of blue, interrupted by tiny flecks of gold and green.

  His smile warmed his eyes as he gazed down at her, and then suddenly, subtly, something changed. The warmth became heat and his friendly gaze became an almost palpable caress moving across her face.

  Frankie stopped breathing. She couldn't move, couldn't resist as Simon gently drew her in so that her body was pressed fully, intimately, against his.

  He lowered his head, and she knew without a doubt that he was going to kiss her. But he didn't. He stopped, his lips mere inches from hers, and for the first time in Frankie's life she saw doubt and a strange sort of uncertainty in Simon Hunt's eyes.

  She didn't have a clue as to what he saw in her eyes, but whatever it was—probably pure panic— it made him pull away from her.

  The song ended as Simon continued to back off, putting distance between them.

  “I'll call my friend at Boston University first thing in the morning.”

  Frankie nodded. What just happened? “Thanks.”

  “I guess I'll, um …. I'll see you. Tomorrow morning.”

  He walked her back to her table and nodded his thanks to Clay Quinn. He barely met her eyes one last time before he vanished into the crowd.

  Simon was embarrassed. Frankie wished she knew why. Was it because he'd momentarily dropped his guard and allowed her to see past the confidence in his eyes? Or was it because he'd almost kissed her?

  Lord, was the idea of kissing her really that embarrassing?

  “Interested in coming up to my room for a nightcap?”

  Simon gazed across the table at Chloe's movie-star-perfect face. She was gorgeous. Everything about her was amazing—from her elegant features to her perfectly proportioned curves. And she was inviting him to her room.

  Her eyes told him this was not to be taken lightly. Not everyone she dated was issued this kind of invitation.

  He knew she liked him. He'd kept her amused all throughout dinner. And the way her eyes skimmed over his body gave him the not-so-subtle hint that she found him physically attractive too.

  Simon knew he could go back to her room with her, and inside fifteen minutes, tops, he'd be in her bed. Having sex. With her.

  Casual, no-strings sex with a beautiful stranger. It was all a man with his reputation could possibly want.

  Except he didn't want it.

  He honest-to-God didn't want her.

  He thought his napping libido had finally awakened for good that afternoon while he was in the real estate office. And again, while he was dancing with Frankie, he'd felt the unmistakable rush of sexual attraction. Lust. The sensation was as familiar to him as breathing.

  But as Simon sat down to dinner with Chloe, Frankie had finished her coffee, and she and Clay Quinn had left the restaurant. Simon watched as they parted ways in the lobby, Clay heading toward his room and Frankie toward the door to the parking lot. And as Frankie left, his desire had vanished too.

  Chloe was nice to look at, but she was lacking just a bit when it came to imagination and opinions. In fact, it seemed to Simon as if she had none of either.

  All night long he'd been fighting the urge to look at his watch. All night long he'd been waiting for the right moment to make his escape.

  What he couldn't figure out was why. Why not go to Chloe's room and engage in a little one-on-one? Why the hell not?

  He forced himself to look at the woman sitting across from him, really look at her. She was incredible. She had large, full breasts and a narrow waist, a flat stomach and mind-blowingly long legs. So she wasn't a Rhodes scholar. So what?

  Two years ago he wouldn't have turned her down. Why was he turning her down now? And he was. He was going to turn her down the same way he'd turned down similar invitations, going on four months now.

  Four months. He'd actually been celibate for four months.

  Four months without sex, and now he was being handed an opportunity to end his dry streak with a woman who looked like a Playboy bunny, and he still wasn't interested. He felt nothing for her. No sexual pull, no chemistry, no attraction, no nothing. Nothing. It was weird, but true.

  Like all the women he'd dated over the past four months, he had absolutely no desire to get past a superficial first-date-type relationship with Chloe. And sex seemed far too intimate an activity to share with someone he didn't even want to talk to anymore.

  “Thanks,” Simon said, “but I'd better get on home. I've got to be up early in the morning.”

  Chloe thought he was nuts, and he had to agree. He was definitely insane. But moments later he was in the parking lot, unlocking the door of his sports car, relieved to finally be on his way home.

  As he opened the driver's side door, he saw a car pull out of the lot, a car that looked like Frankie's little import. He turned, trying to get a closer look or a glimpse of the driver.

  It wasn't Frankie.

  It wasn't Frankie.

  The realization hit him so hard, he had to sit down. He slid behind the steering wheel and gripped it tightly. He hadn't gone up to Chloe's room because she wasn't Frankie. If Frankie Paresky had put forth the same proposition to him, he would not have turned her down. He would have been up in her room so fast …. Damn, they wouldn't even have made it up to her room. Simon would've hit the stop button and made love to her right there in the elevator.

  The thought was sobering and a tad alarming. And exciting as hell. Simon closed his eyes, imagining himself with Frankie in a stopped elevator, clothes askew, surrounded by four walls of mirrors, Frankie's legs wrapped around his waist, her head thrown back in pleasure as he buried himself inside her again and again and again ….

  Sweet Lord, he'd had Frankie in his arms tonight. He'd been that close, that close to kissing her, but he'd chickened out. He'd gotten a sudden strange case of nerves. What if he kissed her and she laughed at him? What if he kissed her and she gave him a classic rejection speech about how they should just be friends? What if ….

  That was crazy. He was crazy. So what if she laughed at him? He'd just kiss her until she stopped laughing. And she would stop laughing.

  To hell with twenty years of friendship. To hell with potential disaster. To hell with it all. What ever happened, it would be worth even just one sweet moment of passion. He wanted her so badly, he would gladly trade all twenty years for one single incredible night.

  Simon started his car with a roar.

  Next time he wouldn't chicken out.

  FIVE

  SIMON LOOKED LIKE hell.

  He climbed out of his little black sports car looking as if he hadn't slept all night.

  He probably hadn't.

  Frankie leaned against the railing at number six Pelican Street, trying not to hate the woman Simon had no doubt spent the night with, trying to convince herself that she didn't care.

  But she did care. She'd gone to sleep the night before thinking about finding Jazz Chester, yet it was Simon Hunt who'd haunted her dreams.

  No more, she silently vowed, turning her attention to Clay Quinn, who was st
ruggling to unlock the big wooden door. From then on she was going to concentrate her efforts—waking and sleeping—on finding Jazz.

  Clay's cellular phone trilled, and he gave up on the door for a moment as he answered it, moving to the far side of the porch.

  “Morning.” Simon's voice was husky, and Frankie knew if she turned around, he'd be standing much too close.

  Still, she couldn't resist. She turned around.

  He was wearing dark glasses and his hair was still damp from what had no doubt been a hurried shower. Despite the heat, he carried a mug bearing the logo of the doughnut shop on the corner of Ocean and Main, and sipped hot coffee through a slot in the plastic lid. He wore plaid Bermuda shorts with a white polo shirt, boat shoes on his feet, and no socks. His legs were muscular and tan and covered with golden-tinted hair that gleamed in the sunshine.

  He looked much too good despite the fact that he was clearly exhausted. He smiled at her. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Frankie backed away, putting more space between them.

  “I have some good news and some bad news,” Simon said. “Which do you want first?”

  Clay closed up his phone and went back to wrestling with the door. “Sorry about that,” he called out. “The office is going crazy—one of our longtime clients was arrested last night. I've been getting constant phone calls since five-thirty this morning.” His phone rang again. “Damn!”

  He kept working on the door, opening his phone and sticking it under his chin. Frankie turned back to Simon. “I want only good news,” she told him. “As far as I'm concerned, you can just skip anything bad.”

  “I called my friend at Boston University.” Simon lowered his voice and Frankie was forced to step closer to hear him. “He said it's illegal to give out an alumnus's personal information, but when I explained what we needed the address for, he said he'd make an exception.”

  “That's great,” Frankie said. “So what's the bad news?”

  As Clay Quinn muscled the front door open, still talking on his phone, Simon took off his sunglasses and put them in his pocket. His eyes didn't look tired or slightly bloodshot as she'd imagined. They were clear and bright. She had to look away.