by Graves, Jane
“Ow! Crap!”
She let go of the toy gun and it clattered to the floor. Brett flew out of the bathroom, dropped his gun, and hurried over. She leaned over with her hands on her thighs, then stood up again and walked in a circled, gritting her teeth. The platform bed. She’d banged her knee on the corner of his platform bed.
So much for her superior spatial skills.
“Damn, that hurt!” she muttered.
“Stop. Let me look.”
“No,” she said, her teeth still gritted. “It's okay.”
“Sit down.”
“No. I said it’s okay.”
“Will you sit?”
She went to the foot of the bed, turned around, and sat down. Or she tried to. The ibuprofen had apparently worn off, and as she lowered herself, her abs felt as if they were on fire.
“Ow, ow, OW!” she muttered as she collapsed the final few inches onto the bed.
“Does it hurt that bad?” Brett said.
“Yes! I mean, no. Not my knee. Well, yes, my knee. But my abs. Damn.”
“Abs?”
“Pilates last night. God.”
“I hear that can be brutal.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why do you look for ways to torture yourself?”
“I like to work out.”
“Yeah, I can tell you’re loving it right about now.”
Actually, no, she wasn't. But no pain, no gain, right? Except for her knee. That was pain with no gain whatsoever. Her kneecap had to be turning ten shades of black and blue. Brett knelt in front of her and examined the wound from all sides. Then he did the last thing on earth she expected.
He leaned in and kissed it.
“All better?” he whispered.
Kelsey just sat there, stunned. Was all what better? Oh, yeah. Her body-maiming collision with his bed that was going to result in the bruise of the century on her knee, also known as the Place He'd Just Kissed.
This was surreal. Brett was on his knees at her feet, looking up at her expectantly. He leaned in and kissed the spot again. Then moved up her bare thigh an inch. Another kiss. Another inch. Another kiss. She shuddered with embarrassment. Pleasure. Embarrassment and pleasure. Then he rose, took her face gently in his hands, and kissed her.
“How are we doing now?” he whispered against her lips.
We? Well, she didn’t know about him, but she was feeling pretty damned hot. Then his lips were on hers again, giving her a deep, delicious kiss he clearly meant as a prelude to a whole lot more. Then he eased her down to her back on the bed and slid his hand beneath her shirt. "Shall I give those abs a kiss, too?"
Kelsey jerked herself back to a sitting position, almost smacking Brett in the face. As he leaned away with surprised, she held up her palms. “Wait! Just wait a minute!”
“What?”
“I have to think about this.”
“Uh…what is there to think about?”
“God, Brett! That’s just like you. Do you have to just jump right into everything?"
"No, I believe we already jumped in last night. Tonight we’ll just be swimming around.” He reached for her, but she shuddered away.
He sat back on his heels. “What?”
“Sit down. Right there.” She pointed to the bed beside her.
“Why?”
“Will you just do it?”
With a heavy sigh, he rose and sat next to her, thigh to thigh.
“Too close.”
He rolled his eyes and moved over until there was a good six inches between them. “So this is how you’re going to think about it?”
“Yes. With you over there.”
“Okay. Let’s hear it. What are you thinking?”
What was she thinking? That Brett was nuts? Oh, yeah. That just sitting next to him made her body temperature shoot into the stratosphere? You bet. And then there was him managing Gianelli’s and maybe even buying in. That had to be the most disorienting thing of all. That thing she did not understand. That thing that made her wonder what was behind that brilliant smile and crazy personality, and she wasn’t taking one more step into this situation until she found out.
“I heard a rumor about you today,” she said.
Brett’s eyes grew wide with trepidation. “Now, wait a minute. For the record, no matter what you hear, I did not swim in the fountain at City Hall."
She blinked. "You swam in the fountain at City Hall?"
"No! I told you I did not. Did not."
"Forget that. I’m talking about the rumor where you’re going to be running Gianelli’s.”
Brett drew back with surprise. “How did you know that? Nobody is supposed to know.”
“Paul told Angi, and Angi told me.”
Brett frowned. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“So it’s true?”
“Yeah. Jerry’s opening another restaurant, and he's promoting me to general manager. But I’d appreciate it if you kept that under your hat, even though Paul clearly hasn’t."
“I also heard you might be buying an equity stake in the company.”
“I’m working on it. Jerry’s starting to see the advantages of having a partner. It’ll free up some of his capital to make sure the new restaurant is a success. I’ve always wanted to get into the restaurant business, so I thought it would be a good investment.”
Kelsey was stunned. This was not the Brett she knew. Or, more to the point, the Brett she thought she knew.
"I’ve been saving up for years for the right opportunity," Brett said. "Now that I've finished my Master’s degree, a stake in Gianelli’s might be just the ticket. With luck, Jerry will go for it.”
Kelsey drew back. “Wait a minute. Back up. Master’s degree?”
“Sure. If I wanted to run a restaurant, a Master’s in Hotel and Restaurant Management seemed like the obvious degree to have. I need more than just my business undergrad.”
Kelsey felt like the biggest fool alive. Not for one moment had she thought he was anything other than a bartender, a good-time guy, all fun and games, a man who lived life for today and that was about it. But this…this…
“What’s the matter?” Brett asked.
“Nothing. I just…” Just what? Underestimated him in a way that positively boggled the mind?
“So you think it’s a bad move to buy into Gianelli’s?” Brett said. “If you saw the profit and loss statement, you wouldn’t say that.”
“No,” she muttered. “Of course not. Gianelli’s is obviously a gold mine. I just thought…”
A smile spread slowly across Brett’s lips. “You thought I was just a pretty face.”
“No! Of course not.”
“Oh, yeah. You thought I'd be slinging drinks the rest of my life. You thought I was an irresistible babe magnet without a brain in my head. How does it feel to have those assumptions smashed to smithereens?"
She screwed up her face. “Babe magnet? Who even says that anymore?”
Brett grinned. “Babe magnets?”
“How does it feel to have an ego the size of Wyoming?”
“Hey, all this was your assumption, not mine.”
“Oh, all right,” she muttered. “But to be fair, you never did anything to make me think anything else.”
“It's not my job to manage your expectations.”
She glared at him. “Why didn't you tell me you had a brain?”
“Because brains are boring. I wanted you to love me for my body.”
Wrong. Brains were not boring. And when you put them inside a man who looked like Brett—okay, so she had a little bit of love going on for his body, too.
“Don’t worry,” Brett said, still smiling. “I'm sure you can keep up with my vast intelligence. Boomer does.”
“I imagine Boomer has a hard time finding his own food bowl.”
“And Einstein forgot to wear socks. Doesn't mean he wasn't a genius.”
And you probably are, Kelsey thought, feeling dumber by the moment.
A calculating look c
ame over Brett’s face. “You know, I’m thinking this intelligence thing might have some merit. It certainly seems to have gotten your attention.” He eased closer to her and stared deeply into her eyes. “Hey, babe,” he murmured, in a voice so hot it could fry an egg. “E equals…MC…squared.”
“Oh, please.”
He raised an eyebrow seductively. “Man first appeared on earth during the Cenozoic era, but fire wasn’t discovered until…” He wiggled his eyebrows. “The Neolithic era.”
Kelsey shook her head.
He traced his finger along her arm. “An irrational number," he murmured, "is any real number that can’t be expressed as a ratio a/b where a and b are integers and b is not zero."
“Brett—“
“No! Don’t stop me, baby! I want to spell for you. Antidisestablishmentarianism. A-n-t-i-d-i-s--”
“Brett!”
"Please—one more?"
Oh, hell. What was the point of protesting? She was going to get it whether she wanted it or not.
"Did you know twenty-three percent of all photocopier malfunctions are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their asses?"
She looked at him dumbly. "And you were probably one of them."
"I will neither confirm nor deny that."
“All that math stuff. How were you able to just say all that?”
“That was from junior high. I had a Nazi for a math teacher. You wouldn’t believe the things I committed to memory.”
Kelsey shook her head with disbelief.
“Hey, I’m just an average guy with a little bit of education. The only reason it seems like a big deal to you is because it’s a big step up from the moron you thought I was.”
“I didn’t think you were a moron!”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. Whatever. You stay here with Boomer and derive a new law of physics. I think I’ll go home and watch Wheel of Fortune.”
“Ah. Wheel of Fortune. It’s all about the A’s and E’s. They make up eight-point-five and eleven percent of the English language, respectively. Chances are if you pick them first—“
“Hey! Any grandma who watches Wheel of Fortune knows how to buy a vowel!”
Brett laughed, and Kelsey glared at him. “The water gun thing. It was nothing but a ploy to get me into your apartment, wasn’t it?”
“See? You are a smart girl.”
“You’re shameless,” she muttered. “And I’m drenched.”
“You’re in luck," he said, his gaze drifting down to her breasts. "I happen to love women in wet T-shirts.”
“Stop staring. I feel like I'm in one of those Girls Gone Wild videos."
"No. A wet T-shirt doesn't do it. You have to flash your boobs."
She rolled her eyes. "That's it. I'm out of here."
But before she could stand, Brett curled his hand around her breast and squeezed it gently, kissing her neck at the same time. Shudders of pure pleasure raced down her spine.
"The water guns," she said, her eyes drifting closed. "Don't you ever do anything like that again."
"Okay. How about I do this instead?"
He slid his hand beneath her shirt. With an expert flick of his fingers, he unfastened her bra. He cradled her breasts in his palms, teasing his thumbs across her nipples. It felt so good she almost forgot just how wrong it was.
“Wait. Stop.” She put her hands against his chest, breathing hard. “We shouldn’t be doing this. Not again.”
“Oh, yes, we should.”
“Brett—”
“If this is so wrong, then why can't we keep our hands off each other?”
She had no answer for that. None at all. Then again, her brain wasn’t working properly, so how could she be expected to think rationally?
Before she knew what was happening, Brett had shoved her shirt off over her head, taking her bra with it. He tossed her clothes aside, whipped off his T-shirt, then looked back at her, his gaze falling to her breasts. A look of sheer awe came over his face. “Holy shit.”
“Stop ogling.”
“Nope. If a woman gets naked in my apartment, she gives up the right not to be ogled.”
“But you got me naked.”
“Now you’re splitting hairs.”
In no time at all, he’d taken off the rest of his clothes. Then he kept his promise and kissed her abs up one side and down the other, every touch of his lips fanning the flames that were building inside her. She felt hot and wet between her legs, and when he touched her there, it felt so intense and intimate that she almost sprang up off the bed. Instead, she closed her eyes and reveled in it, knowing she was probably going to regret this but finding it really hard to give a damn.
Then he stretched out beside her and kissed her for what seemed like hours. Just when she’d start to become aware that she was naked in bed with him and maybe she shouldn’t be, she’d feel his fingers fluttering here, his lips touching her there, distracting her until she stopped thinking and just gave in to the feeling. And when he finally grabbed a condom, she was so ready for him that the instant he had it on, she tried to pull him on top of her.
“No, babe,” he murmured. “Like this.”
He rolled to his back and pulled her on top of him. She slid over him until he filled her completely, and she let out a gasp because it felt so good. He took her breasts in his hands, squeezing and caressing them, and the feeling was so intense that she couldn’t keep from moving, from rising and falling on him, creating the kind of heat and friction that made her want to scream out loud with the pleasure of it. He dropped his hands to her hips, urging her faster, harder, and it was so good that she couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Her nerves felt like they were on fire, scorching her from the inside out. Lust had won out over common sense, but she still wanted it to go on forever. She felt the sensations building slowly, then faster, faster, faster…oh, God…
“That’s good, baby,” he murmured, his voice infused with heat and hunger. “So good…”
Just those few words made the wild, shuddering pulses begin. She clutched his shoulders and dropped her head, then threw it back as she trembled and gasped with ecstasy. Seconds later, his fingers dug into her hips and he arched up off the bed, groaning with pleasure, a sound that almost made her come all over again.
A moment later, he fell back against the bed, breathing hard, still holding her, still inside her. Then he took a long, deep breath and slid his hands across her breasts to either side of her neck, pulling her down for a long, delicious kiss. When she finally fell to the bed beside him, he rolled over and placed his palm on her belly, still breathing hard, a sheen of sweat on his gorgeous face. She knew she had to be sweating, too, only she wasn’t one of those people like Brett who could perspire gracefully, which meant she undoubtedly looked as if she’d run a marathon on a hot, humid day.
It always started with that kind of thought. I bet I look ugly as hell. But now, as her pulse began to slow and her senses return, that feeling morphed into the self‑consciousness that always came when she realized she was lying with a man she didn’t know nearly well enough to be naked with, a man who had just seen her moaning and gasping and acting just a little bit out of control. And just like the other night, she was overcome with the feeling that if she didn’t leave, the embarrassment would grow, the self‑recrimination would start, and she’d be trapped there, naked and vulnerable and feeling like a fool.
“I know you’re thinking of leaving,” Brett said, still a little out of breath.
She whipped around. “What?”
He turned to stare at her. “You want to leave, but I wouldn’t advise it."
Kelsey’s heart skipped with apprehension. “Why not?”
“Because if you try to get out of this bed, I’m throwing your clothes out the window.”
She made a scoffing noise. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Bet you never thought I'd squirt you with a water gun, either.”
Okay. He had a point there.
“You’re a cop,” Brett said. “I thought you’d be better with a gun.”
“Hey! I had you trapped in the bathroom. If I hadn’t hit my knee, I’d have taken you out.”
“You had me trapped?” He laughed. “It was an ambush. If you’d made it all the way to the bathroom, we would have had sex in the shower.”
“No way. I never would have surrendered.”
“Wanna bet?”
“God, you’re arrogant.”
“So when you’re on the job and you’re in hot pursuit of a suspect and you bang your knee, what do you do? Say, ‘Hey, dude. Can you point that gun somewhere else for a minute while I pull myself together?’ Got news, Kelsey. A felon probably won’t drop his gun and kiss your boo-boo.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re lucky I’m not armed for real right now, or I’d—aaargh!”
Kelsey felt something warm and wet on her shoulder. She whipped around, shocked to come nose‑to‑nose with Boomer’s gigantic happy dog face. She let out a little yelp of surprise, then put her hand on her chest to calm her racing heart.
“Oh, yuk,” Kelsey said, wiggling a little to wipe her shoulder on the sheet. “He licked me again.”
“That’s because he has good taste.” Brett smiled. “FYI--that’s a pun.”
“Has he been there all this time?”
“Yep. Boomer has voyeuristic tendencies. He loves to watch me brush my teeth, too.”
Kelsey shook her head. “You have to do something about that dog. And before you even say it, I do not care what he thinks about me.”
Brett laughed softly, then slid his arm beneath Kelsey’s pillow and pulled her up next to him. Suddenly she heard a noise. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Brett said, his voice slurred with satisfaction.
“I hear a noise in your living room.”
He kissed her shoulder. “No noise.”
“Yes, noise!”
She reached for the sheet and yanked it over her. A few seconds later, Edwin appeared at the bedroom doorway. He wore plaid Bermuda shorts and a tank top, and his hand was stuck in a can of mixed nuts. Kelsey gasped and pulled the sheet all the way up to her neck. Brett shot up to a sitting position.
