by Susan Sey
He automatically clapped a hand to the ring in his pocket. “Um, what?”
“You’re here to propose marriage, right? To seal our families into a political dynasty for the ages so you can run for president and I can finally retire that ghastly china they trot out for state dinners?”
He felt his mouth open, but no words came out. He stared at her, speechless, until she laughed and tossed him the newspaper. It was the Sunday Post--all twenty or so pounds of it--and it hit his chest with a dull thunk. He scrambled to catch it before it did in his toes as well as his sternum. Nixie stood back and opened the door. “Come on in and read all about it.”
Erik followed her into the kitchen. He didn’t blame her for bypassing the living room. The kitchen, with a chain of garlic bulbs dangling from the pot rack and a cheerful assembly of little clay pots on the window sill, looked more like a Nixie-inhabited space. He couldn’t tell a daisy from a dandelion himself, but he’d bet good money that everything on that sill was edible rather than ornamental.
“Go on,” she said, leaning back against a mammoth stove, her arms folded across her chest. “Read.”
He found the evidence of his mother’s perfidy in bold face type at the top of the page. Senator’s Doctor Son Gears up for Political Career with Proposal to Nixie Leighton-Brace--Will Grandma’s Ring Measure up for Heiress?
He closed his eyes and pushed a thumb against his eye brow. Mary Jane was going to laugh her ass off. Not the best way to start off a lifelong partnership. “I’m going to kill my mother.”
Nixie laughed. “Oh, come on. Where’s your sense of humor?”
“My personal life isn’t a laughing matter.”
“Of course it is. Everything is a laughing matter. You stop laughing at life, you stop living it. People like your mom. They’re interested in her life, and you’re a big part of that. So what? You’ll go nuts trying to stomp on every little gossip columnist who mentions your name, and if you’ll forgive my saying so, you don’t have a lot of leeway in that arena.”
“You think I’m nuts?”
“Maybe a little tightly wrapped.” He frowned at her, but she went on without pause. “Take it from me, okay? One child of fame to another? If you can’t control it--and you can’t--you have to have fun with it.”
He lifted one brow, folded his arms and leaned against a corner of the stove. “How exactly do you propose having fun with newspapers turning my social life into fan fiction?”
“First of all, you can’t deny it. They love that.” She pursed up that gorgeous apricot mouth of hers and gazed at him speculatively. “You want to make out?”
All the blood rushed out of Erik’s head and into his lap. “Excuse me?”
Her eyes laughed at him. “I don’t mean right now, champ. I mean in public. For the cameras.”
He swallowed, hoping it would open his throat enough to speak. He couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from the wicked curve of her lips. “I’m not sure how that’s going to keep me out of the papers, Nixie.”
“Oh, it’s not. But you’re there already, aren’t you? You’re in for an arc of publicity now, and the only thing you can do is control the curve.” She put a hand on the stove between their bodies and slid forward until he smelled lemons. He blinked, and tried to focus. “I say we hit the town. Make out in all the clubs, dance til four a.m. We could have a big, drunken fight on the sidewalk, I’d throw your ring at you, and that would be that. A few more weeks of he said/she said in the press and you can give that ring to the heiress of your choice.”
Erik thought of the ring in his pocket, a pang of regret catching him by surprise. What kind of self-destructive streak had him half-ready to drop to one knee in front of Nixie? Hadn’t he learned anything from his parents’ disastrous marriage?
He forced a smile and said, “What? No couples rehab?”
She thought about that, then shook her head. “Not if you’re looking for a short arc. You develop a taste for publicity, we could maybe go that route.”
“Thanks for the offer, but no,” he said. “I’d had enough publicity to last a lifetime before I turned ten. The last thing I want is to go clubbing with Nixie Leighton-Brace.”
She shrugged and eased back, folding her arms over her chest again. “Your call.” But there was something small and hurt in her eyes, and guilt tugged at him with relentless little hands. Why did being true to himself have to mean hurting her?
“Nixie, come on.” He reached for her, but she shrugged away from his touch.
“No, really. It’s fine. I just...I guess I thought we were past that.”
“Past what?”
“The Nixie Leighton-Brace thing. I thought we were friends.”
“We are.” He bumped his fist lightly against her shoulder. So what if his entire body was screaming for him to pull her into his arms and kiss her until the hurt in her eyes went up in flames? He was sticking with the fist bump. It was neutral. Friendly. Better for everybody. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not still Nixie Leighton-Brace.”
She made a disgusted noise, and Erik soldiered on. “Seriously. It’s who you are. It’s not like you can just walk away from the job and poof you’re not insanely famous.”
After a long moment of silence, she said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you kiss me? Was it all about the clinic?”
“What?” He stared at her in horrified disbelief, but there was nothing in her face but calm curiosity and a certain distance he didn’t like one bit.
“It’s a fair question,” she said. “You claim to hate fame, but as you so adroitly pointed out, I am famous. You must hate me by extension, so why would a guy like you kiss a girl like me?”
“Besides the usual reasons?”
“All I can figure is you were after something worth more to you than your scruples.”
“Something like funding for the clinic?” Fury pulsed in his head like a jackhammer. “You honestly think I’d kiss you--hell, kiss anyone--for the money?”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” she said, her voice cool and detached. Her face was a perfect oval, devoid of anything but a clinical curiosity. Anger still bubbled hotly in his veins, but a little riptide of pain swirled under it. He hardly recognized her. Who was this contained, condemning stranger who’d hijacked his laughing, easy Nixie? Okay, so maybe he couldn’t have all of her, but did that mean he couldn’t have any of her? Was she going to punish him with this absolute absence?
“I never lied to you.” He shoved his fists into his elbows and glared at her. “I told you the clinic needed money, and I told you I wasn’t in the market for a girl like you. And now you’re acting all wounded because I’m not in love with you? What the hell, Nixie? What did I do to deserve that?”
“You kissed me!” Her reserve suddenly snapped, and the Nixie he knew came pouring through the cracks. Her eyes were blazingly green as she glared at him with a fury that leapt and danced like his own. “You kissed me like you couldn’t help it. Like you shouldn’t but couldn’t stop yourself. And me, being an idiot, I let myself believe you. I actually believed you felt what I did.”
“Yeah?” His anger took an abrupt left turn into an entirely less appropriate neighborhood. Probably a dangerous neighborhood. He took a step closer anyway. “What did you feel?”
“Don’t make me hit you.”
He reached for her anyway. “Nixie.”
“Don’t you Nixie me.” She spun away from the stove and marched to the dish strainer where she started banging clean silverware into drawers. “I want the truth, damn it. Has it all been for the clinic?”
“Has what all been for the clinic?” He wanted to hear her say it. Was desperately curious, in fact, to hear her describe the bizarre way his libido short-circuited his common sense whenever he was within three feet of her.
She threw him a scorching look over her shoulder. “This,” she said through her teeth, waving a fork between them. “This thing that
happens whenever you touch me.”
He smiled. He couldn’t help it. This was turning into a very interesting conversation. “What happens when I touch you, Nixie?” he asked.
She pressed her lips together and snatched up a colander and a dish towel. “You know what happens.”
He moved closer to her, close enough to smell lemons again. He was starting to like lemons. A lot.
“When I kiss you, you mean?” he said.
She kept her eyes firmly on the colander she was scrubbing to death.
“You melt in my mouth like chocolate, Nixie. Sweet and hot and rich. It makes me want to lick and taste and savor, to make you last and last. But at the same time I’m so damn greedy for you that I’m two steps from uncivilized behavior every time I smell your shampoo. I don’t like it, but there it is.”
Her eyes flew to meet his, green and startled, her lips open on a soft oh of surprise. “My shampoo?”
He reached for the auburn curl bobbing above her ear in blatant defiance of gravity. He pulled gently on it until she took a tiny half step forward, leaving them separated by inches. He could almost feel the heat of her body, but he didn’t touch her. He just pressed the curl to his lips. “Lemons,” he said softly. “Drives me nuts. And if you think I’m happy about it, think again.”
She made a small noise. He couldn’t tell whether it was a yes-noise or a no-noise, but everything in him said kiss the girl, and he wasn’t one to ignore his gut. He kissed her.
The colander clattered to the stone tiles as her arms twined around his neck and her lips parted under his. Time strung out and his focus narrowed until nothing existed but Nixie’s mouth and the slow, pulsing beats of his heart. Sensation lapped over him in a fractured wash of impressions. The subtle curve of her hip under his hand, the fragile weight of her skull as it fit into his palm. The sweetness of her breath against his cheek.
He turned her into the counter, pressed himself into her. Every line of her body matched up with his, and she felt so damn good. His hands streaked over her in equal parts desperation and disbelief. He wanted more at the same time he couldn’t quite believe how much he already had.
The inner curve of her thigh slid up to cradle his hip, and he realized with a dizzying rush of desire that he’d boosted her onto the granite countertop. He rocked himself into all that welcoming heat between her knees, and took her mouth with a frantic appetite. She tasted dark and sweet and feminine, and he wondered for one panicky moment if he’d ever get enough of her. Every mouthful he took just made the hunger sharper.
He left one hand on the curve of her behind while the other walked up the delicate ladder of her ribcage to her breast. She arched into his hand like a cat demanding attention, and he lost track of his thoughts.
“Jesus, Nixie, you’re killing me.”
She smiled against his mouth. “You deserve it.”
“I know.” He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue and she opened for him. He sank into her like the desperate man he was, and she scooted herself forward on the counter until all her glorious heat was pressed right up against the pulsing evidence of his desire. She gave a satisfied little sigh and crossed her ankles behind his thighs. A clawing need rose up in him, roughening the edges until desire became something altogether different. Something consuming and primal and raw. Something less controlled and more controlling.
Erik broke away, jerked back from the silken cage of her hair, her arms, her scent. This was wrong. She was wrong. God, what was he doing?
Her eyes fluttered open, the gorgeous hazy green of still water. Her lips were parted, a little swollen from his kiss, and so goddamn inviting. His palms itched to reach for her again, to take up exactly where he’d left off and drive that churning engine straight home.
“How do you do that?” He glared at her. “One second we’re talking like civilized people, the next second we’re...” He trailed off, unable to find words that quite described what they’d just been doing.
“This is exactly what I was talking about,” she said, remarkably composed for a women who’d just kissed him brainless. “This is that thing that happens when you touch me.”
He smiled at her grimly. “I don’t know what it is either, but believe me, it’s genuine and it’s dangerous and it’s definitely not part of some dastardly plan to get you to stump for the clinic. As God is my witness, I do not want to prove it again. Don’t push me on this.”
She glanced at the front of his pants, and Erik didn’t make any effort to hide the evidence of his sincerity. “Right. Okay. I won’t.”
“Good.” He blew out a breath. “Great.”
She slipped down from the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. Another pang of regret. Her t-shirt was old and soft and she wasn’t wearing a bra. The memory of her pert little nipple pressing into his palm sent a giant crack snaking along the surface of his new resolve and he turned away from her.
“I’m going to kill my mother,” he said.
Nixie shook her head doubtfully. “About the thing in the paper? Why would she make up a story about an heirloom ring and an impending proposal? Maybe she wants you to be president, but I assume she wants to be on speaking terms with you when you get there.”
“Who else would plant a story like that?”
“Karl.”
“What?” He turned back to stare at her.
“Oh, yeah. This has Karl’s fingerprints all over it. Unless I miss my guess, he doesn’t care for you.” She gave him a crooked smile. “He thinks you’re holding me back from my destiny, and figures painting you as a gold digger looking to pave your way to the White House with the Leighton-Brace fortune will deep-six any starry-eyed notions I had of eternal love.”
She bent to retrieve the colander from the floor. Her jeans stretched over the curve of her backside in a way that made his mouth go dry. “Did it work?” he asked.
“You nailed that coffin shut yourself, buster.” She smiled at him. Maybe it was still a degree or two left of true Nixie but it was better than nothing. “Though I’m sure you’ll rue the day.”
“I’m sure I will,” he said, and feared he actually meant it. “Are you going to tear him up over it?”
“Oh, of course,” Nixie said. “Now that I’ve had a taste of rejecting authority, I’m mad for it. I’m actually looking forward.”
He tipped up her chin with one finger. “Liar,” he said. “Call me when it’s over. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and let you cry on my shoulder.”
“Friends, then?”
“Friends.”
“No more kissing?”
“God willing and the creek don’t rise.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I like you, Nixie.” He forced himself to step back rather than forward. “I didn’t expect to like you this much, and frankly I didn’t really want to. But I do, and now I’m stuck. Real friends are hard to come by when money, fame and politics are on the table, and I’m not in the habit of throwing them away on an inconvenient lust.”
A brilliant smile bloomed on her face, and Erik had to take another step back or risk making a liar of himself. “That was almost sweet,” she said. “In a weird sort of way. I’ll call you.”
She walked him to the front door, and as he stepped into the hallway, she leaned out and said, “Hey, didn’t you want to tell me something?”
“What?”
“When you stopped by, you said you wanted to talk to me about something. It clearly wasn’t the article, so what was it?”
Erik’s heart stopped for three endless seconds, then jerked to life again with a nauseating thud. How could he tell her about Mary Jane now? Maybe they’d established a just-friends policy, but that didn’t mean it was appropriate to kiss Nixie one minute then propose to somebody else the next. She’d come to mean a lot to him, this sweet, half-cracked, absolutely true Nixie. Maybe he couldn’t have all of her, but he’d be damned if he’d give up her friendship on a technicality of timin
g.
“It was nothing,” he heard himself say. “I was in the neighborhood and felt like getting smacked in the chest with the Sunday Post.”
She rolled her eyes and shut the door on him. He walked slowly to the elevator, his grandmother’s ring a lead weight in his pocket, the path he’d chosen a lead weight in his heart. He’d tell her, he promised himself. Just not today.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nixie didn’t bother to knock. Karl had given her a key card weeks ago, so she let herself into his and Sloan’s adjoining suites at the Four Seasons silently. Maybe she was going to hold this showdown on his turf, but at least she’d have the element of surprise on her side.
She stepped into the foyer, onto marble tile posh enough to make even her cheap sandals sound expensive.
“Karl?”
“Not here,” her mother said. The room was so huge it took Nixie a moment to locate Sloan in the depths of an overstuffed white leather arm chair, a lavish view of the DC skyline behind her. She was curled in one corner of the chair in a pair of silky blue lounging pants and the kind of white t-shirt that cost ninety bucks and begged for an ink stain.
Nixie blinked at her in surprise. “Are you wearing glasses?”
Sloan touched the stylish square frames on the end of her nose. “Just for reading,” she said, pushing them into the jumble of glossy curls on top of her head. She waved a hand toward the coffee table where a few dozen slim folios lay in neat piles. “I’m looking for my next film.”
Nixie wandered closer, drawn by the scripts. In better days, picking Sloan’s next project had been a family affair. Nixie would curl up at her mother’s feet and they would spend hours digging through the piles, laughing at some, reading lines from others, imagining the locations, the costumes, the co-stars. “Anything look good?”
An irritable line appeared between Sloan’s brows, and Nixie tried to keep the shock off her face. Sloan hadn’t frowned for ten years. She hadn’t laughed much either. Extremes of emotion were wearing, she claimed.
“No,” she said, tossing a folder onto the table. “It’s all junk.”
