by Peggy Jaeger
He needed to find the answer.
He needed to find it fast.
* * *
“Can anyone hire him?” Abby asked. She stood on a ladder, a birthday streamer in one hand, as she gazed out the window at Josh.
“Aunt Lucy asked the same question,” Kandy said.
“Well?”
Kandy stared up at her sister. “What, exactly, do you need a bodyguard for? I’m the one being harassed.”
Abby took the pushpin from her sister and secured the streamer into the ceiling beam. She shimmied down the ladder and said, “Sorry. I forgot. How are you with all this? It must be weird.”
Kandy snorted. “Weird doesn’t begin to describe it.” She went up the ladder next and secured her side of the streamer. “I’m still having a hard time believing I actually need protection.”
“Gem told me everything.”
“Remind me to cut out her tongue when she gets here.”
“Okay, I can tell you don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about gorgeous out there, instead. Is he married?”
Kandy rolled her eyes.
“With anyone?”
Kandy went back up the ladder.
“Sis, come on. This is the first truly godlike man you’ve ever been involved with. I want to know all about it. About him. What have the two of you been doing together? I mean, he’s around all the time, right? Goes where you go, sleeps where you sleep?”
“Lord. You’re as bad as the aunts. Mom hasn’t even asked me questions like that.”
“Because I haven’t had a moment alone with you, honey,” Hannah said, coming into the foyer, a huge smile on her face. “But since he’s outside,” she added, glancing out the deck doors, “and looks absolutely fabulous from this angle, why don’t we just watch him for a few minutes and you can tell us all about your relationship.”
Kandy came down the ladder, stood in front of her mother and sister, arms akimbo, and said, “First of all, our relationship is a professional one. I’m not involved with him. There’s nothing going on between us in any way your lascivious little minds can come up with. He was hired by Stacy to find out who’s been annoying me. End of story. All I am to him is a problem to be solved. A job. Nothing else.”
“You can’t be serious?” Her sister gawked at her. “A man who looks like that and you don’t even try to tempt him? I can’t believe it. I can’t honestly believe there isn’t an attraction.”
“Oh, there’s an attraction,” Hannah said.
Kandy’s eyes narrowed.
“All you have to do is look at the man when you’re in the room to know he’s interested, honey. It’s as plain as day.”
“You’re crazy,” Kandy said, swiping a dismissive hand at her. “I have a cake to decorate.”
As she left the room, her mother said, “He’s not married, never has been. Lives alone. He started his own business about four years…”
Leave it to Mom to worm out all his basic info within five seconds of meeting him. Kandy pulled her decorating bags out of a drawer and got to work.
* * *
The guests began arriving at one, and but for a brief fifteen minutes for Kandy to get ready, she’d been without a break, cooking, serving, and acting as a hostess. Josh had stuck by her side for most of it, acting as waiter, drink-getter, and overall kitchen factotum. He’d been introduced to the remainder of her sisters, and in an attempt to keep them all straight, began categorizing and filing them away in his head.
Abby, the one closest in age to Kandy, was twenty-seven, unmarried and worked as a receptionist in a law firm in Brooklyn. Belinda, twenty-six, was married and had two children, Declan who was five and MaryBeth who was six months. Her husband, Brian, was a welder, and from Josh’s viewpoint a heck of a volleyball player. Gemma he knew, and grinned when she arrived and greeted him with a bewitching kiss full on the lips and a “hiya Hunk!” greeting. Next came Fallon who was twenty-four and a newlywed. She and her husband, Hal, had been married for a little over a year. Twenty-two year old Daisy came next, complete with a starting quarterback for an NFL team boyfriend. She told him she was one of the team’s professional cheerleaders. Her beaux was as competitive at volleyball as Brian. Lastly was the birthday girl, Eleanor, or Ellie as the family called her. At twenty-one she was the shortest of all the Laine women, standing at only five foot five.
“She the only one who got our father’s height genes,” Gemma said when she introduced them.
Ellie had arrived with twenty college friends in tow who were now scattered around the beach, enjoying and lazing in the sun.
In addition to the sisters and their families, Josh met the remainder of the aunts and their families. The exception was Uncle Peter, who, Hannah informed him, had pleaded a prior engagement. Josh made a mental note to pay the man a personal visit as soon as he could when they arrived back in the city.
Reva Lowenstein and her partner, Cherry Jones were lounging in deck chairs, conferring with Harvey Little and his partner, Paul.
When Daniel arrived with his estranged wife, Betsy, Kandy headed straight for the couple and gathered them both into her arms. Her vigorous embrace was returned in full measure.
In all, he counted eighty adults and fifteen children of varying ages at the beach house.
* * *
“Heck of a day for party,” he commented a few hours later.
“I’m so glad the weather held,” Kandy said. She rested her elbows on the deck rail. “It would have been a disaster if it rained.”
“Maybe not a disaster,” he told her, “but it would have been tight with all of us inside, that’s for sure.”
She nodded and watched her brother-in-law Hal spike a ball over the net. Gemma instantly volleyed it back, the opposing team missing it on the rebound.
Laughing, Kandy said, “I’ve always said she’s the most competitive of us all.”
Josh grinned and glanced over his shoulder at her. “How come you’re not playing?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“That’s an easy one.”
“Joined at the hip,” she said with a small sigh.
He nodded. “Feel up to it?”
“Not especially. I like to watch more than play.”
“Fine with me. Your food, by the way, has been a tremendous hit. Especially the shrimp. I don’t think there’s any left.”
“Don’t bet on it. I always have reserves.” She glanced down at her watch. “Think you could give me a hand with the lobsters and the corn? The water’s just about ready.”
“Sure.”
They made their way out toward the garage, Kandy getting rave reviews along the way from her relatives for the food, the party, even the weather.
Several pair of eyes followed them, gossiping as Kandy and Josh passed.
“Your relatives are talking,” he told her.
She sighed. “I know. Mom told me almost everyone in my family knows about it now.” She shook her head and frowned. “They’re like a new communication device.”
“What?”
“Telephone. Telegram. Tell-a-Laine.”
He laughed.
“I don’t know how I feel about everyone knowing. How ’bout you?”
“In a crazy way, it might help.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “Someone might have seen or heard something that didn’t make any sense to them at the time. Since your secret is out and they all know what you’ve been going through, it might jive and someone will let me know. Or you.”
“Tell me honestly, now that you’ve met everyone, you still think it’s someone close to me?”
“You know the answer, Kandy. As much as you’d like to deny it, it just makes sense.”
“I still think it stinks,” she said as they came around to the garage.
Josh opened the door for her.
They entered, the sudden shift from bright sunshine to black blin
ding them.
“Just give your eyes a sec,” Josh said. “They’ll adjust.”
“I know where the light switch is,” she told him and reached out to the wood panel.
When her hand came up against a brick wall of flesh and muscle, she yelped.
“That’s not the wall, Kandy.” There was laughter in his voice.
She wanted to remove her hand, she really did, but it felt too good where it was. Kandy opened her palm and laid it flat against the wide, hard expanse of his chest. She could feel his heart beating, rapid and strong, the tempo tantalizing and inviting as it played under his shirt.
“Kandy.” There was a warning in his voice, when his own hand snaked up to sit on top of hers.
Her eyes hadn’t begun to adjust, but she could feel how close their bodies were from the heat he perpetually threw off. Wanting to feel his firmness next to her again, Kandy took a small step forward. When her knees knocked with his and she heard his swift intake of air, she let the desire she’d been forced to squelch the night before break free without any thought she shouldn’t.
Josh’s hand closed tightly over hers, preventing her from moving away. Taking this as a sign to get even closer, she shifted her stance.
When she could feel his warm, fast breath on her face, she threw all reservations of rejection aside, forgot all the self-recriminating railing she’d done the night before, and rose on the balls of her feet to find his mouth with her own.
An instant of touch was all it took for her to forget about everything else. There was no party raging outside on the beach, she didn’t have a hundred guests waiting for her to cook for them, no one was harassing her.
All she knew, all she felt, was this moment with this man.
His body stiffened at first, firm and resolute, but in a heartbeat it changed. His shoulders relaxed, a deep sigh drifted over her skin, and his lips pressed against hers in a determined, mind-blowing embrace.
Kandy parted her lips, inviting Josh’s slow and thorough possession of her mouth, an invitation he accepted without any further hesitation. Her head swam with the sensations his touch drew from her. All she wanted to do was jump into his arms, wrap her legs around his waist, and let both of them consume each other.
When Josh’s hand skimmed under her blouse and boldly closed over one breast, the instantaneous hardening of her nipple was a reward to them both. His hands were huge and firm when they kneaded her skin and pushed away the small silk bra cup to take her fully into his grasp. Her thin silk shirt whispered against his hands as he moved it out of his way.
Kandy threw her head back and moaned, while his lips trailed down her neck and torso to capture the swollen nub between his teeth. When he drew it into his mouth and began to suck, Kandy’s insides clenched, and a sweltering lava flow of heat spread throughout her core, turning her legs to water.
“Josh.” Her voice, choked with raw need and fever, echoed in the dark garage.
Wanting to know the feel of him, she slipped one hand from her grip on his shoulders and traipsed down his chest, passed the waistband of his pants, to rest on the solid, rock-hard bulge beneath his trousers. When her fingers outlined the length and width of him, the sound that came from the back of his throat was part moan and all growl.
Flattening her palm against him, she moved it up and down, and absorbed his shudder, spurred on by the power of her touch.
“Kandy, we can’t do this,” he whispered, taking her earlobe into his mouth and biting down on it.
“Why not?” She tightened her grip on him and rubbed her lips across the exposed section of his neck.
He tasted good. Really good.
Josh tossed his head back allowing her better passage. “You have a beach full of company for one thing,” he managed to say.
When her teeth scraped across his shoulder, his knees shook against hers. He yanked on her shirt, completely pulling it out of her shorts, then his hands sailed up her sides to cup both breasts. He squeezed just enough to make her jump with longing.
“People saw us come out here, for another,” he said, licking the sweet spot under her ear. “Someone will come looking for us if we don’t get back.”
Kandy molded herself to his body, running her hands up and down his arms and back, loving the rigid feel of him. When his mouth closed over her nipple again, a hot shot of lust bolted through her groin.
“Oh God. Tell me again why we can’t do this, because I’m not real clear on why not just now.”
She pulled his head back to hers before he could answer and devoured his mouth. With her hands fisted in his hair, she hiked one leg up to his hip. Josh grabbed both her thighs, lifting her full against him, his hands nestled in the swell of her butt as she wrapped her legs around his waist and hung on for dear life.
“You feel so good,” he whispered, lifting and rubbing her against his erection. “So damn good.”
“You do, too.”
Their lips came together again.
Kandy felt as if she’d been starved for a lifetime and was only now learning what real food, real sustenance, was. She wanted to swallow him whole and go back for seconds.
Thirds.
No concoction, no food, no delicious dessert had ever tasted as appetizing, as delectable, or as satisfying as Josh did. She could live off of his taste for the rest of her life and never know hunger.
When he twined his tongue around hers, nursing off of it as if he couldn’t get enough of her, Kandy knew for the first time in her life what it meant to be completely and totally consumed.
In one fluid move Josh pivoted and braced her against the garage wall. With one hand harboring her against him, the other slaked up one of her thighs, wove inside her shorts, and pushed the thin silk of her panties to the side.
“Christ. You’re saturated.”
He began rubbing back and forth across the small bullet of skin he found pulsing beneath his touch.
Kandy lost her mind.
“Oh. My. God,” she cried, hanging on to his shoulders for dear life. The rhythm his long, strong fingers strumming against her flesh quickened.
He slipped two of those firm fingers inside her, pressing into her core, almost to her soul. Kandy knew she could die right here and now of pure undiluted pleasure. Her insides cramped around him at the same time his thumb scraped against her, his fingers continuing to slide in and out with a breath-shaking rhythm.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. All she could do, did do, was feel.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “Please don’t stop.” She didn’t recognize the complete and utter hunger in her own voice.
Josh did as he was bid. While his fingers kept up their ever-increasing pulsing inside her, his thumb continued its rhythmic rubbing to and fro against her clitoris. The heat from his breath scalded her as he gently bit down on a corner of her collarbone and feasted on her skin.
Her mouth skimmed his jaw, his cheek, his temple, her breathing erratic and quick. She whispered his name on a sigh.
The scream of satisfaction she felt bubbling up from deep down inside her was devoured as Josh captured her mouth with his own. Against her lips, he whispered, “Come for me, Kandy. Come for me. Now.”
And she did.
Harder, faster, and wilder than she could ever remember. Josh’s grip tightened as wave upon wave broke from within her. His lips anchored against hers, swallowing her cry when she finally let go.
Panting, barely able to scrape together a full breath, Kandy went limp against him.
Never in her entire life had she felt such an utter release. No man had ever made her come apart so quickly, so totally, as Josh just had.
Pinioned against the wall on one side, Josh’s stonelike chest on the other, Kandy laid her forehead across his and noticed his breathing was as erratic and irregular as hers.
“That was…” She couldn’t find the words.
Josh’s sigh was long and de
ep, the feel of his breath as it washed over her face making her excited all over again.
“Yeah,” he said.
His kissed her forehead with such tenderness she wanted to cry.
“Josh—”
“For God’s sake, Alyssa, give it a rest.”
The sound of Cort’s irritated voice boomed into the garage and turned the two of them into statues.
A half second later the bang of a car door slamming shot to their ears.
“I will not, and don’t you walk away from me, Cort Mason. I’m speaking to you.”
“Shrilling is more like it,” he said. “Just give it a rest and try not to embarrass yourself, or me, for the next few hours, will you? Please?”
“Why you had to drag me out here to some stupid party for a chit I don’t even know—”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“As if,” she countered. “Like I’d let you drive all the way here without me. Not bloody likely.”
The voices trailed off as the warring duo made their way toward the beach.
Kandy could see the outline of Josh’s face, just inches from her own, her eyes finally accustomed to the darkness. His fingers were still buried deep inside her, the aftermath of her orgasm continuing to clench and roll around them.
Without speaking, their gazes still locked, Josh slowly pulled his hand from within her.
A small wheeze squeaked from the back of her throat as his fingers slid away.
In one slow glide, Kandy slithered from his clasp to stand upright again, Josh’s hands holding on to her waist until she was surefooted.
She stared up at him for a second and then backed away, banging against the garage wall she’d just been held against. Josh’s hands fell to his sides while she tucked her breasts back into the cups of her bra, her shirt back into her shorts.
“Kandy, I...we need to talk.” Josh said. He shook his head and blew out an exasperated breath. “What just happened…Jesus.” He raked his hands down his face and just stared at her.
“Corn and lobsters,” she answered, in a voice she didn’t recognize. She heard the tremor in it and steeled herself to calm it. “That’s what we came out here for. Everyone’s waiting.” She grabbed three bags of corn at once. Not wanting to meet his eyes, she shifted, intending to go around him.
