Flirting with Disaster & Fanning the Flames

by Victoria Dahl

  “You’re cute, Tom. You know that?”

  “Yeah, I heard that earlier,” he muttered.

  “Jill!” Isabelle called out. “What are you doing to our friendly neighborhood marshal? He’s beet red.”

  “I was telling him how cute his ass is. Isn’t it cute?”

  Tom did his best to ignore the roar of hoots and catcalls that filled the room. Amazing that so few women could make so much noise. He tried not to turn his back on them as he edged toward the kitchen. “I’ll just give the perimeter another check,” he muttered.

  “I’ll check your perimeter,” Isabelle offered.

  He shook his head and escaped to the kitchen. Jill followed and pushed a bowl of guacamole toward him. “Are you sure you don’t want some sangria? You look like you need it.”

  “It’s my first girls’ night,” he said, regretfully waving off the pitcher of sangria.

  “You’re not going to hide in here all night, are you?”

  He would, but the information he wanted was all in the other room with Isabelle. “I’m just doing a sweep.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  He made it quick, though, giving the women just enough time to start relaxing into their booze, checking the same places he’d checked the day before, lingering for a moment in Isabelle’s bedroom, just in case he’d missed a photo or a letter or memento. He wouldn’t dig through her dresser, but if she’d left out a picture of her parents or a postcard from somewhere far away... Yeah, it didn’t matter. He still felt like shit as he switched off the light and headed back out to the main area of the cabin.

  When he hesitated at the doors to her studio, he told himself it was because he didn’t want to switch on the lights and illuminate the entire wall of windows to anyone who could be watching outside. Except that was no real reason to hesitate. It was simple enough to not turn on the lights. The full moon and the snow on the ground meant he had plenty of visibility; it was only that he wanted the comfort of the lights.

  But there was one advantage to stepping into the room when it was still dark. The paintings were only vague impressions of lines and darkness, and the photographs weren’t visible at all.

  Tom pretended the easels were landscape paintings and walked toward the silver shapes of the windows. He flipped on the porch light and frowned. Nothing. She’d forgotten to replace the bulb. Or someone had unscrewed it. Tom scanned the moonlit porch and stairway, waiting a moment before he opened the door. The bulb was screwed in tight and was dark with burnt dust. He retrieved it and ducked back inside.

  “Isabelle,” he said when he reached the living room. She heard him over the music and looked up, her mouth pursed around a strawberry. He held up the bulb.

  “Oh, shit,” she said, swallowing the fruit, which left behind a delicious sheen of wetness on her mouth. “I forgot.”

  “You?” Lauren drawled. “Forget something? That seems unlikely.”

  “Shut up. I have things on my mind.”

  “You’re an artist!” Lauren shouted, and the women collapsed into laughter as if they’d said it a hundred times.

  “That’s right,” Isabelle said, standing up and looking tall in her boots and tight leggings, her neck stretching up to that upswept hair. “Veronica understands, don’t you? She and I have bigger things on our minds than lightbulbs. Or dinner reservations. Or bills.”

  “I just write an advice column,” Veronica said.

  Isabelle stepped over her legs and headed for Tom. “Nonsense. You’re a wordsmith. And a painter of the human soul.”

  Veronica’s mouth fell open in shock. She shook her head. But when the other two women collapsed against her, laughing, she forced a smile. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” Isabelle said with a wink.

  Veronica had seemed nervous on the way over, and Tom had assumed it was about the threats in the latest letter, but she hadn’t relaxed since. She was still very much on guard. He caught her eye and mouthed “Okay?”

  She immediately nodded and took another sip of sangria, so Tom felt okay leaving her alone. He followed Isabelle into the kitchen. She grabbed a new bulb while Jill checked something in the oven.

  “Should be ready in fifteen minutes,” Jill said.

  Isabelle held up the lightbulb. “Well, hopefully we’ll be back before then.”

  “Not if you show him that painting.”

  Isabelle smiled in his direction. “I told you he hates my paintings.”

  “Not this one.”

  Aware he was being left out of the joke, Tom frowned as he followed Isabelle into the dark room. “What was that about?”

  “Jill is trying to get me into trouble. Or, actually...” She paused in the darkness and turned to look at him. “Maybe she’s trying to get you into trouble.”

  “How so?”

  She shrugged and headed straight toward the French doors, not hesitating for a second in the dimness.

  “Let me,” he said, hurrying behind her to check the deck area before she opened the door.

  “I’m perfectly capable of replacing a light.”

  “Just not in a timely manner?”

  “Definitely not in a timely manner.” She opened the door, letting cold air pour in as she leaned outside. “But we can’t all be by-the-book lawmen, can we? Some of us are free spirits.”

  She was only joking, but Tom wanted to say yes. Yes, because of her laugh and the way her shoulders curved into a smooth slide of skin all the way down to plump breasts, and he was standing over her, behind her, and he could see down her shirt to the roundness of her from this angle. The softness.

  And the easy way she moved through this house in the woods that was hers alone. And the way a lock of her hair had escaped its knot to trace over the skin of her neck just where he wanted to kiss her.

  She was his opposite in every way. Pale and soft and curved. Amused by everything. Unconcerned by things she couldn’t control. Happy to take what she wanted, whether it was him or a glass of wine or a moment to dance around the living room.

  The bulb blinked on as she turned it.

  He kissed her neck.

  “Oh,” she said softly, her hand falling away from the light. He’d thought it was a sound of shock, but her head immediately tipped forward, giving him more of her neck, and he realized the sound was pleasure. So he gave her more, kissing her again, opening his mouth against the side of her neck, scraping his teeth over her skin until her small hum became a soft groan.

  The scent of her skin was already so familiar. It chased the smell of paints and thinners from the room. Lust shot through his gut.

  Living in Judge Chandler’s basement meant he hadn’t had enough privacy to relieve the nagging stress from the last time he’d kissed her, so he was right there again, completely aroused and wanting more. He slid his hands over her shoulders, wanting to feel her soft skin again.

  Isabelle reached one hand up and slipped her fingers into his hair to pull him more tightly to her neck. He sucked her flesh. Just a little. He couldn’t risk leaving even the faintest mark, but damn, he wanted to press his teeth harder to her when she groaned and arched into him.

  Winter air swept over them. Her nipples were rock hard and pressed to the thin fabric of her top. He wanted to touch them. Wanted to make her shiver under his mouth.

  He raised his head, already breathing hard. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say.

  Isabelle laughed and turned in his arms. “Are you?”

  “Yes,” he said, half meaning it. He reached past her to switch off the light and shut the door so they wouldn’t be so exposed, but those brief seconds of trying to distract himself were ruined by his awareness that her hands were sliding around his waist. They were all twisted up with each other, a loose twine of limbs that felt strangely natural with someone he’d known for only a few days.

  “I like that you’re having trouble resisting,” she murmured, leaning back a little to look up at him.

  He glanced down. “Your necklace is
distracting.”

  “Oh, it’s my necklace, is it?”

  “Yes,” he said, an out-and-out lie. He proved just how false it was by very carefully touching a finger to a silver coil and then letting it slide down. The edge of his finger grazed over the skin above the fabric of her shirt. He traced it again.

  Isabelle shivered. “Mmm. Come here.”

  Expecting to be tugged closer, he was surprised when she slipped past him and grabbed his hand. “What?”

  “My etchings.”

  “No, no, no,” he said, but he let her drag him to the far side of the room.

  “I’m a good artist,” she said.

  “I know. I can see that. It’s just not to my taste and I’m not exactly—”

  An easel light flicked on, and for a moment, all his brain processed was the pale flash of her arm moving away from the lamp, but then there were more parts of her illuminated. He blinked, confused and fascinated at the same time. So much of her, pale and exposed and...naked.

  This painting was another anatomy painting in a way, but it wasn’t medical. It was...erotic. Or just real and honest.

  It was Isabelle from chin to hip, naked and completely unadorned but for a white flower she held in one hand.

  Her face dipped slightly to the left, showing just the curve of her bottom lip, tipped in that secret, small smile. There was her pale neck. And her strong shoulders and delicate collarbones.

  Her breasts, full and round and lovely, and just beginning to get a little heavier with age. Her nipples were dark and drawn tight, pebbled at the edges of her areolae, as if she were chilled.

  There were so many details to take in, as if it were a photograph instead of a painting. She’d hidden nothing, even capturing the faint paleness of a few stretch marks at the fullest arc of her right breast. Then the lines of her abdomen curving out into full hips. And just at the bottom of the painting, the shadowed edge of her pubic hair, dark and curled.

  “It’s me,” she said, the words calm and simple.

  “Yes,” he breathed. Then, “It’s amazing.”

  “Thank you.”

  He tore his eyes away from her nudity for a moment to glance at her face. She looked pleased with what she’d done.

  “Why are you showing me this?” he asked hoarsely.

  She smiled, not looking away from the painting. “To make you a little crazy.”

  He laughed at her audacity, and though he tried to keep looking at her, his eyes were drawn back to the canvas. “Jesus, Isabelle. It’s beautiful.”

  “Well, either it will drive you crazy—which will be nice for both of us—or it won’t. And if it won’t, then there’s no point wasting any energy on this, is there?”

  His synapses were a little confused. He wanted to reach out and shape her nakedness with his fingertips, but she was standing right next to him with real curves and heat and daring. His gaze bounced to her and back to the painting again.

  “I’d better get back to the party,” she said, turning away from the easel. She dragged one hand over his shoulder, setting his nerves on fire. “But you should think about me tonight when you go to bed.”

  “What?” he asked, forcing his eyes off her painted nipples and onto her retreating back.

  She flashed an indulgent smile over her shoulder. “I know you’re on duty tonight. I’ll try not to bother you. But later, when you’re alone, think about me.”

  His eyes flew to the open doors and the kitchen beyond, and he kept his voice low. “You’re trying to shock me again.”

  She shrugged. “Not really. I’ll think about you, too. I already have.”

  The meaning of her words slapped into him as if he’d landed flat on the surface of a pool. He’d never talked about this with a woman, never had a woman ask him to masturbate to her. And he’d certainly never been told that she’d already done the same for him.

  “Don’t forget to lock that door,” she drawled, her hips swaying as she walked away with that confidence that drove him mad. “Wouldn’t want a bad guy getting in.”

  Goddamn it. She was driving him mad. He was here to do a job—two jobs, actually—and neither of those involved getting into her bed. Not necessarily.

  Tom winced at that cruel thought. No. He wouldn’t sleep with her for information. But he couldn’t shake the truth that she might be more willing to open up to him if they were intimate.

  “No,” he growled to himself. He couldn’t have sex with her just to find out more. Those two things were separate. He wanted to sleep with her, and he also needed information. If those two things intersected, so be it.

  The skin on his arms prickled, but he ignored it. If someone needed help, you took care of that whether they liked it or not. Isabelle didn’t want help. She didn’t want interference. But he’d give it anyway.

  She reminded him a little of Michael, actually, before his brother had lost the greatness of his personality. Bold and brave and wild, and looking at the whole world with chin held high.

  And like Michael, she’d never ask for help, even if she was drowning. Her pride scared him. And it turned him on like crazy.

  He shut off the light illuminating her nude portrait, set his face in its best impassive expression and went out to join girls’ night.

  * * *

  ISABELLE WATCHED AS SOPHIE, Lauren and Veronica slammed down their shots of vodka and grinned at each other. “I hope some of you are spending the night,” she said before downing her own shot.

  Sophie and Lauren raised their hands.

  “I have a chauffeur,” Veronica said with a wobbly smile. She was definitely starting to loosen up.

  The oven timer buzzed, and for once, Jill didn’t jump up. Instead, she poked her toe into Isabelle’s thigh. An empty sangria glass dangled from her fingers. “Quiche is ready. Where’s the salad?”

  Isabelle winced. “Oops. I forgot about the salad.”

  “Isabelle!” Jill yelled.

  “I’m sorry! I got busy and... Look!” She held up her own glass. “It doesn’t matter. We have sangria fruit! That’s the best kind of salad.”

  Lauren nodded. “She’s got a point, Jill.”

  Jill didn’t look appeased. “I just want all of you to know that I brought Isabelle’s favorites, and this isn’t a menu I’d normally create. Or at least there’d be vegetables!”

  Isabelle jumped up to head for the kitchen. “There’s spinach in the quiche. I’ll get it out of the oven.”

  “Try not to forget between here and there,” Jill mumbled.

  But all seemed forgiven when Isabelle brought her another sangria and the first plate of quiche. The fact that Jill had let Isabelle do the plating—okay, the triangle of quiche was a little lopsided—showed just how relaxed she was after that drink. Or she was exhausted. Isabelle gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You okay?”

  “A little regretful, but that’s to be expected.”

  They both looked up to see the other women watching curiously. “Marguerite and I finally ended it,” Jill explained and was greeted with moans of sympathy.

  By the time Isabelle got quiche to the other women, everyone was telling breakup stories. Isabelle hurried back for two more plates, one for her and one for Tom, who’d just come in the front door.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Everything’s good. I’ll take this to the kitchen.”

  “You can stay,” she said.

  “No, I don’t want to be in the way.”

  She bit back a sigh as he walked away. She’d been trying to drive him mad, but now she was the one suffering. She wanted to touch him. Wanted to kiss him. Wanted to suck his fingers into her mouth and make him moan. But she was apparently having a sleepover with friends. Damn it.

  So all she could do was eat her delicious quiche and drink another sangria and offer horrified laughter at the other women’s stories.

  “Speaking of exes,” Lauren drawled. “I finally saw Steve over the holidays.”

  Sophie squ
ealed. “Please tell me you were with Jake.”

  “I was. And Steve has lost more hair.”

  “Perfect,” Sophie said. Lauren’s ex-husband had sneered about her new relationship with his old friend, laughing that it wouldn’t last long. Not with a bitch like Lauren.

  Lauren grinned. “He tried to act cool about it, offering Jake a beer like they were still good friends, but after that bitch comment, Jake doesn’t want much to do with him.”

  They all toasted to that.

  “Isabelle,” Lauren sang, “I bet you’ve got a good breakup story.”

  “Nope.”

  “Come on. You weren’t born a confirmed bachelorette. Who’s this guy?” She pointed behind her at the painting.

  Isabelle smiled. That one she could talk about. It wasn’t Patrick. It wasn’t anyone who’d broken her heart. She glanced toward the kitchen and lowered her voice. “He replaced my roof a few years ago.”

  The women howled and catcalled.

  “Oh, my God!” Sophie yelled. “Was there porn music playing when he showed up with his big roofing hammer?”

  “No, but there was porn music playing later.”

  Poor Veronica spit out part of an orange, and Sophie patted her back before she pointed at Isabelle. “You’re a naughty girl.”

  “Maybe, but only on occasion. It’s not easy to lure men all the way up here.”

  Jill was the first one to look toward the kitchen, but eventually all the women glanced that way before turning their grins on Isabelle. She just shrugged and smiled back.

  “Veronica,” she finally said to change the subject. “You must have some good stories. Didn’t you live in New York City? Was it just like Sex and the City?”

  Veronica coughed again, shaking her head. “It was okay. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I had a lot of fun, but I ruined all my street cred by moving back to my hometown at twenty-five.”

  “Are you kidding?” Isabelle asked. “I didn’t even go away for college. I lived at home the whole time. You’re doing great.”

  “Oh, where’d you go to college?”

  Isabelle realized she’d walked right into a question she didn’t want to answer. Panic flooded her veins, but she kept her face calm. “You’re not getting out of it that easily. Tell us a New York story.”