Sin's Flower

by Carlene Love Flores

  With his towel draped over his shoulder, he grabbed a quick drink of water from the kitchen and then made his way up the stairs.

  Benny was still up as light filtered through the bottom of the door. Something didn’t feel right about the extra guest room. They never closed that door because Maryellie played in it so often. Shit, had Benny put his friend up in there for the night? They were going to have to have a talk. If his roomy wanted to have girls over this week with his daughter gone, that was fine; at least one of them should be enjoying themselves. But the stud needed to bed them down in his own room. Jaxon walked to the door to check out Benny’s catch for the night.

  He couldn’t see very well from the doorway but she looked pretty cute, definitely Benny’s type with the crazy red hair. Good on you, Benny Ben. Maybe he’d finally realized he didn’t have a chance in hell with the spunky singer Erby. He closed the guest room and left the red head sprawled out across all four corners of the bed. Man, what a waste.

  Back in his own bed, admiring the guts it took to sleep that comfortably in a stranger’s house, Jaxon remembered something about Benny’s friend. The temperature liked to drop at night with them being beachside and he hadn’t seen a blanket. Not wanting the girl to catch a chill, he moved out of his grand bed, scratching at his bare ass, and made his way back to the guest room. He’d be quick.

  A faint aroma of fruit laced with hair dye bugged his nose as he leaned in to her. With her sprawled out over the covers, he went to the closet to pull down the extra blanket which pricked his overly sensitive side. It was a quilt Trissy had made for him the year he didn’t even see her at Christmas because Vangie had been such a bitch.

  It would fit just perfectly over Benny’s friend. He held it under his nose for a few steps to soak up the earthy smell of the fibers. Leaning closer, his arms spread wide to fan the quilt over her body. The craziest thoughts began multiplying in his head. Her hair, even in the dark, was a visible mess of bright red waves, but something about her seemed familiar. Shit, he rubbed his ass again, assuming that’s where cupid would have shot him. What else explained his sudden connection to the girls popping up in his path today? His bare ass felt fine. Smooth as always. Her skin was what he found so remarkable. He studied its suppleness, glowing but pale like it hadn’t seen much sun, showing strong, filled out arm and leg muscles below. He made his way to the other side of the bed so he could see her turned face as she laid there flat on her stomach.

  Fuck, was it crazy that he was contemplating sitting there until she woke up so he could hear her speak? All he needed was one word to convince him whether he’d truly lost his mind. This couldn’t be the girl from earlier today. The hair was all wrong, but the curves were all right. The jeans were perfectly tight. He hardened at the thought.

  No. Absolutely not, mate. Get your naked, starved for love, perverted ass up and out of this room and leave Benny’s catch alone.

  After another few beats of watching her sleep, fighting his hand not to pat the back of that mussed up, fragrant hair, he lifted up off the floor and left the room.

  Jaxon’s back sank into his bed while he petted the black silk sheets with his calloused fingertips. There had been a point when such luxuries had impressed him but he’d forgotten over time. Now, tonight, he felt and remembered each exquisite thread like he was that hungry seventeen year old kid again. Decent and hardworking but fucking naïve as shit. He let out a hard sigh.

  The wild red hair was just a cover up.

  Whoever that was in his guest room, she was a good girl. Even in sleep, people like him kept traces of their grit displayed on their face. Not this one. She was decent and her sleeping face was calm and unspoiled. He made the wickedly hard decision not to come out the next day until Benny verified with him she was gone.

  His eyes closed before he was ready, he was that damn tired. But if he’d have known the image paying him a visit, he’d have clamped them shut the second he’d laid down. Rubbing at his chest and dragging it slowly up and down his torso, a burst of wavy red hair made its way to him from across his room. Her walk was half lamb half tiger which brought him a bit of amusement, making it obvious she was trying hard for him. He let her. She was fucking sexy, short on her bare feet and stacked with soft curves. He could tumble with her all over his bed, if she’d just make her way to him and stop torturing him with this slow, adorable strut.

  By the time his inexperienced temptress was close enough for him to grab, her hair had changed to angelic light blonde. He noticed that although not a single expression moved a muscle in her face, tears were silently dripping from her eyes while she stood there trying to cover her nakedness from him.

  Even in that state, she reached out and took his hand from his chest and tugged him up. In the next second she was leading him outside through some unfamiliar dark place, his heart thumping at her spontaneity and the chance to follow such a sexy yet innocent creature.

  “I’m looking for someone.” It was the voice that had touched and haunted him as he’d hid in the hallway at the studio today. And he was sure he’d heard those same words. “Can you help me find him?”

  No, he didn’t want her looking for anyone but him. She had to stay at his side, holding his hand because he could feel the monsters pretending to be men making their way closer to this dark location. Quickly, he thought to at least strip his clothes and give them to her so she could cover up but of course he had none. Distorted faces surrounded them but as he looked closer, the faces all belonged to him. He did the only thing he could, he told her to run and when he did so, he was back in his bed, alone.

  His eyes shot open while he lay there staring up at the ceiling’s sky light and he caught a handful of silk sheet.

  There was no way he could go back to Bugscuffle this out of control. Maryellie would have to be flown home in time for Christmas so they could spend it together. As long as he was an embarrassing, emotional mess, Jaxon was not making that trip to Tennessee.

  Chapter Seven

  Mission Day Two…

  Lily couldn’t keep cooking for ghosts.

  Not a one of these boys had come down this morning for the sad little eggs and bacon she’d fried up. Jaxon, the man she had to convince to come back to Tennessee with her who she’d yet to officially meet…while staying in his house…directly across the hall from him at night. It was some really odd stuff Lily assumed only mega-reclusive-millionaires were able to get away with. Try pulling that number back home and you’d be lucky not to have the whole town intervening on your butt. And after last night’s pool fantasy, he’d been haunting her like crazy.

  Lunch was just as pathetic and lonely. Lily had wiped her sandwich’s bread bits into her hand and then tossed them to a pair of wild birds chirping about on the patio, happy to have fed somebody.

  “Guess I’ll plan dinner for my ghosts,” she muttered to herself and went back inside.

  A few hours later and it was dinner time but still not a single hide nor hair of the boys. Maybe Lucky had caved and confessed to Tris who had called and warned both Benny and Jaxon they were to steer clear of Lily. Each thought like that knocked a few of her hard earned adulthood pegs from the board. While being worried over had its perks, she also longed for the respect a thirty-one-year old, life-experienced and divorced woman should have earned.

  The bachelor stash of food in the refrigerator was close to being gone. Lily decided to pop a bag of Orville Redenbacher she’d seen in the cupboard but she had to scale the counter to grab it. She’d bet this was Benny’s since he was the only long-limbed person in the house. She began sizing up her elusive hosts as she hefted herself up and planted her knees on the hard granite counter. Her head banged into a cupboard that should have caused her to get her wits back but she kept on. Benny probably had an inch or two on Lucky who was a good six feet. Jaxon wasn’t quite as tall as either of them; he hadn’t had to duck when he’d walked out onto the patio last night.

  The patio.

  His beautiful
back…patio.

  She’d bet he was five-ten, maybe five-eleven. Not too tall and not at all short. Built like no guy she’d ever seen before. She liked that Jaxon’s strength was evident in his thickset build, not like undefined Tom who had surprised her so many times. Damn him for her bruised wrists. Oh boy, she sighed, trying to cover up yet again for her past. She re-focused on Jaxon. Tris would flip out if she knew Lily had seen him walking around butt naked.

  “Thank God I didn’t see his stuff from the front. That would be bad,” she whispered softly as she found delicious Mr. Orville. “But, it would have made my fantasy a whole lot better.” Shocked at her lusty mind, she knew that would make the very serious conversation she needed to have with him by tomorrow night all the more awkward.

  While the salty, buttery good stuff popped in the shiny microwave, she remembered Tris. The pain Lily had witnessed cloud her sister’s face every time she mentioned this man’s name was why she had to get him to come back with her.

  She began a mental bullet list of Bugscuffle’s top draws. Privacy had to be important for a guy like Jaxon and there was plenty of that in the tiny river front town.

  While thinking of more plusses, she became distracted and started to wonder if Jaxon had somehow snuck out of the villa. But after shaking the bag of popped corn, footsteps made their way noisily in her direction.

  She expected Benny.

  She got Benny.

  “Hey you, where’ve you been all day? I’ve basically killed your snack stash all on my own. Sorry.” She held up the hot, fragrant bag.

  Looking sheepish, he grinned. “Hey Red.”

  Her hair felt silkier as she ran her fingers from her top part down to the ends, eyeballing them. Holy spitfire! She’d nearly forgotten about her midnight transformation. It appeared her flaming do hadn’t faded any during the night. She’d envisioned Lucille Ball but appeared to have gotten The Fifth Element’s Leeloo. Well, what was done was done. Today she’d find out if it had been worth it. Maybe Jaxon was a sci-fi fan. Too bad Benny didn’t have a magical bottle that would give her Leeloo’s body too. A hurtful memory of Tom calling her a short Charlize Theron, which had made her happy for one moment, before he told her it was from the movie where they’d harshened the beautiful actress up for the role, burned her. Jerk. Even if he was right.

  She coughed to clear the tears traveling up her throat. “So hey, if I’m gonna stick it out here one more day, I think I’ll need a ride to a grocery store.”

  “We could go now.” He had a bright and hopeful look on his face.

  She hated to shoot him down, but this was the second day and she’d yet to speak the word hello to Jaxon. “Actually, Benny, can you please get your roommate to come out and say hi first? Then we could go.”

  He shook his head like that still wasn’t going to happen. Even though she’d gone all Little Mermaid for the man.

  But then, just past Benny’s shoulder, she saw him.

  The rest of Jaxon James.

  Wow.

  He was clothed now, stalking down the stairs dressed in a black shirt and black pants with a few conveniently placed zippers. Boys didn’t wear that many zippers back home. Lily couldn’t help but try following the path of the one that started below his belly button and continued way past where most flies stopped. She snapped her attention back to his eyes. The man was built for women but everything she needed to see was in his face.

  A tight, ticking jaw.

  Sparking teal eyes muddled by dark shadows.

  Muscled arms folded across his chest, gave wrinkles to his soft black shirt and her quickening pulse. The man’s penetrating stance made her feel sexy. Despite what she knew to be the truth—that she just wasn’t.

  Hip dark blond hair, disheveled and longer on top, shaved close at the sides knocked years from his chronological age.

  He had a scar cutting right through his one eyebrow. The tattoo she hadn’t seen clearly last night as he'd strutted out of the house in his birthday suit peeked from his shirt collar and climbed up his thick neck on the left side. And it wasn’t alone. More tattoos colored the fronts of his arms. Lily forced herself to take a few steps closer to offer him her hand. She’d never been around someone with such a daring aura.

  “Lily.” It’s all she managed to say now that she was a few feet away from him at the base of his stairs. She reminded herself to smile but the truth was, it was the last thing her face wanted to do. Melting would have been more appropriate. The man radiated raw power, sexy power.

  “Lily?” he asked in his faded Australian accent. Did he not realize who she was? What? Benny really hadn’t said anything? At all? Good lord, didn’t these boys talk?

  “Yes. Tris’s sister. Younger.” She wanted to add but not baby except for he’d just swallowed and Lily couldn’t help but watch his throat and neck. And the tattoo she could make out better of teeth markings, not like a vampire bite but more like a shark’s. “You must be Jaxon. Nice to meet you.” Thank God she didn’t say finally or see you. That would’ve been a nice reminder that she’d already seen some of him. Which she didn’t want to think about just then. Great, his perfectly manly, tight buns were now strutting their way around in her head.

  “Lily, Trissy’s baby sister, Lily? From Oklahoma?” He frowned.

  “Yes, but I’ve been staying with her in Tennessee since this summer.”

  She could see the beginnings of a ‘w’ forming in his puckered lips. Finally he spoke again. “Why are you here, exactly?” he asked looking more concerned than pleased.

  Why did he have to sound so rude? He cut a side glance to Benny, showing her what Jaxon looked like when he was pissed. A second later, Jaxon’s face focused back on her and she tried for a soft smile. Ease into it, she told herself.

  “I needed to talk to you.” Please don’t make some snide, backward remark about Tennessee not having phones. “In person.”

  He squeezed his hands inside his armpits which made his noticeable arm muscles bulge even more and then let them fall to his sides.

  “Are you hungry, Lily?” he asked to her complete shock.

  Normally, yes. Lily lived in a constant state of hunger. She hated that fact because it sucked that no matter how much she ate, it never seemed to be enough. Her tummy rumbled, even though she’d doubled up on breakfast and lunch so the boys’ portions hadn’t gone to waste. She shouldn’t be hungry, but felt ravenous, and nodded yes.

  “I’ll go grab us dinner. We’ll talk when I get back. Benny, you’re coming with me.”

  Oh hell. If that look didn’t say it all. She and Benny were in big trouble as the baseball cap Jaxon donned and pulled down low over his forehead didn’t quite hide his mood.

  Benny followed Jaxon through the villa door to his garage. A couple minutes later, she watched them drive away in a silver Range Rover. Lily wondered what it would be like to ride shotgun with Jaxon James all the way back to Tennessee in that…a lifestyles of the rich and famous luxury mobile.

  A sense of extreme pride shot from her cherry red toe nails to her traffic cone hair strands that she’d somehow kept her cool and a meal was about to take place with these real, live men. Benny was an absolute genius. And probably getting an earful right about now.

  * * * *

  “What the fuck is going on, mate?” Jaxon let out, as he drove them to his favorite taco shop. “How the bloody hell is Trissy’s little sister bunking at my fucking house?”

  The word fuck hadn’t been said nearly enough to get his point across right now. Hell, Jaxon hadn’t realized how hot his temper had boiled over until it all welled up and he fast-balled it at Benny without care of how hard it hit. “Fuck, you know as well as I do why she shouldn’t be here.”

  “Can I talk for a second?” Benny didn’t dare look at him right now but stared out the tinted side window. “Look I’m sorry. But she just showed up and it’s not like I was gonna turn Trista’s little sister away after I found out that’s who she was.”

  The t
hought did worry him, he supposed, and blew out a breath. Although having this girl at his house had gifted him instant heartburn. “After all that shit getting Trissy…out of this hell hole, Benny. Come on, man. Really? Our house?” He shook his head, worsening the pounding at his temples, thinking of a safe hotel he could have Benny drive her to after giving her some food.

  “I get it, okay. I remember those days too. But will it really kill you to hear Lily out?”

  Ah shit. Benny knew more than what he was letting on and he’d clearly already made friends with the unwelcome guest, the way he said her name. “And what the fuck would that be about, exactly?” He couldn’t wait to hear this as much as he detested it.

  Benny cleared his throat and adjusted his wool hat. “Okay. So, like I said, she showed up out of the blue, looking like she was gonna cry if I didn’t give her the time of day…”

  “Get to the point.” Jaxon rubbed his face as he drove the memorized route to El Ranchito’s.

  “Trista isn’t doing so hot, Jaxon. Lily’s worried about her.”

  He hated to admit that changed things, but it did. Fuck. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “I guess all the stress is hurting her pregnancy.”

  “What? What stress?” Trissy was supposed to be living her life out in the country with Lucky and all that was simple and good.

  Benny looked like he’d rather not say, with his lips clamped shut from the inside.

  “Fucking spill it now, mate.”

  “Lily’s convinced that Trista’s really upset you didn’t show up with Maryella. And…”

  “There’s more? Shit, how much time have you spent with this girl?”

  “Not much, actually. She kind of poured most of this out to me the other morning at my desk. I’ve been totally trying to avoid getting involved because I knew how thrilled you’d be.”