“He lives here?” she said.
Katie didn’t answer. She walked up to the front door and knocked.
A small, round woman in a maid’s uniform answered the door. She smiled at Katie “Yes?”
“Hi!” Katie smiled back. “I’m Katie and this is Ashlee. We’re friends with Larson. Is he home?”
“Please come in.” She stepped back and let them inside.
“Holy mother of God!” Ashlee exclaimed unabashedly.
Katie grimaced and shot the woman an apologetic smile. “She doesn’t get out much.”
The woman chuckled, but said nothing, as she shut the door behind them and motioned them towards a sitting room.
“Please wait here. I’ll see if Mr. Larson is available.”
“Mr. Larson?” Ashlee squeaked in horror and amusement when the woman left. “Oh, my God! Where the hell are we?”
“Will you stop?” Katie elbowed her. “You’re embarrassing.”
“Me?” She threw her arms open wide. “Look at this place? I’m not the total sell out here.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“The guy dresses like he just rolled out of some filth pile in a junk yard and yet he lives in a place like this. Come on. Really? Talk about cliché.”
Katie frowned at her. “Well, maybe Larson isn’t impressed with materialistic goods, like some people.”
“Hey, I totally own that I love money, okay? And if I had this much of it, I would definitely not be wearing piece of crap jeans.”
“I happen to like my jeans,” said the voice from the doorway.
Both girls whirled around to find Larson standing against the doorframe, arms crossed, expression very unimpressed.
“Larson! Hi!” Katie offered him what she hoped wasn’t a guilt ridden smile. Even though she hadn’t said a single bad thing about him.
“Well, your jeans are ugly,” Ashlee interjected. “Why do you dress like that when you clearly have money?”
“Ashlee!” Katie exclaimed, horrified.
“I don’t have anything,” Larson corrected very carefully. “The units have money.”
“But they’re your parents—”
“No. They’re not.” He pushed off the frame, gaze watching Ashlee inspect a crystal candy dish. He sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. “I was making cookies—”
Ashlee perked like a poodle offered a doggie treat. “Cookies?”
Larson snorted a chuckle. “Yeah, in the kitchen.”
He motioned with the jerk of his head for them to follow.
Ashlee all but bulldozed Katie to the ground in her haste to follow the sweet scent of melted chocolate and cookie dough.
When they crossed through most of the house to where the ginormous kitchen lay, Katie half expected to find torn packages of premade cookie dough. Instead, there was a mess of used bowls, spatulas and dishes scattered across the counters. Freshly baked cookies sat cooling in trays and racks. The entire place smelled delicious, kind of how Katie always imagined heaven would smell like.
“You bake?” She couldn’t help it. The question slipped before she could stop it.
“Sometimes,” he replied, moving to the giant stainless steel oven when the timer dinged.
“For an army?” Katie wondered, counting no less than ten trays of cookies, plus several sealed containers.
“Oh! Ow! Oh God…” Ashlee panted and chewed on a cookie she’d stolen off a still steaming tray. She snatched up three more. “What did you put in these?”
“Flour, eggs … arsenic.”
Ashlee paused mid chew. She stared at the tiny sliver still in her hand. She shrugged and popped it into her mouth.
Katie chuckled and shook her head.
“There’s milk in the fridge,” Larson said, nodding towards the gleaming appliance.
Ashlee went to grab it while Larson fetched three glasses from the cupboard. He set them down next to the carton of milk Ashlee put on the table tucked into the breakfast nook. It was the only place not overrun by cookies.
“I want to marry this cookie,” Ashlee decided with a certainty that was disturbing, especially when she took a giant chomp out of it a second later.
“You just ate your husband,” Katie said.
Ashlee grinned. “And he tasted delicious.” She snatched up another cookie. “Just the way I like my men, sweet and edible.”
Katie made a face. “I didn’t realize my best friend was such a black widow.”
“Well, I do like black.”
“And pink,” Katie reminded her.
“Yes.” She studied the cookie solemnly. “Pink and black. That will be the motif for all their funerals.”
“You two are seriously disturbed,” Larson said, shaking his head while scooping cookies off a pan into a new container.
“Oh! You know what I want to do?” Ashlee spun on her heels to face Larson. “I want to see your room.”
Larson nibbled on a cookie and eyed Ashlee in a way that made Katie wonder if she should leave the two alone.
“What’s in it for me?”
Ashlee frowned. “Fashion advice.”
Larson took a step into her personal space. Katie saw her friend visibly stiffen. He murmured something to her that had color washing into Ashlee’s cheeks. When he pulled back, he was grinning in a way that would have gotten most boys smacked.
“Still want to see my room?” he challenged.
Ashlee just stared at him, lips parted.
Katie, mashing her grinning lips together, slipped quietly from the room. She wandered through the halls in the direction of the sitting area, taking her time studying the portraits on the walls and giving her friend plenty of time to seduce her other friend.
“Katie!”
The crack of Ashlee’s heels thundered off the walls a split second before she charged out of the kitchen like a woman torn between two evils. She grabbed Katie by the arm as though afraid Katie might vanish.
“What happened?” Katie asked, looking up to find Larson standing in the kitchen doorway, smirking.
“I hate you!” Ashlee hissed under her breath.
Katie blinked. “What? What did I do?”
“You left me alone with him, traitor!”
Katie frowned. “Uh, yeah, sorry if I didn’t want to see my two best friends making out.”
If possible, the fire behind Ashlee’s eyes seemed to amp in temperature. “All the more reason for my BFF not to abandon me.”
Katie was so confused. “What?”
“You’re not allowed to leave me alone with him,” Ashlee said, strangling Katie’s arm with both hands and giving it a shake. “He confuses me and I don’t like it.”
“Uh…” Katie looked towards the doorway again, only Larson was gone now. “Okay…”
They didn’t stay long after that. They helped Larson bake a few cookies, box a few up and then tidy the kitchen before Katie decided she should head to the shop and make sure her aunt didn’t need any help. This seemed to be some kind of cue for Ashlee, because she all but ripped a hole in the floor, racing Katie to the door.
“Okay, so what’s the deal with you and Larson anyway?” Katie had to know as they left the front gates.
“There is no deal between us,” Ashlee said stiffly. “I just can’t be with someone like him, Katie. I just can’t.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “You know, I always thought he was just lazy, but now that I’ve seen how he lives, he’s more than lazy. He’s spoiled. He thinks that because he has money, he doesn’t have to do anything.”
“I really don’t believe that.” She moved to block her friend’s long strides. “Can’t you at least try to give him a chance?”
“I told you already.” She folded her arms protectively over her chest. “He has no future and I need a guy that wants one, especially if…”
“What?” she urged when Ashlee went quiet.
Ashlee sucked in a deep breath. “Especially if I like him
as much as I like Larson.”
After walking Ashlee home and a solemn farewell, they parted ways and Katie made her way to the shop.
Her phone beeped.
“Just checking to see how you are.”
Katie smiled as she read the text from Kaleb. “I’m okay. Just left Ashlee’s. Headed home. How are you?”
She tucked her hands into her coat pockets as she walked and waited for a response. It came a minute later.
“The same. Family stuff.”
Biting her lip, Katie typed back, “You sure you’re okay? Want to talk?”
“What I need is a stiff drink.” A full second passed, followed by, “And you.”
A warm tingle shot through her. Her fingers tightened around her phone. Her mind raced with all the things she ached to say.
“I can give you one of those things,” she teased.
“Which?”
She felt herself grin a little. “My aunt doesn’t keep alcohol in the house.”
Several seconds passed.
“Damn it, Katie.”
Expelling a lungful of air, she stuffed her hands into her pockets and stomped the rest of the way home.
Aunt Hannah was cashing out an almost empty register when Katie trudged through the door. She looked up when the bell jingled and smiled.
“Hey you.”
Katie offered her a half smile. “Hey.” She stomped the snow from her boots. “Sorry I’m late. I went to Larson’s with Ashlee,” she explained.
“Everything okay?”
Katie nodded. “Yup.” She jerked a nod towards the money tray. “How’d we make out?”
“We didn’t make out like bandits, but we have enough to pay rent,” her aunt said.
Jerking her coat open, Katie nodded. “I’m going to put together a business plan tomorrow,” she decided at once. “I have a few ideas. I just need—”
“Katie.” Her aunt put the tray down and fixed her with somber eyes. “We need to talk.”
Katie paused mid removal of her coat. “What? What’s wrong?”
Aunt Hannah hesitated. She lowered her head as though praying for the courage to continue. When she looked up again, her face was set with determination.
“I got an offer last week to sell the shop.”
Katie stiffened. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her aunt sighed. “A gentleman came in and offered me a price. It’s a very good price, Katie. Way above market.”
Katie tried to wrap her head around what she was being told, tried not to think how everything kept slipping and changing on her, or how lost she felt in the midst of all the chaos.
“What about the convention?” she blurted stupidly, like that somehow made any kind of difference in the scheme of things.
The other woman stepped out from behind the counter and took Katie by the shoulders. “I’m not saying it will happen for sure. I’m just saying we should think about it at least.”
“I don’t want to think about it,” she murmured. “This is our home.”
“It’s still our home, but this could be a good thing, Katie.”
She pulled out of her aunt’s grasp and took a step back. “I can’t … I can’t do this right now.”
She moved quickly to the stairs and hurried up. In her room, Katie slammed the door and pitched her backpack down onto the bed. She wanted to do the same to herself, but knew she’d never get up again. Everything just felt so hopeless, so broken. Like no matter how hard she tried, her life was just oozing out of her fingers and she was powerless to stop it.
Instead, she fired up her laptop and went to work finding several websites to advertise the shop and even sent an email to the newspaper, asking them for a price list on spots. In the morning, she planned to run off some flyers, make up those business cards her aunt still hadn’t gotten around to, and look into that convention.
If she could just generate a little more business, maybe her aunt would reconsider.
She was so lost in her plotting that she nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
“Finally finished,” it read.
Katie stared at the two words. Her heart thrummed wildly in her chest as something hot and desperate coursed through her. Her palms slickened with sweat as she cradled the phone between her hands.
“Come over.” She hit send before she could second guess herself.
“It’s almost midnight. I don’t think we’ll get much painting done.”
Katie laughed weakly. “I don’t want to paint. I need you.”
The silence was so long she began to wonder if she’d gone too far. Embarrassment had her heart slamming erratically into the cavity of her chest. She was mentally kicking herself for being so stupid when…
“I’ll be there in ten.”
Katie had never moved so quickly. She threw herself off the bed and ran to the bathroom for the fastest shower in history. Her aunt had gone to bed straight after supper so no one was there to ask her why she was putting on gloss or wearing the strappy nightdress she usually reserved for hot summer nights. No one was awake to stop her when she brushed out her hair, grabbed her phone and hurried downstairs to wait for Kaleb.
She was pacing the kitchen, balancing between cancelling and not cancelling, when the phone vibrated in her clammy hand. She flipped it over to read the screen.
“I’m pulling up.”
Katie wet her lips. “Come around back.”
It had occurred to her that having him come through the front would have been easier and the risk of getting caught were a whole lot less, but the bells would have jingled and would have alerted her aunt. The backdoor was safer and she only had to shut the alarm off.
Her stomach jittered and her heart pounded. She was so nervous, she was trembling when she hurried to the alarm pad and keyed in the deactivation code.
No sooner had the red light gone green when three soft knocks interrupted the silence.
Katie held her breath as she moved to the back door tucked between the oven and the fridge and unlocked the bolts.
Kaleb stood on the other side, bathed in the soft, yellow of the back lights. Snowflakes glittered in his hair and clung to his impossibly long lashes. Shadows fell in strips across his beautiful eyes, but she knew they were on her, taking her in from the top of her freshly washed hair to her bare feet. She could feel their warm caress as though they were his hands on her skin.
She bit her lips and motioned him inside. “My aunt is sleeping upstairs,” she whispered to him as she closed the door behind him.
He shrugged out of his jacket and slung it over the back of a nearby chair. “Then we’ll have to be very quiet.”
Katie almost laughed, but the sound wouldn’t come out. Instead, she took his hand and led him through the dark shop towards the back where they kept the bigger furniture that came in. Someone had dropped off a queen sized mattress, still wrapped in plastic and Katie had draped it in blankets and pillows. She took Kaleb there and nudged him down on the end. She straddled him, shivering as the crispness he’d brought in with him from outside hit her exposed skin.
He smelled of winter and soap and something that was so incredibly delicious, she almost moaned. Her bare bottom rested on his thighs and she looped her arms around his shoulders.
“Kiss me,” she whispered into the darkness enclosing them both.
His hand went up to cradle the back of her skull and he drew her face down to his. “Yes, ma’am.”
The kiss was remarkably gentle considering the steady boil inside her. It contradicted the friction she so desperately wanted. He was being tender when what she wanted was the exactly opposite.
She broke it. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she took a moment to breath in the minty scent of toothpaste with every breath from him before bringing herself to voice the real reason she had asked him there.
“I want it hard and fast.” She moistened her lips. “Fuck me, Kaleb. Make me forget everything but how you f
eel inside me.”
He was quiet, but the fingers on the hand at her waist tightened. His heart thumped against hers.
“With pleasure.”
He gave her no chance to expel the relief tight in her throat before he had her face down on the mattress. Her gasp was muffled in the blanket as she was restrained there by the hand he planted on her lower spine. Somewhere behind her, she heard the rustle of fabric, the jingle of a belt, the loud rip of a zipper, and something like a foil packet being torn open. The mattress dipped behind her and her legs were forced apart in a wide V. His hand lifted away and her dress was bunched around her waist.
Cool air rushed over her skin. Katie shivered only to still when his hands glided up the backs of her thighs to her backside. Twin thumbs slid down her tailbone to the crack and she gave a shuddering gasp. Her hips arched into his fingers as her own curled into the blankets.
The hand on her hip moved away to support his weight as he bent over her. The hand between her legs slipped lower. The fingers peeled apart her folds and dipped into the pool of moisture nestled in the center. He made a hum of satisfaction before drawing the hand away and sliding it beneath her.
She was lifted and in a single, powerful thrust, he was inside her.
Her cries burned into fabric as he drove into her, hard and fast. The momentum sent slivers of pain and pleasure exploding up her abdomen. His fingers cut into her hips, keeping them pinned as she struggled to push back against him for more.
His weight shifted. It rested wholly on top of her, except for where he pressed a forearm into the mattress just next to her head. He angled his hip and drove downward, slamming into some magical place inside her that sent lightening cracking through her.
Katie nearly screamed. Her entire body convulsed. His name tore from her throat.
“Did I find something?” he taunted hotly into her ear. “Did you like that?”
He drew back and hit the spot again.
She did scream this time.
His hand closed over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered, doing it again and again and delirious in her incoherent pleading. “Now would not be a good time to have company. Not when you’re so close. Then I’d have to stop. Do you want me to stop?”
He removed his hand and slowed his pace, drawing out each inward thrust until she was sure she’d die.
My Soul For You Page 15
