by Joss Wood
She intrigued him and he didn’t like it. Her laughter, heard when he’d inadvertently tickled the back of her knee with his tongue, had his breath catching in his throat. She’d shouted his name as she’d climaxed and she smelled of lemons. He couldn’t remember when, if ever, he’d smelled lemons on a woman’s skin.
Bottom line, he shouldn’t be thinking about her this way. He shouldn’t be thinking about her at all. Mentally, he should be a million miles away already.
She’d been a good lay, a fantastic way to spend an afternoon . . . End of story.
Except that this felt more like an opening chapter than an ending, and he didn’t remotely understand why. Kai splashed water on his face and rubbed his jaw.
He didn’t want her to leave, not really, not yet. But he knew she had to because he suspected that the longer he hung around her, the more he might want her. And tomorrow would roll around regardless and he’d just be postponing the inevitable. It was better this way.
And they’d only agreed to an afternoon, nothing more.
Nothing. More.
Flick had left the bed and dressed and Kai was thankful for the small mercy that she wasn’t still naked; that would remove some of the temptation to take her back to bed, condoms or not. He sent her a quick look. She stood by the door, leaning her shoulder into the wall, her face deliberately blank. He walked toward her and dropped his head to kiss her temple, knowing that if he touched her mouth with his he wouldn’t let her leave the house anytime soon. “Thanks, Flick. I might see you in a couple of months.”
Flick sent him a naughty smile. “My pretend-I-haven’t-slept-with-you expression will be perfect by then, I promise. Take care of yourself.”
“Yeah, you too. I’ll walk you out.”
“Don’t bother. I’m good.”
Kai heard her light footsteps on his stairs, then his front door opening and closing, and shook his head, confused.
It still didn’t feel like an ending.
Chapter Five
DocMolly: Flick is in a happy mood. You can taste it in her chocolate croissants.
BoredWife: Good sex will do that for you. And I have to say, girlfriend, you have spectacular taste in men. He’s wicked hot! Mmm, maybe I should have an affair.
***
The next morning Flick bounced out of bed at four a.m., ran down the stairs, and walked the mile to the bakery in the early-morning chill with a huge smile on her face. Great sex, she decided, made her feel like a million dollars.
Mmm, if she had a million dollars she’d spend it on feeling like this again; all loose and tingly and bubbling with endorphins. She felt amazing and creative and buzzed. Thank God that Manning was out of town or on his way out of town—because she might just be tempted to run—walk, crawl—to him and beg him for a repeat performance.
Hours later, she was still feeling giddy when she ran—okay, half-jogged—up the stairs to Pippa’s office and flopped into the broken chair to the side of her organized desk. She lovingly sniffed the red velvet cupcake she held in her hand and reverently peeled the paper back, prolonging the anticipation.
Pippa, she noticed, didn’t bother to lift her head at her arrival and kept her attention on her screen. Flick cocked her head and wrinkled her nose when she saw the columns that indicated that Pippa was working on one of her beloved spreadsheets. She’d rather eat a cupcake.
Or trim her nails with a chainsaw.
“The way you’re acting, anyone would think that you got lucky last night,” Pippa said just as Flick took the first bite of her cupcake.
Flick coughed and a morsel of cake slid down her windpipe, causing her to gag. She coughed violently and pounded her chest while tears ran down her face. She was going to die, she was quite sure of it.
Leaning forward, she snagged Pippa’s bottle of water and took a long sip. After another bout of coughing she thought that she might just live. More water and more coughing and she was certain. Not that Pippa cared—all her concentration was still directed at her screen.
“Jeez, thanks for the concern,” Flick sputtered when she could speak again. “For a moment there I thought that I was going down the tunnel.”
Pippa rolled her eyes. “Stop being melodramatic and stop evading the question. So, did you have sex last night? And with whom?”
Sex was such a prosaic word for what she and Kai had done, Flick thought. It was too rough, too unsexy, too pedestrian a word. But she couldn’t call it making love because there was absolutely no love involved.
But there was passion and lust and boatloads of attraction . . .
“Felicity!”
Pippa snapped her fingers in front of Flick’s face and she jumped an inch off the chair. “Yes? What?”
“You and sex. Who, where, and how?”
Flick stared at her cupcake, her expression troubled. She usually told Pippa everything but she’d told Kai that that their tryst would stay between them, and she wanted to honor that agreement. “Uh, do you mind if I don’t tell you who? But yes, I hooked up with someone.”
Pippa didn’t press her for the identity of the man, which was very out of character, but Flick had too much on her mind to dwell on that.
“Someone local?”
“Sort of.” Flick broke off a piece of cupcake and popped it into her mouth. After she swallowed she spoke again. “It was purely a one-night stand, nothing serious. At all.”
“Like I haven’t heard that from you before,” Pippa said.
“It was!” Flick protested. She leaned forward and looked serious. “Look, I know that you think that I don’t understand the concept of one-night stands and, given my history, I don’t blame you. I admit that I may have manipulated men into relationships before but—”
Pippa pulled a face. “Manipulated? That’s a harsh word.”
“Okay, maneuvered men into having a relationship with me. Is that better?” Flick placed her cupcake on the corner of the desk. This was the first time in a long time that she was seeing herself clearly. She really wasn’t liking the picture.
“But I’m not doing that anymore, Pips. Yesterday was pure attraction, lust, sex in its most basic form. And he’s leaving Mercy.” There were lots of visitors to Mercy—he could be any of the many tourists who were visiting the area. At least, that was what Flick was hoping Pippa would think.
Flick stood and picked up her now-mangled cupcake. She sent Pippa a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to worry about me, Pips. I’m not going to be stupid about men. Not again. I’m not going to confuse sex with love.”
Pippa lifted her eyebrows. “Glad to hear it. But do you know what is stupid?”
Flick frowned at her still-tart tone. “What?”
“Leaving your car parked outside Kai Manning’s house, spending the afternoon there, and only switching on the bedroom light when it got dark. Miss Greenwood, who, as you know, lives opposite Kai and has never had sex—”
“As far as we know,” Flick interjected.
“—was terribly worried about you and Rufus being in that stranger’s house. She told Aunt Mable who told my mom. She called me last night, from the hospital, and lectured me because your phone was off, because you were having an afternoon quickie!” Pippa shook her head. “A banner stating that you were having sex wouldn’t have gotten the point across clearer.”
Flick slapped her hand across her eyes.
“And for kicks and giggles, Miss Greenwood took her concerns about your safety to the World Wide Web and mentioned that you spent the afternoon at his house on the forum.”
Well, shit, Flick thought. This news would spread like wildfire. So much for keeping their tryst a secret. Thank God Kai was leaving town later today. He already thought that Mercy was a gossipy, small-minded little town. He didn’t need to know that the town’s busybodies—which would, by now, be pretty much everyone—were specul
ating about them.
“There are a couple of crude follow-up comments to Miss G’s comment on the forum.” Pippa shook her head as Flick hauled her phone out of her pocket to log onto the forum. “Don’t bother reading them; they aren’t worth the aggravation.”
Flick decided to take Pippa’s advice and shoved her phone away.
Pippa leaned back in her chair, her expression disgusted. “I’m already hating that forum. It’s so small town and it’s getting way too personal already. We’re going to have people slandering each other, getting really nasty.”
Flick bit her bottom lip. “Do you think so?”
“I know Mercy, and I know that everybody knows everybody’s business, and if they don’t, they feel free to guess about it. That’s one thing . . .” Pippa bit her lip. “But commenting on the fact that you spent the afternoon with Kai is a step too far. Soon someone is going to comment on an extramarital affair, on bad business dealings or an old feud, all behind a cloak of anonymity. It might be fun and funny now, but it’ll turn nasty—just watch.”
“I hope not.”
“Me too,” Pippa replied.
Flick thought about secrets and gossip and knew that a tsunami of talk would be generated when the town found out that their doyenne was a borderline hoarder and a shopping addict. The cupcake turned to dust in her throat and Flick had to swallow a couple of times to get the crumbs to move down her throat.
“Uh, Pips?” She was trying to sound nonchalant but suspected that she sounded like she was being strangled instead. “Did you ever find out why Gina had that receipt for that storage locker?”
God, she hoped she had. Then they could get this situation out into the open and she could stop feeling so damn guilty. And split in two.
“Haven’t had a sec,” Pippa replied. “I’m crazy busy at the moment and, really, I’m pretty sure it’s a clerical error. It’s way down on my list of things to do.”
Well, hell.
“Why are you asking?”
Flick lifted a shoulder. “Just curious.”
“If you want to give them a call, feel free,” Pippa said, pulling the receipt out from under a folder on the right-hand side of the desk. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
Flick stared down at the paper, wishing that she didn’t have to take it, knowing that if she did it was just another small deceit. Like her aunt’s piles of shoes and clothes, she was building her own heap of trouble . . . except that hers wasn’t tangible and, it had to be said, was a great deal less colorful.
“Are you okay?” Pippa demanded, waving the paper to get her attention.
Flick took the receipt and shoved it into her pocket. “Sure, why?”
“You’re acting weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Like there’s something you want to tell me but you don’t know how to.” Pippa leaned back in her chair and tapped the top of her pen against the edge of her desk. “The last time I saw you this edgy you were trying to tell me that you’d kissed Tommy Grant a couple of weeks after we broke up.”
Her cousin knew her too well. That was the problem with lying to someone who’d known you since you were in diapers together. Flick forced a smile to her lips. “I haven’t kissed any of your castoffs, Pips.”
Pippa sent her another searching look. “Good to know.”
“Not that you’ve had any castoffs lately,” Flick goaded her, trying to change the subject.
Pippa pointed at the door. “I have too much to do to sit here discussing my sex life . . . Get out.”
“You have to have a sex life to be able to have a discussion about it,” Flick teased, walking to the door.
“Who says I don’t?” Pippa called as Flick pulled the door closed behind her.
Well, damn. Did she? Unlike her, Pippa wasn’t a blabbermouth and rarely, if ever, spoke about her relationships. So a sentence like that was just mean, because she knew that not knowing would drive Flick crazy. She was tempted to go back in and demand some answers, but she reminded herself that she’d already dodged one bullet this morning.
There was only so much luck she could count on in a day.
***
On the other side of Mercy, Kai sat in his office, working his way through the pile of reports, audit statements, and correspondence that Sawyer thought he needed to see as part owner of Caswallawn. His butt had been plastered to the chair for a couple of hours and his brain was turning to mush.
He glanced at his watch. Five more hours and another ten piles of paper to work through and then he’d be on the road. Three hundred minutes to fight the temptation to call up that sexy baker to ask her to meet him at his house, or her house, or anywhere, for last-minute sex.
Flick had been generous and sexy and giving and, God, he really wanted a repeat performance. He wanted to taste that spectacular mouth again, feel those lips tickling his stomach, drifting down farther and taking him into that warm, wet mouth.
A sharp rap on his door kept that fantasy from developing and he looked across the room as Sawyer sauntered in. His friend dropped into the chair opposite him and rested his hands on the arms of the office chair, his fingers drumming the varnished wood. Since Sawyer was normally too laid-back to get worked up about anything, Kai frowned and leaned back in his chair.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Problem,” Sawyer said.
“Okay. What?”
“I need some time off.”
An opportunity to needle Sawyer should never be wasted, Kai decided. “An irate husband? Cops on your trail? A pregnancy scare?”
Kai winced at the searing look Sawyer sent him. Sawyer was obviously not in the mood to joke. “Nothing like that. Doug’s landed his ass in jail again and I need to go and bail him out.”
Sawyer’s brother had been in and out of jail since his late teens and every year or two he’d do something stupid that would land him a short stint behind bars. “Where is he this time?”
“In Cincinnati. On the plus side, at least he isn’t shitting in my backyard this time,” Sawyer replied. Sawyer would never admit to it, but Kai knew that he’d been incredibly relieved that his family left Mercy a few months after they established Cas. From the little Sawyer had spoken about his past, Kai knew he had always been the voice of reason, the responsible one in the dysfunctional family.
“What was it this time? Possession? Petty theft?”
Sawyer rubbed his hand over his face and when he dropped his hands his eyes were bleak. “Rape.”
No way. Doug’s brain was scrambled from prolonged abuse of weed and coke but the guy was a more laid-back version of Sawyer, if that was possible. Women loved the Lawson brothers—a lot. Like Sawyer, Doug just needed to crook his finger and they hopped into his bed.
“Doug and rape? Impossible.”
“I spoke to some snotty detective who reminded me that rape is about power, not sex.” Sawyer stood up and walked over to his window. “He’s been accused, he admits to knowing her; apparently he can’t remember whether they fucked or not. There’s evidence that he did.”
“DNA?”
Sawyer nodded. “They did a rape kit. He also has two long scratches on his face where she scratched him. It doesn’t look good. How the hell do I tell my mom?”
Kai knew that Sawyer and Doug’s mom was bipolar, and that the stresses of day-to-day life were frequently more than she could handle. Hearing that her favorite son was in jail facing serious felony charges would put her right over the edge. His dad would deal with the situation by taking his bottle of Jack to his woodshed and drinking himself into a coma.
At times like these Kai thought it a blessing to be an orphan with no family ties.
“I thought that he was getting his shit together, that he was sober,” Sawyer said. “He’d been going to meetings, was trying to stay clean, but he said that he was hig
h that night and doesn’t remember a damn thing.” He rolled his shoulders. “So, I need to take care of this.”
That was a given. “Of course. Go. Oz will hold down the fort while you’re gone.”
Oz, an ex-Marine, was Sawyer’s right-hand man in Mercy.
A small flicker of amusement lightened Sawyer’s eyes. “Except that he can’t. He’s leaving this afternoon for his annual vacation. He’s doing a eighteen-day tour of the great houses of Europe.”
Kai’s mind boggled at the thought of one of their most experienced trainers, a man tougher than Chuck Norris, six foot tall and nearly as wide, tiptoeing his way past fragile furniture and priceless objets d’art. He hoped he had insurance to cover any accidents.
“We’re booked solid for the next month with corporate events and PSD training. With Oz gone, I was going to do the corporate training. You’re going to have to step up to the plate.”
The noose was invisible but Kai still felt the knot tightening around his neck. “I’m due to be in Aberdeen by Monday. I’m boarding an oil exploration ship. Anti-hijacking training as the ship is heading for the Indian Ocean, north of Sudan. Pirates.”
“Mark will do your training,” Sawyer replied and sighed at Kai’s frown. “Kai, he’s been your assistant trainer for more than two years—he’s ex-SAS, for God’s sake. He can do the anti-hijacking training with his eyes closed. Besides, he’s already in London and you’re here.”
“Yeah, but . . . civilians. I am not good with civilians.”
“I know that, but you’re just going to have to suck it up and do it,” Sawyer said. “Just don’t hurt or kill them, okay? It’s bad for business.”
“When will you be back?” Kai asked, shocked that his voice held more than a tinge of panic. This meant staying in Mercy a lot longer than he’d intended. Like at least another week or two . . . He didn’t know if he could make it.
