Instead of agreeing aloud, he avoided the subject. “Back to Jacob. Why him?”
“He’s an attorney. He did some work for our company.” She shrugged. “He just ticked all the right boxes and I was ready to be in love, I guess, and to have someone in my life.”
Even Kane knew that “ticking all the right boxes” was not a good enough reason to get hitched to another person. “You should have gotten a pet instead.”
She made another face. “I have a cat. A white cat.”
Of course, Audra had a cat. “Fluffy? Snowball?”
“Hildr, after a famous Viking shieldmaiden. She killed her enemies in battle and wore their dried penises on a belt around her waist.”
He stared. “You’re more than a little kinky with all this killing business.”
She smiled. “No more Goody Two-Shoes, that’s for sure. I have a plan.”
Kane’s curiosity was piqued, but then their server came by with a second round of beers and the conversation veered away to less personal topics. By the time they’d finished their food, he’d paid the bill, and they were walking toward his truck in the brightly lit parking lot, he found out she’d served in student government in high school and college, that she’d wrecked her first car avoiding a squirrel crossing the road, and that she now spent one Saturday a month cleaning up graffiti left at local parks.
“You are a Goody Two-Shoes,” he said, teasing. “A hopeless case.” Regret flooded him as he saw a stricken expression come over her face. Her footsteps sped up, taking her past him.
“Hey,” he said, reaching out to snag her arm and reel her back. “I’m kidding.” She turned to him, and it was determination, not injury in her eyes.
This was a fiery side of Audra that he hadn’t seen before and his cock twitched, waking up after a delicious Mexican dinner. Tilting his head, he studied her face. “What’s going on inside that brain of yours?”
“I told you. No more Goody Two-Shoes. I have a plan.” She threw that out, as if defying him to disbelieve her.
It was so damn cute, that Kane Jones hauled her closer to his body, giving not a fuck about Kane Hathaway’s promise not to touch. “Tell me about this plan.”
“I have a list of things I’ve never done. Things that it’s time I do. They’re going to change me.”
“Like a bucket list? Climb a mountain? Skydive?”
Her gaze wandered away. “Like a bucket list.”
Huh? He narrowed his eyes. “Name one thing you have on it.”
Maybe she heard the suspicion in his voice because her gaze snapped back. “Kiss a stranger,” she shot at him, lifting her chin.
He stared, thinking of her in some other man’s arms, some dude who’d be close enough to smell her hair, marvel at that robin’s egg-lightness of her eyes, touch those sweet pink lips with his own.
No. Kane was going to get there before some anonymous no-good, damn it. Lowering his head, he tightened his hold on her, bringing her flush against his body.
She melted into him, and God, he loved that, loved the yielding good girl more than the spitfire Audra. Her surrender just did something to him, touching him in a deep place he’d not known before. Anticipation simmering, he let his lips brush hers, a feather-light caress.
A soft sound came from low in her throat, then she jerked back, her hands curling on his biceps. “Wait.” Blinking, she frowned at him. “What are you doing? I said, ‘kiss a stranger.’”
Hauling her close again, he took her to her toes, then growled. “Sometimes you have to settle for the next best thing.”
And when his mouth fastened on hers, she ceased to protest. He ceased to think, because she tasted so good, she felt so right. When his tongue played at the seam of her lips, she sighed and opened for him, and he slid inside.
Where he belonged.
His brain didn’t linger on that errant idea. It was too busy registering the heat and sleek and sweet that was Audra how she should be—without pretense, honest and willing. Giving.
Blood surged to his cock and he groaned at the pleasure…at the eager greediness of his sudden need.
He slid his hands from her waist to grasp the fabric at her hips, bunching it in his hands to pull it up, when some last surviving measure of common sense reminded him they were in a well-lit public parking lot.
Shit. Uncurling his fingers, he let her dress drop and he eased back on the kiss until he was staring into her eyes, darker now with her pupils expanded. The expression on her face was half-dazzled and half-dazed and he smiled because fuck, it made his ego inflate. “Baby. We need to take this elsewhere.”
He grabbed her hand and turned them toward her car.
“Hathaway!” A male voice hailed him from the direction of the restaurant’s front door. “Kane Hathaway, I thought that was you!”
Audra stomped toward her bungalow with Kane Hathaway at her heels.
“You need to give me a chance to explain,” he said, lowering his voice as they passed a foursome in tennis gear.
“No, I don’t.” She sent him a dirty look over her shoulder. “I’ve already been made a fool of by one man this month. That’s my quota.”
“Audra…” He used that deep dark voice that he’d used in the restaurant’s parking lot.
Sometimes you have to settle for the next best thing.
It had melted her will then, but it wasn’t going to melt her will now. Without looking at him again, she inserted her key card into the lock and swung open the door. It was then she heard a phone ringing, the tone of her cell, which she realized she’d left behind.
On a silent curse, she leaped for it, hoping the door would slam in Kane’s ugly—okay, too handsome but extremely irritating—face.
The number on the screen made accepting the call an imperative. “Mom? Is everything okay? How’s London?”
“We came back a bit early,” she said. “Your brother texted us with the new number of the phone he got for you.”
“Right.” On the day Audra had been jilted, as she stood barefoot in the sand at the wedding venue, her maid of honor had tossed her phone and the cruel text on its screen into the ocean. For such a small person, Lilly had a very good arm. The device hadn’t resurfaced.
“Is Connor there with you now?” Mom asked.
“I haven’t seen much of him,” she admitted. “Though it was nice he went to the trouble of replacing my cell.”
“I thought the whole point of him being in Santa Barbara was to spend time with you.” Her mother sounded puzzled.
“You know Con. He’s never seen a change of plans he didn’t like.” Her brother had a decided impetuous side. “Speaking of that, why are you home so soon?”
“It’s not that soon.” Her mom hesitated. “I saw the Diana fashion exhibit at Kensington Palace again. Loved it.”
What she didn’t say was that they’d come home because they were worried about Audra. Her parents’ vacation was shortened, her brother had taken the trouble to check in with his younger sister, all because of her stupid pleaser gene. The one that had caused her to engage herself to the guy who looked right, but who wasn’t right for her at all.
Movement at the corner of her eye had her turning. Glaring. Because Kane had followed her into the bungalow, of course, despite her wishes. He stood by the small dining table in the living area, completely at ease.
She continued to glower at him, because nursing her mad was safer than thinking too hard about that kiss. But that kiss!
Why hadn’t she put some muscle into it when she pushed him away at first? Because of the stubble, her brain answered immediately. That damn scratchy, male stubble that she’d assume he’d shave when he took a woman out to dinner. But their meal had been impromptu and the truth is…she’d liked the prickle of it in comparison to the softness of his lips from the first brief touch.
Liked was such a trite descriptor for her reaction to his kisses. She’d been seduced by them, and by his firm hold on her and his tongue, driving inside he
r mouth with a sureness that made her shiver even now.
“When are you coming back?”
Her mother’s voice brought Audra back to the present. “I’m not—”
“I worry about you. I’ll feel better when you’re back home and in the office where you belong.”
Audra’s breath backed up in her lungs, her mother’s concern was as kind as it was smothering. Closing her eyes, she tried calming a spurt of panic. Returning home now would mean returning to all her old ways, the ways which had resulted in heartbreak and humiliation.
“I think I’m going to stay here another week or so, Mom. Dad won’t mind, will he?”
Opening her eyes, Audra saw Kane, and frowning, gestured him toward the door. Go, she mouthed.
“Dad won’t mind, of course, honey,” her mother said. “But if you’re not ready to come home, I could come to you—”
“No.” Her mother wore well-meaning like a favorite dress, but her presence would stifle Audra’s plans for a rebirth of sorts. And speaking of stifling presences, Kane had yet to leave the premises. She jabbed her forefinger at him, then jabbed it in the direction of the door.
Wearing an amused expression, he merely leaned back against the table.
Audra closed her eyes once more as her mother offered again to drive up to the resort. “I really need more time for myself, Mom. By myself.”
A deep voice in the background told Audra her dad was hovering at her mom’s elbow, and he must have been convincing because next her mom said to take the time she needed. Relieved, Audra nodded. “Thanks, Mom.”
“But call Lilly, would you? She wants to hear from you.”
Lilly. Audra’s best friend and the maid of honor at the wedding that wasn’t. Lilly had dragged Zombie Rejected Bride to the famed resort on Dragonfly Beach, determined to mend what was broken inside her. It wasn’t Lilly’s fault that Audra didn’t think she needed massages and meditation training to get her life back on track.
To reassure her friend and to postpone having to deal with Kane Hathaway for another few minutes—he was wandering the living area now as if he had all the time in the world—she phoned her best friend, listening to the ring as she pictured the brunette as they’d first met freshman year in the dorms. Lilly had been curled up in the hall, locked out of her room by a roommate with a boyfriend. They’d struck up a conversation and not long after made a trade—the roommate got Audra’s single and Audra moved into the double with the person who would become her closest friend. They were different in so many ways, from the color of their hair, to their childhoods, to their declared beliefs in romance, but between them they had seen each other through college and beyond.
Lilly answered her phone, sounding breathless but pleased. “Audra! I am so glad to hear from you.”
Guilt gave her a little pinch. Not only had she failed to tell her best friend she was doing okay—better, anyway—but she hadn’t checked in on Lilly’s budding romance with Alec Thatcher. He’d been the intended best man and despite Lilly’s innate prickliness and her outrage at the male gender in general on Audra’s behalf, he’d managed to win her trust…and what looked to be Lilly’s love as well.
“Lil, I’m sorry. I should have called sooner.”
“Yes, you should have.” But she didn’t sound angry. “So tell me now…how are you doing?”
Audra glanced over at Kane who was staring out at the view as if fascinated by something in the distance. Or he was deep in thought about…what?
“Audie? Please. Give me a sense of where your head’s at.”
She bit her lip, not wanting to get into detail with the man in the room. “Katy Perry. ‘Not Like the Movies.’” In college, they’d made up a game of naming a particular pop song to correspond to the emotional moment.
Lilly went quiet, then she cleared her throat. “Oh, Audie. That’s good. While what you had with Jacob wasn’t a cinematic kind of love, you’re still holding out for it. You still believe it might come along.”
“Maybe,” Audra admitted, though she’d intimated to Kane that a person didn’t need romance in their lives—and she’d certainly been pretty sour about the possibility of having it herself upon being left groom-less.
But now…
Could she blame the kiss? “I guess I still think it might happen for me. Perhaps. There’s the smallest chance. How could I not feel a teeny bit optimistic after seeing my cynical BFF so starry-eyed over her Alec?”
Instead of sputtering or protesting like the old Lilly, the new, in love-Lilly just sighed. “He sent me flowers at work today.”
That reminded Audra of Kane and she looked over to see him standing by the table near the sofa, staring at a piece of paper in his hand. Her body strung tight. Oh, no.
“What are you doing?” she called out to him, her voice sharp.
“Me?” Lilly squeaked. “Um, Alec’s here and you kind of caught us—”
“Not you. Sorry.” Audra felt her face heat and tried very hard not imagine Lilly and Alec doing something that made her friend sound so embarrassed. “But I’ll let you go and get back to…whatever.”
Lilly giggled in answer—Lilly, giggling!—and they promised each other another call soon. Then Audra set her phone aside and turned to confront the nosy man. “Give me that,” she said, holding out her hand.
He shook his head instead of obeying. “I know how I’m going to make it up to you.”
“Make up for what?”
“Letting our little misunderstanding go on so long.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not telling me your real name is a little misunderstanding?”
“Sort of like you calling workers’ coveralls a jumpsuit.”
Damn man was trying to make her smile. “I don’t forgive you.”
“But you will.” He waved the paper he held. “Now that I’ve seen your list.”
She forced herself to appear relaxed, even though she wanted to snatch it from his hand. Instead, she gave it a casual glance, noting it was written in blue ink, not red. Relief washed through her. “Oh, that list,” she said, her breath easing out of her lungs.
Because it wasn’t her other list. The items on it were much more revealing and she would have to change her name, move to another country, and take up goat herding to get over the idea of him even getting a peek. Though she wasn’t all that keen on him studying this tamer one either. “I don’t want you having anything to do with my list.”
“Baby,” he said, his tone reasonable yet still amused. “You need a keeper to guide you through if you’re going to tackle some of these things.”
“I don’t need a guide or a keeper.”
He glanced down at the paper in his hand. “Dance with a sweaty guy at a biker bar?”
Her vision went red. And probably her face. “It doesn’t say ‘sweaty,’” she hissed.
“We’ll go out tomorrow night,” Kane said. “I know just the place.”
Chapter 5
The next evening, the knock on her door made Audra’s nerve endings pop, sparking fires on the surface of her skin. He was here. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. He was early.
But she was ready, because she hadn’t known what else to do but prepare for a night out at a biker bar. In the mirror on the closet door, she took a quick assessment. Dark wash jeans. Black, strappy sandals. A black floral chiffon top with full sleeves, the narrow tie at the neckline hanging loose, allowing the fabric at times to slide over her shoulder. Audra Montgomery usually eschewed displaying lingerie in any way, but tonight she wouldn’t concern herself that her bra strap peeked out on occasion.
It was lace. Not black lace, but an innocent blush pink that matched the roses printed on the dark blouse.
She bit her lip, having second, third, and fourth thoughts.
Knuckles sounded once again on wood.
Being a pleaser meant she couldn’t keep the man waiting any longer, so she made for the door, pulled it open.
It wasn’t the m
an she’d expected. “Con!” she said, aware relief threaded her voice.
Her brother must have heard it too, because he gave her a sharp look as he strode over the threshold on those long legs of his. Brawny shoulders made the spacious bungalow seem smaller.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Same question for you,” she said. “I haven’t seen you or heard from you in a few days. I thought maybe you’d left the resort.”
His gaze swept the room. “You opened the drapes,” he said. “Good.”
It wasn’t yet dark, and the early evening light warmed the room with a pink and gold wash of sunset color. “I told you I just needed some time. You, Mom, Dad…thanks for everyone’s concern but it’s only a matter of time and a little, uh, fresh air.”
And accomplishing some of those items on List 1. Maybe even List 2, if she could find a way to do that.
Con’s eyes swung back to her. “Fresh air?”
Tonight was about List 1, of course, the paper that Kane Hathaway had scooped up and scrutinized. List 2 was even more private and personal and not meant for anyone to see but her.
Con continued to study her face. “Why does ‘fresh air’ sound like code for something entirely different?”
She frowned at him. “Because you’re a guy and everything sounds like a sex act to you.”
“Who said anything about sex?” Con questioned, his voice mild. “Oh, that would be you.”
“Never mind,” she snapped, and slipped her phone from her pocket to take a look at the time. Kane was two minutes late. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe she’d have the reprieve she’d been hoping for all day long.
That whoosh in her stomach at the idea had nothing to do with disappointment.
And if she did feel disappointment, it was only because she wasn’t going to be putting a line through one of the items on her list tonight, unless…
“What are you up to, Con?” She gave him her most wheedling smile. “Want to head out with me, get something to drink, eat?”
“Uh…” He practically shuffled his feet in discomfort. “Look, Audie.”
Her eyebrows rose. Since when did Con display an iota of awkwardness? “Okay, what are you trying to hide from me?” she demanded.
Me and Mr. Jones (Heartbreak Hotel Book 2) Page 6
