“Oh, it’s nothing.” I wipe down the top of my thighs as if Rex were beach sand I was looking to be rid of. “We were just—”
Cassidy clicks her tongue with delight. My countrified best friend would like nothing more than for Rex and me to be the real deal. She’s already convinced we’re traveling in that direction. Obviously, her couple’s radar is way off the mark. “I know what you two are up to!”
Cade, Cassidy’s other, far saner half, comes up and wraps his arms around her from behind. “What’s up?”
“These two are up.” Cassidy wastes no time in outing us—albeit falsely. At this point, it’s just rumors and speculation. Although, I’m guessing Cassidy will be the last to accept the truth. “I saw them locked at the hip, wrapped up in one another’s arms, and just about to share a hot, wet kiss!”
“Nope!” Rex holds up his hands in protest. Apparently, my fake other half has his limits.
“No way.” I’m quick to join in on the protest. “Besides, our parents are getting married in a few short weeks.”
“What!” Cassidy shrieks so loud both Daisy and Piper appear by her side with a look of fight-or-flight. “So, like, you’re going to be related?” Her blonde curls spill to the side as she tries to put the misshapen family pieces together.
“Yes,” I assure her. “So you can see why it would be totally disgusting for Rex and me to ever—”
“Date,” he finishes for me.
I give a tiny wink his way. I may not be Rex Toberman’s biggest fan, but I can appreciate his understanding in keeping the blurred lines of our fictitious relationship way the hell off the radar.
“We’re just friends.”
“And hardly that,” he grunts while folding his arms tight across his chest, and my panties melt at the bicep-laden sight.
Damn, he gets me every time with that. I shoot him a look that could slice his balls off for merely inducing the sexual response in me.
“Okay”—Cade rubs his hands over Cassidy’s arms—“so the two of you are friends—soon-to-be stepsiblings. You should at least get along. We’re headed out.” He gives a casual wave as he steers Cassidy toward the door, but that look on her face lets me know this conversation is far from over.
Daisy and Piper come up behind them as Rex heads over to Owen.
“We’re taking off.” Piper waves back at Owen, and he heads this way.
“And I’m off to Stilettos.” Daisy checks her reflection in the mirror adjacent to the entrance. “I’m on in an hour. You’re welcome to come with if you want,” she tosses out the offer just as I spot Rex slapping his friend Jet five as if he’s leaving himself.
“I’ll think I’ll stick around. Hey—what did we decide for the bachelorette party?”
“We’re going to a strip club!” Piper shouts as she and Owen disappear into the night.
“It’s tits and tails.” Daisy scrunches her nose as she follows them out. “You’ll be at Stilettos with me!”
The night begins to swallow her up, and I take a step outside. “Wait! I demand a recount! I want to see men! I need naked men in my life!”
“All right, Muffin Top”—that familiar cologne enwreathes me once again—“I’ll make all of your naked dreams come true. No need to beg. It’s a good look, though.” I turn to find cockier than hell Rex Toberman holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m kidding. I walked into it. I couldn’t help myself.” He circles safely around me. “I’ll be leaving now.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” I grab ahold of his shirt and pull him in close. “You’re having coffee with me.”
Rex
Scarlett Kent is a ball of pent-up aggression, and as much as my brain screams run the hell away, something else, something decidedly stronger insists I follow her like an obedient dog all the way to the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop.
We put in our orders and sit out front in the cool night air. It’s still hotter than hell, and it feels appropriately so with this devilish redhead blowing steam through her nostrils at me.
“Let’s just go through this rationally.” She shakes her head, those neon green eyes piercing through the murky darkness like distress signals, beautiful signals, but distress is the operative word. “It’s not like either one of us wants this to happen.” She pulls a small plastic tube out of her purse and begins disinfecting her hands. She motions my way with the tiny bottle, and I’m quick to refuse. “No offense to your mother, but my father isn’t ready for any kind of commitment.”
“Why’s that?” I spin my iced coffee until I get a nice backbeat going. I completely agree with her, but at the same time, I’m amused as hell that she went there.
“He’s a free spirit. Always has been. Besides, his kids still need him.”
“You’re grown.” Not sure why I feel suddenly moved to play devil’s advocate, but I can see the flames rising in her eyes, and I’m in the mood to stoke them.
“Not really, my brother is a year younger than me. We still need his full attention. Anyway, the same can be said for your mom. The twins are still in high school. She’s still in full mom mode. A marriage is something serious.”
“And binding,” I lament right along with her. It’s true. Knox and Trixie still very much need her mothering skills, but more so than that, my father still needs her—he just doesn’t realize it yet.
“Right—binding. Legally now and forever.” Her voice grows small as she runs her finger over the rim of her cup over and over. “I guess everything I just said sounds pretty ridiculous.” Those serious eyes of hers fall to mine, and I hold them there, make them stay right where I want them. There’s something about Scarlett’s all too serious eyes that makes me want to linger. The urge to soak her in overpowers the urge to run like hell. That’s what I’ve been doing—correction, we’ve been doing for the last solid year that our parents have been seeing each other. For whatever reason, the more our parents’ mutual attraction grew, Scarlett and I have experienced a repelling of sorts. Normally, I would have found her attractive, in all honesty I still do, but the fact my mother is determined to land her father as her man, any inkling of acting on that attraction I feel toward Scarlett has efficiently been canceled out. Or, in the least, I’m hoping it will be soon.
“I don’t think your argument will hold up in a court of law.” I wink as I chug my coffee. It feels good going down, cold and sweet, and right about now, I’m craving my bed. A brief visual of Scarlett’s naked body lying on top of mine, her neck arched back, that waterfall of blood red hair dripping down her back, her hips bouncing over me, sweat trickling between her tits, riding me hard as if trying to punish me with her—
“Are you stoned or something?” she snips, physically irate over the idea I might be lost in a chemically altered state.
“No.” I try to shake that visual out of my head, but she’s still there, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.
“Okay, well, knock it off. I don’t like it. You’re creeping me out. If I’m being honest, the entire lot of you Tobermans creep me out. No offense to Knox and Trixie, but that thing they do where they communicate without speaking? It’s a little creepy, a little too sci-fi for me. And your mom?” She shakes her head. Her eyes dart into the darkness as if she’s truly perplexed by the woman, and she should be. “There is just something about her. She’s nice enough—I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“You don’t think she’s good enough for your father?” It comes out inquisitive more than it ever does accusatory, but her eyes round out as if I’ve just declared war.
“I never said that.”
“But that’s what all of this protest is getting at, right?” I don’t know if it’s my growing fatigue or some real need to cut to the quick, but a part of me wants to call her out on it. “You think your father deserves someone better. It can’t be your mom because she’s been remarried for years.” A hot bite of acid detonates in the pit of my stomach. For the life of me, I don’t know why I’m nailing her to a wall—maybe because the more that pornographic fan
tasy plays out in my mind, I really do want to nail her to a wall. I can still see her there, grinding out a heated rhythm over my dick, switching it up and landing her sweet ass right over my face.
She takes a sip and laughs a dark, fatalistic warning. “Leave my mother out of this.”
“Why should we? My mom is in it. Fair is fair.”
Her head cocks to the side, those glowing green orbs narrow down to nothing as she slits my throat with her stare. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a dick?”
“Rexy! You lucky, lucky guy!” a female voice shrills from behind, and I turn in time to catch Savannah Anderson as she lands on my lap. When I first met Savannah, I was convinced she was a blonde cheerleading goddess, but as time went on, I’m convinced she’s a blonde cheerleading gnat that I can’t seem to shake. Her obnoxiously loud laugh explodes in my ear. The vodka radiates from her like heat off a summer sidewalk, and I turn my head away to avoid the blast. “Let’s blow this place.” Her finger finds a home over my lips as she bites down on a dirty grin. “Then we can blow each other.” Another round of intoxicated giggles goes off. “It’s been two whole weeks.” I shoot Scarlett a nervous glance, and her mouth rounds out in disgust. “I’m getting rusty, and your little man is getting dusty. I need to sharpen my skills.” She giggles into my neck, and I feel those good vibrations right down to my happy-to-see her balls.
“Little man?” Scarlett’s brows hike with amusement.
“She’s drunk.” I shake my head. “Trust me, there’s nothing little about me.”
“Oh, come on, Goober.” Scarlett gives a deep growl of a laugh, and, crap, here we go. “We both know it’s not the size of the ride. It’s the motion of the ocean. And, wow”—she bleats with that sarcastic drawl of hers she loves to inflect—“two girls inserting your dick into the conversation on the very same night? You are a lucky, lucky guy.”
My eyes snag on the pissed-off redhead sitting across the table, and all hope, all desire to have my dick sucked off by the cheerleader volunteering for the position has vacated the premises.
“Not tonight.” I give Savannah a gentle tap on the thigh until she dismounts, sticking the landing on her feet as if they were springs.
That dimple in her cheek goes off as she continues to flirt mercilessly. I’m familiar with all of Savannah’s flirtatious rules of engagement. Both my dick and I have been entranced by them a time or two. She’s heated my sheets on a few occasions. Nothing more than that.
“Since when does Rex Toberman turn down a solid proposition?” She swings her ponytail from side to side as her fingers brush over my face. “Oh, I get it.” A dark laugh strums from her, the exact same one she lets off just before she gets down and dirty. “You want to do that thing where you’re the big bad attorney, and I’m the—”
“No, no.” I hold up a hand. Dear God, anything but that.
“Yes, yes!” Scarlett leans in, suddenly enthralled by the blonde bombshell in our midst—the very same one I’d like nothing more than to be rid of at the moment. “By all means, do go on. What was your role in the raunchy legal drama? Wait—let me guess. You were the lonely housewife looking for a divorce and a quickie? Or maybe you were the call girl who accidentally wandered into the wrong office? Either way, I bet you got a chance to sharpen those skills of yours. Isn’t that right?”
Savannah steps into the light and squints at Scarlett as if trying to place her. “Like who the hell are you?”
“I’m Rexy’s future attorney. We were just going over payment plans for all the sexual harassment suits he’ll have pending. I’m thinking monthly installments.” She extends her hand for a quick shake, but Savannah’s not budging.
“Oh, that’s cute.” Savannah lacks the proper enthusiasm to back such a claim. “At first, I thought you were trying to scam off my man.” She gurgles a husky laugh that I’ve only heard once before, and I try to evict the scene from that “one time” right out of my perverted mind. “But then, this is Rexy—Whitney Briggs’s own prized possession.”
“Prized perverted possession,” Scarlett corrects, and I cut her a death stare. As much as I want to laugh, as much as I think it’s cute as hell that she thinks she has me pegged, I won’t give her the satisfaction.
“My prized perverted possession.” Savannah blows me a kiss. “Shoot me a text, and we’ll pick up where we left off. And you do remember where we left off.” She hops around and juts her bottom at me before taking off.
That’s right. If I recall, I was on an exploratory mission that involved K-Y Jelly and a box of glow-in-the-dark condoms.
“Hmm.” Scarlett watches pensively as the blonde ponytail fades deeper into campus. “Looks like you’ve got a busy night ahead of you.”
“I don’t have a busy night ahead of me. There’s nothing going on between the two of us.” Don’t know why I went there. Who the hell cares if Scarlett thinks I’m bedding that chick? It’s probably better that way. I don’t want to give her the wrong impression. The last thing in the world I want is for my new redheaded almost-stepsister to think I’m into her.
That image of Scarlett’s head thrust back in lust goes off in my mind like a grenade. Yes, that would feel like heaven.
“Hello? Did you hear a word I said?” She snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Never mind. You’re too busy mentally outlining the plot for your next skin flick with Miss North Carolina.” She jumps out of her seat so fast it tips backward, hitting the sidewalk with a clanging fury. Fifty people turn to gawk at us. “Don’t let me stop you. In fact, if you leave now, you might catch her before she blows one of your teammates into oblivion. Everyone knows Savannah Airhead Anderson does nothing but blow hot air!” she shouts so loud she’s actually managed to hold the attention of a small crowd passing by.
“Hey, don’t get so worked up.” I pick up her seat and motion for her to get back in it, but she makes a face like she’s about to get sick. “Please, sit down. We didn’t finish that conversation we were having. And I want to.” I’m pleading like a pussy. I’m not sure why I feel the need to make nice with this girl—perhaps because she is indeed about to become my stepsister in a few short weeks. Perhaps because I’m a glutton for punishment. “Sit.” It comes out a little sterner than anticipated.
“Nobody tells me what to do with my body!” she thunders so loud an entire crowd of girls from the next table gasps in horror.
“I wasn’t telling her what to do with her body.” God forbid I have my tires slashed by morning.
“Yes, you were!” She snatches her drink off the table with a marked aggression—I’m expecting to wear it any minute now. “Liar, liar, nose as long as a telephone wire! You and your entire family!” Her face is just as red as her hair against this dark, moonless night. “You’re going to pay for this!” she screeches as she takes off toward Cutler Tower.
“Pay for what?” I’m both perplexed and frightened of what exactly I’m about to pay for. “You’re a nut job just like your father!”
A large iced mocha coffee, coconut milk, decaf—her order, comes tumbling from the sky and narrowly misses my temple.
“Crap!” I touch the side of my head as if it had struck me.
One of the dudes who works here comes at me with a broom and dustpan, ready and willing to clean up her mess.
“Sorry.” I pick up her cup, the loose lid, and straw that rolled under the next table just to help the guy out. “She’s a little psychotic.”
He chuckles while sweeping up the ice. “The good ones always are.”
“She’s not a good one. Trust me on that.”
But my stomach wrenches, and my boxers twitch like maybe she is.
Is there something going on with Scarlett? Sabrina hinted at it. She mentioned it would be very upsetting but wouldn’t give details. Any information you could get would be valuable. Bradley is losing his mind. He says she can be a firecracker when she wants to. Please watch over her. She is practically your sister!
I stare at my mother’s te
xt for a little longer than necessary. It’s early afternoon on Saturday, and I’ve trekked to the outskirts of Hollow Brook where my father traded his Bel Terra mansion for a split-level with wall-to-wall carpeting, an act my mother found both humiliating and repugnant.
I’ll see what I can find out. I fire off the text and get out of my truck, taking in the scent bleeding from the pines mixing with the hint of something floral drifting in this heated, early summer air.
I happen to know exactly what is up with that little firecracker. It’s me. It sounds as if Scarlett’s scantly engineered plan of getting her sister to think we’re going at it has crested its first wave, ready and willing to crash over us at any moment. I’ll bring it up to her and see what she wants to do. I get it. She’s hurting. The pain in her eyes last night was palpable. A part of me wanted to let her know that it will all work out, that no matter what the outcome, we would survive this. But I also happen to know how much divorce hurts and how the wounds never seem to heal, and lastly, and pathetically so, no matter how old you get, you still have that underlying craving for your parents to fall madly back in love and stitch your family up again. And, ironically, that’s exactly why I’m here.
I head up the driveway to the sunny yellow house with its chipped brown trim. Knox’s truck and Trixie’s Beamer are parked in the driveway, so I know they’re home. Just as I’m about to give a wallop over the front door, it glides open, and I’m greeted with my father’s smiling face—a mirror image of my own if you add about twenty-eight years.
“Hold your fire,” he teases, pulling me in. “Saw you walking up the driveway, kiddo.”
He feels strong, safe, is wearing the same cologne I’ve known him to since the day I was born, and everything about this one simple physical exchange makes me miss him a hundred times more.
“You don’t have to be such a stranger, you know.” He leans back, his hand clasping over mine as he leads me inside.
“I don’t want to be.” But I have been. The last three years have been the toughest. First, there was the divorce—an axe that drove itself through the forehead of my family—then my mother’s far more painful spiral, the nails securely set in the Toberman family coffin. No thanks to the questionable moves of my father’s business partner, Toberman Global has disbanded and is no longer a viable entity. But he’s rebuilding his life, one dollar at a time, and my mother is rebuilding her life with Bradley.
Summer Breeze Kisses Page 26
