The sight of that flush—of the slightly glassy look in his eyes, of his soft, parted lips—filled her with reckless regret. She wanted to grab him by the hair and drag him back. She wanted to twine their fingers together again and ground herself in him. It was on her list, after all—meaningless sex. But some wise and protective instinct, hidden deep in the prehistoric part of her brain, warned her that nothing would be meaningless with someone like Red. And if it wasn’t meaningless, she didn’t want it. When it came to feelings, to relationships, to more, Chloe was off men.
He shut his eyes for one long moment, and when they opened again he looked a little more like himself and a little less like a creature sent from Planet Lust to sex her to death. Which was good. Very, very good.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, clearly concerned. “Did I . . . ?”
Gosh, he was sweet. She needed to get him out of here before she cracked completely.
“I’m fine,” she said brightly. Possibly a touch too brightly, but it was too late now; she was committed. “I’ll see you on Saturday, to continue with the list.” She sounded like a chipmunk on helium.
He hesitated, then said quietly, “Do you still want to do that? With me, I mean? It’s okay if you don’t.”
Oh, I want to do a lot with you.
She was going to have to start tapping herself on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Her mind was out of control and needed training.
“Yes, I still want to do that. With you. I promise, everything’s fine.” She stood up and made vague, shooing motions in his direction. “Off you go, then.”
He stood, too, smiling now. “I wrote the details in your little book. I know you like plans.”
“Wonderful. Fabulous. Much appreciated.” She shoved him bodily out of the room.
His smile widened. “I take it you don’t want to talk about—?”
“Good-bye, Redford!” She herded him toward the hall.
“—about me kissing your—”
“Ah, ah!” She strode past him to unlock the front door, holding it open. “No more talk. I am a poor, disabled woman who is not to be harassed with unnecessary conversation.”
He burst out laughing.
She pushed him out of the door.
Chapter Eleven
Saturday evening had never been so fraught.
Two days—and a few too many flushed, forbidden daydreams—after that Very Professional Meeting with Red, Chloe sat with her laptop perched on her knees and her sparkly blue notebook in one hand. He had indeed written out the details for her, right down to the bars and nightclubs they would visit. And, as she passed the time until his arrival by researching those establishments online, she couldn’t help but notice that they were all very close together.
Close enough that walking from building to building probably wouldn’t tire her out.
She closed her browser window with a tut, still not sure if she was pleased by that discovery or if she found Red’s behavior presumptuous. She had a feeling it was the former, but she so wanted to believe the latter. It would make it considerably easier to resist feeling mushy things toward him. And, since escaping his intoxicating presence and remembering that men possessed less loyalty than the average flea and caused more emotional trouble than they were worth, Chloe had decided she must indeed resist.
It wasn’t that she assumed he’d leap at the chance to become the next fiancé to abandon her. But, whatever their relationship, he would leave her life eventually—everyone did, in the end—and it would be easier to watch him go if they kept the kissing to a minimum. It would probably be easier if they kept the funny, flirty emails to a minimum, too, but he’d kept sending those, and . . . well. Ignoring him would be rude. Plus, he took her mind off of certain things. Somewhat.
On the coffee table, Smudge was delicately licking his own arsehole in flagrant convention of the established house rules—a sight that, bizarrely, plucked at something sad beneath Chloe’s breastbone. Beside him sat Chloe’s phone, and from the speakers a familiar voice was emanating. It had not stopped emanating, in fact, for the last ten bloody minutes.
“You’re very grumpy today, darling,” Gigi said. “Are you feeling delicate?”
“No,” Chloe said, the word both flat and honest. She was physically passable; her misery was 100 percent emotional today. Being unhappy made her irritable. Even more irritable than severe back pain.
“Well, whatever is the matter, then?” Gigi asked.
Redford-based confusion and Saturday-night anxiety aside, Smudge was the matter. Chloe had finally taken him to the vet’s yesterday, and what had she discovered? Why, that he had an owner, of course. An owner who’d put a chip in him like he was some sort of computer. The vet assured her that chips were both humane and safety conscious, but since Smudge’s chip meant that she absolutely could not keep him, she found herself violently opposed to the concept.
“Darling,” Gigi murmured, “are you growling?”
Chloe gave herself a little shake. “Absolutely not. Why would I ever do such a thing?”
Gigi sighed fondly. “Such strange granddaughters I have. I’m so proud. Your father is depressingly ordinary.”
Chloe’s dad was a financial analyst with zero inclination toward the outrageous, which disappointed Gigi no end. He never took off his herringbone coat, and speed-walked everywhere, and said things like “Bear with me a moment, please.” He’d spent Chloe’s entire school career slipping encouraging notes into her book bag because he knew how much she hated English class. If Martin Brown was ordinary, she wished everyone else would be. But she didn’t bother saying any of that, because Gigi would roll her eyes and call his tie choices utterly uninspired.
“I’m not strange.”
“You are, darling. Not as strange as Danika, I’ll grant you, but still. Now, what have you been up to today, my sweet little onion?”
Onion was not the weirdest thing Chloe had ever been called by her grandmother. “I took my stray cat to the vet and discovered that he belongs to a control freak with no respect for the sanctity of the feline body. Her name is Annie.”
“Annie? Outrageous. I despise her already.”
“She is on holiday, if you believe it,” Chloe said acidly. “Her cat is missing, and she has gone abroad!”
“Thoroughly shocking,” murmured Gigi, who had once gone on a cruise of the Mediterranean while her third husband remained at home with a shattered femur. Of course, as she had informed all who questioned her decision: “I did not tell the fool to shatter his femur during a perfectly lovely July.”
“When she returns,” Chloe bit out, “she will phone me, and I will be expected to hop to it and give back her cat. Well, I don’t know if she’s fit to own a cat. I found Smudge in mortal peril!”
A reasonable person might have pointed out that no cat had ever died of falling from a tree, and also that cats were uncontrollable creatures, but luckily, Gigi wasn’t reasonable. She said in soothing tones, “The woman is an unfit mother. I’m sure of it.”
“So am I! Do you know—” Chloe was cut off by a knock at the door. Her middle melted like chocolate fudge cake. She hadn’t realized the time. It was Red. The skin over her collarbone tingled, as if he’d marked her with his heated gaze.
“Are you there, darling?” Gigi nudged.
Chloe cleared her throat and locked her inappropriate thoughts away. Back in the vault you go. “I have to go. Someone’s at the door.”
“Someone, hm?” Gigi said gleefully. “Why, darling. Whoever could it be? You sound flustered.”
“I’m not flustered. And I don’t know who it is.”
“You sound,” Gigi murmured, “as though you are telling fibs.”
How could she tell? She could always tell. It must be a grandmotherly superpower. “We’ll talk about this later,” Chloe squeaked. “Got to dash love you bye!” She ended the call, huffed out a breath, then patted her robe self-consciously. Between worrying about tonight and worrying about S
mudge, she’d somehow managed to lose all sense of time—and now Red was here, and she was barely dressed, and oh, God, this was all going horribly. She grabbed Smudge for good luck and rushed to get the door.
Still, she felt oddly buoyant—almost giddy—as she went.
Redford was big and broad on her welcome mat, his smile almost tentative, his hair spilling over his shoulders like liquid fire. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose forearms ridged with fine veins and thick tendons, and sprinkled with barely visible, golden hair. Not that she was staring, or anything.
“Evening,” he said, his voice low and rich. And calm. Always calm. Clearly, he was not at all bothered by the fact that the last time they’d seen each other, he’d slid his tongue over her ear.
Well, if he wasn’t bothered, then neither was she. “I’m very sorry,” she said, holding Smudge against her chest. “I’m afraid I’m going to make us late.”
* * *
Chloe’s email that afternoon had been short and to the point, but Red must have learned her language these past few days, because he’d known straightaway she was upset.
Took Smudge to the vet. He’s chipped. Has owner.
Oh, yeah. She was upset. But she obviously didn’t want to talk about it, so he hadn’t planned on bringing it up.
Then she answered the door with that apologetic frown, her lip caught between her teeth and Smudge held against her chest, and he couldn’t have kept his mouth shut for all the money on earth. “Are you okay?” he asked, completely ignoring what she’d just said, because apparently he was that kind of guy now.
She raised her eyebrows, that divine, Rococo face as striking as ever. “I’m in a mood, but then, I usually am. Why?”
“I got your message about Smudge, and—”
“I don’t want to talk about Smudge,” she said, her voice sharp.
Not so long ago, that sharpness would’ve jabbed him like a thorn. Now it popped his heart like a balloon, because he knew it meant that she was hurting, and hiding, and dealing with her feelings all alone.
Women who saved cats and wrote ridiculous lists and took deals painfully seriously shouldn’t deal with their feelings alone. No one should.
But before he could tell her that, something about her seemed to soften, and she said quickly, “We’re going to have fun this evening. It will be a list-ticking success. That’s what I want to think about. Not Smudge.”
He ran a hand through his hair and nodded, holding her gaze. Her eyes were big and dark and a little too bright behind her glasses. He wanted to touch her, but all things considered, that was probably a bad idea. So he kept his clumsy hands to himself, and swore silently that he’d make her smile tonight. One way or another. “All right,” he said.
The tension between them dissolved, or maybe it had just faded for a while. “Come on, then,” she said brightly, stepping back to let him in. Which was when he noticed her outfit—or her lack of one. She was wearing some silky robe thing, and the skirt ended just above the knee. He’d been drooling over her fucking ankles for weeks. Now he stared at the inch of thigh just above her knees and decided he should’ve jacked off before he came over. Twice. Three times, even. His balls ached just looking at her. Was this normal? This couldn’t be normal.
She shoved the cat at him, turned in a dangerous whirl of short, silky skirt, and started off down the hall.
Red stared at the cat. The cat stared at him. If he were the kind of man who really understood animals, he might say this particular cat was sending him a telepathic message that went something like, Get your dirty pervert eyes off my mum.
“Sorry, mate,” he muttered, and shut the door, and made his way to the living room.
She was bending over by the TV, switching off all the plug sockets. The hem of her robe lifted for a split second and he caught a flash of bare, brown skin before he looked away. All his nerve endings sparked to life, even as he begged them to calm the hell down. Everything in him turned hot and liquid, except his dick, which was, of course, rock fucking hard. He sat down and held Smudge over his lap.
And, because God was having a great time taking the piss out of Red today, Chloe turned around and zeroed in on the sight with a smile. “I thought you didn’t like cats?”
“Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe I judged before I really got to know them. They’re not as snooty as they seem. My bad.”
He watched as surprise flickered across her face. “Oh.” She shot him a quick, shy smile and his heart burst like a firework. “Okay then. Um . . . I’m just going to get dressed. I’ll be five minutes.”
“Don’t rush. It doesn’t matter if we’re later than we planned.”
She gave him the same indulgent nod mothers gave their nonsense-babbling toddlers and hurried out of the room, probably intending to ignore him.
While she was gone, Red decided to occupy himself by listing the many, many reasons why he shouldn’t lust after Chloe anymore, even if he desperately wanted to, really enjoyed it, and wasn’t totally sure he could stop.
1. He’d come on to her and she had very firmly shut him down. No matter how much he thought about the taste of her skin, or the sound of her moans, it wasn’t happening. So he should stop torturing himself now.
2. If he didn’t stop, she might notice, and then she’d be uncomfortable. He was her superintendent, for Christ’s sake—which he probably should’ve thought about before he’d put his hands on her. He couldn’t make her uncomfortable. It just wasn’t right.
2.5 Vik would slaughter him. And then Alisha would beat his corpse with a hairbrush.
3. Thoughts of her were starting to distract him at work.
4. He hadn’t masturbated this much since he was a kid, and he was worried his balls might permanently shrivel up like walnuts.
He was just working on number five when Chloe reappeared, ruining everything. He’d thought the robe was bad, but now . . . now, she wore a dress the color of gold-edged moonlight, the fabric stretching tight over roller-coaster curves that deserved their own hazard warning. That outfit cupped every inch of her the way his hands wanted to. Her cleavage was so deep she might as well just throw in the towel and go topless. He consoled himself with the fact that the dress was longer than the robe, until she moved and a thigh-high slit made itself known. Fuck.
Her face wasn’t any easier to look at. Her eyes yanked him in like twin black holes and her lush lips shone with some kind of makeup. Her hair was different, pulled back in a thick, fancy braid he didn’t know the name of, one he’d like to wrap around his fist while he kissed her pretty mouth.
He was fucked. He was absolutely fucked.
She came to stand in front of him, clutching a little gold bag. “Is this appropriate?”
Appropriate? He cleared his throat. Don’t fuck up. Don’t fuck up. Don’t fuck up. “Well. It doesn’t have buttons, but it’ll do.”
She laughed and hit him on the shoulder with her bag. He wondered absently if he’d survive the night.
Chapter Twelve
Walking toward the entrance of a nightclub was like leaping back in time. Except, in her teens and early twenties, Chloe had never felt the cold, whereas right now she was shivering her barely supported tits off.
The night was made of layered shadows and flashing, neon lights, rain an icy threat in the air that kissed her overheated skin, freezing her nervousness dead. She was too busy regretting her skimpy outfit to question if she should be here at all. That, she supposed, was a solid silver lining.
Red was in front of her, his big body a wind barrier she shamelessly huddled behind. He was holding her hand, tugging her along like a boat, and she knew he did it so they wouldn’t get separated in the busy dark—only, she couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d held her hand. Her heart pounded now just as fast as it had then. He’d been so tender, to touch her like that as he pulled her apart with his kiss. She still couldn’t decide what it meant. Her logical brain said, I
t means he likes you, obviously!
And maybe—probably—he did. But it couldn’t be that simple, or that lovely. Things never were, for Chloe.
Their first stop of the night had the cheapest drinks, which, Red had explained in the taxi, was strategic. She’d tried to point out that expensive drinks wouldn’t bother her, but he’d muttered something about posh money wasters and told her to get into the spirit of the thing. So here they were, heading toward a slightly shady-looking club with a small field of cigarette butts littering the pavement in front of it. There was a sign the color of her glasses above the door that read bluebell. Bluebell’s pounding music took every other nightclub’s pounding music by the throat and squeezed. The closer they got, the more she wondered if she ought to have brought some earplugs.
Red nodded at the massive, black-coated bouncers, dragged her through the doors, and then they were inside. Everything was dark, flashing, and sweaty. She didn’t like it.
No—that wasn’t right. She simply wasn’t used to it, or drunk enough to enjoy it yet. Of course, a little voice in her head muttered that the hangover she would incur from drinking enough alcohol to make this place palatable would also leave her bed bound for a week. She squashed that voice. It was a party pooper and it belonged to the old, boring Chloe, not the Chloe who rescued cats.
Wait. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Smudge.
Red somehow carved out a space for them at the bar. She found herself caged between his chest and the sticky surface, his hands braced on either side of her body. He bent his head to her ear, and the feel of his breath against the side of her throat made everything between her legs tingle. She pressed her thighs together while he shouted over the music, “What do you want?”
Good thing she’d already decided on this, or her poor, scrambled brain wouldn’t have been able to produce an answer. “Cherry Sourz.” It used to be her favorite.
Apparently, Red didn’t approve, because he snorted, the puff of air hot against her skin. Still, he caught the bartender’s attention, and before she knew it, three vivid pink shots were lined up in front of her, along with a glass of something dark. She was supposed to be paying for everything tonight—that had been her intention, anyway—but Red had handed over a note before she got the chance. She tilted her head back to glare up at him. He winked at her and picked up his glass. Coke and something, she thought, or maybe just Coke.
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