by Julia London
Sincerely, Carly Kennedy, Carly Kennedy Public Relations
She fell asleep on her laptop.
When the light dawned the next morning, Carly felt much better because today was Red Bud Isle.
As they weren’t meeting until later in the afternoon, Carly tried to remain focused on work. But the day crawled by. At last, it was time to head in that direction. She just had something she had to do first. Something she didn’t want to do, but had decided she had no choice. She was going to swing by her dad’s house on the way to Red Bud Isle.
She’d made the painful decision last night to ask him for a loan. Just enough to get her through the next few months so that she could feel more confident about signing a lease. She spent the morning rehearsing her speech. She’d never had to borrow money from her parents before, and she was not asking for a small sum. But she intended to pay every cent back, with interest.
Her father’s car was parked in the drive. His yard, unlike her mother’s, was neatly manicured. His house was neat, too, and he’d boasted recently that he’d painted the window trim himself.
Carly and Baxter walked up to his door. She tried to open it, but it was locked. That was weird—he always left the door open. She rang the bell.
It seemed to take a little bit of time before her father opened the door. He stood in the doorway, one hand on the door. “Hello, Peach!”
He was a trim man, a little on the small side. His salt-and-pepper hair was mussed, and his shirt, usually ironed within an inch of its life, was buttoned crooked. “Did you fall asleep in your chair again?” she asked with a laugh, and moved forward, intending to step inside.
But her father didn’t move. “Peach? Now is not a good time.”
Carly laughed a little. “A good time for what?”
His smile was a funny, almost guilty smile.
“Why is this not a good time? Are you sick?”
“No, no, I’m fine. But I’m kind of busy with something.” His smile got weirder. The sort of smile a person wears when they think they know you but can’t place you.
“Another project, or . . . ?”
“Kind of.”
Baxter tried to enter, too, his tail wagging, his attention clearly on something in the house.
“Is it my Christmas present?” she asked, only half joking.
He laughed, too, but really loud and long. “Maybe you could come back later?”
“Come on, Dad, what’s going on? I won’t stay long, but I need to talk to you.”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Is there someone else here?” Carly asked, trying to see past him.
“No.”
She didn’t believe him. “If there is no one here, then there must be a ham on the floor, because Baxter is dying to get to something in there.”
Her father sighed and he sounded very guilty. “I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Carly stepped up then, pushed the door out of her dad’s hand, and walked inside. She immediately saw the woman sitting at the kitchen table in her dad’s shirt, her legs long and sleek and very youthful and stretched out to the chair beside her. She looked as surprised as Carly.
Carly had inadvertently dropped the leash, because Baxter was hustling forward, his tail wagging furiously. The woman—or girl?—said, “Puppy!” and bent over to scratch his ears and the scruff of his neck. “Who’s a good boy. Who’s a good boy,” she said, petting Baxter. Then she looked up and smiled. “You must be Carla! Because of the black hair. Mia is blond, right?”
“It’s . . . it’s Carly, baby,” her father said.
Baby? Everything around Carly began to swim. She put her hand out, expecting to find the wall, but finding nothing but air. She left her hand in midair and watched, dumbfounded, as the girl stood up and walked to the door in a shirt that hardly covered a thing. She extended her hand. “I’m Hannah.”
What was she, sixteen, seventeen? Carly looked at her dad.
“Hannah is my dental hygienist.”
“Was,” Hannah corrected him, and slid her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.
Carly could not absorb this development. It was like a gong clanging in her head that she couldn’t make stop.
“I was going to tell you,” her father said weakly.
That was exactly what her mother had said. Everyone was going to tell her something and no one ever did. “That would have been nice,” Carly managed to choke out. “Okay. Well!” She looked around her, trying to grasp a way out of this. “I guess I’ll talk to you later? So nice to meet you . . .”
“Hannah!” she chirped.
“Hannah,” Carly said. She looked around for Baxter, but he was right there, at her feet, staring up at her and clearly wanting to know what was next. At least Baxter wasn’t going to do anything to upset her applecart. She bent down and grabbed his leash.
“Don’t run off, Peach,” her father said.
“I really can’t stay. Places to go and all that.”
“But . . . you came by for something.”
“Did I?” She laughed, and it sounded a little hysterical, and she kept looking at Hannah from the corner of her eye because she did not want to ogle her, but then again, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Hannah was beautiful. “It was no big deal. Carry on!” she said like a drill sergeant, and with a yank on Baxter’s collar, she scurried down the sidewalk to her car.
She loaded Baxter in, and as she pulled away from the curb, she waved at her father with far more enthusiasm than he deserved and sped down the street to the main road.
By the time she reached Red Bud Isle Dog Park, she had worked herself up into a full head of steam. Her father had texted her. I’ll call you later, Peach. Don’t be upset.
She wasn’t upset. She was . . . God, she didn’t know what she was. Confused? Unnerved? Drifting in and out of reality because everything was suddenly upside down? She tossed her phone onto the passenger seat. She didn’t understand how to pick up all the pieces that seemed to be flaking off of her life. Maybe her mother was right—she still hadn’t really processed the divorce of her parents, two people who had never spoken to each other in anger in all the years they were married. Carly had been completely blindsided by their split. Maybe she still hadn’t really processed losing a job she was really good at. Maybe it was losing one bad client and on the verge of losing another.
And maybe, just maybe, it was simply that everyone in the world was having sex but her. That did not seem remotely fair.
She got out of her car and released Baxter. He raced away from her before she could snap a leash on him—he’d spotted Max and Hazel. Hazel was barking and straining at the end of her lead, eager to see Baxter. Max was leaning up against his car, one leg crossed casually over the other, his hands in his pockets. He smiled at her across the lot, and Carly felt a swirl of so many emotions that she thought she might swoon.
She was suddenly marching across the parking lot before she knew that she was. What did Megan Monroe say? Be bold. Don’t not ask for something because you’re a woman. Because you are a woman, learn to ask for what you want in life.
Okay, well, there was something she wanted.
Max stood up as she neared him. His smile dazzled her, and this was her sun right now, and she was going to bask in it. But his smile turned a little tentative as she got closer. By the time she reached him, he was frowning. He put a hand on her arm. “Is everything okay? You look like you want to punch me.”
“Yes. Well, not really. But I don’t want to punch you,” she said, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies released into her belly and into her bloodstream.
“What is it?” he asked, concerned.
“Everyone—and I do mean everyone, including both parents, my sister, and even Gross Gordon—Gross Gordon! Everyone but me is having sex, Max.
I am playing the spinster in the sitcom of my life, and that is not the part I auditioned for.”
Max appeared startled and maybe even a little alarmed and she thought maybe she’d gone too far. But then his gaze slid down her body and back up, and when his eyes met hers, she saw so much heat in them that she began to tingle.
“What part did you audition for?”
“Seductress. Hot chick number one. Sex goddess.”
His smile turned sultry. “Then you have been horribly miscast, Miss Kennedy, and that’s a problem. I am happy to help, if you think I’m up to it.”
Carly was hoping he would say that. She put her hand on his chest. “Oh, I think you’re up to the challenge, buddy. How soon can you start?”
He pulled her close to him. “We’ll need to work out a few details first,” he said, his gaze on her mouth. “But I think I can start immediately.” He lowered his head. Her arms slid up around his neck, and Max hugged her tightly to him and kissed her.
He didn’t press into her or shove his tongue down her throat like she thought she wanted him to do. His kiss was so easy and ethereal that she had to hang on to his neck lest she melt into a pool at his feet. This was a prelude, a promise of things to come. He casually slipped his tongue into her mouth, like he’d been there all along, and she could feel some very potent sexual desire beginning to bubble, thick as molasses, gooey and warm and sticking to every part of her.
He continued to kiss her so reverently, and yet with so much passion, that every bit of female in her was kindled, ready and willing to explode into a rainbow of pleasure. His hand moved down her hip, his fingers squeezing into her flesh, pressing her into his body. It felt as if the clouds parted and the sun beamed down, and a team of angels gathered their harps and lutes and played the music of lust above their heads.
And then one of the bassets stuck his nose in her butt.
Carly let out a yelp.
Max didn’t seem fazed. He grinned, brushed his palm across her cheek to move her hair from her face, and said, in a voice so deep and sexy that she felt in danger of orgasming, “But first, we need to walk the dogs.”
Fourteen
There was some discussion about whose house they would go to as they walked along the path. They decided on Max’s place, although Carly was at first reluctant. “What if something crawls out of your kitchen while we’re not looking?”
“Is that a libido killer?”
“And future grounds for divorce.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Well . . .” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles like a proper Jane Austen character, then whispered, “I cleaned the kitchen. I even mopped.”
“Oh. Oh.” Her heart sprouted wings. “Max . . . you have no idea how turned on I am right now.”
“I’m hoping you’ll show me later.”
They strolled dopily behind the dogs, hand in hand, smiling at each other like they were in a Cialis commercial. “How long do we have to walk these dogs?” she asked.
“Just long enough to trick them into thinking they’ve had their walk.”
“And then?”
“And then I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Okay. But seriously, it’s a little hard to meander along now that I’ve thrown down the gauntlet.”
He laughed. “Then, madam, allow me to pick up the gauntlet and hurry things along.” He whistled at the dogs, and they both obediently loped back. Max bent down to attach their leashes, then with a smile that shot right into her groin, held out his hand for her. “Come on. You’ve got a sitcom to star in.”
She slipped her hand into his. “Did I really say that?”
“You really did.” He squeezed her hand. “And it was a huge turn-on.”
Her blood couldn’t run any hotter. It was a good thing that they were leaving the dog park, because Carly was on the verge of asking Max to talk about the hippocampal region or something like it to bring her back to earth.
* * *
Max was standing in the open door of his house when she arrived just a few minutes behind him. She quickly checked herself out in the rearview mirror, took a deep breath, and opened the car door. She was not the sort of person to brazenly propose sex like she had, so this was all new territory for her. Was she supposed to take the lead now? Maybe it was her mother’s insistence on regaling her with tales of her sexual liberation. Or maybe because she was just that horny. She had a real thing for this guy, and she felt empowered and ready. Tomorrow, she could wonder about the new person inhabiting her skin. At present, she was too tingly to think straight.
She let Baxter out of the back seat, and he raced for the door like he lived here. She followed like she did not live here. Max smiled and opened the door wider. She ducked under his arm and walked into the living room.
He hadn’t been kidding—the kitchen was sparkling clean. So was the rest of the house. She put her bag aside and looked at Max.
“Shall I make something to eat?” he suggested.
“Maybe later.”
One dark brow rose. “Okay, then. Let me, ah . . . let me just take care of those two.”
She nodded. A thought suddenly occurred to her—what if he was bad at this? What if she’d made this grand show of wanting sex with him and he left her unsatisfied? What if she was bad at this?
“If you want, you can freshen up. My room is just down the hall.”
Did she need to freshen up? Did he think she needed to freshen up? Okay, stop. Stooooppp. One could not be sexually liberated and then suddenly worry about her hygiene.
“It’s clean,” he said, as if that was the cause of her hesitation. He smiled and toggled his hand from side to side. “Mostly.” And then he turned and walked into the kitchen, whistling for the dogs. Like this was no big deal. Like it was perfectly natural for a woman to ask him to have sex with her.
Well, here went nothing. Carly turned on her heel and walked down the hall.
There were three bedrooms, two of them connected by a bathroom. But at the end of the hall she could see a queen-size bed, covered neatly with a dark blue spread. On a dresser was a tray that held a lot of guy things: loose change, a wristwatch, some receipts. There was a picture on the wall, too, an impressionist painting of a sunset over an ocean. She leaned over to have a look at the artist’s name. Jamie. The painting was gorgeous. He really was very talented. A stray thought popped into her head—she could get these paintings noticed, unlike Gordon’s dumb circles. There was definitely a market for this kind of art.
She moved to the windows and looked through the blinds. Max’s view was of a lush backyard with raised beds. It faced east, and she imagined how the morning sun streamed in through the windows.
Carly turned back to the room. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it on top of some joggers he’d draped across a chair. She kicked off her shoes, then climbed on top of the bed.
Her instinct told her to arrange herself to look appealing. She tried a couple of poses, but she didn’t have the skill or the personality to pull off a wanton look. Knowing her luck, she would probably appear to have indigestion rather than sex appeal. So she ended up cross-legged, her hands digging into her thighs to quell her nerves.
She heard him walking down the hall toward her and her heart began to pound in time to his footfalls.
Max walked into the room and paused at the threshold, looking at her on the bed.
“I’m supposed to look sexy,” she said, gesturing to herself.
“Mission accomplished.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “You’re kind of gorgeous, actually.”
The heat of his compliment scorched her cheeks. “That’s flattery,” she said, pointing at him. “And it works great.”
He grinned. “Not flattery. Just
truth.” He shut the door behind him.
“What about the dogs?”
“They are comfortably arranged on the couch with Dog TV and some peanut butter bones,” he said as he moved to the foot of the bed.
“Treats on the couch?” She gave a playful grimace.
“Let it go, Carly,” he said with a grin.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked as he leaned over and braced both hands against the foot of the bed.
“I have protection.” His eyes moved over her body.
Carly hadn’t even gotten that far—that’s how awkward she was with this sort of thing, her initial proposition notwithstanding. “I . . . I was going to ask if you’re nervous.”
Max lifted his gaze to consider her. “A little. Are you?”
“I am. But not because I’m not raring to go.” She smiled but realized that sounded like she wanted it fast and furious. She didn’t want it fast and furious, she wanted it all. “I mean, after a suitable buildup.” And that sounded like she was going to judge his buildup. “Wait. This is coming out all wrong. I mean, I am not usually asking guys to, um . . .” Fuck her? Because that was exactly what she’d asked. But this felt so different from that. This felt like it could truly be the beginning of something. Like it went beyond a physical need. “I mean, you know, building to the big . . .” She tried frantically to think of how to end that sentence without making this less sexy than she already had.
“O,” Max mercifully finished for her.
“Something like that,” she muttered.
He crawled on all fours onto the end of the bed, his gaze locked on hers. “I have to thank you for working yourself into a lather about this, Carly. It’s made me less nervous.” He grinned. “If you were superconfident, I’d probably be a wreck.”
“Right?” she said, nodding fervently. “I’m really bad at this. I mean, not this,” she said, patting the bed. “But this,” she said, gesturing between them.