But is it enough?
He pulled back slightly. “You tired?”
“No,” she admitted. She’d had a venti latte at four o’clock with the expectation of a late night.
“Come home with me.”
She let out a little laugh. “I could have sworn I just told you—”
“Not for that, pervert,” he said with a wink. “You owe me a rematch.”
“A . . . what?”
“Chess,” he said, pushing the elevator button again with his finger, holding her hand with the other. “I keep a board set up in my living room.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her closer. “Unless you’ve had too many drinks. Worried your skills might be compromised?”
Kate’s eyes narrowed. “I’m mostly sober, but for the record, I could checkmate your ass even if I’d outdrank Lara and Gabby tonight.”
He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. “Prove it.”
27
Saturday, May 25
Kate headed up the bishop she’d just captured and waggled it at Kennedy. “What’s it to be, Dawson?”
Kennedy stood, and her mouth went dry at the sight of his bare, tanned six-pack. He held her gaze as his hand went to his belt and paused.
She licked her lips.
Then he removed the belt. Just the belt. His pants stayed on.
He sat as he tossed it to the ground alongside his shoes, socks, and shirt. “Can I just say, strip chess is one of the better ideas I’ve ever had.”
“Says the man who’s losing.”
“Says the man who has more clothes to lose than you do,” Kennedy said, letting his gaze drop purposely to her bra-covered breasts.
Her nipples tightened in response, but Kate pretended to ignore them, and him, as she studied the board. It was true, though. She was winning the chess game, but he was winning on the naked front. Had she known her evening would take this turn when she was getting dressed, she’d have opted for something other than a dress. She’d have gone with pants. Socks. Cardigan. Camisole. Maybe two camisoles. Scarf. Parka.
“Your turn,” she said, pretending a bored tone.
Kennedy took his time, reaching for his whiskey and taking a sip. Studying her, studying the board. Finally reaching for a pawn. Pulling back at the last minute. He moved his queen, and she winced as he slowly, purposefully picked up her knight.
They’d agreed that captured pawns didn’t warrant a lost item of clothing—only the bigger players. Like the knight.
He slowly lifted his eyebrows in challenge, but he didn’t gloat. He didn’t have to. They both knew that after losing her strappy sandals and her dress, she had only two items of clothing left:
Bra. Panties.
She reached out and picked up his glass, taking a sip of his whiskey for courage. He’d seen all of her bits already. She knew that. But it was one thing to be naked in the heat of the moment, another to sit across a table from a man naked—or at least mostly naked.
She sat up as inspiration struck. “Do earrings count?”
His gaze lifted briefly to the small silver hoops in her ears. “If you need them to.”
Damn. It was both the right and wrong answer. Had he said no, she’d have relished insisting that they did count. Instead, he left the ball in her court, left the decision up to her. She could play it safe, take out an earring in hopes that he’d make more missteps in the game than she would and end up naked first, or . . .
She could prove to him that being naked in front of him didn’t faze her in the least. That it was just naked, not vulnerable.
Kate reached under the table for the waist of her coral underwear. Not her prettiest, but at least they weren’t embarrassing.
“Bottoms first?” he said, sounding surprised.
She flashed him a cheeky grin, faking bravado she didn’t feel. “I’ll be sitting down. You can’t see under the table. If I were to take the bra off . . .” She waved her hand at chest level. “Boobs all over the place.”
His gaze heated and flared for a second before his eyes drifted downward to where her hands had started to ease off the bikini-cut panties. “Coward.”
Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“This is the second strip show tonight I’ve been robbed of seeing. That hardly seems fair.”
Naked. Not vulnerable.
“Well, we can’t have that,” Kate said, her bravado a little less faked this time as she slowly stood. Once more her hands went to her waist, watching the way his gaze tracked the motion. The way his fingers clenched around the knight piece still in his palm as her thumbs slipped beneath the elastic.
Kate pulled them down to midthigh, then did a tiny shimmy, letting them fall the rest of the way, fluttering to the carpet at her feet. She kicked them aside.
She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she heard Kennedy swallow.
“Well, then. I guess that makes it my turn,” she said primly. Kate started to move back toward her chair when Kennedy’s fingers closed around her wrist.
He yanked her forward, and a second later, she was on his lap—straddling his lap.
“Kennedy!” She wiggled, jostling the chessboard in the process. His hands found her bare waist, holding her still.
“You had to know,” he said as his lips found her neck, “there was no chance I wasn’t reaching for you.”
Kate’s head fell back with a moan as his mouth moved down her chest, and she admitted to herself that she had known. That no matter what she told Sabrina about getting him out of her system, she’d wanted him from the very second he’d walked through Lara’s door tonight.
Way before that.
His mouth skimmed over her bra, his tongue licking her nipple through the lace. She whimpered, and his hands went to her bra clasp.
“Wait,” she managed around a gasp. “This is cheating.”
He stilled, his cheek pressed between her breasts, breathing hard. “What?”
“It’s breaking the rules,” she said, nodding to the chessboard. “You haven’t earned the loss of my bra. And I have to capture another piece before you lose your pants.” Her hand slid down over the clothing item in question, and she pressed her palm to his hardness.
Kennedy groaned harshly. “I forfeit.”
“I don’t accept,” she whispered, caressing him. “I like rules.”
What she liked even more was prolonging this, ever aware that each encounter between them could and should be the last, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for that.
Kate started to pull off him, intending to finish the game, but Kennedy had other ideas. One hand cupped her butt firmly, holding her against him, the other pulling her face down for a kiss.
She sank into it. Sank into him, letting her lips and tongue communicate all of the things she didn’t know how to say, even to herself.
“I’ll follow your rules,” he said against her lips. “But I’ll play on my terms.”
She pulled back slightly in confusion. “What—”
He hooked a finger into the front cup of her lace bra and held her gaze as he tugged it down. Then his head dipped, capturing her nipple in his mouth with a firm suck.
Her back arched, her hands coming to his head, as his fingers pulled down the cup on the other side, a little rougher this time, and licked that nipple as well. Back and forth he went, and somewhere through the haze of passion, she realized his game. Their strip-chess rules dictated her bra and his pants stayed on.
Technically.
His mouth returned to hers, kissing her passionately as her hands found the button of his pants. She unfastened them, he groaned his encouragement, and together they wrangled his pants and briefs down but not off.
Kate looked down her body, taking in the strangely erotic sight of her breasts spilling over the top of her bra, his pants bunched around his thighs. Her fingers wrapped around him. Stroked.
“Yes,” he growled.
She did it again, and he rewarded her with a lick at her nipple, a thumb on her clit. With torturing, teasing hands, they brought each other to the brink, his eyes on hers the entire time, until finally, when they couldn’t take any more, he wrestled a condom out of his wallet. She didn’t care that it was cliché he carried it with him, didn’t know if he always did or just since they’d started hooking up, and she didn’t care.
Correction, she didn’t want to care. But it was darn hard when he lifted his eyes to her, his gaze dark and intense as he brushed her hair away from her face in a tender gesture that belied their frantic fumbling from moments before.
Kate held her breath, pausing for a drawn-out moment, trying to reclaim her heartbeat. Trying to reclaim her heart.
The realization caused a ripple of fear, and she reached for him, positioning him at the entrance of her body before sinking down, slamming her eyes shut as she did so. He murmured her name, a question on his lips, but she shook her head, her hips moving urgently over his.
Kennedy hesitated a moment longer, then his body made the decision for him, hands greedily moving over her as he lifted her, then pulled her down again, his hips slamming up to meet hers in a furious coupling.
He maneuvered his hand between their bodies, his fingers rubbing just above the spot where they were joined. She cried out, and he joined her at the precipice, thrusting into her hard at the exact moment she clenched around him.
Her orgasm was as turbulent as it was satisfying, and, too weak to do anything else when it was over, she slumped against his shoulder, her breath coming in near sobs.
She’d wanted fast and furious, and she’d gotten it. No tender lovemaking here, just good old-fashioned, no-strings screwing.
But as her heart rate slowed and her breath ceased coming in gasps, she registered . . . him.
The way his arm wrapped around her possessively, his other hand running over her hair in a caress meant to comfort. She felt a single tear run out of the corner of her eye and knew from the way his hand froze for a moment that he felt it hit his shoulder.
But then he resumed his gentle stroking and didn’t ask why she was crying.
She suspected that she didn’t have an answer. Not even for herself.
28
Saturday, June 8
Two weeks later
“You nervous?” Kennedy asked.
It was a rhetorical question. Ian had been pacing around the dedicated “groom’s room” for a solid twenty-three minutes now.
“You know what? Why don’t we revisit that question when you get married, see how you like it,” Ian snapped, putting both hands on top of his head and taking a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m on edge.”
“No worries,” Kennedy said placatingly. He’d had plenty of friends and a brother get married. This wasn’t his first rodeo.
Though he purposely ignored Ian’s mention of his own wedding. Partially because it was hardly the time, but also because that day was seeming a long way off lately.
Kennedy was trying like hell not to get depressed by that fact.
“I was terrified at mine,” Matt said from where he sat backward on a chair, his casual posture completely at odds with his groomsman tux.
“We know,” Kennedy said. “You barfed on your tie. I gave you mine.”
Matt saluted him with his bottle of water. “Thanks for that. Don’t know that Sabrina would have loved me wearing one from the hotel gift shop. Though What Happens in Vegas would have been great in the photos, right?”
“I’m not going to puke.” Ian stopped pacing long enough to pull a curtain aside and look out the window. “I don’t think.”
Kennedy batted his hand away. “Knock it off. You’re not supposed to see the bride.”
“She’s not out there.” Ian glanced at the guys. “Is she? I thought the girls were getting ready in the master bedroom upstairs.”
“They are, but she’s got to come down at some point to get in place for the processional.”
“Processional?” Ian looked at Kennedy.
“Or, you know, whatever. The march.”
“Dude, don’t call it a march,” Matt said, crumpling up his bottle and tossing it in the trash. “Ian, you’ve got to breathe through your nose. Kennedy’s going to be mad if he has to give you his bow tie.”
“Not really,” Kennedy said. “I brought a spare. Big thanks to Lara for letting us wear standard black bow ties instead of having to wear pink, or lavender, or whatever color dresses the bridesmaids are wearing.”
“Champagne,” Ian said, tugging at his collar. “The dress color is apparently champagne.”
Kennedy actually knew that. He’d seen it hanging in Kate’s bedroom earlier that week. Though at the time he’d been so damn relieved that she was letting him in, he hadn’t given two shits about the dress.
“Breathe,” Matt said again. “In less than an hour the hard part will be over, and you’ll get a drink, probably some sort of bacon-wrapped scallop deal, and you’ll get to kiss your girl every time someone clinks on a glass, which will be a lot.”
“I want to kiss her now.”
“Yeah, well, then you should have eloped instead of having a big fancy wedding in the Hamptons,” Kennedy countered.
Though, truth be told, it was shaping up to be a damn good wedding. The house they’d rented as their “bridal-party headquarters” was spacious and air-conditioned. The hotel where the guests were staying was walking distance from the beach where the ceremony would take place. And though Kate had insisted they rent a tent in case of rain, there was nothing but blue skies and sunshine.
Kennedy was happy for his friends. Elated. And if he were a tad jealous, he’d deal with that later.
There was a quick knock at the door, and the wedding planner, a pretty, smiley blonde named Brooke, stuck her head in. “You guys ready?”
Ian stepped toward her, his gaze slightly manic. “Is Lara ready? Have you seen her? How is she?”
Brooke smiled, unperturbed by his rapid-fire interrogation. “She’s ready and eager to become Mrs. Bradley.”
Just like that, Ian’s shoulders relaxed, and his face broke into its usual easy smile. “All right, then. Let’s do this.”
Kennedy wouldn’t admit it to a soul, but he liked weddings. Liked them even more when he was able to stand beside his best friend, offering his support on the most important day of Ian’s life thus far.
Liked them best of all when the woman who had completely consumed his every thought for the past few months was coming down the aisle toward him.
It wasn’t his wedding. Kennedy knew that, obviously. But for one heart-stopping moment when Kate appeared and began her walk down the aisle, he imagined an entirely different situation—her walking toward him, not as a bridesmaid walking in the general direction of where the groomsmen stood but Kate walking toward Kennedy, bride to groom.
She looked beautiful. The dress was a shimmering light-bronze color, strapless and fitted up top, full and flowing down to her knees. Her hair was back in a simple knot that suited her small features perfectly, and when her eyes lifted to his just for a moment, Kennedy’s breath caught.
Mine. She was his.
Kate took her place on the opposite side of the pastor, turning toward the aisle and smiling at Sabrina, who was following behind her in a matching dress. Kennedy shifted just slightly back so he could keep Kate in his line of sight.
It was only the change in music announcing Lara’s arrival that dragged Kennedy’s gaze away from Kate. He smiled, not only at the radiant bride in a simple white gown but at the dopey grin on Ian’s face.
“My eyes are definitely not watering,” Matt whispered for Kennedy’s ears only.
“Ditto,” Kennedy said out of the corner of his mouth, relieved that his weren’t the only eyes stinging with the threat of happy tears.
Lara reached the end of the aisle, pausing to hug her father, a tough-as-shit FBI agent whose usual scowl was nowhere in sight as he kiss
ed his daughter’s cheek and handed her off to Ian.
Kennedy’s gaze caught on Kate once more as Lara stepped into place beside Ian, and he felt his heart crack at the expression on her face. Her eyes were wide and full of tears, but she wasn’t looking at Lara and Ian. Her eyes were on Lara’s father as he took his place in the front row beside Lara’s mother.
He knew that it was hitting her then, and hitting her hard, that her father would never be there for this moment in her life.
Oh, Kate.
Her bottom lip wobbled, and it took all of his self-control not to step toward her. Hang in there, love.
Kennedy was endlessly grateful for Sabrina in that moment. The other woman had noticed Kate’s distress and set a hand on her upper arm. Kate touched Sabrina’s hand with a grateful smile, then inhaled and turned her attention back to the bride and groom.
He didn’t. He kept his gaze on Kate, willing her to look at him. To lean on him, just a little.
She didn’t look his way the entire ceremony.
And even as one part of his heart soared for these two friends who’d just exchanged vows, another part of his heart broke.
Because he knew what he’d just witnessed: Kate Henley had shut down entirely, shutting him out in the process. For good.
29
Saturday, June 8
“Okay, if you’re not going to do something, I will.”
Kennedy didn’t look up from where he stared at his untouched champagne on the table. “Sabrina. You look stunning.”
“Save it,” she said, dropping into the chair beside him. “What are you doing over here?”
He flicked his gaze at her. “You thought I’d be doing the chicken dance?”
“That’s the Macarena. You can tell, because Matt’s right in the middle of it.” She pointed to where Matt was dancing his heart out, standing in between a laughing Ian and Lara, as they all did some ridiculous dance with their hands that Kennedy had maybe learned at one time but couldn’t be bothered at the moment to remember.
“What is going on?” Sabrina said, leaning closer to him. “Did you and Kate get in a fight?”
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