Tempted

by Megan Hart

  “Yeah, so instead of taking Mom somewhere fun, he’s doing what?” My words were critical but I was careful to keep from sounding bitter.

  “He’s spending a lot of time in his workshop.” Claire wasn’t as careful. She didn’t bother to hide her expression, either, the curled lip and wrinkled nose.

  That was never good. Our father had two hobbies. Bowling and making birdhouses. His team was one of the top in the league, and he made beautifully detailed replicas of famous buildings as birdhouses. Sadly, neither hobby seemed to bring him as much joy as the drinking that accompanied both.

  “I can’t believe he’s never cut off a fucking finger or something,” Claire said.

  “Claire, God. Don’t wish for that.”

  “Right. Because then Mom would just have to wait on him even more,” my sister said.

  She stabbed melon and ate it. I reached for a piece myself. It was sweet and good, and juice ran down my chin. We giggled as I wiped it.

  The soft pad of bare feet on the wood floor made us both turn. Alex wandered into the kitchen. His hair stuck up, rumpled all over. He wore a pair of Hello Kitty pajama bottoms that hung even lower than his jeans had, and again bare feet. When had the sight of a man’s toes become so erotic?

  He disappeared behind the open door of the fridge as he rootled inside for something, coming out with a plastic container of leftover steak and rice. He popped off the lid and put the bowl in the microwave, set the timer and poured himself a mug of coffee, all without so much as a smirk in our direction.

  He’d obviously been saving it for when he could give us his full attention. When the timer beeped he pulled out the food and, mug in hand, swaggered to the table and took the empty seat next to Claire. He looked from her to me and back again, then sipped his coffee. He made a long, low noise of enjoyment.

  “Mmmmmmm,” he said. “Coffee.”

  I’ve been known to be at a loss for words, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Claire so gobsmacked. We both stared, our mouths agape, at the entire proceedings. Having the advantage of already having met him, I recovered first.

  “Claire, this is Alex Kennedy. James’s friend. Alex, this is my sister Claire.”

  “Hello, darlin’.” Alex gave her a slow, lazy grin and checked her out from head to toe without trying to hide the examination. He even leaned to the side to look at her feet.

  “Sweet shoes,” he said as he returned to his full and upright position.

  “Nice pants,” Claire said.

  Alex grinned. So did Claire. I just shook my head.

  Alex swiveled his gaze to me. “And good morning to you.”

  “It’s almost three o’clock,” I told him.

  He sipped coffee. “Jet lag.”

  Claire leaned in and gave him a sniff. “Sure it’s not hangover?”

  “Could be a bit of that, too. Jamie make it off to work all right this morning?”

  “He did.” I sipped my own coffee, which had become cool.

  “James was boozing last night, too?” Claire made a face. “Interesting.”

  “Alex cooked us all dinner,” I explained. “There was…wine. And beer.”

  I’ve never banned drinking from my house. We’re all grownups, and just because I don’t indulge doesn’t mean I have a problem with anyone having a glass of wine or beer with dinner.

  “Interesting” was all my sister said to that. She shoved the melon toward Alex. “Here.”

  “Why is that so interesting?” I demanded. It was the same thing Alex had said, almost.

  Claire shrugged. Alex let out a small, conspiratorial chuckle. I wasn’t happy the two of them seemed to be ganging up on me, especially since while Claire might feel mistakenly entitled to judge me, Alex didn’t know me well enough to have that right.

  “Have you talked to Patricia lately?”

  Leave it to Claire to change a subject she didn’t want to discuss.

  “No. Should I?”

  Claire gave an artless shrug. “I dunno. Maybe. I think we need to kidnap her.”

  I gave Alex a glance, not sure I wanted this conversation to continue. It sounded like it was going to touch on private issues. He dug into his plate of leftovers.

  “Kidnap?” he said around a mouthful of steak and rice. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Our sister Patricia’s married to a big asshole.”

  “Claire!”

  “What? He is. Sean’s been an ass lately, Anne, you know it, too.” To Alex, she said, “She needs to get out away from her kids for a night. Besides—” back to me “—we’ve got to get together again to talk about the party.”

  “You’re having a party?” Alex looked interested and stabbed another bite of steak.

  “For my parents. My sisters and I are planning it for August. It’s their wedding anniversary.”

  “The Four Musketeers,” Claire put in.

  “More like the Four Stooges,” I said.

  Alex swallowed his food and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I have three sisters, too.”

  I’d known he had sisters. Just not how many. “Really?”

  “Poor you,” said Claire. “Your house must have been one big fucking PMS bitchfest growing up. But I guess that explains your taste in pajamas.”

  They laughed together, leaving me out.

  “Where’d you get those, anyway?” Claire tilted her head much like he’d done earlier to peruse her outfit.

  “A friend bought them for me.”

  “A girlfriend?” She reached over and snagged a bit of steak off his plate while I watched, appalled and half-envious at her easy manner.

  “No.”

  “Boyfriend?” She grinned.

  Alex grinned, too. “No.”

  “Tell me it was your mumsy, and I’ll have to barf.”

  “Claire, God, what’s with the third degree?” I glared at her. She rolled her eyes at me.

  “Oh, Anne, lighten up. Dude’s got on girl pajama bottoms and looks like sex on a stick. I’d like to know who bought them for him.”

  Alex smirked and pushed away from the table. He took his plate to the dishwasher and refilled his coffee mug. I exchanged glares and “I don’t know what the big deal is” looks with Claire.

  “It was a lover.” He lifted his mug toward Claire. “It happened to be my birthday. Hello Kitty amuses me.”

  Claire gave him a thumbs-up, but his answer didn’t sit right with me.

  “A lover isn’t a girlfriend?”

  He looked at me, but it was Claire who answered. “Oh, Anne. C’mon.”

  I gave her a look she couldn’t misinterpret. “C’mon, what?”

  She shook her head. “A lover isn’t a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It’s someone you’re fucking.”

  I looked at Alex for confirmation. He didn’t say anything, but his lack of answer was confirmation enough. He watched me over the rim of his coffee cup.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “I guess I’m just out of the loop.”

  “Don’t worry, big sissy,” said Claire, getting up to pat me fondly on the shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about it, anyway.”

  She gave me a squeeze. “I’m going to the mall. I heard that new boutique’s looking for help.”

  “You’re actually going to get a job?” I wasn’t being sarcastic. I was genuinely surprised.

  Claire scowled. “Yeah, well, having no money sucks. So does living at home. I’ve got one more semester of school and until I can get a real job or qualify for an internship, I guess working at the mall is the best I can do. Unless I meet up with some handsome sugar daddy who’ll support me in the manner to which I’d like to grow accustomed.”

  She turned and batted her eyelashes at Alex whose sultry return stare made me want to turn on the ceiling fan. “You got someone in mind, darlin’?”

  Claire laughed. “You offering?”

  He was a flirt. She was a flirt. I knew that about both of them, and yet watching him make goo-g
oo eyes at my sister sent a barbed arrow of jealousy straight through me.

  “I’m not sure I’m in the market for a love slave,” said Alex, his tone intimating he was, in fact, looking for exactly that. “What are your qualifications?”

  “I’d tell you, but my sister’s in the room. We might burn her ears.”

  That sultry stare shifted my way. “I bet she can handle it.”

  Claire held up her hands, laughing. “Ew, ew. Ew. Dude. So not going there. Okay? Anne, I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow. Alex, nice meeting you. I’m outties.”

  She sauntered past him, reaching out to flick the end of the tie at his waist. “Your lover had good taste.”

  Then she let herself out the back door, leaving Alex and me alone in the kitchen. He lounged in my kitchen like he’d always been there. On the one hand I was glad he felt enough at home to act that way. On the other…well, on the other he looked a little too much like he belonged in my house, and I wasn’t at all sure I wanted him there.

  “So,” he said when the door slammed, “that was your sister.”

  “That was my sister.” I got up. “We’re not very much alike.”

  “You don’t think so?” He stepped aside to let me put my mug in the sink. “I see a resemblance.”

  “I didn’t mean the way we look.”

  There we were, dancing again, and I straightened, determined not to let this rattle me. I held out my hand for his mug, which he handed me, and I put that in the sink, too. He leaned back against the counter again.

  Sleep rumpled hair. Nipples like two copper coins against skin the color of expensive linen writing paper. Small tufts of hair beneath his arms and a thin line of the same starting just below his belly button and disappearing into the waist of his cartoon-printed drawers.

  Damn it.

  “It’s Friday,” he said, and I tore myself away from my mental cataloging of his body.

  “Yes?”

  He smiled, and though I tried not to let myself be sucked up into it, I failed. Miserably.

  “A friend of mine’s DJing at a club in Cleveland. Let’s go tonight.”

  I hadn’t been dancing in ages. James and I went to dinner and the movies, and he sometimes went out for wings at the local sports bar, but dancing…

  “I’d love to. It’ll be fun.”

  “More than fun,” Alex said. “It’ll be fan-fucking-tastic.”

  Chapter 08

  From the outside the club looked no different from the rest of the industrial buildings lining the block. Some of them had been turned into luxury apartment complexes and condos. The rest had been transformed into nighttime hot spots.

  The line of people waiting to get in reminded me of an amusement park queue, though here the people themselves were the entertainment. Most wore black. Leather. Vinyl. Spandex. Many of them wore sunglasses, even though it was night.

  “Should I be wearing a garlic necklace?” I muttered to James, who laughed.

  We didn’t have to wait in line. Alex flashed a card and mentioned the name of his DJ friend, and we were waved immediately inside to an almost pitch-black anteroom. At one end was an arched alcove flanked by two burly, bald men dressed in black and wearing the obligatory sunglasses. Inside the alcove, floor-to-ceiling hooks and racks held what I hoped were fake weapons.

  “Guns. We need lots of guns,” said Alex with a laugh.

  “Welcome to Wonderland,” said a voice from just inside the door. “Care to take the red pill?”

  The voice belonged to a very tall man in full drag regalia, including two-inch-long eyelashes and glittering red lipstick. He looked like a cross between Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a character from The Matrix. Which, I suddenly realized, the club was supposed to represent.

  “I thought it was Wonderland like Alice,” I said. “Boy, do I feel stupid.”

  Our “hostess” chortled. “Don’t eat any mushrooms inside, honey. Ooh, look at the three of you! Thing One, Thing Two and Miss Thing!”

  Alex, who was already handing her a couple of bills from his wallet, grinned. “You like?”

  “Mmmhmm,” she said. “Bookends. Can you handle them, Miss Thing? Because if you can’t, I’d be happy to step in and offer a…hand.”

  Her leer suggested just what sort of hand she’d like to offer. I laughed, not sure what to say. I hadn’t paid attention until just now that Alex and James had dressed a lot alike. White T-shirts and black pants, though Alex’s were leather and came with a studded black belt. Both had slicked back their hair, and in this weird lighting the difference in color wasn’t as easy to see. Similar though not identical in height and build, they did look like bookends.

  “She can handle us,” said Alex when I didn’t answer. “But we’ll keep that in mind.”

  The hostess handed Alex three red tickets. “Take these to the bar, sweetie. And I’ll hold you to that. You come find me if you need anything, you hear? N. E. Thing.”

  That was, I realized, her name. She blew us a kiss as we walked toward the alcove and the guards.

  “No weapons in the club,” one said, and if the weapons on display were just for show, they were utterly serious in patting us down.

  “That’s more action than I’ve had in months.” Alex nudged James with his elbow.

  “Have a good time,” said the other guard.

  They stepped aside, and we pulled open the large, ornately carved double doors and went inside the club itself.

  It really was Wonderland. Outside in the antechamber it had been dark and fairly quiet, the benefit of superb soundproofing. Once we opened the doors, however, the heavy thumping bass was enough to pound the pulse in my wrists and throat, to reverberate in the pit of my stomach. Flashing lasers bisected the multiple dance floors. There were cages in which scantily clad figures writhed, and raised platforms where more of the same gyrated. It took me a second to figure out these weren’t paid performers, but regular club-goers taking their turns on display.

  “Let’s go get some drinks!” James shouted in my ear. “The bar!”

  Alex was already heading that way. He held out his hand without looking to see which one of us grabbed it. James did, then grabbed mine, and we made a chain through the crowd toward one of the three bars set up around the club’s outer walls.

  “Don’t waste a ticket on my drink,” I told James. “Just get me a soda.”

  Alex had already ordered, two rounded glasses of something red, and a squat glass of brown fizzy cola. “Cheers,” he leaned over to say into my ear with a tickling whisper. “Drink up, Miss Thing.”

  “What do you guys have?”

  “They’re called Red Pills,” said Alex. “Want one?”

  James sipped his and let out a little oof. “What the hell’s in this?”

  “Vodka, grenadine and cranberry juice.” Alex grinned. “Anne, you want one?”

  “No.” I held up a hand. “I can smell it from here.”

  Their identical smiles disturbed me less than before, maybe because here with the music pounding away at us nothing seemed too important. Maybe because they both looked so handsome. More likely was that they both were directed at me.

  Alex tossed back his drink and put the glass on the bar. James followed suit. Not wanting to be left behind I finished my drink, too, though the carbonation sank directly to my stomach and wanted to lift itself right away. I stifled a burp with the back of my hand, not that anyone could have heard it over the music.

  “Let’s dance!” Alex pointed toward a small section of the floor less crowded than the others. Again, he held out his hand, this time grabbing mine. I grabbed James.

  We hit the dance floor just as a remix of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” began its distinctive beat. The crowd surged around us, bouncing, wiggling. Grinding. Clusters of dancers joined and broke apart, making starfish patterns. Couples and triples moved in unison. The entire atmosphere had gone feral. I’d joked earlier about wearing garlic, but looking at some of these
people, I really expected to see fangs.

  I didn’t worry about it, though. Snugged up between James to the front of me and Alex to the rear, not even a blood-sucker could’ve reached me. It really was fan-fucking-tastic.

  I’d danced with James at weddings and holiday parties and sometimes in our living room. A few times we’d gone out to clubs but had never been to a place like Wonderland. So, though I’d danced with him before, we’d never really…danced. Not like this. Not this undulating, rocking, fucking with our clothes on.

  James put a knee between my thighs, his hands on my hips. Behind me, Alex at first kept a bare distance, but as the music kept coming and the crowd kept growing, he moved closer until he was as tight against me in the back as James was in the front. Alex put his hands on my hips, too, just above James’s.

  Me, I had to do nothing but let them both move me. They found a rhythm, somehow. Something that worked for three. One pushed as the other pulled, keeping perfect time.

  If I’ve had more fun in one night, I can’t tell you when it was. With two gorgeous men pulling me onto the dance floor, bumping and grinding, one in the front and one in the back, I’d have had to be dead not to enjoy myself. Laughing, I looked at my husband. Grinning, he bent to kiss me.

  No sweet, gentle peck, either—a full-blown, mouth open, tongue-searching kiss. He’d always been affectionate, hugging or holding hands in public. But I couldn’t remember him ever French-kissing me in front of other people. I’d have been embarrassed if a dozen other people around us hadn’t been doing the very same thing.

  I should’ve felt more awkward about being ground like coffee by my husband’s friend, and if James had shown any sign that it bothered him, I’d have stopped. Not only did James not seem to mind, he pulled me closer, which moved Alex closer. Their hands slid together on my sides and then…they linked. Their fingers tangled, thumbs pressing my back and belly. Against my back I felt the chill kiss of Alex’s belt buckle as the hem of my shirt rode up. Against my front, James’s thumbs stroked along my bared belly.

  Everything was heat and sweat, bump ’n’ grind. Stroke and sigh. The music changed to something with a more Latin beat, sensual, urging hips to shake. James let go of one of my hips to cup the back of my neck. He tugged the clip holding up my hair. Kinky curls tumbled down around my shoulders, and he stroked his fingers through them for one moment, making them frame my face.