by Lindsey Hart
LEXI: Sorry for waking you up. Love you too, sis.
SAM: Are you there? Boxers! Yummy male V thing. Washboard abs. Muscly goodness. Tell me you’re not awake because you’re drowning in your own drool. I know you. I know you’ve always been busy putting out fires when it comes to TFB. He’s SO FREAKING HOT! You have eyes too. Tell me you don’t.
LEXI: I have eyes. I see it. He might be built like a statue humped another perfect statue and made a baby statue, but frick. Everything else about him pretty much ruins the hotness. It’s like he shits all over himself.
SAM: I’d still do him, shit smeared or not. I’m kidding. That’s not my kink. Sorry, not sorry. I’m kind of not kidding.
LEXI: FREAKING GROSS! NO, NO, NO, THAT IS JUST FREAKING WRONG
SAM: Sorry. I mean, kind of. Also, still not really. He’s hot. I can’t help it. My ovaries hurt just thinking about him.
LEXI: There’s a man passed out on your floor. Think about him.
SAM: Didn’t realize it was a pissing contest. #youfreakingcare
LEXI: I don’t freaking care. I can’t stand the guy. Honestly. He’s not a very complete package. Just because he’s pretty doesn’t mean he isn’t festering on the inside. He’s a #rottenapple.
SAM: MMMM festering. MMMMM complete package.
LEXI: Goodnight!
SAM: You texted me.
LEXI: Still goodnight. Good luck with the passed-out dude.
SAM: You’re the worst. Love you, biotch.
LEXI: Love you too.
SAM: Goodnight.
LEXI: Goodnight.
SAM: Goodnight for reals.
LEXI: I’m turning my phone off now.
SAM: Don’t sneak into TFB’s bedroom. Resist the siren’s call. Steer clear of the witch’s curse. Jump in the bath to put out all the fires. If you’re tempted to touch, remember… don’t take candy from strangers.
LEXI: GOOD FREAKING NIGHT!
She shut off her phone with a sigh. Great. Now the burn was a thousand times worse. She was hoping Andy and Sam would have something else going on. Something to take her mind off the pain. No. Such. Luck.
Lexi threw her phone across the bed and flipped onto her back again. She stared up at the ceiling. What do you know. It had no answers. She still couldn’t sleep, and she couldn’t shut off her mind, the racing thoughts, or the surging hormones. They were irrational. It was all irrational. She just had to make it through a couple of days, and then, she could go back to hating the TFB from a distance. A safe distance. This was just a fluke. Just a stupid, idiotic fluke because she was way too close. She was just warm because she was standing at the fire’s edge.
She wasn’t going to throw herself into the damn flames for goodness sakes. She had more common sense and control than that. She was oil and he was water. She was dirt and he was the fire. She was Lexi and he was the TFB and they didn’t mix. Ever. Ever, ever, freaking ever.
CHAPTER 6
Curtis
Little Miss Perfect didn’t look so chipper the next morning. She looked bleary-eyed, with bags under her light baby blues. He liked that. She looked frazzled and flustered, even with the kids flanking her at the breakfast table. Good. Maybe she’d lain awake thinking about him sleeping in the room next to her. He had a few other places he could have put her, but there wasn’t any fun in that.
Besides. It seemed like she enjoyed a challenge. She certainly rose to it often enough. Not just in their little sparring match the day before, but in everything. Every single task he’d ever given her, no matter how large and impossible or how mundane and small, she’d risen to the occasion.
“Uncle!” Noel squawked from the table. She was currently stabbing her spoon into a bowl full of cereal, getting milk and the mushy cereal all over the place. It was probably going to stick to the table like glue.
“What?” Curtis nearly jumped out of his skin. He wasn’t eating anything. He stood at the island, surveying the three little beasts. Okay, two little beasts and the big beast who did nothing at all to stop the little ones from making a huge mess. “What?” He moderated his tone. He even took a sip of coffee, as a gesture of goodwill.
“Daddy says I’m not supposed to ask about great grandpa. That I can ask you anything at all, except that. I’m not even supposed to say the word.”
Curtis nearly rolled his eyes. He blew out a sigh into his coffee cup that made the black java ripple. “Looks like you just did the exact opposite,” he said, voice loaded up with sarcasm. He forgot, kids didn’t get that, and Noel forged ahead.
“Oops. Sorry.” She slapped a hand over her mouth, but she clearly wasn’t sorry at all. Lexi actually touched her shoulder in warning, but of course, being four, Noel didn’t get it. “Why can’t I ask you about him?” She spooned a messy amount of cereal into her mouth, dropping half of it on the table and probably on the chair too. Curtis shuddered. He’ll probably have to replace all the furniture in the house once the little demons were gone.
Lexi remained ominously silent, probably holding her breath. She had her back to him, watching the kids carefully. She was studying Noel at the moment, but Noel had her big blue eyes glued on him. She studied him with all the careful attention her four-year-old self could muster.
“What happened?” she repeated. “Did he die?”
“Honey, maybe-”
He cut Lexi off. She was a little late on the damage control front. “Actually, he did,” he informed Noel tonelessly. “He died a few years ago. Right before you were born. We went on a fishing trip. Grandpa, great grandpa and me. He was ancient, but he never let that slow him down. Maybe he should have since he ended up having a heart attack. He did it on my watch, while grandpa was back in the cabin. We were out on the lake in the boat. I tried to save him, but he was beyond what I could do. CPR wasn’t going to help. He needed a hospital and we were out in the wilderness, hours from help.”
He studied Noel’s face carefully. He really had no filter. Didn’t believe in it. Not for kids. Not for anyone. She’d asked him a question. Straight up. He answered her. Straight up. It wasn’t like he could lie about that. She hadn’t asked him if Santa was real, for fuck sakes.
“Well…” Noel blinked. “Is he in heaven then?”
He chuckled tonelessly. “I don’t know. No one does.”
“Mom said he’s in heaven. Dad too. They say that’s where people go when they die. And pets too.”
“Sweetheart, I’m sure that most people don’t end up going there. Your parents don’t even know that heaven is real-”
“Okay!” Lexi clapped her hands far too enthusiastically. “How about we finish up with the cereal and go outside! There’s a great big pool out there and I know for a fact your mom packed you both bathing suits. It’s already hot! A great day for a swim.”
“Austin can’t swim, silly,” Noel pointed out. “Mom says if he goes in water he’ll drown and then maybe he’ll end up in heaven too.”
“No one is going to end up in heaven!” Lexi corrected breathlessly.
Curtis turned and bit down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing. Lord. Kids. While he didn’t like to be reminded about his grandfather dying in his arms and it sucked to explain it, the rest was actually quite humorous, especially Lexi getting told off by a four-year-old.
“At least not yet,” Lexi went on. “You’re both going to live long, happy lives. There are lifejackets in your room, and I’ll hold onto Austin. Or both of you, if you want me to. It will be perfectly safe and perfectly fine.”
“I can swim like a fish,” Noel said proudly. She waved her spoon in the air, flinging cereal all over. Austin let out a joyful scream in echo. He wasn’t really talking yet, that Curtis knew of at any rate. It was probably coming soon. He was thankful for small mercies. The lip of one was about all he could handle.
“Great! Me too!” Lexi said proudly. “Well, how about we go up and change. Leave uncle to clean up breakfast.”
“Yeah!” Noel punched the air with her little fi
st. She scrambled away from the table. Austin couldn’t get down as fast as his sister, which led to him bursting into frustrated tears which Lexi quickly soothed as she scooped him up.
Curtis watched them leave. He breathed out a sigh of relief before he went down on half a roll of paper towel to clean up the disaster that was his table. The thing used to be a high-end piece of furniture. Just one of the one million reasons people should never have kids. They were disgusting germ factories. They took up all your free time. They ruined your things. They ruined your life in general. They turned into teenagers and ruined your life all over again. End of story.
He had the kitchen put back together and went up to change as soon as Lexi ushered the kids outside. The double doors to the patio opened off the living room, so he heard her go out. He figured that he should get changed and go out too. The weekend wasn’t just about looking after his sister’s brats. She hadn’t even called about her dear children. No matter how worried she was, she was taking her weekend away seriously. Or maybe she thought he could grow a pair of stones and actually look after two little kids. Maybe, absurdly enough, she trusted him to keep them alive. Not well. Just alive. Maybe that was good enough for her. She knew nothing about Lexi or anyone else coming over, so she must really trust him, or she was just that desperate for a vacation to the dumpy bed and breakfast she’d picked out.
Curtis put on a pair of black trunks, grabbed a few towels from the linen closet in the hall since Lexi probably hadn’t found any, and headed out to the pool.
He intended to slay her by walking out sans shirt. He knew he looked good. He ate well. Worked out religiously. Made sure to keep himself well-groomed. And it paid off. Most women nearly climaxed at the sight of his bare chest. He knew Lexi wasn’t most women, but he also knew she likely wasn’t immune. He really believed in his theory about her detesting him because she had some secret crush on him.
That made two of them. Except he didn’t detest her. He’d left her alone over the years out of professional courtesy and that was all. He’d been too busy before, preoccupied with the family business, keeping the company alive, and- even if he didn’t want to admit it- other women. But that random stranger business had kind of lost its appeal. Maybe he was getting older. Maybe he was done with the bullshit. Maybe he didn’t want to be Seattle’s most eligible anything anymore.
He’d wanted Lexi for years, and it all boiled down to him being too scared to ask her out. She’d also made it clear that she didn’t want him to. He’d bided his time, but he realized Lexi wasn’t going to stay single forever. She was gorgeous. How she wasn’t already scooped up was beyond him.
He was pretty much desperate and that made him bold. Bold and stupid.
He expected, when he set the towels down on one of the eight lounge chairs by the huge rectangular pool, for Lexi to let out a gasp and faint right away. Okay, maybe not, but he expected her to notice him.
Instead, he was the one who noticed her.
He’d told her that he had a pool and they’d likely use it, given that the forecast was for a thousand degrees every single day. She’d packed a swimsuit. But god, it was not just any swimsuit. It was a freaking yellow bikini. Not that it was one of those barely there numbers. No, it was pretty PG rated. The top was more suited to a swim meet or a brisk morning jog. It cupped her breasts and hugged them tightly, sucking them into her body. It was one of those racers back things, more like a sports bra than anything. The bottoms were boy shorts. They didn’t show any ass cheek or ride dangerously low. They were modest to the extreme. BUT GOD, that somehow made them even sexier.
That and the fact that they were soaking wet and Lexi was bending over and they cupped and defined her ass cheeks. Ass cheeks he very much wouldn’t mind licking if he could summon any saliva into his dry mouth ever again.
She was soaked, helping Noel with a lifejacket malfunction or something, at the side of the pool. Water beaded down her hair, darkening it. She had a perfect body. Pale, gorgeous skin. Long, shapely, slightly muscular legs. Flat stomach with actual abs. Not scary abs, just nice abs. God. Abs he also wouldn’t mind licking.
She finally turned to help Noel into the pool. Austin was sitting on the concrete and she bent to grab him to head back in. She noticed him standing by the lounge chair. Her eyes flicked briefly over him in passive disinterest before she turned her head and went back to whatever ridiculous game she and the kids were playing.
So, she wanted to play it that way. Dirty. Good.
She’d noticed him, alright. He didn’t miss the spark in her eyes, nor the way they darkened or the slight quirk in her lips. She’d angled her thighs in together, like the sight of him did dirty things to her in places she didn’t want to acknowledge. She’d noticed. She’d pretended that she hadn’t. If she wanted to play hard to get, that was just fine with him. She was going down and she was going down soon. After the kids were asleep. Going down in a ball of blazing glory. And she was going to enjoy every single second, or his name wasn’t Curtis James and his name was definitely Curtis James.
CHAPTER 7
Lexi
Freaking. Curtis. James.
Lexi was around ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent sure that the bastard had come out to the pool just to taunt her by wearing nothing but a pair of black swim trunks. His very sexy everything was on display.
Including the dang V that either Andy or Sam had mentioned the night before during their late-night text session. That V. That freaking V. His tight swim trunks riding real low pointed out the trail to glory. Damn it.
She watched, out of the corner of her eye, trying not to make it obvious that she was looking at all, as Curtis lounged on the chair at the side of the pool. He had his eyes shut, or at least he was pretending he did. His arms were folded behind his head. He really was a masterpiece. A grossly erotic painting that whoever painted probably got executed for just because it was sinfully blasphemous to have put that much perfection on display.
Frick. The guy looked like he had a billion bucks. He was naturally athletic and filled out his six foot something frame well. His muscles were streamlined glory, not that chunky nasty stuff that guys strived for in the gym. He had that effortlessly natural looking form like he rolled out of bed looking that way and stayed that way. The hours in the gym were definitely kind to him. His abs were carved so deep that he had a damn eight pack. His legs were muscular, and his chest and shoulders were so broad it looked like he could lift his entire stupid mansion and hold them up there like a fucked-up version of Atlas holding up the earth.
Lexi tore her eyes away and focused on the kids. Noel was pretending to be a shark, bobbing and splashing around. Austin loved it. He waved his arms, splashing the water, and giggling while she held him.
Even focusing on the kids didn’t help. The cool pool water didn’t help either. The internal burn wasn’t giving it up. Curtis James was freakishly gorgeous and just about every single detail including that wicked V that disappeared into his trunks was burned into her memory. The heat building inside of her was uncomfortable and she cursed him. He was doing that crap on purpose. Tempting her. It was some kind of game for him. Maybe the whole weekend with the kids thing had been concocted. No, she realized, he never would have done that. His hatred of children was no secret. He would have come up with something else to get her alone if he really wanted her.
He was toying with her because it was fun for him. Maybe he got off on the cat and mouse power trip bullshit.
And there she was, feeling sorry for him with the talk of his grandpa that morning.
Eff that. She was done feeling anything for the TFB. She was shutting down. She was going to be like a rock, not a piece of straw swayed by the slightest breeze. She was one thing that Curtis was going to be denied. The one thing in his whole entire life. She was off limits. Forever. No matter what her traitorous body was telling her. It was shameful to even be feeling that way around children. She blamed the TFB for that too. Igniting R-rated feelings
inside of her when she was there taking care of two little kids. What was wrong with him?
Oh right. He was horrible beyond belief.
A true monster. A sexy, evil monster. Damn it. Just an evil monster. He was a bad apple. A truly rotting, nasty, shitty, wormy rotten apple.
Just then, said rotten apple peeled himself out of the lounge chair. He stretched, showing off the full length of his muscular form, his swim trunk riding dangerously low. Good god, did he have to be so damn… sexual? He was like one of those annoying pimples right on the end of your nose that wouldn’t go away and you couldn’t help see it every single time you looked down.
“I’m going to eat your face!” Noel screamed in delight, her sharkiness at an all-time high. Austin let out a scream of delight as his sister grabbed at his bare little toes and pretended to eat them.
Lexi watched carefully, just to be sure that they were all still having fun and that Noel didn’t accidentally bite off one of her little brother’s toes with her set of pearly little choppers. She was thankful she could focus on that and not on what was going on a few feet away.
She couldn’t not notice. Curtis without a shirt was like a panther. Lethal. Dangerous. Sleek and otherworldly beautiful. Something that a person should never look away from when it was so close. Something predatory and fearful, something that lured a person to their doom with a combination of feline grace and effortless elegance.
“Uncle!” Noel screeched when she noticed Curtis and his intent became clear. “Jump in!”
For once, he did as she asked. He took a running leap and jumped into the deep end of the pool, six feet away, tucking his legs in and creating a massive splash that pretty much soaked the three of them. Lexi spluttered. She’d done her best to angle away and shield Austin. Despite being soaked, he clapped and screamed in delight. Noel brushed water from her eyes and also let out a wild cheer.