by Nicole Snow
“So, why'd you come by anyway?” I ask, wondering why such a simple question takes so much freaking courage.
Then he gives me that blue-eyed stare, and I remember. The gaze that says c'mon, darling, in my dreams. The wild, crazy ones where I somehow think this man might ever consider me any kind of darling at all.
“Got a present for you,” he says, pulling something from behind his back. Smirking, he pushes it into my hands.
It's heavy, cool to the touch, metal. It takes me a second to realize I'm holding a huge pair of army tan binoculars, their lenses slightly scratched.
“Wrong direction, Reb. Point them up. Here.”
Suddenly, his hands are on mine, and it's way too hard to breathe. Landon Strauss helps me remember how to lift the lenses to my eyes, slowly eases my glasses off my nose, and then rotates the little wheel for focus on top.
“See anything yet?” he asks.
“I'm not that blind without my glasses.”
He laughs, spinning the wheel just a little more.
Then it happens. I gasp.
The cool, crisp California sky comes alive with more lights than I've ever seen. Bigger, brighter, and bolder, like a magic trick happening in the yawning blackness above. “Holy –”
“I know. These things are military grade, about as good as it gets before you start getting into telescope territory. Shame about the damn light pollution.”
“No shame. No, Landon, it's beautiful.”
“You saying that to impress me, or because you know what you're actually looking at?”
My cheeks flush again, a heat like an invisible sun blossoming on my skin. I shrug. Landon laughs, that low, throaty chuckle so so good at making goosebumps on my skin.
“That's Perseus, Kenna,” he says softly, shifting the binoculars very slightly, my face moving with them. “Little ways over there, we've got Aries the Ram, and below him, Pisces. Look a little lower. See that bright star on the horizon? Saturn. Can't see her rings with something this low powered, but –”
“Wow. Oh, wow.”
It's not just the majestic patterns named after ancient gods leaving me hot and bothered and totally speechless.
Every time I feel the rush in my blood, I know.
Every time he whispers a few more exotic sounding names in my ear, I know.
Every time his hands move, cradling mine, moving us so close to twining fingers it almost hurts while he helps guide my eyes to the sky, I know, I know, I know.
Wow is too weak a word for anything happening in front of me.
He didn't come here to lay out an abstract atlas in the sky for cold, distant stars no one will ever know up close for the next thousand years.
He came to show me the stars. The fireworks. The secret constellations that are there for us.
That's what I came to believe, anyway, that night he sat with me for over an hour. Just him and me and a lot of laughs and soft murmurs.
I knew if I ever fell for Landon Strauss, it'd be like soaring.
Just like I knew if we ever fell apart, the crash would be just as cataclysmic.
* * *
Present Day
I wake up with a groan, rubbing at my eyes.
I drag myself out of sleep with my eyes crusty, my mouth gummy, a crick in my neck, and a rather urgent pressure in my bladder. Probably because there's a furry lump curled up on my stomach.
Velvet, his weight pushing down in all the wrong places.
“Oof!” I shove at the cat blearily and uncramp myself with rickety, wooden motions. “Off you go.”
Rubbing at my eyes, I stumble inside toward the bathroom. I’m just washing my hands, though, when a noise from downstairs – clattering, intrusive – makes me freeze.
Landon may be temperamental, but it’s not like him to slam around his own house like that. It sounds like some kind of wild animal got into the kitchen and is trying to get out.
I take a shaky breath, eyes wide, and lean out the bathroom into the upstairs hallway. I can’t even see the cats; the noise must have scared them away.
“Landon?” I call tentatively.
No answer. Just another crash.
Oh crap.
I really wish I had a baseball bat or a crowbar or something right about now. If Mr. Hoodie came back...
No. I nerve myself to head downstairs, creeping down the steps, trying to keep my bare feet silent.
My inner voice – my author muse – is shouting in the back of my mind, reminding me that this is the point in the plot where the stupid girl who goes snooping gets murdered when she should’ve run the other way, especially if there’s a man in a black hoodie come back for round two to scare the crap out of me and possibly, you know, leave my insides all over my outsides.
My heart’s running wild. I try to remember the security code and intercom locations Landon drilled into me.
Of course I’m coming up blank.
Downstairs, I edge toward the kitchen door, flattening myself against the wall, and peer around the open archway.
A heart-shaped ass in a leather micro-mini peers back at me, bent over just enough to make it very clear someone’s pink panties are very, very crotchless.
What the hell?!
Said ass is currently about the only thing I can see of the person rummaging around in the refrigerator.
O-kay. So, Landon’s got company. And that’s totally not jealousy sitting sour and acid in my stomach. Never. Ever.
If crotchless panties and barely there skirts are his type to chase, no wonder he’s never even looked at me.
Miss Nameless straightens, her dirty blonde hair swinging down her back in a long, bone-straight tail. As she turns to eye the contents of the fridge door sourly, that’s when I recognize her. Her face has been all over TV, her voice all over the radio.
Milah Holly. Pop star. Singer. Celebrity. Multimillionaire.
Oh.
My.
God.
I must’ve made some kind of startled, strangled noise.
She stiffens, then turns to glance at me with a sort of wary suspicion, her surgically perfect nose turned up and slightly wrinkled. She gives me a once-over that makes me nearly squirm at the intensity of her scrutiny, as if she’s comparing every aspect of my body to every factory-manufactured bit of hers. Then she flutters her lashes – and they have to be falsies, there’s just no way – offering a smile so ingratiating it’s just plain condescending.
“Ah, bitchin' timing. You're Landon’s help, right? The cleaner?” She looks around with a cutesy little smile of feigned helplessness. “Do you know if Landon keeps any food in this house that doesn’t belong in a man cave? I'm starved and it's all meat and eggs here.”
There’s something proprietary about her attitude that grates on me. As if she’s not just sizing me up as a maid, but sizing up the entire house.
Like she’s planning to move in. There’s no way in hell Landon’s with her. This isn't making sense.
She’s the client, right? Not his date. So, I shouldn’t feel jealous. I shouldn’t feel this annoyance simmering and churning inside me.
And I shouldn’t open my mouth and blurt, “Actually, I’m his girlfriend.”
I curse myself before it’s even fully out of my mouth, but there’s no stopping it. Crap.
Crap, crap, crap why am I so impulsive? He’s going to kill me. He’s going to –
Milah laughs.
Holy hell.
I swear, I'll drag this woman out of here by her cheap blonde extensions.
I’m not a violent person, but the urge to knock that curling smirk off her lips is almost overpowering when she gives me another once-over and scoffs, “You? Hilarious! As if a man like Landon would ever settle for some mousy little C-cup. What are you even doing here?” She widens her eyes with a mock gasp, fluttering her fingers to her lips. “Wait. Did you wander in off the beach? Oh my God, you’re a vagrant. One of those bums I've heard about prowling up and down the beaches. I should call
the cops. Get you some help. He'll probably thank me!”
I’m suddenly aware of what I must look like. I’d caught myself in the bathroom mirror when I was washing my hands.
My hair is a messy, ratty cloud after sleeping in a ponytail in the outdoor humidity. My shirt's stretched all out of shape. I’m not wearing makeup, and I probably still have sleep marks on my face. So, yeah, I’m not exactly a tall, leggy knockout stunner with perfect French tips and boobs in a bag.
That still doesn’t mean she gets to talk to me that way.
“Look, you little –”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Landon growls, cutting me off.
Milah and I both freeze. Landon fills the kitchen doorway, one arm braced over his head, shirtless in a pair of cotton sleep pants that fall sinfully down his narrow hips, a trail of dark hair leading from his navel. Dipping down, only to vanish past his waistband just short of fulfilling a very enticing promise.
This man is lethal. Even so early in the day.
His hair is a tousled, boyish mess, his fierce blue eyes drowsy and half-lidded, and despite his annoyance it’s obvious he’s not wholly awake yet.
Milah recovers before me, and puts on a coy little pink-sugar smirk before sauntering close to him with a little switch of her hips. “Landy,” she purrs. “There you are. I came. Just like I promised.” Her smirk blends with practiced ease into a little pout. “I’d hoped you’d come to meet me. Instead I get your hired girl insulting me and pretending to be your girlfriend. If she's into standup, she really needs to work on her act.”
Landon’s eyes widen, then narrow, darting to me. Almost accusing.
Crap again. Crap crap crap.
There’s only one way to salvage this.
They say when your car loses control and goes into a swerve, you’re supposed to lean into it to avoid a crash. Right now, I’ve got to lean into this, and hope Landon plays along.
I square my shoulders and stride forward as boldly as I can. My heart’s beating as hard as my firm steps, but I walk right up to Landon, shoulder Milah aside – with a touch of satisfaction for her offended gasp – and plant my hands right on Landon’s inked chest.
There’s just a second to savor the feel of masculine heat under my palms, the sensation of soft, curling chest hair threading between my fingers, the sudden liquefaction that starts in the pit of my stomach but curls and pulls lower and tighter.
A second later, I stretch up on my toes and kiss him.
I’m scared.
Petrified in all the most wonderful, delicious, taboo ways, and it makes me a little wild.
Wild enough to kiss him harder. Wild enough that I tilt my head and lock my lips to his and dare, for just a second, to demand what I’ve been longing after all these years. What's been pent up since the second I made a huge mistake by showing up here.
One sweet breath. I just want him to kiss me back for that, even if this explodes in my face later and he hates me for the rest of our lives.
I just want to feel him soften for me. Just once. Just today.
His chest is hard as a steel plate under my palms, rigid with tension. His mouth is firm. Unyielding.
Please, I beg, closing my eyes. Please don’t push me away. Please don’t humiliate me in front of her. Please don’t reject me.
The next three seconds of nothingness, of my mouth on his and no response, last forever.
But the moment when his lips part against mine, when his hands clamp firmly on my hips, time stops.
Whatever control I’d had when I’d caught him off guard is gone. He drags me in close, pulling me into the heat of his body, enfolding me in that raw brute strength that makes me feel so small, that ignites me with the thrill of danger and the pure and utter certainty that he’d never, ever hurt me.
Not when his mouth is this hot on mine. Not when his tongue tangles and searches, exploring so deep. Definitely not when the low groan in the back of his throat is the only warning I have before he takes complete command of the kiss.
And of me.
I’m caught in a pure tempest, a thousand little impressions coming together into a single slow moving heat storm. The tingling scratch of his beard against my lips, my cheeks.
The points of his fingertips dig into my hips, just enough to make my body throb, my thighs aching and something deep starting to pulse low and fast in my flesh.
The impression of powerful sinew moving against me, flexing under my palms like stroking a great beast. The hard ridges of his stomach and rib cage crushing against my breasts, making me painfully aware of their weight and fullness and sensitivity.
And the feeling of being possessed.
Of being taken.
Of being claimed.
He dominates my lips with languid, stroking caresses, his tongue flicking and teasing and tracing in sweet dizzy sparks, only to go deeper with shallower hot, wet dips. Just suggestive enough to feel almost too intimate, too knowing, as if that deviant tongue already knew every depth of my body, and just where to touch to light me up.
If this were one of my books, I'd say he's fucking my tongue with his, and God am I loving every second.
I’d only meant this to save face, but I’ve well and truly screwed myself. It's too late.
This kiss is everything I’ve ever wanted.
And it’s not real.
He’s not mine.
And I can’t ever have this again.
* * *
My eyes fly open after an eternity that lasts no more than sixty seconds.
If the sudden stab of pain in my chest hadn’t stopped us, Milah would have. She clears her throat sulkily, a reminder that she’s still there, and Landon and I jerk away from each other with mutual gasps.
I stare up at him, my breaths burning in and out of me, my mouth aching and pulsing with the lingering pressure of his lips. His mouth is slightly red.
I can’t help thinking I did that. I can't help being proud.
His eyes are dilated, full of the storms we’d kindled. He wasn’t faking it, I think.
Maybe.
There’s something there. Something building.
But Milah interrupts, grumbling and folding her arms over her chest, her voice small in that sort of staged little-girl way that fits her flimsy innocent public persona. “Well, shit. So, the two of you are really together?”
I’m half waiting for Landon to shove me away and say no. But he just nods, tight but not forced, and shifts his grip on me to hook his arm around my waist and pull me against him.
My face is so hot I must look like a tomato, my head reeling, but I can’t say I mind the melting feeling when I mold myself against the warmth of his side.
“Over a year now,” he says, looking at Milah pointedly.
She stares at him as if waiting for him to crack, to admit it’s a lie, but when he doesn’t move or change expression she sniffs, lower lip jutting out. “Whatever. Where’s my room?”
He jerks his chin toward the kitchen doorway, arching a brow. “First door off the stairs.”
Milah gives me a foul look. I have to hide a grin by turning my face away and burying it in Landon’s side.
God, he’s so warm – and he smells so good, like driftwood and sun-warmed beach sand and this pure raw masculine smell. I try not to lose myself in it when I know he’s going to thrust me away the second she’s gone.
Even hiding my face, I can track her by her clacking, stomping steps, heels rattling. Once I hear that sound pass through the kitchen archway, I save Landon the trouble of humiliating me by immediately detaching myself.
I clear my throat, patting over my clothing and smoothing my hair, then risk a glance at him from the corner of my eye.
But he’s not looking at me.
His gaze trails after Milah, and only after she’s out of earshot does he mutter sourly, “If the money wasn’t so good, I’d toss her out on her ass. With pleasure.”
I force a shaky smile. “Heh. Yeah.”
&n
bsp; Immediately, I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth. His gaze snaps to me, trained like gun sights, penetrating and sharp. “Why did you do that?”
“Huh?” Like I don’t know. My smile freezes in place. “Oh. I mean, I...”
Right. Crap. I clear my throat, then shrug, this nonchalant little thing feeling exaggerated and forced. “It’s just, you know...I saw you were in trouble.” I try for a breezy laugh. It comes out more like a hysterical giggle. I’m making this worse by the second. “I just wanted to help. Nothing else. We’re roommates, right? And you seemed like you needed bailing out.”
“I needed bailing out.” Pointed. Deadpan.
I cock my head. “Don't tell me you wanted to deal with that this early in the morning?”
“Fair point.”
But that’s all he says. I don't know why I keep expecting a thanks.
There’s an expectant silence between us, one in which I can hear the throb of my bloodstream filling the space, turning every sensitive point of my body into this pulsing tremor of need that remembers too well how he felt pressed close.
I can’t stay here, with him looking at me like he knows exactly what’s burning through me with enough heat to crumble my heart to ash.
“I gotta go.” My smile feels like a rictus at this point. I point toward the stairs like he doesn’t know his own house. “Duty calls. The novel. And. Yes. I need to write. Things.”
“Right.”
Still inscrutable. Still expectant.
Still making me want to run like hell.
So I do. Run, that is.
So much for letting him get to me. So much for telling myself I'm not afraid.
With a cheesy little wave, I turn tail and flee for the door.
Landon’s gaze trails me the entire time, and even when he’s out of sight I can feel his eyes drilling between my shoulder blades, touching me as intimately as those huge, earth-splitting hands that held me so tight.
10
It's Sabotage (Landon)
This is officially too fucking much to deal with after just waking up.