Open Invitation

by Tiffany White

  She would have enjoyed the compliment and the scrutiny if he wasn’t looking so pleased with himself.

  “That’s funny. I seem to remember being with a devil, myself,” she retorted.

  His rich, lusty chuckle sounded again as he shook his head at her. “Amanda, love, what am I going to do with you?”

  “Well, sir, if you’re truly open to suggestions, I do have an idea or two….”

  Much later that morning, while Kyle was showering, Amanda sat before her dressing table brushing her hair while trying to decide how to broach the subject of her job offer to Kyle.

  The shower stopped and Kyle joined her, blithely toweling off as he searched for his clothes. She knew if she didn’t plunge right in and tell him, she would become addle-brained from looking at an unselfconsciously naked man dressing in her bedroom.

  “Uh…Kyle?”

  He looked up from zipping his jeans.

  “We need to talk….” she began.

  “I know. I—”

  “It’s about our working together,” she said, interrupting before she lost her nerve. “I think it’s only fair that I tell you I’ve had another job offer. It’s a great opportunity for me.”

  “Who with?” he asked, looking away.

  Amanda named the New York television syndicate.

  “I see.” Kyle got very quiet as he snapped his jeans. “You’re going to take it, then?” he asked finally, after pulling on his boots. He still hadn’t looked at her.

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’ve still got a week left to decide.”

  He didn’t comment. Finding his faded blue chambray shirt, he put it on, rolling up the sleeves when he encountered the missing buttons he’d popped off the cuffs in the rush of passion.

  “What do you think I should do?” she asked into the quiet, holding her breath, hoping for the words she wanted so desperately to hear.

  He looked over at her at last. “I think you should take it,” he advised, his clear blue eyes void of emotion.

  She let out her breath on a long, silent sigh. He hadn’t asked her to stay, as she’d hoped. Not that she would give up a job opportunity for a man, but it would have meant everything for him to have made it a consideration…for him to have given some indication that he cared.

  Walking toward her, he stopped and picked up his cowboy duster from the floor beside her and threw it over his shoulder.

  His smile, when he bent to brush a kiss on her nose, was weak. “I’ve got to go.”

  Did he care? she dared to hope again.

  “Really, you think I should take the job?” she asked, giving him another chance to voice his feelings.

  He nodded, his feelings remaining carefully hidden. “Yeah, like you said, it’s a terrific opportunity.”

  “What about—” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  “Us?” He supplied the obvious, finishing her thought.

  She nodded.

  His smile was rueful.

  “Maybe it was just a great fantasy, you know?” he said, turning to go.

  KYLE SPENT THE REST of the week pondering how very good Amanda had felt in his arms. How very right.

  Needs, long repressed, had surfaced.

  He had closed himself off long ago, he now realized, living only in the dark rooms of his fantasies. Amanda had somehow gotten inside those dark rooms.

  Her news of a job opportunity in New York had been like a swift kick in the gut. He’d been about to allow himself to care for her, when she as much as told him she was leaving.

  He didn’t want her to give up the opportunity, but he didn’t want her to go, either. If she stayed, it had to be her choice, but he didn’t hold out much hope that she would.

  He gazed down at the envelope in his hand. When he had seen her purse on the desk in her living room, he hadn’t been able to resist slipping the fantasy she’d written for Oscar night from it on his way out.

  Resting his hip on the edge of his desk, he picked up a letter opener and slit open the pale pink envelope to read the single sheet of matching stationery inside.

  There was only one sentence.

  Kyle,

  I want to make love with you and your best friend together.

  Kyle laughed out loud, his gloomy mood dispelled.

  Why, that little minx!

  She hadn’t played fair at all. He knew without a doubt that she thought she’d come up with a fantasy he wouldn’t do, just in case she won.

  She’d thought wrong, Kyle decided, a smile tugging the corners of his lips.

  She may not stay, but when she got to New York, he wasn’t going to be so easy to forget…. Amanda was about to find out how perverse he could be. She was about to meet his evil twin.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON Amanda sat at her desk working on a review of the movie she’d just seen, but her mind kept straying. She hadn’t been alone with Kyle since the morning after their night together. She was sure he was purposely avoiding her, glad even of her news of a job offer in New York. He’d gotten what he wanted. Heaven forbid he get tangled up in something he didn’t want, like a commitment.

  She’d thought she would be able to chalk up their night together as a night of pleasure, a fantasy shared, nothing more. But it had been more to her; they’d made love, not just had sex.

  When her doorbell rang, it distracted her from her all too frequent thoughts of Kyle and their magic night together.

  “Amanda….”

  It was him!

  “Go away,” she called crossly, wanting him to do no such thing.

  “Aw, come on Amanda, sweet. Let us in.”

  “Go away.”

  “You’d best do as he says, little lady,” an unfamiliar voice said in a Texas drawl.

  Curiosity won out over petulance, and she went to open the door.

  Kyle stood before her when she swung open the door. He was alone.

  “Didn’t I hear someone else out here with you?” she asked in a puzzled voice, standing on tiptoe and trying in vain to look over his wide shoulder.

  “That was my evil twin I’m always telling you about,” Kyle explained. “I thought it was time you met him.”

  “Your evil twin,” Amanda repeated, looking doubtful. “So where is he?”

  “Oh, he’ll be right back. I had to send him to pick up something I forgot.”

  “Something you forgot….” Amanda said, waiting for his nose to grow.

  Kyle grinned. “Yeah, I didn’t remember till we got here that you were all out of whipped cream.”

  He was kidding her. Yes, that was it. She looked around him to the street to check on his Mustang, just in case. It wasn’t there.

  Kyle took advantage of her distraction to slip inside the carriage house. “When he gets back, it’ll be your turn,” he called back over his shoulder nonchalantly.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded, following him inside.

  Kyle’s eyes grew devilish as he slipped the pink envelope containing Amanda’s Oscar-night fantasy from the pocket of his bomber jacket.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” he answered, waggling the slender pink envelope between his long fingers.

  “Where did you get that?” she cried, trying to snatch it from him.

  “I stole it from your purse,” he said without a shred of remorse.

  She looked up at him when she saw the ragged edges of the envelope, the broken seal signaling it had been opened.

  “Yes, I read it,” he said in answer to her silent accusation. “We both did.”

  “‘Both’?”

  Kyle shrugged. “Well, he’s my evil twin, but he’s also my best friend, and I needed to make sure he’d go along with your…ahem…unusual request.”

  “But I didn’t mean…” Amanda objected as she stared at him in openmouthed amazement.

  “It’s okay, really,” Kyle assured her. “He won’
t tell. He’s never told on me.”

  “Kyle, we can’t—”

  “Why, sure we can. Actually, he thinks it’s a really hot idea. Course, he is my evil twin—you know, the two stewardesses and all….”

  “Kyle!”

  “Chicken,” Kyle taunted with a heavy-lidded stare.

  “I’m not. It’s just—”

  “Yes…?” Kyle coaxed, his features impassive as he considered her. “What you’re trying to tell me is that this—” he waved the pink envelope in his hand “—is not a fantasy of yours, that you didn’t play fair. Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Amanda?”

  She sighed. She knew a double bind when she walked into one. ‘‘Okay, I admit it’s a fantasy of mine, but it’s not something I could ever—”

  “You could with me.”

  She could? He wouldn’t. That was the reason she’d made it her choice on Oscar night. He was only bluffing. There was no evil twin. There was only him taunting her.

  She smiled.

  Okay, she’d take him up on his dare, she decided, ignoring the little voice in her head reminding her of her promise to never, ever take another dare.

  “There’s just one thing,” Kyle said, pulling a silk scarf from the pocket of his bomber jacket. “Remember what I said about my evil twin being shy? Well, he won’t do this unless you’re blindfolded.”

  So that was how he planned to pull it off. He was going to play out the bluff. He wasn’t going to give in.

  Well, she wasn’t going to give in, either. “Okay,” she agreed, sitting down on the love seat. “You and your evil twin… What was his name?”

  “Lyle,” Kyle supplied.

  “Lyle?”

  “Momma is English,” Kyle said with a shrug, as if that explained it.

  Amanda tried to keep from giggling. Lyle! Mercy.

  “Well,” she said when she had her merriment under control, “Lyle and you had better be great together, because this is one of my favorite fantasies, and if you ruin it for me, I’ll never, ever forgive you.”

  “Not to worry, Amanda,” Kyle promised with a wicked wink as he began folding the silk scarf into a bandanna. “Momma always did say what one of us didn’t think of, the other one would.”

  Kyle tied the bandanna around her head securely. “Did you hear that? It must be Lyle at the door now,” he said, answering his own question while Amanda tried not to laugh.

  Kyle really was playing it for all it was worth, and she wondered how far she would let him go before she lost her nerve. Why had she ever told him about her weakness when it came to dares? That was like giving a rat the key to a warehouse full of cheese. She must be an idiot.

  Kyle moved away from her, and she heard the front door open and close.

  “Say hello, Lyle,” Amanda heard Kyle say.

  “Well, hello, pretty lady. Hey, are you sure you want to do this? My brother here, why, he can be a bit of a rascal sometimes. Did he ever tell you about the two stewardesses… No, wait. I think that was me.” He chuckled. “Sometimes I forget which one of us did what.”

  “She’s sure,” Kyle said for her.

  The currents in the room crackled with electricity as she felt her blouse being pushed down her arms and warm lips caressing a pathway along her throat.

  And then the caressing stopped suddenly.

  “Well, I’ll be tongue-tied, if she ain’t the angel you said she was. Her skin’s as white and soft as a perfect pearl,” Kyle observed in a hushed drawl as Amanda felt her blouse slip all the way off.

  In moments she was sitting before them—him—naked, her body responding to the stimuli of touch and whispered sexy encouragements. She sat very straight on the love seat, her legs a little apart, because in her excitement she could not keep them together. Her skin was on fire as she imagined eyes lingering everywhere.

  “Lyle’s into feet, Amanda. You don’t mind, do you?” Kyle asked as she felt hands smoothing over the arch of her foot and massaging the pad below her toes… familiarly.

  She gasped when a wet tongue began to lick between her toes and then slipped them between lips that sucked provocatively.

  “Umm, little lady, why I swear, y’all have got the most precious toes I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  Amanda pulled her foot away, beginning to get very nervous.

  At that moment she was eased to her feet, her face held in the V of a thumb and forefinger. His tongue thrust between her lips, burying itself in her moist sweetness, while he brought her naked body into full contact with his.

  He was still fully dressed. She could feel the soft T-shirt against her bare breasts; the texture of his jeans sliding against her thighs, the erotic stab of his belt buckle. And she was rubbing up against him shamelessly. It was Kyle. She knew the size and shape of him intimately. But then if Lyle was his twin…

  Before she could continue with that thought, his hands clutched her shoulders, then slid slowly down her back, pressing her closer until he cupped her buttocks; his long, supple fingers kneading, squeezing, separating and then lifting. He groaned an exquisite male shudder of need when he ground against her. And then he took a deep, satisfying breath and went very still before moving away from her.

  She gave a little cry of desertion when she heard the front door open and close.

  “Kyle….”

  “He had to leave, darlin’. Something about a movie he had to review. But I’ve got the rest of the afternoon free.”

  Amanda’s eyes flew open as the blindfold was torn from her. She was almost surprised to see Kyle standing there before her.

  “I couldn’t stay away any longer,” Kyle said. “I tried, but Lyle wouldn’t let me. He’s always talking me into doing these dangerous things. He told me if I let a woman like you go because I was afraid, he would never speak to me again.”

  Amanda smiled. “Let me give you a kiss for Lyle,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck as he carried her upstairs.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, she giggled.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Once again, I’m naked and you’re not.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “Don’t try telling me you’re bashful.”

  “Only with my clothes on. You see, when I take off all my clothes, I turn into an animal.” His smile was wicked and as cocky as hell.

  “Kyle…” Her tongue was exploring his ear.

  “Hmm?” he asked, carrying her to the bed.

  “Shut up and…” She was now biting his neck.

  “And?” The word was slurred as his mouth closed over her breast.

  “Take off—oh!—um…all your clothes.”

  He looked up from what he was doing, pleased with himself. “If you insist, ma’am.” He deposited her gently on the bed.

  “And Kyle…” she said, insisting with her hands as she pulled down his jeans.

  “Hmm?” He kicked free of his jeans before looking up at her.

  She dipped her hands inside his briefs. “Don’t call me ma’am.”

  “Why? Aren’t you a lady?” he dared, discarding his briefs and slapping playfully at her roaming hands.

  She covered his cocky smile with her mouth and showed him she’d left her manners at the door.

  EACH SUCCEEDING DAY brought with it a rush of happiness and wonder as they explored their tender new relationship. But time was running out for her to give New York a decision about the job offer.

  She was certain Noah planned to renew her contract after the success of the theme shows and the surge in Theater Talk’s ratings. And she had grown fond of Noah. It would be difficult to leave so soon after he’d given her her big break.

  It would be even more difficult to leave Kyle. She’d tried to bring up the subject of the job offer to him several times, but he’d insisted it was her decision and refused to discuss it. What would her taking the job do to their budding relationship? she pondered. W
ould he be able to handle her being more successful than he?

  He would have to, She didn’t intend to follow in tier mother’s footsteps—living her life around a man, subject to only his wants and needs.

  But she didn’t want to spend her life without Kyle, either.

  She was no closer to a decision when she left to get the makings for the dinner she’d invited Kyle to. Inside her car she found an envelope lying on the seat with her name scrawled across it in Kyle’s bold handwriting.

  Amanda, precious,

  It’s a plum shame my twin brother, Kyle, made me leave the other day just when things were getting real interesting. Darlin’, if you ask me, it was downright criminal on his part.

  Criminal…. That conjures up some images, don’t it? Let me show you how bad I can really be….

  We’re aboard the Great Southern Chesapeake train. A porter in a white jacket brings your coffee. As he pours, you look up to observe that the dark, wood paneled dining car is empty, save the two men sitting at a table across the aisle.

  We are sitting side by side at our dining table, which might be unusual for two men, except for the obvious handcuffs explaining that one of us is a prisoner…a criminal. It’s the one watching you.

  You give a little gasp when you catch my eye. You’ve felt me looking at you all along, haven’t you?

  I don’t look away, do I?

  Neither can you. Something primitive is happening inside you, isn’t it? Your heart races as little shivers of excitement unnerve you.

  You look away finally, finish your coffee quickly and flee to the safety of your compartment. But my broad, villainous mustache and clear blue “don’t give a damn” eyes continue to haunt you.

  There’s a knock on the door of the compartment, and you give a start of surprise to discover by sheer coincidence that we are sharing the same compartment. We both join you.

  The man holding me prisoner tips his hat in deference to you. I give you none; my expression is sexy… sullen. Suddenly you’re certain I’m a terrific kisser, and you blush, afraid I know somehow about the sexual stirrings I’ve elicited against your will.

  We take our place opposite you on the deeply cushioned seat and sit facing you. The compartment is dark except for the lamp you’ve been reading by. Before long, the man I’m handcuffed to begins to snore softly.