Naked Truth

by Tami Lund

  “He wasn’t interested in you. Not even at Sabrina’s wedding. You aren’t his type.”

  “Oh really? And what, precisely, is his type?”

  “Single.”

  Vanessa made a noise of irritation. Kennedy glanced out the door of the empty hospital room and saw that an elderly woman had walked up to the nurse’s station and stood there, holding a bouquet of flowers. There were no other personnel around to help her.

  “Vanessa, I have to get back to work. Take my advice: go make up with your husband. It isn’t worth cheating on him. Trust me.”

  “How would you—” Kennedy disconnected the call, so she did not hear the rest of that sentence. She hurried from the room and plastered a smile on her face.

  The woman looked to be in her sixties. She had short, dark hair and eyebrows that were drawn onto her face with a brown pencil, and she had outlined the edges of her lip before putting on petal-pink lipstick.

  “My daughter just had a baby,” she announced excitedly.

  “Congratulations,” Kennedy said politely.

  The woman studied her for a moment. “You look to be about her age. Twenty-five?”

  This woman clearly looked older than she really was if her daughter was only twenty-five. She offered a polite smile. “Thanks, but I just hit the big three-o on my last birthday.”

  The woman’s eyes dropped to Kennedy’s hands. “And you aren’t married? But you’re so pretty.”

  Her smile turned tense. “Yes, well, I suppose it isn’t in the cards right now.”

  “Surely there’s a man in your life,” the woman pressed. “Someone serious.”

  Well, Jack was a man in her life, but was it serious? According to Sabrina and Cullen and probably everyone else who knew him, Jack was never serious about his relationships with women.

  “You’re hesitating,” the woman said as she wagged her finger at Kennedy. “There is someone. Is the relationship new? It must be. Oh, look how you’re blushing. What’s he like? I just love to hear about new love.”

  Kennedy chuckled and shook her head. “It’s too soon to call it that, I think.”

  It was, wasn’t it? How was she supposed to avoid getting hurt if she was thinking in terms of love?

  “What’s he like, sweetie? What’s he do for a living?”

  “He’s, ah, in law enforcement,” she stuttered, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the woman’s attentions. “Did you need something?” she asked, needing to pull the conversation back to work, to the job, to an area in which she could feel steady, in control.

  Whatever might be happening with Jack and to her emotions, there was no doubt whatsoever that Kennedy was not in control. No matter how insistent he was that she give her verbal consent before they did anything, he didn’t even have to ask. The answer was always yes.

  The woman nodded, and ignored her question. “Law enforcement. Good career choice. Police officer?”

  “Um, sort of. Can I—?”

  “Police officers make good husbands. Solid, steady. Always stay on the right side of the law. You would do well to keep that one.”

  Keep him? Hell, Kennedy wasn’t even sure he had him at all to make that choice. She was so conflicted, she was going to end up with high blood pressure if this roller coaster of a relationship kept up much longer. The man had been wounded badly enough to require stitches, while protecting her home, and she was afraid to question his motives, ask him for clarification on whatever it was they were doing?

  When she looked at it from that perspective, her fear, tiptoeing around the situation seemed silly. Maybe it was time to woman up, to roar. She gave the elderly woman a blinding smile.

  And then she chickened out.

  • • •

  When Kennedy walked into the house eight hours later, Jack greeted her in the foyer. “How was your day?” he asked as he handed her a glass of chilled white wine.

  It was déjà vu.

  “How are you?” she asked instead of answering his question.

  He touched his shoulder. His shirtsleeve hid the bandage from view. “Fine. I’ve had worse. We found a wig, couple houses down from here. Hopefully it’s the perp’s and hopefully it’s custom-made. If all the stars align, we might be able to close this case soon.”

  “That’s good.” What would happen when he did close the case? Would that signal to him that it was time to end their relationship? She presumed that FBI agents, unless they were working undercover, worked daytime hours, which meant he would no longer have a use for her key. She wanted to ask if he intended to return it, but she was afraid of his response.

  “Come on, sit down. You look …” He appeared to struggle with finding the right word.

  “Stressed?”

  “Yeah, that’s about right. You still shaken up about what happened this morning?” As he talked, he snagged her free hand and led her into the living room. He sat and pulled her down next to him, then lifted her legs into his lap. He massaged her calves, and Kennedy let her head drop against the pillow perched on the couch arm.

  “I can’t even think straight when you do that,” she murmured, her eyes closed.

  Jack chuckled and shifted his hands lower to massage her feet. She groaned.

  “Did you talk to Sabrina today?”

  She lifted her head and opened her eyes, but he found a particularly tingly spot on the ball of her foot, and she gave in to the sensations and let her head fall back again.

  “I did.” Her voice was breathy.

  “How’d she take the news?”

  “That you and I are sleeping together? Better than Cullen thought she would. But if you’re asking, she certainly isn’t thrilled. Seems to believe we are too different.”

  “She should talk. She and Cullen are as different as night and day.”

  “I talked to Vanessa too. She yelled at me.”

  “Why?”

  “She seems to be under the impression I leapt into bed with you just to spite her.”

  “As good a reason as any, I guess. What are Sabrina’s specific concerns?”

  “Oh you know—you’re a player, I’m not. You’re just looking for a good time, and I’m going to end up hurt. The typical. God, that feels good. Have I mentioned that my feet are a giant erogenous zone?”

  “Oh yeah?” Jack shifted in his seat so that he was kneeling next to her. He held a foot in each hand and continued to massage as he leaned down to kiss her. She murmured her assent and grabbed his hair with the hand that wasn’t holding a glass of wine.

  He released one of her feet and plucked the glass out of her hand. “We don’t want this to spill.” He cupped her foot again and pressed her knees toward her shoulders as he continued to massage the pads of her feet. She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled him toward her for a hot, wet, open-mouthed kiss.

  The kiss turned frantic. Kennedy tugged at his shirt; Jack ripped the seam of her scrub top in his zeal to get it over her head. He stood up, pulled a condom out of his pocket, and shed his jeans. Before kneeling on the couch again, he pulled off her pants.

  He knelt between her legs. She leaned forward and sheathed him with the condom. He grabbed her feet again and began to massage. Kennedy sucked in a breath and stared up at him as he slowly, slowly pressed into her without pausing in his foot massage.

  She made a strangled noise as her orgasm began to crest almost immediately.

  “Jesus,” Jack gasped as she arched and bucked beneath him, squeezing him with her inner muscles, pulling him, forcing him to rush over the edge and catch up with her.

  A few moments later, he lay on his back on the couch, with Kennedy, lightly dozing, draped across his body, and continued to massage her right foot.

  “You weren’t kidding,” he murmured.

  She startled from her doze and smiled without opening her eyes. “Keep that up and I’m going to expect a round two.”

  “I’m happy to oblige, but we should probably eat something first.”

  “Mm-mm.” She
made no move to climb to her feet. He chuckled and slid out from under her, leaving her sprawled on the couch.

  “It’s not nearly as comfortable without you here,” she called out as he headed toward the kitchen. She rolled off the couch, shuffled down the hall, used the bathroom, and went into the bedroom to change into shorts and a t-shirt. When she returned to the kitchen, her glass of wine was perched on the counter, and Jack was staring at the contents of the refrigerator.

  He turned when she entered the room, his eyes serious as he watched her pad lightly on bare feet across the cool tile. She lifted the glass, took a sip, and arched her brows in question.

  “Can’t decide?”

  Jack closed the refrigerator and leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest. “Do you think Sabrina’s right?”

  • • •

  He watched the confused look crawl across her face. Clearly, she’d moved on from the conversation they’d had on the couch. Well, he hadn’t. It was still bothering him. He needed to know what she thought of him. What she felt. For some reason, it was important.

  “Do you think I’m a player?”

  She arched that brow again and took another sip of wine. “Aren’t you?”

  “Do you think I am right now? That I’m playing you?”

  Kennedy hesitated. Her confused look turned nervous. He suspected she didn’t like these types of conversations any more than he did.

  “Answer me, Kennedy.”

  “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I don’t know what you’re doing or what you’re thinking. You have to admit, Jack, you have a reputation. And you’re the one who clarified that this was a no-strings attached, uh, situation, during Sabrina and Cullen’s wedding.”

  Before he could protest, she lifted her hand, palm out.

  “And I’m okay with that. I get it. I can live with it.”

  “Can you? Yesterday you gave me a key to your house.”

  “You asked for it,” she protested.

  “I ask for a lot of things. Are you really going to give me everything I ask for?”

  Nervousness turned to bewilderment. “What are you trying to say, Jack? I don’t understand.”

  He stalked toward her, and when he was directly in front of her, he leaned forward and placed both palms on top of the counter, on either side of her hips. “I’m not easy to live with, Kennedy. I’m lousy at relationships, which is why I avoid them. I enjoy sex, a lot, which is probably why people consider me a player. That reputation allows me to get laid all I want without the complications of … more. But I’m also extremely demanding, and even though I try to remember to ask, I still have a tendency to just take what I want. You need to understand all of this.”

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “O-okay,” she said, but he knew she didn’t understand. He knew she didn’t have a clue that he’d all but laid his heart out there, offered it up, if she was willing to take the chance on him. He was afraid to try to explain, because if she did understand, she might not respond with even a hesitant, “Okay.” She might just show him the door and suggest he have a nice life.

  Jack wasn’t ready for that yet. He pushed away from the counter and strode to the door. “Let’s go grab something to eat. Cooking sounds like too much of a pain in the ass right now.”

  • • •

  When they returned from dinner, Vanessa was sitting on the front porch. With luggage.

  “What are you doing here, Vanessa?” Kennedy asked warily. Jack had told her that Cullen wanted to hustle all three women into something akin to a witness protection program until this case was closed, but Sabrina had flat out refused, and Jack figured Kennedy would, too.

  “You figured right,” she’d responded as she’d splashed hot sauce onto her shrimp po-boy. “Especially because I’m still convinced it’s you they’re after, and if I’m tucked away somewhere, all I’m going to do is stress over your safety.”

  He’d been pleased with that comment, even if he wasn’t pleased in general that she was still essentially in the line of fire. Yes, that made him a hypocrite, since just a few days prior he’d walked out on her when she’d expressed concern over him risking his life for the case, but he was entitled to a change of opinion. This whole something-more-than-just-sleeping-together concept was new to him.

  “I’m staying with you,” Vanessa announced. She stood and brushed at the back of the short green and white sundress.

  “Cullen kick you out?” he asked.

  Vanessa glared. “No. I chose to leave.”

  “Why?” Kennedy wanted to know.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You are sleeping with the man with whom I wish to have an affair.”

  His reaction reminded him of the cat he’d had when he was a kid. The thing had made a god-awful noise whenever it’d hack up a hairball.

  “So I’m going to see to it that you two aren’t sleeping together anymore. It’s just wrong. He should be mine. At least for one night.”

  She gave Jack a look that implied if he were willing, she would happily trot him back to the bedroom right now. He glanced at Kennedy. She offered up a helpless look in return. He lifted his hands in surrender.

  “Not my house or my cousin,” he pointed out. “I’d suggest we just go to my house, but I’m not comfortable leaving her here alone after what happened this morning.”

  “Plus, I’d just follow you,” Vanessa added.

  “How does Sabrina put up with you?” Kennedy asked.

  Vanessa shrugged. “We don’t normally spend so much time together.” She wrinkled her nose. “And now I understand why. Did you know she doesn’t even have a housekeeper?”

  “Neither do I.” Kennedy sounded as if she were hopeful that statement would cause her cousin to rethink her decision.

  “But you have Jack.”

  “Do you want me to just sleep with her and get it over with?” He directed the teasing question to Kennedy, but Vanessa answered. Actually, both women responded.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  It was going to be a long evening.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Despite his injury, Jack went back to posing as a stripper on Wednesday. He slapped a flesh-colored bandage over the stitches and called it good. In truth, it was almost a relief to have a break. Not that he didn’t thoroughly enjoy most of the time he spent in Kennedy’s company, but hanging out at the house all day with Vanessa hitting on him and Kennedy flip-flopping between irritable and temptress—or maybe that was just his impression because he wanted to get laid—had been exhausting.

  Try as they might, he and Kennedy hadn’t been able to convince Vanessa to leave, and Kennedy was too damn kindhearted to get downright mean about it.

  “What if Mac really did cheat on her?” she had whispered when they lay in bed, not having sex because she was self-conscious over the fact that Vanessa was sleeping in the next room. He might have been more annoyed with her refusal if the other woman hadn’t made a point of bursting into the bedroom every two hours throughout the night.

  Considering Kennedy’s own past experience with a cheating husband, he figured he couldn’t argue with her sympathy. He’d obviously never been in the same type of situation. Hell, he hadn’t had a real, full-fledged relationship since high school.

  When he arrived on her doorstep at five the next morning, he slipped into the house and headed straight back to her bedroom, only to discover Vanessa asleep in the spot where he wanted to be.

  “What the hell?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kennedy whispered, as she looked up at him with doleful eyes. “She had a breakdown about Mac, and she was crying and crying, and then she just fell asleep.”

  “Well wake her up.” He knew he sounded like an ass, but damn it, he wanted to sleep with her. He didn’t even freaking care if they had sex. He just wanted to be in the bed with her.

  Instead of waking Vanessa, she climbed out of the bed, snagged his hand, and led him from the room. He admired the way h
er ass swung to and fro under those short boxer shorts she favored as sleepwear, and he changed his mind. He did want to have sex with her after all.

  “We can sleep in the guest room or on the couch.”

  “Couch,” he replied as he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting his hands and cupping her breasts as he guided her toward the living room. “What if she gets up in the middle of the night and tries to climb into her own bed?”

  She didn’t respond. She turned in his arms, grasped his biceps, and turned him around before pushing him down onto the couch.

  “I’m all yours,” he murmured as she placed her hands on his shoulders and straddled his lap. Something flashed in her eyes, something that should have been concerning, but he was too caught up in the moment, too desperate to connect with her, to try to figure it out. Instead, he twisted his hands in her sleep-tousled hair and pulled her close for a kiss. Just as he hoped, she melted against him, sighing into his mouth as she tilted her head, slanted her mouth over his, and gave in to what they both wanted. What they both needed.

  • • •

  When he woke, Kennedy was sprawled on top of him, naked, sound asleep, while Vanessa stood over them, sipping coffee and analyzing the scene with a critical eye. He groped around on the floor, found the blanket that had slipped off at some point in the last few hours, and pulled it over his sleeping partner’s body. She stirred but did not wake.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Vanessa commented.

  “It’d be even bigger if I slept with you.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because you’re married, and I’m pretty sure you love your husband. And you don’t even know for sure if he cheated. You should make sure you have all the facts before you make such a monumental decision.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “My job is to gather all the facts before making a decision. If I don’t, the guilty party won’t be convicted. So actually, I do know what I’m talking about.”

  Vanessa thrust out her chin and stomped away. Jack wrapped his arms around Kennedy’s sleeping body, nuzzled her soft hair, closed his eyes, and fell back asleep.