by Leslie Kelly
She shot him a malevolent glare, but quickly forced a smile to her beautiful lips. “All figured out.” Her chin going up, she added, “Thanks for that last suggestion you called out. I have a feeling that’s definitely going to do the trick.”
His last suggestion. Commando.
Xander swallowed hard, trying not to think about how silky that dress must feel against her bare skin. And especially not to think about who she was wearing all that sexy nothingness for.
“Xander?” said the lucky son of a bitch, his smile tight. “What an…interesting name.”
“Thanks. Yours was Dimitri, right?” he replied evenly, letting his emphasis say what he wanted to say. Let the other guy’s hypocrisy come through all on its own. Who the hell was he, anyway, the name police?
“Okay, everyone,” Anna interjected, cutting through the sudden tension that had erupted between them, “time for our party favors!”
“You shouldn’t have,” said the bride, Lyssa, a tall, attractive woman who looked like an Amazon. She had a good three inches of height on her groom, who’d been introduced as Duke.
“It’s just for fun,” Anna said as she reached under the table and retrieved a large, white-lace-covered box. “Everyone gets one. Before you put your hand inside, I want you to think about what you’d most like to know about your life.”
She passed the box around. The guests reached in one by one and pulled out plastic-wrapped fortune cookies, reading out the fortunes as they were drawn. One was apparently going to come into some money, another was about to experience high highs and low lows and a third was destined to change the world.
Of course, they all played the standard, sexy fortune-cookie game—adding the words between the sheets after the fortune. There was a lot of commentary about the high highs to be had between the sheets, and he found himself laughing along with the group, most of whom were friendly, young professionals. He might be the only blue-collar guy here, and a stranger to them all, but he didn’t feel at all an outsider. Southerners just had a gift for making people feel welcome.
When Mimi drew out her fortune—after one more admonishment from Anna to be sure to think about what she wanted—Xander really started getting interested. What, he wondered, did she most want to know about in her life?
Anna was the first to notice there was more than one tiny slip of paper within Mimi’s cookie. “Ooh, a double fortune, that’s lucky!”
Mimi merely smiled and plucked the paper free, scraping away the crumbs. Drawing them closer, she said, “There are actually three.”
The three tiny slips were stuck together, some kind of factory mistake, but Anna oohed and aahed some more. Her husband, Obi-Wan, who’d been pretty quiet tonight and hadn’t had much to say to anyone, piped in. “Must have been some hard concentrating you were doing there, Mimi. The universe is definitely trying to answer your question.”
“Read them out loud,” someone called.
Mimi smiled and opened her mouth to read the first one. But she just as quickly closed it. Her fist closed around the papers and she reached for her glass of wine.
“What’s wrong?” asked Dimitri.
“Nothing. It’s just silly. Let someone else have a turn.”
“Not until you read,” Xander insisted, something making him want to know what it was she didn’t want to share.
She frowned at him, then quickly looked away. But, as if realizing nobody was going to let her get away with ignoring her fortunes, she finally unclenched her fingers and lifted the slips again. Her voice low, she read the first one.
“‘The man of your dreams is always there to catch you when you fall.’”
“Between the sheets,” called one tipsy female.
Everyone laughed. Everyone except Mimi. And Xander. And Dimitri. Because the guy might be okay-looking, and he might be rich. But Xander wasn’t sure he met the dashing-hero definition. At least, that’s what Xander was telling himself.
“Read the next one,” said the bride-to-be.
Mimi sighed, took a deep breath, then read. “‘The man of your dreams knows what you really want and how you really want it.’”
That one earned some wolf whistles, catcalls and, of course, the obligatory bed reference. Mimi shot a heated glance at her landlady, obviously wondering—as was Xander—if she’d been set up. But he didn’t see how she could have been, considering she’d dug the cookie out of a huge box and all the other fortunes read so far had been normal.
The laughter and whispers died pretty quickly this time. Everyone was curious. Because, not only was Mimi’s cookie filled with more than one fortune, but they also seemed to be related. And to have a very pointed, deliberate theme.
Dimitri’s hand tightened on Mimi’s shoulder, and she turned her head to look up at him. They shared a smile that, to everyone at the party, looked tender and romantic. The sort of smile lovers share.
They weren’t lovers. Not yet. But hell, every one of these fortunes she was reading seemed to hint they were about to take that step. That shared smile seemed to confirm it.
Some emotion hit him hard in the chest. Xander recognized it immediately: regret. This was the wrong time and place. She’d already made her choice. A day ago, before she’d made up her mind to lure the other guy into bed, maybe Xander would have had a chance with her. Now? It was too damn late.
His mouth tight and his jaw tighter, he began to back away, wanting to exit the party unnoticed. He’d taken his shot—as much of one as he could take, anyway—and recognized the truth. Whatever might have happened between him and Mimi Burdette just wasn’t meant to be.
Which meant it was time to go. He would melt out of her night as quietly and stealthily as he’d entered it.
But before he walked through the back door into the house, he heard her announce she was going to read the third fortune. Something made him wait and listen, nearly hidden in the shadows of the house.
Mimi studied the slip in silence. Lifting her eyes, she looked around as if searching for someone. He watched her, unnoticed, unseen, soon to be forgotten. Then, clearing her throat, she read her third and final fortune.
“‘The man of your dreams will slip away unless you have the courage to go after him.’”
* * *
THE PARTY WOUND DOWN at around midnight. As the minutes ticked by, the lawn emptied, and Dimitri came up to thank Anna and say good-night, Mimi realized something—she’d completely forgotten she had intended to seduce this man tonight. She hadn’t just put the thought out of her mind because she couldn’t evaluate how she felt about it, but had actually forgotten entirely. Which sure didn’t say much for how excited she was about the prospect of going to bed with him.
So it was a good thing she wouldn’t be.
She just couldn’t. Not after that kiss from another man. Not after the hours she’d spent reliving that kiss, to the point where she’d gotten lost in the middle of more than one party conversation.
“Good night. Thank you again,” Dimitri said, gracious, as always.
“You’re very welcome,” Anna replied with a faint smile.
Mimi walked him to the gate, their arms linked, their steps perfectly matched. She’d noticed before that they always fell into step together, an easy synchronicity that spoke of familiarity and comfort. Heck, maybe that was why she wasn’t brokenhearted about not going to bed with him tonight. Maybe they were too comfortable. Maybe they’d sort of skipped the passion part of a dating relationship, since they worked together, and had been friends for a few months. Maybe they could even take a few steps back and try to find it.
It bore thinking about, anyway. Another night. When she could actually think about anything except the man in her closet and those crazy fortunes everyone at the party had been buzzing about after she’d read them aloud. Everyone except the man in her closet. He’d disappeared sometime during the reading without even saying good-night to anyone. She still couldn’t understand why.
“I’ll see you on Monda
y?” Dimitri asked.
She sensed he was waiting to see if she wanted to get together this weekend, if she’d suggest they go out tomorrow or Sunday. Why he didn’t ask, she had no idea. It was always this way—he never pursued, just let them drift together. She honestly wasn’t sure whether it was because he didn’t want to presume, or because he didn’t want her to take him for granted.
“Fine,” she said with a bright smile.
A shadow crossed his face, momentarily, then he pressed a soft, closemouthed kiss to her lips. She held her breath, waiting to see if he’d deepen it. Waiting to see how she’d feel if he did. Waiting for…something.
She got…nothing. He didn’t slide his tongue into her mouth, didn’t take her in his arms, didn’t lift his hand and tangle it in her hair and cup her face and brush his thumb against her cheekbone.
Normally, she would have backed away with a gentle smile. But tonight, driven by some curiosity she couldn’t deny, she slipped her arms up around his neck and held him tight. She tilted her head to the side, parting her lips, inviting him to deepen the kiss.
He did, gently sliding his tongue against hers. He lowered his arms to encircle her waist, keeping his hands above her hips.
Mimi concentrated on the taste of his mouth, the softness of his lips, the feel of his lean body against hers. And it felt good, perfectly fine.
But it definitely did not drive her out of her mind with desire. Actually, she realized, the fact that she could analyze this as she stood here with his tongue in her mouth made her realize how completely uninvolved she was in the moment.
Damn.
He ended the kiss and looked down at her, a question on his impossibly handsome face. Mimi looked up at him, thinking about how she had planned to end the night.
It really wasn’t hard to make the right decision.
“Good night, Dimitri,” she murmured.
“Good night.”
A moment later, he was gone.
Racked with disappointment and a hint of confusion, she went back into the yard to finish helping Anna and found her landlady hard at work taking down some lights. Obi-Wan was with her, doing the same thing, holding the other end. But they weren’t even looking at each other, much less talking.
She really wished they would make up. This silent treatment thing was getting ridiculous.
“Thank you so much for your help, dear,” said Anna. “Would you do me one more favor and ask my husband if he remembered to shut off the generator in the shed?”
Mimi rolled her eyes, then turned to Obi-Wan. “Did you remember to shut off the generator?”
He smiled and pinched her cheek. “Of course I did. So please tell my darling wife she’s not going to get lucky enough to have me inhale noxious fumes and die just yet.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Mimi snapped.
They ignored her outburst—and each other—for the next hour as the yard returned to its normal state. As they finished up and entered the screen porch, Obi-Wan stretched and yawned. “I’m going to sleep well tonight, that’s for sure. Good thing I have that great big bed to roll around in.”
The bed was an issue between them. Anna was sleeping in a twin in the other unit. Anna glared at her husband, then kissed Mimi on the cheek and headed for the door. Once she was gone, Obi-Wan’s bright smile faded.
“When are you going to make this right?” Mimi asked, knowing he was miserable without his wife by his side.
“When she gives up that boy toy of hers.”
Mimi snorted. Anna would never in a million years cheat.
“It’s true! She’s always at that theater with that jerk.”
“She’s doing costumes for Shakespeare in the Park.”
“Fred Phelps doesn’t need one. He’s always looked like he has an ass’s head anyway. To think I once golfed with the man!”
“You really need to let this go.”
He put a hand up, stopping her from saying anything more. A peace lover he might be, but he was also incredibly stubborn. The subject was closed.
“I think I’ll go to bed, too. You sleep well.”
“I doubt I’ll do that,” she admitted as they went inside the large common area on the bottom floor that separated her apartment from Xander’s.
“Why not? You must be so tired.”
“You’d think so. Unfortunately, I’m too keyed up to sleep.”
That was true; she felt wired, on edge. She suspected sleep would be a long time coming tonight, probably because her head was too filled with fortunes and closets and thongs and big, broad-shouldered, bare-chested men.
“I’ve got just the thing,” said Obi-Wan, reaching into a pocket of his voluminous shirt. “Have some of my special tea.”
She eyed the pouch dubiously. “Uh…I don’t think so.”
“Nothing illicit, I promise,” he insisted, raising a hand to make a Scout’s pledge. She doubted he’d ever been a Scout, however—too militaristic for this peacenik. “Just some herbs and spices. You’ll sleep like a baby and have pleasant dreams.”
“I rarely dream.”
He smirked. “That’s not what that fortune cookie said.”
“Don’t remind me.” That had been so embarrassing, having to read those fortunes, as if she’d really been thinking about nothing else but the man of her dreams. As if she didn’t have a stressful job, problems with her father, a friend’s wedding to help plan. The man of her dreams was the last thing on her mind.
Sex? Well, that wasn’t the last thing on her mind, but her fortunes hadn’t been just about sex. They’d also been about romance and love—at least that’s how everyone had interpreted them. She didn’t have time for any of that, which was why her relationship with Dimitri seemed so ideal. She could get the sex and possibly even the relationship without dealing with the other stuff—and the heartache that often went along with it.
So why can’t you stop thinking about your new neighbor?
Good question.
“I promise, this will relax you and you’ll wake up in the morning feeling clearheaded and full of energy.”
“No magic mushrooms?” she asked, still suspicious.
“Cross my heart.”
He slipped the packet of tea into her hand and said good-night. She watched him go up the stairs to his apartment, then went to her own front door. With one last, lingering glance at the closed one across the hall, she went inside.
Sighing in renewed embarrassment as she saw the balled-up thong on the floor of her room, she stripped out of her dress—beneath which she was wearing underwear, albeit plain white satin ones—and got ready for sleep.
She didn’t really intend to drink Obi-Wan’s special blend, but after lying in bed for an hour, tossing and turning as she’d predicted, she got up and put the kettle on. She sniffed as the tea brewed, not noticing anything too out of the ordinary. Definitely spices, sweet and tangy. She caught cinnamon and nutmeg, maybe some orange? It seemed innocent enough, and she suddenly found herself wanting to taste it.
“Okay, Obi-Wan, I’m trusting you,” she said as she lifted the cup. “If there’s wacky weed in here, you’re in trouble.”
A bevy of fragrances filled her nose, and she sighed in pleasure as the liquid hit her tongue. The brew tasted like no tea she’d ever consumed, and she savored each heavenly sip as she headed back for her bedroom. The steam cleared her nose and the flavors awakened her taste buds. For a second, she felt more wide-awake, in tune with her senses, from the feel of the hardwood floor beneath her feet, to the faint, lingering man-smell in her bedroom. Oh, that’s really delicious.
Then a languor swept over her. Her muscles relaxed, the drumming of her pulse in her temple diminished. She almost purred as she slipped back into the bed, remaining upright to finish the tea down to the very last drop. Her lips and tongue were tingling and the taste lingered for a long time after she’d taken her final sip.
“Obi-Wan,” she mumbled as lovely warmth drenched her entire body, “you sho
uld package this stuff and sell it retail.”
It wasn’t just delicious, it was every bit as relaxing as he’d promised. She was practically asleep before her head hit the pillow, and once it did, she was out like a light.
And dreaming…
* * *
IT WAS EARLY MORNING. The sky was so blue and sharp it almost hurt to look at it, and the air felt cold and crisp in Mimi’s lungs. She wondered if this could still be Georgia, and immediately doubted it. She couldn’t say where she was—the colors were all so vivid, the earth so alive. She didn’t recognize such vibrancy, she only knew she’d never seen it before.