While she draped the cover over Ike’s cage, she caught sight of the bed, where Saul was now sprawled, out of the corner of her eye. Had it really been just a few days since James was here with her?
She was surprised by the longing that gnawed at her insides and it wasn’t just for the physical gratification that came with spending the night with someone. No, this was specifically for James and for what they had discovered together. She knew, because she had never felt like this before.
If she were completely honest, the man had managed to get under her skin and she had no idea what to do about it. She glanced at her sweatshirt and jeans and the bandana in her hair. Then again, maybe she did.
The Bikini Lounge was where the tourists mostly hung out. If she picked up a guy from away for a little horizontal recreation tonight, maybe she could purge the memory of James from her mind. Yes, that was the ticket.
Carly hurried over to her closet and picked out her sure-thing dress and matching shoes. In her woman’s arsenal, this little black dress and black stiletto pumps had never failed to land her a man when she set her mind to it. Never.
• • •
“Carly, hurry up,” Jillian cried. “It’s freezing out here.”
“Hang on, the stupid heel on my stupid shoe is stupidly stuck.”
Halfway down the town pier toward the end where the Bikini Lounge was located, Carly’s heel wedged itself into one of the squeaky old planks.
“That’s what happens when you dress like a hooker to go out to a bar perched at the end of a pier,” Emma said.
“Listen, married old lady,” Carly snapped, “some of us are still looking for love or at least a night of screeching orgasms.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure you had your quota this week, possibly this month,” Mac said.
She was hunkered in her corduroy coat, trying not to look down at the planks since she had a fear of deep, dark water and going to the Bikini Lounge after dark and at high tide always made her squirrely.
“I thought this was supposed to be a girls’ night out,” Emma said. “No men allowed since our boys are having a poker night.”
“Ah,” Carly cried as she got her shoe loose. “It is girls’ night out, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find a nice boy to take home later.”
The four of them resumed walking and Carly felt Jillian’s stare on the side of her face.
“Carly—” Jillian began but Carly cut her off.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Hey, you don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do, Jilly,” Carly said. “You were about to tell me you are concerned about me being with one guy a few days ago and being on the prowl now. Honestly, you don’t need to worry. I’m fine.”
“But James is so hot, and he’s clearly interested,” Jillian said. “Why would you want to hook up with anyone else?”
“No,” Carly said.
“Sorry but I have to agree with Jillian, he is smokin’ hot,” Emma added. Carly gave her a dark look. “What? I’m married, not dead.”
“Stop,” Carly said.
“We can’t,” Mac said. She paused in front of the door to the bar and turned to face Carly. “Listen, we care about you. We don’t want to see you make a mistake that you will regret for the rest of your life.”
“Oh, my god,” Carly said. “Do you people not know me at all? There is no mistake to be made. This is why my life is so perfect. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want. Now quit worrying. I’ve got this.”
Carly saw her friends exchange an agitated look, but as she showed her ID to the bouncer, and tripped her way into the club, she knew tonight was her night. Tonight she would get the old Carly back and banish any images of James Sinclair from her mind once and for all.
Chapter 14
James finished his beer, planning to settle his tab and go home since his friend Carlos had just left for work at the TV station in Portland. That was the plan. It was a good plan. And then it was shot all to hell.
The door to the Bikini Lounge opened and Carly DeCusati strode in looking like the answer to his every horn dog adolescent fantasy from the age of twelve to, well, now.
In a long-sleeved little black dress that hugged every curve and was cut so low in the front he was surprised he didn’t see her nipples peeping back at him, she strode into the room like she owned it.
The dress ended just past her curvaceous derriere and the platform pumps she wore made her legs look like they were five miles of long treacherous road that desperately needed to be wrapped around his waist. Sweat beaded up on his brow and his heart thumped hard in his chest. For a second, he was pretty sure he was having a heart attack.
Then he noticed that he was not the only male in the room watching Carly strut her stuff. In fact, every male in the room seemed to have gone into big-cat mode and was tracking her every move. James felt a sudden caveman-like urge to stomp across the room, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her back to his place where he’d make love to her until she cried out his name in that particularly breathy way she had.
He sat back down, hard, on his bar stool, knowing just how crazy pissed she would be if he tried anything even close to a stunt like that. He signaled to the bartender for another beer and settled in to see what his girl was up to. Yeah, she could deny it all she wanted but she was his even if she was slower on the uptake than he was.
He glanced at Jillian, Mac, and Emma as they trailed behind Carly, who was flirting her way through the bar. Given that the three of them were wearing the more seasonally appropriate attire of jeans and sweaters, and because they kept exchanging worried glances behind Carly’s back, he figured they were not completely down with her shenanigans. Good. He knew he liked those girls.
The four of them sat at a small table in the corner. Carly had barely hoisted herself up onto her stool when the first jackass made his move. He was short and had big ears and James figured Carly would shoo him away like a housefly. She did not. In fact, she invited him into their little circle.
James felt something crack in his mouth and realized he was clenching his jaw so hard he might have chipped a tooth. He opened his mouth wide and stretched his jaw while he watched two other guys start to buzz around Carly.
The other girls looked a bit put out, their smiles forced, but Carly flirted with all three of the men, throwing her head back and laughing at their jokes, which judging by the bored expressions of Jillian, Emma, and Mac, were not remotely funny. Suddenly, James wanted nothing more than to turn Carly’s curvaceous backside right over his knee. Enough was enough!
He tossed a bill onto the bar, picked up his beer, and made his way over to the ladies’ table. Jillian saw him coming and her eyes went wide. She nudged Mac hard in the side and she made the same wide-eyed oh shit face. James forced himself to smile at them even though he was pretty sure it was more a baring of teeth and probably the scariest smile he had ever mustered.
To her credit, when Mac elbowed Emma and she saw him coming, Emma sent him a blindingly bright smile. Then she did something that won his heart in friendship for-freaking-ever. She grabbed one of the guys and had Mac and Jillian grab the other two and they dragged them out onto the dance floor, leaving the field wide open for James. This time when he smiled at them, it was for real, and he added a wink, which made all three of them smile in return.
He turned back to the small table where Carly sat alone, looking bewildered, like she had no idea what the heck had just happened. He curbed his grin. He was going to have to play this very, very carefully.
“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere, buddy?” he asked as he slid onto the seat beside her.
Carly glanced from the dance floor to him and her lips broke into the brightest smile he’d seen, well, since the very first time he’d ever seen her. It was like getting blasted by the sun a
fter a long cold winter. Dang, how had he forgotten how potent that smile of hers was? It was the reason he called her sunshine, after all.
He glanced away from her face before he forgot his purpose and did something dumb like drop to his knees and beg her to reconsider her position on one-night stands. Instead he gave her side eye and a low whistle.
“Wow,” he said. “You look wicked sexy in that dress, buddy.”
“Stop that,” she said.
“What?”
“Saying ‘buddy’ that way.”
“And what way is that?” he asked.
“Not in a friendly way,” she said. “It reeks of sexual innuendo when you say it.”
“Huh, you don’t say.”
“I do say.”
“Whatever you say, buddy.”
She huffed with exasperation and leaned close to him as if she couldn’t help herself and then, as if remembering that she had cut him off at one night and should not be in his personal space, she leaned back. She scowled at him and he knew she was recommitting herself to keeping him in the friend zone.
The urge to straighten her out by grabbing her and kissing her until she saw stars, or at the very least saw things his way, was almost more than he could stand. Instead, he chugged his beer hoping it would squelch the fire that was doing a slow burn to his insides every time his gaze veered anywhere near her cleavage. Have mercy!
“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked.
“I was having a beer with my friend Carlos before he left to go into work, and I saw you,” he said. “I figured since we’re friends, it was only right to come over and say hi.”
“Hi,” she said. She stared at him. “Now you can go.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m trying to meet someone and having you hanging about is not going to help me,” she said.
The waitress arrived at the table and delivered four shots. The liquid was amber and the smell made James’s eyes water. These were not girly shots; these were jet fuel. Carly was clearly on a mission tonight. Yeah, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“You mean you’re planning to pick someone up?” he clarified when the waitress left.
Carly tossed back a shot and then looked at him as if he were too stupid to live. He supposed in many ways he was because after the night they had spent together he couldn’t imagine being with any other woman—ever.
If he was honest, a part of him, not just his male ego, was hurt that she would throw herself back out there so quickly after what he considered the greatest night of his life. But when he looked at Carly and noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the frantic set to her face and then remembered the way she had smiled at him when she first saw him, he realized she was here precisely because the other night had been so incredible. It was probably scaring the snot out of her. He knew this mostly because he was terrified, too. He had known from the first moment he kissed her that this girl had the capacity to destroy him and, yet, here he was.
“Oh, well, I don’t want to interfere with that,” he said. “Let’s see if I can help.”
“No, I don’t need—” she began but he interrupted.
“How about that man bun–wearing stud over in the corner?” he asked. “He looks like he might be interested in getting his banana peeled.”
Carly gaped at him. “Did you just—?”
“You know, I have a friend who dated a guy with hair like that and she let him use her shower. Those hairy beasties will clog up your drains. Just sayin’.”
She blinked at him and he had to duck his head and take a long sip of beer to keep from laughing. She looked completely flummoxed.
“No? All right, how about that guy over there? The one in the suit? At least he looks like he knows his way around a comb,” he said. He narrowed his eyes and studied the man closer. “Although not a pair of nose hair trimmers, however. Ew.”
Carly glanced at the man in the suit then gave James an irritated look because, yes, even in a dimly lit bar at ten feet away, the guy clearly had nostril issues and James knew there was no way she could un-see that.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “And it’s completely unnecessary.”
“What am I doing?” He blinked innocently. She snorted.
“You’re trying to point out what is wrong with every guy in this room so that I won’t go home with any of them,” she said.
“Me?” he asked. “No, no, I’m just offering some friendly advice.”
“Well, don’t bother. It’s girls’ night out. No boys allowed, which includes you.”
“Really?” he asked. He squinted one eye at her. “But all your friends are dancing with boys.”
Carly looked from him to the dance floor and back. “That’s different.”
“How so?”
“They’re just dancing,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “Huh. So, we should dance.”
“No, that’s not—” she protested but he ignored her.
He stood and shrugged off his coat and dropped it onto the back of the stool, then he took Carly’s hand and tugged her out to the dance floor. Her heels, bless them, gave her no traction to fight him so he maneuvered her into the middle of the floor with him.
It was a lively number and Carly began to bust some moves that pushed James back a few feet and made him fear that she might pop right out of the top of her dress. He tried to remember why that was a bad thing even while acknowledging that she was quite possibly the worst dancer he had ever seen. Adorable.
The song ended and Carly flashed him a saucy smile and headed back to the table, but just then the DJ put on “Love Is a Losing Game” by Amy Winehouse and James grabbed Carly’s hand and spun her into his arms before she could escape.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s a favorite. Dance with me, please?”
It was the please that did her in, he could tell by the way the fire banked in her deep brown gaze as she wrapped her arms loosely about his neck. He felt like he’d caught a bird in his hands and had to hold her ever so firmly but gently to keep her from flying off.
Other parts of him were more than down with being firm and he had to keep a smidge of distance between them to keep her from discovering what he really wanted to do with her right now. He let his hands stroke up and down her sides, trying to ease the restless heat that was plaguing him. It didn’t help.
For her part, Carly seemed to have fastened her gaze on the collar of his shirt and refused to look anywhere else. Interesting. The fact that she couldn’t or wouldn’t look at him gave James a surge of hope. She could friend zone him all she wanted but he knew the attraction between them was so much more than that.
“Hey, buddy,” he said. “Let’s kick it up a notch, yeah?”
Carly gave him a bewildered look as he took her hand in his and put his other hand on her waist and guided her around the dance floor in a tight box step that his sister had forced him to learn when they were teens. It was not terribly exciting but better than the middle school sway.
When Carly tried to liven it up with some uncoordinated twirling and dipping, he tightened his grip on her waist and said, “Settle down there, Beyoncé, this is as good as it gets with me.”
Carly laughed and fell into step with him. They matched up perfectly just like he knew they would. Her gaze went from his collar to his eyes to his mouth and then dropped back down to his collar but not before he noticed the pink flush that suffused her cheeks. He forced himself not to smile but it was a challenge.
When the song ended, he reluctantly walked her back to the table where her friends were waiting. They seemed to have managed to shake off the men who’d been hovering and for that James was planning to send each of them flowers the next day.
“Hi, James,” they all greeted him with smiles.
“He was just leaving
,” Carly said. She took a swig from her beer and gave her friends a pointed look that James took to mean they were not supposed to protest.
He made a big show of checking the time on his cellphone, which was ridiculous because he didn’t care what time it was. He had no intention of letting Carly out of his sight in that dress, which if he ever got his hands on he planned to hide so she could never wear it in front of anyone but him.
Whoa. He shook his head. His inner caveman was seriously having issues.
“Actually, I don’t have to leave just yet,” he said. He glanced at Carly out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, how can I go not knowing which lucky dude you’re going to drag home tonight?”
He heard Jillian suck in a breath. “Did you tell him that?”
“No. Maybe. Did I?” Carly looked at James.
“You did,” he said.
“Oh, huh,” she said. She took a long sip from her drink. “That seems bad form.”
“Aw, are you talking about my sweet dance moves again?” Zach asked as he bopped up to the table with Brad, Sam, and Gavin right behind him.
Carly narrowed her eyes at Zach. “What are you doing here? This is girls’ night out!”
“He’s here!” Sam pointed at James.
“He’s leaving,” Carly said.
Standing behind Carly so she couldn’t see, James shook his head at the other men. They grinned.
“We had to come. These two mopes missed their women,” Zach said. He pointed at Brad, who had wrapped himself around Emma, and Gavin, who had lifted Mac up, taken her seat, and set her back down on his lap. The four of them were disgustingly lovey dovey and James felt a pang of envy that he tried to ignore.
“This night is a bust, a total bust,” Carly said. She looked highly irritated.
“It is that,” James said. His eyes were locked on her chest when he said it and she scowled at him. “Chin up, buddy, we’ll find someone for you to shampoo the wookie with.”
Barking Up the Wrong Tree Page 13