He pulled her up and then sat down, positioning her so that she was straddling him. He put his thumb right on her clit and Carly lost her powers of speech as everything went gray and she started to see spots.
“I can’t think when you do that,” she gasped.
“Tell me,” he said. He circled her sensitive spot with his thumb and she arched up against his touch. “Tell me what you want.”
“More than a one-night stand,” she panted.
“Be specific, sunshine,” he growled. His voice was a warning and Carly had a feeling he would do wickedly wonderful things to her if she didn’t say what he wanted to hear. It was tempting to deny him, but she had an agenda of her own.
“More than a temporary girlfriend. I want to be your girlfriend, for reals,” she said. Her voice was barely more than a whisper but he heard her.
“Yes!” he cried and pumped his fist in the air like he’d just scored a touchdown.
Then he turned back to her and the look in his eyes almost made Carly come on the spot. No man had ever made her feel like she was everything he had ever wanted and desired. It made all of her hard edges soften and her fiercely protected boundaries fell away, opening just for him.
Before he could regroup and finish what he started, Carly scooted off of his lap and knelt down in between his knees. Now it was his turn to look nervous.
“Strap yourself in, boyfriend.” She looked up at him through her lashes as she savored the word she had never used before. “I’m about to have my way with you.”
James hissed. That was all he got out before she put her mouth on him. When he fell back with his eyes still locked on her face, Carly knew she had him right where she wanted him.
• • •
“Tell me about Heather,” she said.
James was sprawled on his back, while Carly had her chin propped on her arms, which were crossed over his chest. They were partially clothed now and snuggled up on the bed, enjoying the sound of the ocean waves breaking on the rocks way down below.
Carly had gotten her way with James, but he had promised retribution once they recovered. Carly was a little alarmed at how much she was looking forward to it; maybe having a boyfriend wasn’t so bad after all.
“There’s not much to tell,” he said.
“Were you very hurt?”
“No,” he said. “Which probably should have been my first clue that I didn’t love her, not really.”
“Then why did you ask her to marry you?”
“How did you know that?”
“Tom and Lola might have mentioned that you two were engaged when we were watching Heather drape herself all over you like a bargain basement suit,” she said.
James toyed with a thick lock of Carly’s hair. “What else did they mention?”
“That she broke up with you to pursue Preston,” she said diplomatically.
“More like she cheated on me with him and when I caught on and confronted her, she dumped me before I could dump her,” he said. “Also, she made sure everyone knew about the affair so that Preston had no choice but to marry her to save face.”
“No sir,” Carly cried out.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It was quite the family scandal.”
“How did you meet her?”
“We grew up together,” he said. “I’ve known her my whole life. We dated in high school and then we just sort of stayed together through college, until I found out about her and Preston.”
“You never met anyone else that you fancied more than her?”
James was quiet for a moment. When he looked at Carly, his eyes were troubled, and she felt badly for asking what was clearly a painful question.
“Sorry,” she said. “That was none of my business.”
“Ah, but you’re my girlfriend now,” he said. “It’s all your business.”
Carly felt a burst of happiness surge through her. She liked that. She liked that his world, his history, his day to day stuff belonged to her now. She stretched her arms wide and hugged him close, resting her cheek against his chest.
“Still, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she said.
James was quiet. He kissed the top of her head. When he spoke his voice was low and deep as if the memory was being dredged up from down deep inside of him.
“There was one woman once,” he said.
He sifted her hair through his fingers, from the base of her scalp all the way to the tips again and again. Carly was sure that if she were a cat, she would have purred. Heck, she might anyway.
“And?”
“I could barely speak to her because I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” His tone was rueful.
Carly lifted her head to look at him.
“Are you telling me that you fell in love at first sight?” she asked. “With someone you’d never met before?”
“Desperately, madly, deeply,” he said.
Carly opened her mouth to say something, anything, but she couldn’t find the words. It was so romantic and so improbable that she couldn’t even wrap her head around it. Finally, she gave up trying and asked, “What happened?”
“Eleven years passed and then on one fine October afternoon, she walked back into my life and stole my heart all over again,” he said.
Carly couldn’t breathe. “She was me?”
“I know you don’t remember meeting me when I came to New York to visit Preston,” he said.
Carly frowned. She found it inconceivable that she could not remember him.
“Your business cohort was whooping it up, celebrating the end of finals,” he said. “You were wearing a killer red dress and you walked across the room like you owned the joint. I thought you were the most spectacular woman I’d ever seen. I felt like Cupid shot me right in the chest.”
So, he hadn’t been making it up when he told the family how they’d met. Carly shook her head. She had spent so many years burying the memories of that time and place down deep that it was hard to bring it back now.
“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t remember,” he said. “But I am telling you the truth when I say that I fell for you the very first time I saw you and I never ever forgot you.”
Carly didn’t know what twist of fate had brought her to this space and time, but she knew that she would never forget this moment, she would never forget James or the way he made her feel.
“You’re going to make love to me right now, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said. And then he rolled on top of her, pinning her to the mattress, which was okay with Carly because she couldn’t think of any place she’d rather be.
Chapter 29
“But is he eating?” Carly asked. “You know he can be picky.”
“You’ve only been gone a little over twenty-four hours,” Jillian said. “Ike is fine. Saul is fine. They even had a playdate with Hot Wheels.”
“When?” Carly asked.
She was alone in James’s bedroom, talking to her friends on speakerphone and prepping her look for the big dinner to celebrate Pops’s eightieth birthday, while James was off enjoying afternoon cigars with the men.
“I brought him over this morning,” Mac said. “Ike rode around on Hot Wheels’s harness. It was really cute.”
Mac and Gavin had taken Hot Wheels for James because he feared the party would be too much for the dog, while Jillian was pet sitting Ike and Saul for the same reason.
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Carly said. “Thanks for watching the kids for us. I actually called with some news to share.”
“Oh, my god, you slept with James again,” Jillian said.
“What? How did you get that?” Carly asked.
“Did you hear that?” Mac asked. “She didn’t deny it. She slept with him!”
“Hey, I’m on s
peakerphone here,” Carly said. She switched off the speaker and held the phone up to her ear. “What if someone had been around? Sheesh.”
“And still she’s not denying it,” Emma said. “Oh, wow, is this the first guy you’ve ever had a repeater with? What does that mean?”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Carly said. “It just means he’s my buhfurnuh.”
“Huh?” all three friends said at the same time.
“Do I have to say it? You know what I mean,” Carly snapped.
“Boyfriend? Did that garble you spoke mean ‘boyfriend’?” Jillian asked. “As in James is your boyfriend?”
“Fine, yes, that’s what I meant,” Carly said.
“How?” Emma asked.
“When?” Mac chimed in.
“For real?” Jillian asked.
“Isn’t it supposed to be who, what, when, where, and why?” Carly asked. “You three would make lousy reporters.”
“Details, Carly, and I mean it,” Jillian’s voice held a note of warning.
“There really isn’t much to say,” Carly lied. “I thought about what all of you said and I realized you were right.”
“Liar!” Mac cried. “You never admit it when anyone else is right.”
“Or take advice,” Jillian confirmed.
“Busted,” Emma sang.
“Okay, fine,” Carly said. “Some stuff happened but I can’t talk about it now because I need to get ready for the party, so you’ll just have to wait until I get home tomorrow for the pornographic version.”
“Oh, goody,” Emma said. “Will there be visual aids?”
“Shut up,” Carly said but she was laughing so it lacked heat. “Listen, that wasn’t my news. My big news is—”
“Bigger than James?” Jillian interrupted.
“He can’t like that comparison,” Mac said.
“Do you want to hear it or not?”
“Yes,” all three women said together.
“All right, then, I just got off the phone with Lydia Husser at Penmans. They’ve offered me a job as a women’s clothing buyer, and—”
“Oh, my god, you’re staying in Bluff Point!” Jillian shouted.
“Woo-hoo!” Mac cheered.
“Yay!” Emma cried.
“And I accepted,” Carly finished. “So, yes, I’m staying.”
Her friends started to talk at once, but Carly knew she was out of time if she wanted to look her best for the dinner tonight. She made a hissing sound over the phone, trying to sound like static on a bad connection.
“What?” she said. “I can’t hear you. What? We’ll chat more tomorrow.”
Then she ended the call. She realized she was going to catch hell for that later, but she had a high priority situation here. After spending the day running around like a crazy person, setting up the caterers, the band, the photographer, and every other person involved in this shindig, not to mention fielding a call from her new employer, hallelujah, all she really wanted to do was lie down and nap but there was no time.
Her friends were right; last night was the first time she had spent a second night with a guy and it felt right that it was James even if the man had barely let her sleep a wink, not that she minded.
She used to believe that being able to sleep with her limbs spread out and taking up all the real estate in the bed was way better than having to share space with a man. But having woken up with an arm locked around her middle and her head tucked under James’s chin, she had to admit there was a special sort of loveliness that came with feeling cared for that she hadn’t realized would be so attractive.
And then there was the sex. They had christened their new status of boyfriend and girlfriend with a couple of screaming orgasms, mostly Carly, and she was pretty sure anyone within a five-mile radius had heard them, which was another reason why she was happily hiding out in James’s room.
James’s family had arrived earlier, mostly to help with the party prep, but Carly would have to have been blind not to notice the way his parents and sister smiled at her and James, as if they couldn’t be happier for them. It added a dollop of pressure to being the perfect girlfriend that Carly wasn’t quite sure she could live up to.
In the beginning, she hadn’t put much thought into the dress she was wearing tonight. Since her stuff was in storage, she had to borrow from her sister. Gina, being five years younger and having never left home, did not have a lot of formalwear to choose from. Despite being a redhead, or maybe because of it, the one formal dress Gina owned was a deep red number that was off the shoulder and cut low in the front with a snug waistline and a skirt that flared just below her knees.
Carly remembered that James’s had said red was his favorite color the very first day she met him when he complimented Mac’s aunt Sarah on her red-streaked hair. At the moment, she took it as a sign from the universe that only having access to a red dress meant that dating James was the right thing to do.
Carly hoped cocktail length was okay; since she was on the short side, she really didn’t like full-length gowns, especially when they hid her shoes. What was the point of having sexy shoes if no one got to see them? She had borrowed a pair of shoes from Emma, which were sparkly black sandals with an ankle strap that she hoped would invite wicked intentions from James.
She glanced at the clock on her phone. She planned to be ready and out of the room before James returned from coordinating the valet he had hired to manage the parking.
She’d already made plans with Lola to have pre-dinner cocktails in her room before the party. While overseeing the decorating this morning, the two of them had agreed it might take the edge off dealing with the others, and by others, they meant the A Factor and Horrible.
Carly checked her reflection in the mirror. She had done her hair in a half-up half-down do, so it was sophisticated but also playful. Her makeup was a bit heavier than usual, but she had spent hours over the past few months perfecting the cat eye with her eyeliner and she was darned if she wasn’t going to use it. Her lipstick matched the red of her dress perfectly and she had lined her lips, making them look just a bit fuller and more kissable.
She stepped into the dress and zipped it up the side, adjusting the girls and smoothing the skirt. Then she put on her shoes and grabbed her black clutch and her phone. She paused one more time in front of the mirror to check her reflection from all angles. It was as good as it was going to get.
She realized that before last night she would have put on the dress and figured James could like it or not, she wouldn’t have cared since she was here as part of their bargain, but now everything had changed. Now she was his girlfriend, plus she had the A Factor to contend with so she wanted to make a good impression for James; okay, more than a good impression. She wanted to wow him and everyone else.
She felt a nervous flutter in her belly and realized she desperately wanted James to be proud that she was his date. She put her hand over her stomach. Was this dating then? Caring about someone else’s opinion more than your own? Ugh, this sucked ass.
Stepping away from the mirror before she had a total panic-induced meltdown and overthought everything, Carly hurried down the spiral staircase and through the walkway to the main house. She passed the caterers and waitstaff, who were scrambling to finish prepping the last minute details. She smiled at them and noted the looks of approval. Feeling more confident, she strode to the guest room Lola was staying in and knocked on the door.
“Hey, Lola, are we still on for drinks?” she asked.
The door opened and Lola stood there in a beautiful pewter gray chiffon number with a matching beaded top. She looked lithe and lovely and Carly felt a brief pang of envy for Lola’s slender figure; then she remembered that James was clearly a boob guy and suddenly she felt pretty good about her curves. It was a nice feeling.
“Oh, my god,” Lola said as her gaze
took in Carly from her head to her feet. “James is going to have a heart attack, no, an aneurism, no, probably he’ll just be sporting serious wood when he gets a look at you.”
“Did you just say ‘wood’ in regard to your own brother?” Carly asked. She tried to sound appalled but it was a lie; Lola’s reaction was just what she needed to get through the evening. Well, that and a glass of wine.
“I did,” Lola said. She gestured for Carly to enter. “Is that bad form? James says I have no filter but I like to think I’m just being honest. And I am honestly telling you that when he gets a load of you in that showstopper, he’s going to be tight in the trous—”
“I got it,” Carly said. “And thank you, I think.”
“Just speaking the truth,” Lola said. She nodded her head in the direction of her room. “Come on, we’ve got about forty-five minutes until we have to be out there to meet and greet, which is just enough time to have a drink or two, three if we chug.”
They sat on the small sofa in the corner of the room. Lola poured them each a glass of wine and then she asked polite but pointed questions, leaving Carly in no doubt that Lola was looking out for her big brother by vetting his new girlfriend even if it was a little late for it.
Carly figured she’d better be square with Lola. If this thing with James did go anywhere, she didn’t want to have to clean up a hazardous waste site full of half-truths and evasions. That being said, no one needed to know the specifics of what had happened between her and Preston. James knew about her humiliation and he was one more than enough.
“Did you really pick up James using that line?” Lola asked, after demanding to know the truth about how they’d met.
“I did,” Carly said. She glanced at Lola over the rim of her glass. “It works like a charm every time.”
“I like you, Carly DeCusati.” Lola grinned but then grew abruptly serious. “But I have to warn you that if you hurt my brother, I will cut out your heart with a rusty spoon.”
Carly blinked at her. “You know sometimes your honesty is terrifying.”
Barking Up the Wrong Tree Page 27