Nikki raised a brow and tossed Kendra a knowing look. “So this is Lincoln, huh? Seems I’ve heard that name bandied around a bit as of late.”
Lincoln coughed. “Good things, I hope?”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Kendra warned, fighting a rising irritation. She and Lincoln had never been in the habit of stopping by each other’s places of business before—and there was no way she could handle this becoming a thing with them. Seeing him occasionally around town used to be more annoying than anything else. Now it was just painful. “She’s probably referring to my nightly curse on you. We’ve started integrating sage burning and everything.”
“Sage? But isn’t that supposed to keep the bad stuff out?”
She stared at him levelly. “Exactly.”
Lincoln didn’t bat an eye as he extended a hand holding a small pink-wrapped box. “Point taken. I only came to thank you for seeing to my recovery and to give you this.”
Kendra stepped back, startled and unaccountably touched. She normally didn’t like getting presents from any man except her dad, who pretty much only gave her money and an admonition to spend it wisely. In her experience, no gift was given without an ulterior motive—a man usually wanted sex or forgiveness or brownie points in return.
She was all for sex and forgiveness and brownie points, of course. But she preferred to bestow them on her own terms.
“What is it?” she asked warily.
Nikki shared none of her qualms and grabbed the small box with a flourish. The girl was a real menace around birthdays—if you turned your back for five seconds, she had all your gifts open and ranked on a scale of one to ten before you realized what was happening.
“Oh, it looks like jewelry.” Nikki had the paper torn off but stopped at the sight of a velvet box. She had some tact. “Um. Why don’t I slip outside and give you two some privacy?”
“No. Please stay.” Kendra softened as she struggled to find the right words. To take Lincoln’s gift—even if it turned out to be as innocuous as a keychain—would only lead him on even more. Turning it down made her seem callous. Hers was an unenviable situation no matter which way you looked at it, and she’d been looking at it for a long time. “I appreciate the gesture, but there’s no need for anything other than your thanks. I did what I would have done for anyone.”
“It’s not just for the...injury.” He waved his hand toward his midsection. “It’s for everything.”
Everything? What everything? No word had ever sounded so hollow. Was he thanking her for saving his life? For throwing away a man she desperately wanted, simply because his pride demanded it? Or was he hoping, as he always seemed to, that romantic feelings could be fabricated by sheer force of will?
Her hand remained at her side, attached to a dead weight as time ticked by in an endless loop of seconds. Possibly minutes. She could have wept with relief when Nikki broke the silence with a majestic sweep forward, checking Kendra with her hip as she moved.
“Well, I’m not so principled as my silly sister. If there’s jewelry in here, I’m taking it.” She flipped the box open and pulled out a pair of dangling silver earrings on the medium scale in terms of extravagance, but still far too much for Kendra to feel comfortable accepting. “Ooh, pretty. You have good taste.”
Without waiting for any of them to respond—which was good, as there didn’t seem to be any words forthcoming on Kendra’s lips—Nikki unclipped the diamond studs in her ears and swapped them for the new earrings. They looked good on her sister, the long thin threads of silver accenting the gracious slope of her neck.
“Whatever my sister did to earn these, she thanks you from the bottom of her heart.” Nikki laughed and shook her head, sending the earrings sparkling. “In fact, she thanks you so much she’s going to let you take me out to dinner. She has a spa party coming in tonight, so I’m going to be bored out of my mind sitting home alone.”
Kendra had never been so happy to hear Nikki’s brightly false laugh in her life. Lincoln wasn’t her sister’s type at all—she tended to prefer men who were considerably taller than her and closer in age—but sisterly solidarity wasn’t something they took lightly. Nikki was clearly going to take him out, feed him and distract him. Like a rescue pet.
Lincoln cast her a quick look, a question in his eyes.
“Make sure she takes it easy on her new piercing,” was all Kendra said. She refused to either condone or critique the proposed outing, as neutrality seemed best here. She’d play Switzerland. She’d play maiden aunt. She’d play cold, emotionless backwoods hermit. “It’s going to be sore for a few hours.”
“And that’s it?” Lincoln asked.
“Of course it’s not. That’s my baby sister I’m letting out with you, Lincoln. Be nice to her. Don’t take her anywhere you might run into some of your bad guy friends. And have her home by midnight.” She put her hand on his arm and pressed firmly. “I appreciate the gesture of the earrings, but this has to stop. No more. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to change my mind about us.”
His head started to droop in dejection but Nikki—bless her all-seeing heart—took him by the arm. “Tell me, Lincoln. What’s there to do in this horrifyingly quaint town besides pierce vestigial body parts?”
With that, she led him out the door, a saucy look over her shoulder promising Kendra that she was prepared to turn on the full charm.
Feeling alternately vexed and relieved, Kendra grabbed her spray bottle and started cleaning down the padded table. The activity felt good and productive. So did her decision to try and convince Whitney to give her sister a free boob job after all. After an afternoon spent cajoling Lincoln out of his gloom?
She’d have freaking earned it.
* * *
Kendra rubbed her eyes blearily as she got out of the car, her feet dragging what felt like half a block behind her.
Add one more truth Nikki was driving painfully home during her visit—Kendra was getting too old for the grueling combination of long work days and longer party nights. After a weekend of dancing, drinks every night and the high-volume energy of her sister every morning, the last thing she’d wanted to do today was wrap, tweeze and buff a party of six women well past spa hours. She’d had help from one of her assistants, but no amount of workplace camaraderie could change the fact that she had garbage bags under her eyes and was in desperate need of some electrolytes to boost her system.
She stuck her key in the lock and was surprised to find the door fall open without a push. Under normal circumstances, she might assume her sister had failed to secure the latch properly, but life had been far too strange lately to make her feel at ease. What with the scary Escalade drivers and all the bodily fluids lately bled onto her doorstep, she wasn’t taking any chances with what was behind that door. Gripping the bottle of pepper spray in her purse carefully, she called out a loud, “Hello? Anybody here?”
No immediate answer sounded, but she heard a thump and a low masculine laugh from behind the bedroom door. She cocked her head and moved that direction. That laugh sounded familiar. That laugh sounded like...
“Oh, hell no.”
The scene that waited on the other side of her bedroom door wasn’t a difficult one to interpret. Once again, there was a naked man in her bedroom, twisted up in sheets and clearly ready to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Only this time, there was a naked woman with him.
More specifically—her naked sister, clad only in a pair of long sparkly earrings.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Nikki said, holding a sheet to her chest. Kendra’s sheet—the nice, soft one that hadn’t seen any action of late. Nikki looked over to where Lincoln was struggling into his boxers and giggled. “Okay. Maybe it’s exactly what it looks like.”
Kendra blinked a few times, trying to make sense of her sudden surge of emotions. There was shock in there, she w
as sure, commingled with horror and sisterly concern and a rising gurgle of semi-hysterical laughter.
She picked one and ran with it. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Kendra, please. I can ex—”
She cut Lincoln off with one raised hand. “What are you thinking, Nikki? I told you to take that new piercing easy. Sex doesn’t fall under the easy category—at least not in this situation. If the site gets infected from all that rubbing and man juice, I’m going to have to take it out.”
Her sister stared at her, openmouthed.
“I’ve seen navel piercings get really ugly, really fast,” she added gravely. “It’s not a great location for scar tissue, especially if you decide to have kids someday. Be sure and disinfect it when you’re done.” Then she turned on her heel and marched out of the room.
“Kendra—wait,” Nikki called as she stumbled out of bed. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Oh, I’m not mad.” She paused only to grab the overnight bag that hung from a hook on the bathroom wall, shoving in whatever supplies nested on the countertop. “I don’t need explanations or apologies or, I’m begging you, a play-by-play. Be safe. Have fun. And remember to lock the front door next time.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lincoln rushed to join Nikki in the bedroom doorway, flush with color, clad only in his undershorts. His scar had the shiny raised surface of new, tentatively-healing skin. They’d be lucky if they didn’t both end up at the hospital after this. “I didn’t plan for this to happen. You have to believe me.”
“I do.”
“And I want you to know that I respect your sister. We really hit it off today, or I would have never presumed to—”
“She’s a grown woman, Lincoln. I trust her to make her own decisions.”
“Then where are you going?”
She swiveled her head to face him, her words careful and controlled. “Where the hell do you think I’m going?”
“Oh.” He blinked. “I guess that’s fair.”
Fair? He thought it was fair? He’d spent two weeks smothering her in jealous glances, acting as though his feelings were the only ones in the room that mattered. He constantly played the nice-guy card, pretending he wouldn’t fall back into his same man-whoring habits the second he got home and Kendra was no longer the only woman in a ten-mile radius.
Oh, she’d give him fair, all right.
“I wasn’t asking for permission” was all she said, and didn’t stick around to hear his response. She just grabbed her keys and flew out the front door.
Chapter Twelve
Noah couldn’t seem to make his house smell right again.
The silence of abandonment was a change he welcomed with open arms. It had grown difficult to think with other people continually near, and he’d been getting up earlier and earlier in an attempt to put some space between himself and Lincoln. So, too, did it feel good to know that no one was around for miles. He could stretch his arms and touch nothing. Lift one hand to his back and pull off his shirt, unafraid of who might be watching, searching for a hidden meaning in the gesture. He did it now, tossing his T-shirt carelessly on the table. His feet were likewise bare, only a pair of faded jeans separating him from the blissful silence of his empty house.
Unfortunately, the silence and solitude did little to change the fact that he could smell Kendra everywhere he turned. It seemed impossible that a woman who had been here for such a short time could have infused his home with so much of her presence, but there was no denying truth. Her perfume was the first thing he smelled when he woke up in the morning, the last thing he remembered before drifting off to sleep at night. She was in the handpicked wildflowers that were dropping petals all over his fireplace mantel. Her sweetly pervasive shampoo filled his woodshop, where he couldn’t help remembering the way her hands felt under his by the lathe.
“Get a grip on yourself,” Noah commanded, breathing deep. His inability to concentrate seemed as good a public service announcement as any that his isolation was a positive—and necessary—thing. He wasn’t meant to interact with people on a regular basis. He was clearly insane.
So when his door flew open to showcase Kendra standing there, her desire so evident he could reach out and touch it, he thought maybe he was imagining her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen her materialize before his eyes, her shirt askew, her breath coming hard and fast.
“Well, shit.”
He blinked. That was not what she said in his imagination.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t tell me you had a tendency to walk around your house without a shirt on. Otherwise I’m not sure I’d have been able to restrain myself for as long as I did.”
Okay, that. That was closer to what he’d imagined.
“What are you doing here?” Noah didn’t move, capable of little more in that moment than staring at her, drinking in every last delicious inch, storing up for the long, lonely seasons to come. “I don’t think you coming back here so soon is a good idea.”
Lincoln finally packing up and leaving was supposed to be the end of this torment. Noah didn’t want to remember the way her clothes always seemed a thin veneer over the potential pleasures underneath, how easy it was to see the color of her bra through semi-transparent blouses that rippled when she walked. He didn’t need any reminders of how her lips parted with the plump promise of sex, or how her eyes always seemed to know something he didn’t.
“Why?” She shut the door quietly behind her and took a step forward, moving slow, a hunter stalking her prey. And Noah, despite knowing that a trapped animal’s best chance of survival was to flee, stayed locked in place. “What’s going to happen if I bar this door and refuse to leave?”
Noah swallowed heavily and shoved his hands behind his back. It was the only way to keep them from reaching for her. Lincoln, though an annoyance, had at least provided a physical buffer.
She stepped forward again, this time reaching for the top button of her blouse and expertly flipping it open. Her soft, tawny skin beckoned at the plunge of her shirt.
“What could you possibly do to me that I haven’t already begged for?” She pointed at the kitchen chair. “Sit.”
“I don’t think—” he repeated.
“Good.” Her smile made him feel both uneasy and more turned on than he’d ever been in his life. That smile was going to end him. “Stop thinking. Sit your tight, beefy ass in that chair.”
He sat. His tight, beefy ass had no other choice.
“Hands behind your head.”
He lifted his hands and rested them against the back of his skull. For this, at least, he could be grateful. It gave him something to do with his hands.
Without losing eye contact, Kendra ran her fingers over the swell of her breasts, plunging deep and slow, teasing him with the look of ecstasy that flashed in her eyes. She had yet to touch him—and he had yet to taste her—and he could already feel the hot pulse of his mounting erection.
“Are you planning on telling me what this is about?” Despite the fact that he was totally at her mercy in the physical sense, he hadn’t lost complete control of his thoughts. Things still stood at an impasse between them. He was still bound by a loyalty stronger than physical chains. “Just because Lincoln isn’t here right now doesn’t mean I’m a free man. I thought I made that clear.”
A smile lifted the corner of her mouth, leaving Noah with the strong impression she was toying with him. “Do you know where Lincoln is right now?”
“Please don’t say jail.”
She laughed softly, her mouth falling open as she licked her lips. “He’s in my bed.”
Noah stiffened and dropped his hands from his head, overwhelmed by the urge to flip the table it had taken him weeks to make. He’d chopped the trees himself, split the logs, hewn the edges. He loved that table. And he’
d break it all in a moment of eddying, bottomless rage.
“Then we don’t have anything else to say to one another,” he said.
Kendra felt Noah’s words like a slap to the face. Okay, so maybe she was taunting him, playing coy, drawing out the anticipation, but Noah was the one who was supposed to know her better than this—to think better of her than this. He was supposed to know what a struggle it had been to do the right thing. Hell, he’d struggled right alongside her. A little benefit of the doubt would go a long way here.
“Before you get up in arms, maybe you better ask me who’s in my bed with him,” she said.
Noah’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”
“It’s easy to turn a woman like me into the bad guy here, isn’t it?” Her words contained no malice—only exhaustion. Why did everything have to be so freaking complicated? She’d built her entire adult life around the idea that sex could simply be sex, no entanglements, no emotions. Since meeting Noah, it had been nothing but entanglements and emotions. And sex, to her everlasting dismay, was nowhere to be seen. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not the one who slipped and fell first. Lincoln screwed my sister. Probably is screwing her as we speak.”
Noah didn’t get up from his chair, didn’t move his hands, didn’t give any indication that he’d heard her other than a tightening of his whole body, a ripple moving over hard abs and harder chest. “He’s doing what?”
“My little sister,” Kendra repeated. “Nikki’s in town visiting me for a few weeks. It took Lincoln less than six hours to get over his deep, lasting devotion for me and into her pants. Six hours, Noah. Probably closer to five and a half.”
“Are you sure he’s not just doing it to get back at you? At us?”
Kendra had never been so close to screaming in her life. “Does it matter? How long do I have to continue being punished for not reciprocating his feelings? How many of my family members does he get to sleep with before I’m finally free to do what—and who—I want?”
The Party Girl Page 17