by Sally Felt
More carnage in the dining room. The cushions in the sunroom had been tossed, the area rugs plundered. Kitchen cabinets opened, more broken glass. The glorious watermelon-colored tulips on the floor in a barbed puddle.
It was real.
She called 911 and the police arrived quickly, an overweight black man and his redheaded female partner. They wanted to know whether anything was missing. Her peace of mind. Her security. But that’s not what they meant. All she could be sure of was the rainy-day cash she kept in a box on the mantel in the living room. About five hundred dollars.
They took her statement, gave her a report number to give her insurance agent, and left.
The wounds to her house tonight made the medicine cabinet fiasco of the night before look like a mosquito bite. And even that minor wound would not be as easily healed now—the cabinet hung crookedly on the wall, its mirrored door shattered. Toiletries all over the floor. The top to the toilet tank cracked.
No room untouched. No sanctuary. It burned her gut. She needed to hurt something, but her house had been hurt enough. There was nothing to strike that wouldn’t make her feel worse.
She hadn’t been so helpless since her parents split.
Kim found her broom in the mudroom by the back door and started sweeping up glass in the kitchen without a word. Damn him. How could he be so cool about this? How could he be so kind? Why wouldn’t he leave before she needed him here?
“I’ll get it,” she said, looking in at him from the dining room.
“No need,” he said, still sweeping.
“It’s my house.”
He paused and looked at her with those incredible ringed eyes. “Yes,” he said softly, “I know.” He resumed sweeping.
Anger roiled within her, shaking her body, needing an outlet. She slapped the wood molding of the archway between the living and dining areas. It helped, but not enough. She slapped it again. Pressure built between her temples. She began yelling, spewing every curse word she knew as she slapped wood.
When she finally ran out of strength, Kim was watching her from the kitchen doorway. He’d taken off the leather coat and rolled back the blue shirt’s sleeves. He still held the broom.
“You’re not going to shush me? Hold me and tell me it’s okay?” Her throat hurt, her voice hoarse, yet she spat the words at him in challenge.
He shook his head. “I’m not an idiot,” he said. “Neither are you.”
She stood there, stunned and blinking. He understood her anger? Rather, he was okay with her feeling it? Screaming it? He wasn’t going to insist she be demure and weak and weepy?
“Wow,” she said as something unknotted in her stomach. “That felt better than yelling.”
“Glass of water?” he asked, mouth quirking as if he wanted to smile but thought it might be too soon.
Honestly, a smile would be nice.
“I’d rather have another glass of Bionic Frog, if you’ve got it.”
“Frog-free, I’m afraid. Sorry.” There. He grinned. Much better.
As she made her way toward the kitchen and Kim, her sandal came apart and tried to trip her. She stood on one foot to examine the damage. Kim put himself beside her so she could hang on and steady herself. While she was glad he hadn’t smothered her as she was losing her temper, she wished he’d put an arm around her now.
Did that make her capricious? She had too much on her mind tonight to worry about it.
A piece of the shattered porch light had wedged in the sandal and sliced through the strap. It had also caused what seemed to be the only cut she’d received in spite of there being glass in every room. It was minor. “Crap,” she said. “I liked these shoes.”
“Well, they’re glass slippers now.”
She snorted. Yes, she was all over the place, but Kim Martin was man enough to take care of himself. “Help me to the sofa, handsome prince?”
He did put his arm around her then and she leaned against him and held on to him, warm and lean and solid, as she hopped to the sofa while the beads of her dress’s hemline jumped and bumped against her legs. She wondered what had happened to her shawl.
Steven would have picked her up and carried her, probably to the bedroom. When blinded by love, she’d seen his sweeping gestures as romantic. Now she realized he was just a controlling bastard. Hopping might be awkward, but it was equal. It was also kind of fun, especially when Kim flopped down beside her on the sofa, laughing.
Isabelle pulled her feet up off the glass-strewn floor and laid them across Kim’s lap. “Would you mind?” she asked, looking pointedly at her shoes.
“The traditional story has the prince putting them on your feet, I believe,” Kim said, though he draped his arm over her legs to prevent them sliding off his lap. Mmm. Silk sleeve against her bare skin.
She wriggled her toes. “Your point?”
He grinned. “No point.” He worked the buckle of the ruined shoe first, then the other. Then he turned her foot to examine the cut. Isabelle became acutely aware of the heat of his legs beneath hers. His calloused fingers on her foot were only making it worse.
“First-aid supplies?” he asked.
“As if I could find anything in the bathroom at the moment,” she said. “Besides, it’s not bad.”
“No,” he agreed. He shifted, rolling to one hip to dig in his trouser pocket, emerging with a clean handkerchief, and in a gesture Isabelle hadn’t seen since she was a child showing a boo-boo to her father, Kim gently swabbed the remaining blood from her foot.
Maybe it was the shifting friction of his rough hands on her sensitive feet. Maybe it was the look of concentration on his expressive face. Maybe it was the overwhelming niceness of having such intimate attention after denying herself for so long. But whatever it was, Isabelle’s body responded in a way that had nothing to do with childhood.
Oh my.
Kim’s world was getting smaller, from the enormity of a trashed house representing Isabelle’s loss down to the tiny evidence of it on her soft skin. That she’d allowed him to stay with her through such a personal moment made him feel closer to her than he probably should given her recent insistence he was a good-for-nothing cheating bastard just like her ex.
Too late. For this moment at least, his world had narrowed down to a bubble just big enough for the two of them. Unless she pulled her feet away from him and physically moved away, he was not going to be able to stop touching her, to keep from doing whatever he could to hold on to the connection between them.
Her bare legs lay across his lap. There seemed to be a lot of leg considering how much shorter she was than him. Her dress had hiked farther up her thigh, giving him more to admire. More to touch, and damn if his hand wasn’t sliding along her shin, his fingers trailing her calf. A quarter-inch-long indentation on her right knee suggested a years-old injury. He touched it. Beads at the hem of her dress trembled on her thigh. He stilled one with his finger, so absorbed in the creamy softness of her, the warming scent of her, he forgot he hadn’t been invited to lose himself in her.
So it wasn’t too surprising to feel Isabelle’s hand on his jaw, forcibly turning his gaze from the juncture of her thighs. If ever he were courting a slap…
Her kiss, however, was a surprise. An unexpected move, an unplanned fall—a moment of hanging in space before gravity could remind him he had options and an urgent need to exercise them lest a jarring impact spell the end of his climb.
His near hand found her wild curls. He cupped her elegant neck and kissed her like he’d wanted to all night, hot and reckless and not entirely sane—a man on the brink. She pulled herself closer, farther onto his lap. He spread his far hand to keep her from sliding off and away, and his fingers became trapped beneath the hem of her dress.
“Oh my,” she said hoarsely, her lips parted and moist, her face flushed. She pushed her fingers through his hair and drew him to her for another kiss.
Strong Isabelle in his arms. Warm Isabelle on his lap. He couldn’t think. He could onl
y act. A hand at the small of her back, a shift of his weight and he had her beneath him on the sofa. She never missed a beat, her hands sliding across his chest, stroking his arms, kissing him, nipping him, devouring him.
Lioness. Prey. Circle of life. All was as it should be.
He toed off his shoes, only too aware of how heavily he pinned her legs with his weight while he did it. From the way her fingers restlessly searched for a way into the back pockets of his dress trousers, he guessed she didn’t mind.
Last night she’d tasted of herb, of leaf, of spice. Tonight she tasted of heat-piled thunderheads and scorched grass and she smelled of restless water—wild and wide open, unpredictable and dangerous.
The view made even pausing to catch his breath worthwhile. Isabelle Caine had curves to make the Colorado River jealous and if her dress slid any higher, he would soon be seeing class three conditions. He freed his hand from the temptation to make his run too soon.
She seemed to have no such hesitation, pulling his shirttails free and making short work of his buttons. She sat up beneath him and her mouth met his chest as if she’d been wanting to do just this.
“Isabelle.” He caught her against him, her head cradled in his palm. She kissed and bit and licked, threatening to melt his chest hair with the heat of her mouth. Her hands were between them and seemed to be finding their way ever lower. She made deep, growling noises.
Kim’s eyes had closed, unable to take the crush from one more sense. His mouth hung open. He continued moaning her name into her hair, against her scalp, rubbing his face into her soft curls. Scenting her.
He found her thigh again, moving beneath him, pulsing in an ancient rhythm as Isabelle pressed her heels into the sofa cushion and her hips against his.
His hands were full, one supporting her head and neck while the other explored her voluptuous rear and the sensuous satin encasing it. Her leg shifted, hooking around his calf while her fingers finally solved the mystery of his belt buckle.
She might be in a hurry, but Kim guessed it could take all night to satisfy her. Maybe longer. Probably longer.
He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing.
He couldn’t think, period.
Which made it that much harder to understand what it meant when Isabelle stiffened in his arms, her eyes trained somewhere beyond his shoulder. Nearly impossible to figure out why when her mouth opened, it wasn’t his name on her lips.
“Charlie?”
Chapter Six
“Charlie?” Isabelle had never seen that look on Charlie’s face. Of course, he could easily say the same of her.
But he was the one unexpected and unannounced. And it was her house.
Oh.
No wonder he looked shocked.
Her house.
She’d forgotten.
How could she have forgotten?
Kim smoothed her dress down over her hip, which of course explained it. And she hated to see Kim button his shirt, but their moment had passed and reality had returned. Besides, his fine, lean chest sported intriguing red marks that tattled on her.
Well, who wouldn’t get carried away?
She stayed where she until Kim was buckled and tucked and more or less composed.
Her brother wore his Dallas Stars nylon jacket over sweatpants and the most faded blue polo shirt ever to hold its stitches. His old college backpack slid off his shoulder to the floor just inside the front door. He opened his arms wide in a gesture that took in the wrecked room. “If this was foreplay, Isabelle, never, ever tell me, okay?”
Isabelle snorted. “Pervert.” Leave it to Charlie to break the tension.
“What happened?” Charlie asked.
Kim glanced at his watch before moving back to give her some room. It was after midnight. She sat up and pivoted so she could sit normally on the sofa, but Kim reached across her, slipped his hand behind her knees and lifted. “Feet,” he warned.
Oh. Glass.
“Thank you,” she said, adjusting so she sat with her feet tucked up beside her.
Kim pulled on his own shoes before standing and offering Charlie his hand. “Hi, Charlie,” he said. “Hadn’t expected to see you tonight.”
Charlie shook it. “Ken, right?”
“It’s Kim. Kim Martin. There’s been a break-in.”
A dozen rude and/or demeaning comebacks had to be dancing on her brother’s tongue, to judge by the look he gave Kim. But he didn’t unleash a single one of his caustic gems. Isabelle wondered whether it was special consideration for the shocking condition of her house or if Charlie had another reason for withholding at least a juvenile, “Duh!”
Kim likely didn’t realize the significance. He looked back at Isabelle. “Why don’t I take care of some more of this glass?” She watched him crunch his way back into the kitchen for the broom. The sofa felt empty.
“So you guys really have been dating?” Charlie asked her.
“We’re not dating,” she said, still feeling adrift.
“A modern relationship? I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
She stuck out her tongue.
Charlie sat beside her on the sofa. “So tell me what happened. Is anything missing?”
“Maybe some cash. I’m not sure how much I had in the pot,” she said. It was half a question, as her brother was welcome to the cash pot anytime he needed it, and he’d been laid off his job a little over a month earlier. He might have depleted the cache long before the break-in.
“Six-seventy,” Charlie said. He grinned. “Hey, somebody’s gotta keep track.”
She smacked his shoulder, then leaned against it. He put his arm around her. It was a different kind of comfort than she’d been pursuing with Kim. But now that her hormones weren’t in control, she decided it was better comfort. Deeper comfort.
It was family.
“All my hats,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Makes me so mad.”
“Yeah.”
She gave up then and let her brother hold her in silence for a while. She heard the sounds of Kim sweeping elsewhere in the house and wondered why he hadn’t left. Maybe he didn’t realize she’d regained her senses. How crazy would she have been to have sex on her sofa with a near-stranger in the midst of her violated home? In the heat of the moment, it hadn’t been crazy. But she’d since seen it through Charlie’s eyes—Charlie, whose fantasies seemed to include sex in the store’s bedding department to hear Gina tell it. If it could give Charlie pause, it must be shocking indeed.
Which brought Isabelle around to wondering. “Charlie? Why are you here?” she asked against his collar.
He chuckled, rubbing her shoulder. “Why are any of us here?”
“You have your backpack,” she said.
“Oh, that.”
“Something happen with Gina?” She pushed away from him to sit up, and her folded-back legs told her they were going to need stretching soon.
“We had a fight,” Charlie said. “I was hoping to bunk here for a little while.”
“Of course. Well, if you still want to.” She indicated the mess around them.
“I called earlier,” he said. “I guess you were out. Your cell was off. I finally just came over.”
“Date.”
His eyebrows went up. “With another guy?”
“No,” she said, then realized what he’d meant. “It’s complicated.”
He grinned. “Didn’t look complicated from where I was standing.”
She smacked him again. “And where were you today when I was calling and calling and calling?”
“Let’s see. That would be fighting and begging and packing.”
“Ouch. Sorry, Charlie.”
He shrugged. “I’ll hang here, give Gina time to chill. It’ll be fine.”
She gave his hand a squeeze.
Maybe tomorrow she’d have the energy to ask what he and Gina were fighting about. But not now. Being interrupted by Charlie—
being shaken from the intense hunger Kim Martin inspired—was a rude return to the overwhelming chaos of her evening. Every hat on the floor, every photo in a shattered frame, accused her for forgetting.
She felt flattened by the weight of it.
Though now that she looked, Kim seemed to have picked up the stuff on the floor in the dining room. She wondered where he went.
“Kim?” she called.
“Yes?” He leaned so his head appeared in the kitchen doorway. The blue shirt, the blue eyes—even two rooms away, Isabelle caught her breath at the sight of him. She’d called him drool-worthy. He was, but he’d also been waiting in the kitchen while she had a moment with her brother. Drool-worthy sold him short. Unfortunately, her vocabulary wasn’t up to anything better tonight.
While she was momentarily paralyzed by his wonderfulness, he came into the living room, standing beside the sofa rather than make a crowd on it.
She turned to her brother. “Charlie? Would you please bring me some shoes so I can see Kim out?”
Both men looked surprised, but Charlie got up. “Fetching your slippers, Mum,” he said and goose-stepped into her bedroom.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Isabelle winced.
“I didn’t get this part of the house swept,” Kim said.
Because he hadn’t wanted to spy on her, she mentally finished for him. She reached for his hand and took just his fingers. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad you were here.”
“As am I.” He brushed her cheek with the hand she wasn’t holding. The touch of his calloused fingertips made her shiver.
“If y’all need a moment, can you at least let me get to the kitchen first?” Seeing Charlie triggered a fresh rash of embarrassment that she had been seeking comfort from Kim, the man she’d made such a point of pushing away—but only, it seemed, until she’d needed the shelter of his arms.
Any port in a storm.
Liar.
They were exceptional arms, attached to the first man ever to weather a full-out demonstration of temper without flinching. Even her college boyfriend would have fled as soon as she raised her voice, and she’d once thought Daniel the love of her life.