by Rin Daniels
“My ass is going numb on this ledge.”
“My thighs are sympathizing with your very, very nice ass.” Straightening, she hooked her hands around his neck. “Where to?”
Adam’s gaze followed a bead of water as it slid over her collar bone. Traced the slope of one perfect breast.
The flesh still buried inside her stirred.
Her eyes flared.
“Executive decision,” Adam announced. He wrapped an arm under her hips and lifted her, standing up in the cooling water.
She gasped. “Again?”
“Again,” he repeated huskily. He stepped over the porcelain rim, sucked back a groan when her legs locked around his waist. Drew him tighter inside her. For a second, he saw stars. “And then again. Maybe until dawn.” He couldn’t stop, couldn’t lock back whatever it was that felt like he was freaking giddy. “No, you know what? Stay for breakfast.”
She chuckled, a velvety sound that stroked him from forehead to dick to heels and back again.
Jesus. What was wrong with him? Breakfast?
She twisted in his arms, laughed when he scraped his arm against the doorframe. “Have you learned to make breakfast?”
“Toast.” His palm spread over the curve of her ass. “Eggs, maybe. Coffee, for sure.”
Her breasts dragged against his chest. “Sounds delicious.”
He rasped out a distracted, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, and splaying both hands on either side of his face, Kat pressed her mouth to his. They fell into bed together. Pillows scattered. She grabbed two fistfuls of the dark purple bedspread and arched as he drove himself deeper inside her.
CHAPTER TEN
FIGURED. KAT’S FIRST Walk of Shame was a Drive of Shame, and her one-night-stand was behind the wheel.
And not so much a one-night-stand.
Adam held onto the wheel, even though the car had stopped outside her house. The curtains were all drawn, but that didn’t mean much. Her mom would live in a cave and complain there wasn’t enough sun.
“So.”
Kat’s heart jumped at the sudden syllable. He’d been remarkably quiet the whole drive. “So,” she echoed.
They’d woken up too late for breakfast. No, wait. Kat hid her face behind the shield of her hand as a blush suffused her cheeks. They’d woken up with plenty of time, but instead of eggs and toast she’d climbed on top of him and—
“I want to see you again.”
“Sorry, what?” she said, blinking rapidly. Then she slapped a hand over her mouth. “That came out wrong.”
“Smooth,” he agreed. He turned his head to look at her, his eyes curiously intense. “No games, Kat. No cons.”
She sat up straighter. “I’m not—”
Adam let go of the wheel to curl one hand around the back of her head. His fingers dug in gently, and shivers rippled down her back.
So close. Trapped in a car with the guy she’d wanted to scam so long ago. It was so familiar, like déjà vu, and yet, everything about this felt different.
Scamming him was the farthest thing from her mind.
Licking him? Now that was way closer.
“Let me see you again,” he said, a low command.
Like he had to order her to see him again, just in case she got the idea to run off again.
Yeah. She got that. Kat leaned into his hand. “Okay,” she said.
“I know there’s a lot of stuff to talk about,” he said quickly, in the tone of solemn agreement. “But I think that if you just let me—” She watched his mouth move, bit back her laughter as he hesitated. “What? Okay?”
“Okay,” she repeated. She braced a hand against his knee and leaned in. “I’ll see you again.”
His smile started slow. His other hand finally came off the wheel and caught her face between both of his palms, framing her so gently that she couldn’t help but catch her breath as he pulled her in for a kiss. It was so deep, so slow and sweet, that it kicked her heart all the way to happy land.
His lips rubbed against hers, his tongue dipped inside her mouth. Too intense to be flirty.
She tasted the same toothpaste on his breath that she’d used—he’d had an extra toothbrush for her. One of those electric ones that cost a small fortune.
Come to think of it, it was still in his bathroom.
Would he hang onto it for her?
Happiness swept over her. “Okay,” she said breathily. A broken record.
“Okay,” he repeated. He didn’t seem all that better.
“I have to go.”
“Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t let go of her. Instead, he leaned across the narrow car and kissed her again.
Licked her lower lip.
She moaned and pushed him away, fumbling for the door latch. “Seriously.”
“Yeah.” Adam blew out a hard sigh as he thumbed the electronic release. The door popped open. “Yeah, I’ll call you.”
Kat clambered out before he grabbed her again; her body thrummed so tightly, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t jump him right here in front of her house. Catching her balance on the hood, she bent to smile at him. “Will you?”
He grabbed the wheel again, like somehow it’d save him. Or her. “I have some work to do,” he admitted. “Huge meetings coming up. That old bastard you met earlier has my number. But...” His gaze snapped. “I will call you once it’s over. Wait for me.”
“I will.” She shut the door.
Adam tabbed the window switch, and it hummed as it rolled itself down. He bent across the interior, grabbed the window ledge to look up at her. “Kat?”
If she could bottle that look in his eye, God, she’d have a retinue of extremely satisfied women. Her chest squeezed so hard, she backed away from the car, raised her hands in warding. “Go home,” she laughed. “Before we do something really inappropriate.”
He dragged a hand over his hair, messing it up from its already rumpled style. His mouth twisted into a wry line. “Yeah.” Carefully, he straightened in his seat, buckled up again.
Kat raised a hand. “Talk to you soon.”
Adam waved back.
But he didn’t meet her eyes.
She watched as his luxury car eased away from the curb and down the street, flanked by parked vehicles that only made his look all the more expensive for it.
Talk about mixed signals.
Was he happy with her?
Did she scare him away?
The kiss in the car reassured her some, but then, he wouldn’t actually look at her as he drove away—and maybe that was just because he was behind the wheel, but it’s not as if he was actually driving and—Oh, God. She’d told him she loved him.
She hadn’t meant to. It was too soon. Nothing about her life was where she intended it to be when she’d planned all this.
Did she royally mess this one up?
Kat crouched where she was, burying her face in her hands. Her heart wouldn’t stop kicking.
“Whoa.” Nadine’s voice drifted from the front stoop.
Kat’s head whipped up to find her friend leaning against the rusted metal railing, her eyes huge.
“Dude,” she said, wonder shaping the stretched vowels. “I came as soon as I heard about the shop, but... Was that Adam freaking Laramie?”
Kat burst into tears.
“Oh,” her friend squeaked, and hurried down the steps. “My bad!”
Torn between comforting Kat and picking her brain for every last juicy detail about Sulla Valley’s most eligible billionaire bachelor, Nadine raked her over the coals the way only a friend could.
Safely inside, over sale blend coffee, Kat explained how they’d met at the party. How they’d gone on a date.
Nadine dropped her forehead against her folded arms. “And here I was worrying that you wouldn’t make any friends.”
“Thanks a lot,” Kat said wryly.
Fierce blue eyes peered up at her. “Is he good?”
She blinked. “What?”
&n
bsp; “You know.” Nadine sat up, leaning as far forward as the kitchen table let her. “Does he rock your world? Is he super hot? Does he make you drip with maidenly lust?”
Kat laughed, slapping a hand over her eyes as her cheeks heated. “Maidenly isn’t the issue.”
“Ah.” Nadine hummed a knowing note. “He makes you scream like a jungle cat, huh?”
“Oh, my God.”
“Pant like a—”
“Stop,” Kat laughed.
“I’m just saying,” her friend concluded with a satisfied smile. “You like him.”
Yeah. And that was the problem. What was she supposed to do now that she’d revealed how much she liked him?
How was she supposed to pretend like she belonged in his world?
“Hey, Kat?” Nadine’s voice gentled. “Is everything okay?”
Oh, no. It was that voice. That tone that people got when they sensed something wasn’t quite right about Kat’s family, about her identity, about her life. It was concern and curiosity and prepared sympathy.
She slipped into that smile that her dad ingrained into her and hoped it was enough. “Oh, you know,” she said airily. “My salon burned down and I may or may not be dating a billionaire bachelor, but hey.”
Her friend reached across the table and covered Kat’s hand with hers. “If you ever need to talk?”
“I know.” She grinned. “But you just want to know all the dirty bits.”
“I so need to know the dirty bits,” Nadine replied, eyes sparkling. “Is he into kinky stuff? Weird billionaire domination things?”
Kat laughed outright, but somewhere in the back of her head, she apologized to the girl who had so generously accepted her at face value.
Nadine had never asked about Kat’s past. Never pried into her affairs. She’d simply gone with the flow. She’d never hinted that Kat didn’t fit into the world of the social elite.
Kat didn’t want to break that flow. Didn’t want to explain how badly things had gone, how much worse they actually were. That she had no salon, no money to fix what burned, a debt looming over her head, and no more brilliant ideas.
Shame was burning a hole inside her that she couldn’t admit to. So she teased Nadine, drank her coffee, and pretended like it didn’t matter.
It got harder when eight days passed without a call.
Eight. Freaking. Days.
Kat understood busy. She’d gotten busy, too. Thanks in no small part to Nadine’s efforts, Kat had scored a few clients to help take some of the strain off. Kira had wanted help with her color, and one of the matrons Kat dimly recalled from that event had requested her services.
Slowly, Kat was building a client list.
The fact that she had to wait for the insurance company to clear her fire insurance claim stung, but not so badly as long as she could make house-calls until then.
The insurance money would defray the costs of the salon. It was a setback, a small delay, but not impossible.
What was impossible was Adam’s inability to call for eight freaking days.
Kat slung her kit into the passenger seat of her car, flopped into her own seat, and then promptly felt bad about it. Carefully, she arranged her styling kit into what she figured was a safer position.
The tools in that kit were her livelihood. She shouldn’t take it out on them.
Then she folded her arms over the steering wheel and buried her face in them.
“Stupid Adam Laramie. Stupid phone. Stupid me,” she added on a groan. What was she, a teenager? She could call him just as easily as he could call her.
Or not so easy, given the fact neither had done it.
Everything about her life had become a waiting game.
She was waiting for the insurance company to push her claim through.
Waiting for her mother to stop throwing herself around like this was the end of the world.
Waiting for Adam to call.
Waiting for her life to start.
All she needed was her salon. Her place. He claim to legitimacy.
But she couldn’t bring on a partner when it was so much smoke and ruin. Well, she could. It wouldn’t be that hard, but she’d feel like she was selling her would-be partner a bridge in Brooklyn, and she didn’t want to start a business relationship like that.
And then to hide that she owed money to loan sharks? Or should she admit it up front?
Neither of those represented a sound business investment.
And for the last three days, Kat had gone through her routine feeling like something had wrapped around her neck.
Like a noose.
Or her mom’s emotional grip as she’d come home to progressively more hysterical antics.
Kat sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. A glance at her phone told her it was past three and her mother had texted fifteen times.
Varying shades of the world is ending.
She didn’t check all of them. She simply put her phone down next to her kit and drove home.
Barbara Harris was enough to drive a sane man to drink, and God knew Jack Harris had liked to drink. Despite his obsessive hobbies, he’d been fairly sane. Risky, but sane.
The weirdest thing he’d ever done was cut them off when he went to jail. But then, she kind of got that.
Her dad was a man who stood under his own power—even if that power was to divest others of their money. Maybe he didn’t want them to see him in jail.
Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded of the life they lived while he sat behind bars.
She didn’t know. Barbara didn’t talk about it. Just like they didn’t talk about Jackie. Out of sight, out of mind.
As families went, she could have gone for something easier.
The gorgeous weather dimmed today. Seemed right for a Monday. The clouds hung low and gray, packing in as much humidity as the air could take, but it didn’t cool. It just clung, thick and soupy, and smoldered.
The air conditioner had long since given up in the little car, so she drove with the window down and the crackling speakers rocking out. The wind in her pigtailed hair cooled the worst of the humidity, made her feel like some the pressure had been lifted.
By the time she turned onto her street, she was singing with the music. Her pay from Mrs. Johnstone was in her pocket. With her previous earnings, that made all of rent for the month, and a few bills.
Maybe she’d celebrate with tacos for dinner. Cheap and easy. Her mom liked tacos, especially with a little extra guacamole on them.
Probably the only food she’d ever seen Barbara eat with her fingers.
The front door opened as Kat pulled into the driveway. She shut the engine off, climbed out as flapping pile of letters fluttered over the narrow strip of yard.
Kat hesitated when a man stepped off the stoop, his hands in his denim pockets and boots treading over the discarded paper.
The door slammed behind him.
His gaze settled on Kat. The surfer guy. What was his name? Lucas something. His teeth flashed in his permanently scruffy but chiseled jaw. Nadine would probably like his type, if he didn’t fall into her baby blues first.
She sighed. “I take it you met my mother.”
“Nice broad.” His eyes trailed over her outfit. “I can see where you get your spine.” She’d gone casual chic, today, in a pair of white capris and a blousy pink halter. There was nothing overtly sexy about it, but his eyebrow hiked in what she supposed passed for smoldering in his world.
Not in this lifetime.
“If you’re done,” she said coolly, “you can leave now.” She stepped aside for him, one wedge heel wobbling on the uneven grass.
He stepped to the same side.
Kat automatically moved to the other side, but he flanked her there too.
Her stomach pitched. He was much taller than she was. Lean, but confident.
A loan shark. That meant he was meaner than her, on principle.
“You know why I’m here,” he said. Five words, but draw
led so lazily a bystander would never imagine they carried such threat.
Kat understood. “Look,” she said tightly, fingers clamped over her kit and phone. “I know you want your money, but you have to understand that there’s things in the works. My salon has to open—”
“Yeah?” He whistled, rubbing the back of his hand across one scruffy cheek. “Heard that burned. Shameful.”
She froze. The ice in her chest congealed to raw fury. “You son of a bitch.”
“Whoa, now, little girl.” He backed up a step, spreading his hands in unarmed goodwill. “Don’t go getting any ideas. You told us you’d get money out of it, we’re men of good faith. Why would we burn something guaranteed to give us our money?”
Kat trembled in place, but she couldn’t fault the logic. Whatever else happened, people always wanted their money.
Which left her with a serious problem.
She stepped out of his way, relieved when he didn’t follow her this time. “Look,” she said quietly, “I am well-aware that you guys mean business, but you can’t take what we don’t have. Just give us a little more time, please?”
He tipped back his head, like a rich man inspecting the staff. His nostrils flared with his exhale. “How much?”
She glanced at the front window. The curtains hadn’t twitched.
She was sure her mom was fine. Angry, no doubt, like a society queen whose authority had been questioned, but fine. She wouldn’t have thrown out the papers if she’d been anything else.
The Harris family temper was slow, but hot.
Kat shook her head. “We’re waiting for the fire insurance to come through. I can pay you a deposit from that.”
“What, a few weeks?”
“Or as short as a few days,” she said. It galled, but she had no choice. “Please.”
He sighed again, a dramatic sound. “I’m a nice guy, Ms. Harris. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank—”
“Don’t thank me,” he cut in, a sheepish shake of his head masking his features as he walked by her. “Johnny’s the one I gotta convince. Next step’s to go after the cars. Jewelry. Whatever you’ve got.”
Kat didn’t argue. He walked away with that final warning, hands in his roughened denim pockets and whistling a country song she recognized. If he drove, his car wasn’t nearby.