by Lisa Cardiff
Funny, she thought guys liked low maintenance women that they didn’t have to coddle, but apparently there was such a thing as too low maintenance and independent. Maybe that would work to her advantage if she pursued something with Alec. He’d be gone in less than a month anyway, so she didn’t need to worry about every little thing she did or didn’t do. It wouldn’t matter because any relationship between them had a definite expiration date. Whether she was sufficiently available and emotionally accessible wouldn’t matter.
Chapter Nine
Alec sat on a rusted, yellow metal chair on Violet’s porch waiting for her to come home from the Foundation. When 6:15 rolled around, he wondered whether he pushed her too hard this morning. Since he started playing in a band, he didn’t have to consider whether women were on the same page as him. If he showed interest, they reciprocated, and while he liked it in the beginning, it had become tedious and boring. Apparently, his non-rock star persona didn’t impress Violet as much as he thought this morning.
At 6:30, he gave up and started walking down the steps of her front porch toward the entrance to his basement apartment. When he reached the side of the house, he saw Violet’s little blue Honda pull into the driveway and she hopped out of the car.
“Did you give up on me already?” she called out to him as she closed the car door.
“Half an hour is a long time to wait for a date.”
“Is this a date? I thought it was a celebratory dinner of sorts.”
“It’s whatever you want.”
Her megawatt smile with dimples, blinding white teeth, and twinkling eyes came out to play. It belonged on the cover of a magazine, not a glamour magazine, but one of those health magazines Bre, Jax’s fiancé, loved so much where everyone looked happy, healthy and full of life. “I want the dinner you promised me.”
The wind whipped her white blonde hair around her face and the evening sunlight danced through her hair, making her look almost angelic. Shit. He should walk away from Violet now and get the hell out of town before he ruined her life. She was good, wholesome, and her work at the Foundation proved she had a heart of gold.
He, on the other hand, had caused nothing but pain from the moment he took his first breath on this earth, or at least that’s what his mother always told him. If he kept his fucking mouth shut, his dad wouldn’t have fled the house, only to die in a car crash less than an hour later. His mother wouldn’t have started drinking alcohol and taking drugs. Taylor wouldn’t have had to deal with all the shit life had thrown at her. Just the thought of all the crap his sister had endured after he left her with his soulless mother made him physically ache.
“So are you leaving or staying?” Her smile dropped and she looked…unsure. He didn’t like it. He wanted her smile back. It made him hope for more than he had any right to get out of life, but damn if he wouldn’t take what was offered.
“Staying. Definitely staying, Little Violet.” He walked toward her, dropping his arm around her shoulder. “So why are you late?”
She shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Sure I do.” He squeezed her shoulder.
Violet started digging in her purse for her keys, not looking at him for a few seconds. When she pulled them out of her purse, Alec took them from her hand and slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open. “Are you going to share?”
“It’s nothing, really.” She dropped her purse on the entry table. “My mom called right before I walked out of the office.”
“And?” Alec prompted.
“She didn’t like that I decided to put off law school for another year.”
“She’ll have to deal with it. It’s your life, not hers.”
“If only it were that simple,” she answered.
Alec opened the refrigerator and pulled out the bottle of wine he left there in the morning. “Do you want a glass?” he asked, pointing to the bottle.
“Please.” She grabbed two glasses out of the upper cabinet next to the sink and set them down on the table. “What’s for dinner?”
“Pesto pasta and salad.”
“No meat?”
“Shrimp. You like shrimp, right?” Damn, he probably should have asked what she liked. He went for the healthiest thing he knew how to make. Taylor taught him how to make it when she moved into his house after she dumped her boyfriend and left Seattle. It was an easy meal. All he needed was a blender for the sauce, a pan for the shrimp, and anyone could boil noodles.
“Sure. I like anything when I don’t have to cook. I hate cooking, as you already know.” She took a sip of her wine. “My brother normally does the cooking when he’s in town and he grills everything. I’m more of a frozen dinner or salad type of girl. I try to limit my meals to things that don’t require me to turn on the stove. It’s safer for everyone involved.”
“I’m guessing there’s a story there.”
Her lips noticeably twitching, she twisted the stem of her wine glass. “Maybe, but if I tell you, you’ll have to share something equally embarrassing.”
“Hm.” Alec pulled the basil, pine nuts, lemon and Parmesan cheese out of the refrigerator. “Blender?” he asked after he opened a few cabinets.
“Bottom cabinet on your right.”
Tossing all the ingredients into the blender with some olive oil, he turned to face her, his hips leaning into the countertop and his ankles crossed in front of him. “I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“Your story.”
“Only if you reciprocate.”
“Yep. I’ll try to come up with something.”
She finished her glass of wine and poured another. “I had a friend over for a slumber party in middle school and I decided I’d make us some popcorn to eat during our movie. I wasn’t quite sure how to make it.”
“The microwaveable kind?” Alec questioned.
“No, the kind that requires a pan, oil and popcorn.”
“Ah…”
“So anyway…I poured quite a bit of oil in a pan.”
“How much is quite a bit?”
“A couple cups, maybe more.”
Alec’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.
She laughed nodding her head. “I turned the oil on high and then dropped the kernels in the pan once the oil started boiling. In the meantime, I got a little distracted with the movie and by the time I checked on the popcorn, there was a mini-fire in the pan.”
“So what’d you do?”
“Naturally, I tossed my glass of ice water on the fire.”
Alec shook his head. “Please say you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
Alec chuckled. “So how’d you stop the fire?”
“I didn’t. My mom came in the kitchen a few minutes later and tossed some baking soda on it. She succeeded in putting out the fire, but not before it caused enough damage to require a new kitchen.”
“I bet your mom was pissed.”
“Fortunately, she’d been bugging my dad to remodel the kitchen for months, so she didn’t complain. She was more worried about me than the damage. Like most parents, she’s really protective. Sometimes her attention is overbearing and annoying, but she means well.”
Alec didn’t say anything for a few prolonged seconds. His mom probably spent most of his formative years drunk or high, and he would have liked it if she spared a few minutes of her time every once in awhile to at least feign some interest in him or Taylor. “You’re lucky you have parents that care. Not everyone is as fortunate,” he mumbled before turning around to finish dinner.
“I am,” she replied softly.
He could feel her eyes burning into his back. She wanted to ask him about his family, and he offered her the perfect opening, but that subject was off limits. He’d talk about Taylor, but as for the rest of his family members, they didn’t exist, at least to him.
She placed her hand on his shoulder and he tensed. If thi
s were the part of the night where she dug into his past, he wouldn’t be sticking around for dinner.
“Alec.”
“Hm,” he answered, stirring the pasta in the boiling water.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“Where’s your colander?”
She sighed, then placed the colander in the sink. “I’m not going to pry if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried, but I’m not interested in sharing. I don’t talk about my family…ever.” He tried to moderate the irritation in his voice, but his words came out harsher than he intended.
“Someday it might help to talk about it.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and he flinched before he could stop himself.
“Not today.”
“Got it. No sharing required. We can talk about the weather, cars, hiking, biking, chess, or music. I don’t think there’s a shortage of superficial topics. We should be able converse over dinner without too many awkward silences. Ten or twenty minutes without talking on a first date isn’t so bad. I went on one date where we hardly exchanged a word.”
“And you stayed for the entire date?” He frowned. “That must have been painful.”
“It was, but he’d been in a car accident and his jaw was wired shut.” She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and looked away. He saw her shoulders shaking.
“You’re lying.”
When she turned to face him, she had a huge smile on her face. “You’re right, but I didn’t want you to feel bad if we had nothing left to talk about when you add more subjects to the no sharing category.”
“Don’t be a smart ass.”
Her eyes danced with mischief as she twirled a piece of her hair around her finger. “I’m not trying to be.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
She shrugged and took a sip of wine. A few stray drops of the white wine dotted her completely fuckable pink lips and all he could think about was licking every last drop and then nibbling on her lower lip until she opened and let him explore every inch of her. Her lips felt amazing against his this morning and it had taken him a good hour to erase her taste from his mind before he could concentrate. Tonight, he wanted to sample more than just her lips.
“I don’t have a clue,” she said, interrupting his thoughts, her smooth, pale cheeks noticeably blushing. Obviously, he didn’t do a good job of hiding the direction of his thoughts.
“Sit down, I’ll fix our plates.”
She sat in one of the white chairs at the kitchen table.
When he finished assembling their plates, he placed one in front of her. He leaned down, brushing her hair to the side and pressed a soft, lingering kiss against the delicate skin of her neck, making it clear where he wanted this date to go. “Do you want another glass of wine?” he asked, inhaling her clean scent, letting it fill his lungs. She was so wholesome and happy, unlike him or any of the women he’d dabbled with in the past, but that wouldn’t stop him from pursuing her. Maybe that made him a bastard because anyone with eyes could see that he wasn’t good enough for her. He craved being with someone untainted by the evils of life and Little Violet was as untainted as anyone he’d ever met. If he were lucky, some of her goodness would rub off on him.
She shook her head and he slipped into the chair across from her, waiting for her to try the food he made.
When she lifted the first bite to her mouth, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. The way her pretty little cupid’s bow closed around her fork made him think all kinds of thoughts that were better left unsaid. He cleared his throat. “Do you like it?”
“It’s good. Really good.” She took a few more bites then set her fork down on her plate, studying him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just realized you cheated me out of the embarrassing story you promised in exchange for the popcorn debacle.”
A trace of an amused smile grazed his lips. “I didn’t promise to tell you anything.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Nope. I promised to try to think of something. I tried and I failed. Sorry.” He shrugged.
“You jerk!” She tossed her napkin at him. “I can’t believe you tricked me.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll think about it tonight and if I come up with something, I’ll share it.”
“And if you don’t?”
He sucked his lip ring into his mouth, taking pleasure in the fact that her eyes tracked every nibble, suck and swipe of his tongue. “I’ll make something up.”
“It better be good.”
He chuckled and shot her a wicked smile. “Little Violet, it’ll be good. I aim to please and I really want to please you…in every way possible.”
Correctly interpreting his sexual reference, her eyes went wide. Maybe it was a little too much a little too fast, but if she wasn’t interested, she needed to say so now because he planned to get as much of Violet as he could over the next few weeks before he went back to his real life. The real Alec didn’t deserve someone like Violet, but that didn’t mean the Alec he was pretending to be for now couldn’t have her. As long as she understood that this would be a short fling and she had no expectations for the future, everything would be fine.
Chapter Ten
When Alec finished eating, she gathered their plates, scraped off the food and dumped them in the kitchen sink. Now that Alec had hinted more than once that he wanted to take this thing between them beyond friends or acquaintances, she was having second thoughts. What did she know about him? Not much other than she liked it when he looked at her as though he wanted to devour her in one bite.
In fact, she didn’t get why he’d be interested in someone like her, except for wanting to change things up a little. He seemed like the type to have a glamorous woman on his arm, all made up in a flashy low cut dress at some music event for the agency where he worked. She, on the other hand, preferred jeans and hiking boots, and if she bothered to put on makeup, it consisted of lip-gloss and few swipes of mascara.
Just then, she felt his heavy hands come down on her shoulders, her back pressed against his chest.
“Little Violet,” he mumbled against her neck, both the endearment and his lips so close to her ear caused bolts of electricity to zip through her stomach.
“Wha-what?” she stuttered, clutching onto the edge of the sink as if her fingers were the only things keeping her from falling into an abyss, and maybe they were.
“Am I making you nervous?” His voice was dark and velvety like tangled sheets and sex.
Her heart raced in short painful bursts. “No,” she lied as his lips ghosted along the curve of her neck and she shivered, but it wasn’t a normal shiver. It felt like every muscle in her body conspired to convulse simultaneously.
He spun her around to face him and all she could do was stare at him, her eyes wide and not blinking as he pressed his body against hers, his thighs encasing hers. Breathless, she closed her eyes as his dark head bent toward hers. Holy shit. She was doing this. She was really going to explore this thing with Alec.
His warm mouth brushed over hers once and then he lingered there for an exaggerated moment, their breath mingling in the slim, almost nonexistent, space between their lips. She placed her hands on his narrow hips, pulling him closer, not ready for him to stop yet.
His lips curved up into a mocking smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not letting you go yet. Not even close,” he added as his lips collided against hers. She may have whimpered or said a hallelujah or two. She didn’t know, but damn, she loved the slide of his lips against hers. Nothing had ever been so delicious.
When her lips parted, his tongue caressed hers with an erotic rhythm that she swore she could feel in every cell of her body. Every time she thought he’d stop, the kiss continued, getting hotter and deeper with every stroke and nibble until she feared she might melt into nothingness.
His kisses gentled and then he pulled away. “I’ve wanted to taste you—I mean real
ly taste you—since the minute I saw your disapproving look in the Foundation parking lot.”
“Then don’t stop now,” she said, shocking herself with her own words. She normally wasn’t so forward, but Alec made her want more because men like him who lit up the world, making everything seem bigger, brighter and more alive, didn’t walk into a woman’s life very often. And while it was only a matter of time before everything crashed and burned, she had every intention of seizing the moment before he slipped through her fingers and disappeared from her life, never to be seen again.
“Little Violet, I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered, the tone of his voice self-assured, like a man who normally owned his reality, shaping and controlling it. She just lived hers, taking the ups and downs as they came and trying to enjoy the ride.
He pried her fingers away from his hips and pulled her shirt over her head. His white-hot gaze seeped into her pores, making her tremble. She reached out to pull him against her, but he wrapped his hands around her wrists, pinning her hands next to her hips on the kitchen counter. “Don’t move. Let me see you,” he said as his fingers whispered across the tops of her breasts so lightly her skin pebbled under his touch. “Do you know how sexy you are?”
“Not sexy,” she mumbled, because she didn’t think of herself that way. Cute, attractive, pretty maybe, but never sexy. Sexy was reserved for beautifully styled women on the cover of magazines with perfect clothes and hair. She didn’t have either and she really didn’t care before this moment. “Not compared to you.”
Alec chuckled as his lips twisted into a cocky grin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He reached around her back, unclasping her bra, sliding the straps down her shoulders with a reverential swipe of his fingers.
Her eyes fluttered as she arched forward. “You’re wrong. You’re so out of my league. We’re not even in the same hemisphere,” she said softly. She was the girl next door, whereas he was larger than life, living in LA, probably brushing up against stars, attending functions she couldn’t even fathom for his job at the agency. She wasn’t meant for that type of life.