by Jill Shalvis
“Yeah. I’ve got to go back in. We’ve got something going down tonight.”
“Kick ass,” his dad said.
Joe opened a drawer filled with prescriptions and pulled out a notepad to check the entries.
“I’ve been taking everything,” his dad said. “Jesus. I’m not a baby.”
“Taking them as in actually swallowing them,” Joe asked, “or taking them to flush them?”
“I don’t flush them anymore. They cost too fucking—er, effing much.”
Joe nodded, put the pad away, and looked at Kylie.
“Don’t worry about me. I told you, I’m a delight,” she said. “I can Uber home from here.”
“I’ll drop you off.”
She didn’t bother to argue with him as they left. She waited until they were in his truck and on the road. “Your dad’s pretty great,” she said.
Joe snorted.
“He is.”
Joe reached over and grabbed her hand, bringing it up to his mouth. “Thanks. You handled him well, so thanks for that too.”
“There was no handling anything. It was nice to meet him.”
He slid her a glance that she couldn’t read.
“What?” she asked.
“I told you, he doesn’t usually talk to anyone except people he knows and is comfortable with. But he talked to you. He liked you.”
“A lot of people like me,” Kylie said and made him laugh, which in turn warmed her because she felt like he needed the laugh, and also . . . it felt good that she’d given it to him.
The next day after work, Kylie walked into the pub and found some of the gang at the far right side of the bar, where they always hung out. Pru, Elle, Willa, and Molly. Kylie took the only empty barstool and paused when they all stared at her.
“What’s up?” she asked, looking down at herself. “Am I trailing tissue paper on my shoe or something?”
“Yeah, you’re right, Willa. She’s most definitely sleeping with him,” Pru said and slapped a ten down on the bar. “She’s got the postcoitus glow.”
Molly grimaced. “Come on, guys. I can’t take that bet.”
“I can,” Elle said and dropped her ten. “Kylie’s smiling with way too many teeth. Plus we all know Joe’s hot as hell. And those abs—”
“Hey,” Molly said. “My brother, remember? And anyway, it’s what’s on the inside that matters, not the outside.”
“Not in the beginning,” Elle said. “Be honest. It’s all about first visual impression and chemistry.”
Molly shook her head. “Not always.”
“Give me an example,” Elle said. “Even one example where in the first two seconds what’s on the inside is more important than the outside.”
“Uh . . .” Molly sighed and shook her head. “Dammit.”
“Refrigerator,” Sadie said as she came and sat down to join them.
Elle laughed. “Okay, I stand corrected.”
“You don’t get to talk,” Molly told her. “You’re with Archer, who looks at you like I look at fully loaded pizza. If a man looked at me like that, I wouldn’t worry about first impressions at all.”
While they went on to debate this, Willa turned to Kylie. “So are you?” she asked quietly. “Sleeping with him?”
“Technically? No.”
Willa grinned. “And untechnically?”
Kylie bit her lower lip and Willa laughed. “I knew it. How was it?”
Magic . . . “We’re not together like that,” she said. “We’re just friends.” Sort of. “It’s complicated.”
“Honey, why would you want to be just friends with a perfect male specimen like Joe?”
“He’s . . . not my type,” Kylie said. Lame.
“How is hot and sexy not your type?” Sadie wanted to know.
She turned around to find everyone listening. Great. “Well,” she said, brain whirling. “He’s pushy. And arrogant. And . . .” And smart. And sexy. And he liked to kiss everything, and she did mean everything. Which wasn’t exactly a fault . . .
Molly was watching her carefully and raised a brow.
Kylie swallowed hard and shook her head. “He’s bossy.” She tossed up her hands. “And okay, maybe just a little bit really hot and sexy.” She strained to think of more insults to cancel out the hot and sexy but realized that suddenly every one of her friends had gotten an identical funny look on their face. Crap. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he.”
“Yep,” Willa said cheerfully.
Kylie closed her eyes briefly before swiveling in her barstool.
Joe was indeed standing right there. “I wouldn’t say we’re just friends,” he told her.
“What would you say?” Willa wanted to know. “For the record.”
“For the record . . .” He wrapped his fingers around Kylie’s hand. “I’d say none of your business.”
Willa sighed as Joe tugged Kylie outside.
Chapter 20
#IllHaveWhatShesHaving
Joe pulled Kylie along with him through the courtyard, past the water fountain and right into the alley.
Old Man Eddie was sitting on a crate, feet up, head tilted back, watching the stars. At the sight of them, he sat up straight and waved.
“Need to borrow the alley for a moment,” Joe said and slid him a twenty.
Eddie grinned, pocketed it, and saluted him. “Take as many minutes as you need, Soldier.”
And then they were alone. Joe watched as Kylie went through her bag of tricks and pulled out the red wig.
“What’s that for?” he asked as she put it on.
“It’s my superhero cape,” she said. “I’m a little brave, but Red’s all the way brave. She can handle anything. If we’re going to talk about what just happened, I really need my superhero cape. I mean, I’d rather have an invisibility cloak, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
She was crazy. In the very best way, and he let out a low, rough laugh.
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked.
“With you,” he said. “Always with you.”
“But I’m not laughing.”
He did his best to dial the good humor back. “Kylie, given what I do for a living and my family life, how many times a day do you think I actually laugh?”
“I . . .” She sighed, dropped her ‘tude, and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Approximately never,” he admitted. “Unless I’m with you.” And that was the real admission. “So I’m not going to apologize for enjoying the hell out of your company.”
“Even though I said you were pushy and arrogant? And don’t forget bossy.”
“Yes, but you also said I was hot and sexy.”
“I did, but if you must know, it’s really annoying,” she said.
He laughed because she didn’t look annoyed at all, and he stepped into her so that even a sheet of paper couldn’t have fit between them, palming the back of her head to protect her from the brick. He couldn’t stop himself from touching her. And now that he’d had her naked and writhing for him, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get her out of his head either.
Deep down he knew he shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have slept with her. He’d known this, but he’d wanted her so badly she’d become way too big a distraction to ignore. Stupidly he’d assumed that would end immediately after.
Nothing had ever backfired on him quite so spectacularly, because now he wanted her more than ever before. Even just standing here with her in that wig flashed memories of her he couldn’t control. Her lips on his skin, her breath hot on his neck, her legs wrapped around him, her hardened nipples pressing tight against his chest as she arched up into him. And her gasp when he’d moved deep inside her . . . God. The low, sexy sounds she’d made as she’d come had been his complete undoing, and the memories combined with what she’d said about him in the pub had him turned on all over again.
“I thought we weren’t going to do this,” she murmured, her eyes her own twin pools of fathomless emotion. “Give
in to any real feelings. Thought you couldn’t.”
He was an inch from saying screw that when someone spoke behind them.
“I know I was supposed to vanish,” Old Man Eddie said apologetically, “but I went around to the other alley behind Reclaimed Woods and there was an envelope leaning up against the back door with Kylie’s name on it. Thought she’d want it.”
Kylie stared at the envelope without moving, maybe without breathing, so Joe took it from Eddie. “Did you see who left it?” he asked.
“Nope, and it’s wet from the rain like maybe it’s been there a while. I didn’t want it to get ruined.” Eddie’s smile faded as he took in their expressions. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Joe said. “Thanks for thinking to bring it to her.”
Eddie, not taking his gaze off Kylie, nodded. “You got it.” He slid a look at Joe, brows up, silently asking if Joe was going to take care of their girl. Joe nodded and Eddie backed out of the alley.
“Open it,” Kylie said.
He did and revealed a pic of her penguin on a workbench, with someone holding a lit Bic at the penguin’s feet. On the back of the pic were a few scribbled words.
You’re running out of time.
“I am,” Kylie said. “Running out of time.”
“We’re going to get your penguin back,” Joe said firmly. “Before the deadline.”
She looked up at him with those melting eyes of hers and he found himself cupping her jaw, stroking her skin with his fingers. “We will,” he said firmly, wanting her to believe.
Eyes still locked on his, she nodded.
He nodded too and then took her by the hand to walk her through the courtyard. Kylie slowed at the fountain and looked into the water.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Instead of answering, she pulled a coin from a pocket and closed her eyes for a moment, about to toss the coin into the water.
Joe stopped her. “What are you doing?”
She looked at him. “Do you know about the fountain’s myth?”
It wasn’t a secret. The myth went that if one wished for true love with a true heart, they’d find it. Good thing Joe didn’t have a true heart. Or a heart at all, at least not a working one.
“So you do know,” she said, watching his expression carefully.
“Something about true love, blah blah blah,” he said with a shrug. “Why?”
She let out a small smile, and this both brought a reluctant one of his own because she never failed to make him feel things, whether he wanted to or not. “What does the fountain have to do with your penguin?” he asked.
“I’m going to wish for its return.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. It’s about love.”
“Well, I love that penguin,” she said stubbornly and tossed the coin, which hit the water with a soft plop.
“So you wished for the penguin?” he asked cautiously. “Not for love for yourself?”
She went brows up and he knew he’d given himself away.
“Are you afraid of the myth?” she asked incredulously.
“Of course not.” Actually, he was terrified. Because not one, not two, not three or even four, but five people he knew had been bitten by the love bug in the past two years and all were directly linked to wishes from this very fountain. He stared at the coin she’d tossed, shimmering beneath the water’s surface, mocking him. “Just tell me that you really did wish for the penguin,” he said, because out of everyone he knew, she had the truest heart of them all. So if she’d just wished for love, they were both screwed.
She smiled, and he had one thought. He was so screwed.
“You were taking me somewhere,” she reminded him, stepping closer. “By the way you dragged me out of the pub, you were clearly in a big hurry, too.”
He gazed down at her in that red wig, unable to keep his hands from going to her hips in order to hold her to him. “We had unfinished business,” he said.
“So finish it,” she dared him.
His heart skipped a full heartbeat as he tightened his grip on her hand to lead her up the stairs to the second floor, where he disarmed Hunt Investigations’s alarm and let them into the dark offices before resetting the alarm.
His office was the first door on the right. He could’ve found it with no light at all, but there was some ambient glow coming in through the closed shades on his window. He shut and locked that door and then turned to Kylie.
She was unbuttoning her coat. After letting it fall to the floor, she hoisted herself up onto his desk. “Nice work space,” she said casually, looking around, as if she hadn’t just laid herself out like a buffet for a starving man.
He moved to stand between her legs and placed his hands flat on the desktop on each side of her hips. “If I’d known we might end up here,” he said, “I’d have cleaned it up.”
She smiled and wrapped her legs around him, locking her ankles at the small of his back. “Liar. You don’t care what anyone thinks of you.”
That was true. He’d never cared what anyone thought of him. But he found he did care what she thought. With one hand, he swept his things to the floor. The other moved to her ass to anchor her to him.
A sound escaped from deep in her throat. She’d enjoyed the Neanderthal move and that did something to him too. With her, he could be himself—good mood, bad mood, riled-up mood, whatever. He didn’t have to control himself for her. Ever.
Yet another huge turn-on.
She tilted her face to his, but then, just as he leaned in to kiss her, she pulled back an inch.
“What?” he whispered, fascinated by her, all of her.
She gave a single shake of her head. “I was pretty determined not to like you. But I keep learning new things about you. Things I like.”
He half smiled. “Even though I’m pushy and arrogant and . . . what else was it you said? Bossy?”
Her lips twitched. “Definitely bossy. Maybe you should repeat them out loud every day to work on them.”
“Sure,” he said easily. “If you say something out loud for me.”
“What?”
“My name.” He nipped her ear and whispered into it, “I’m going to make you scream it, Kylie.”
He heard the breath stutter in her chest. “I’m not much of a screamer,” she whispered.
“A challenge.” He slid a hand beneath the hem of her shirt and encountered warm, creamy smooth skin. He stroked his way north until his fingertips brushed lace. Picking her up, he turned to the couch against the far wall.
“What are you doing?” she asked, clutching at him.
“I want to be horizontal this time.”
“But . . . here?”
“Most definitely here.”
“Your desk phone,” she gasped. “You knocked it off the hook.”
“Later.”
“You have a candy bar. It’s on the floor too, which seems like a big waste of a really good candy bar—”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know something that’s going to taste even better than a candy bar.” He licked the sensitive skin beneath her ear and she let out a shuddery moan. Dropping her to the couch, he reached for her shirt, tugged it up, and pulled it over her head to reveal the chocolate brown lace of her bra. “Pretty.” In another second he discovered that her barely-there panties matched.
No chocolate required . . .
“Hurry,” she whispered, her voice a soft plea as she reached up for him. He was lowering himself over her when from his back pocket, his cell vibrated. He dropped his forehead to her gorgeous breasts and gulped in a breath.
“It might be urgent,” she said, her hands in his hair.
No doubt. But it’d been a text and not a call, so he decided it couldn’t be that important. “I don’t care.” Unhooking her bra, he drew it away from her, feeling his heart quicken at the sight of her sprawled beneath him. “Everything else can wait a minute.”
She put a hand to his c
hest. “And if I need more than a minute?”
“You get all the minutes you need.” His hand slid down to grip her sweet little ass, pulling her closer into the cradle of his thighs.
“Mmm, you want me,” she said breathlessly, squirming against the part of him that wanted her the most of all. Her eyes were shining with triumph, humor, and her own need.
Damn, he was such a goner for her. “I do.” He lifted his head to brush a kiss over her bare shoulder and then the underside of her jaw. “And I want you bad, too.”
With a dreamy sigh, she tipped her head back, humming in pleasure as he trailed his mouth down her throat. Over her collarbone. The tip of her breast, which he drew into his mouth, making her arch up with a gasp as his tongue rasped her nipple.
Her hands slid into his hair, tightening on the strands. “Don’t stop.”
Never was his first thought, his fingers teasing her through her panties until they were wet. Then he hooked his thumbs into the straps. “You’re not going to be needing these,” he said and slowly drew the tiny scrap of material down her legs.
“Your clothes too,” she panted. “Off.”
“And you think I’m the bossy one.” He rose to his knees over her naked body and peeled his T-shirt over his head while her fingertips skimmed his chest and stomach, wreaking havoc on his self-control. Knowing she had to touch him every bit as much as he had to touch her drove him crazy in the very best way. Bending over her, he took a nibble of her hip, then a rib, making her squirm. Gently, he closed his teeth around her nipple and tugged, and she tightened her grip in his hair. That made it difficult to remove the rest of his clothes but he managed, kicking everything off.
Kylie came up on an elbow to watch and reached for him the minute he was finished, her legs parting for him. And as he first protected them both with a condom and then made himself comfortable between her thighs, he felt a deep sense of . . . coming home. There was no other way to describe it as he slid into her.
“Kylie,” he said, staring down at her. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes and revealed so much emotion that he felt his throat go tight. He kissed her then, hungrily drinking in the little noises she made in her throat as he began to move deep inside her. He tried to hold it together, but she was so tight, so wet, so hot that he thought he was going to blow right then. But somehow he managed to hold on through her first orgasm. He barely reined it in, but he didn’t want this to be just a release like the first time they’d been together. He wanted to show her what was in his heart.