by Cari Quinn
“I quit.”
“Why?”
She felt marginally better at the tension lines that appeared around his eyes. Maybe she wasn’t as predictable as everyone liked to believe. She knew part of the reason he’d always teased her about leaving the gas station was because he didn’t think she ever would.
Well, he was wrong. And he wasn’t the only one. There was more to her than people believed. Including herself.
“It was time.” She nudged his hand away from her face. She liked him touching her far too much. “Time I get a real job. Time I use my brain and go after what I want.”
A couple blistering orgasms would be a good start.
She took a breath. So much for her thinking he was a horndog. Apparently, an over-stimulated Kiki with too much time on her hands was a no-fail recipe for smutful thoughts.
“Glad to hear it. So what are you doing next?”
The panic bubbles that had awakened her several times in the night sprang into her throat. “Umm, that’s to be determined.”
“In the meantime, you don’t have a job?”
Why did his dark eyes seem so much more intense without the buffer of his glasses between them? “No, but I’m sure I’ll find one soon.”
“You’ve already found one.” He gave her a slow, utterly self-assured smile. “Working with me.”
Chapter Four
Kiki hadn’t said yes before she escorted Vincent out, claiming she had things to do. Nor had she asked questions about the job. But she also hadn’t said no. To his way of thinking, that made this a glass half-full sort of situation.
Hard to be positive while you were doped up on pain meds and wearing a shirt with one sleeve, but Vincent was trying. Almost two weeks had passed since he’d made his offer. But he hadn’t given up hope yet.
Where the idea had come from to have Kiki help him with his book, he didn’t know. As smart as she was, she wasn’t a writer, unless it was a secret hobby. But she was a fan of his genre. He smiled, recalling the day he’d discovered her reading a romance. One of his, no less.
At least she had had exquisite taste.
She was also an actress, and an actress would understand motivation, one of the most important components in writing a book. He’d even gone to one of Kiki’s plays a couple years ago, though he hadn’t known her then. Liz, the woman he’d been dating at the time, had claimed to love small-town productions, so he’d agreed to accompany her. What she loved had turned out to be the director of Kiki’s production, but that was neither here nor there.
He could still remember how Kiki had looked under the lights. For some odd reason, he’d taken notice of her, probably because she’d played her role as a prairie wife with a sort of tongue-in-cheek campiness he appreciated. As if the whole thing was a farce, and she knew it.
In her own way, she’d shone, just as she’d shone for him the night he’d met her at the Quikky Snak. He’d arrived past dinner rather than around lunchtime as was his normal routine. His mind had been on work, as usual, when he’d heard Kiki’s smoky laughter. While he watched, she’d finished helping her elderly customer and led her up to the counter, chatting as if they were old pals.
There was no earthly reason why he should remember how Kiki looked on stage, or the blue-haired granny she’d spoken to so gently when she hadn’t known anyone was paying attention. But something about her had resonated with him.
Then and now.
Kissing her had only made him want more than a sample. He’d never be satisfied with a slice when he could have the whole damn pie.
She’d tasted like hot peppermint, and her eyes had glowed fog gray before her lashes swept down to block his view. Her mouth had responded to his without hesitation, making him wonder if her apparent disinterest in him had been yet another act. Another farce. It made him anticipate peeling back every one of the walls she threw up in his face.
If he got the chance. Now that she’d quit the Quikky Snak—about time, far as he was concerned—he wouldn’t get to see her anymore, unless she took him up on his offer.
If. Unless. He didn’t deal well with things he couldn’t control. But even if she did agree to help him, he wanted it to be due to her own free will. He didn’t need anyone’s pity. His book would get written, regardless.
Vincent smiled grimly, rotating a pencil between his fingers as he stared at his laptop screen. He’d taken an extra dose of pills so he’d be ready to work. Though both his mobility and the pain had improved a lot since he’d come home from the hospital, he was hurting tonight. He’d probably been getting too active. Rolling over always taxed a man.
Letting out a sigh, he focused on the words in front of him. Barry White crooned in the background, and the remnants of a microwave pizza sat beside his keyboard. His nomadic pooch, Bathsheba, was sprawled over his feet. The scene for productivity was set.
Right about now, he should be experiencing Saffron’s outrage that someone would dare attempt a hostile takeover of the cosmetics business she’d built from the ground up, French Kiss ’n Tell. Instead, he was thinking about Kiki and cursing the pain burrowing into his left shoulder.
He’d been home for the better part of two weeks, going vaguely stir-crazy, but he hadn’t been able to work as much as he’d planned. Actually, working at all had proved to be a challenge. He hadn’t fully comprehended how difficult it would be to type one-handed, since his injured arm protested if he left it in any one position too long.
Bottom line, he didn’t feel like writing. He hadn’t felt like doing anything besides staring at the TV. Now that he was starting to get back to normal—well, relatively speaking—he couldn’t get out of his own head and into the story he was creating. That was part of the reason he’d tried to enlist Kiki’s help. Two heads being better than one, and all that.
Talking to someone for a few minutes every day over a checkout counter didn’t provide deep insight into their character, but for some reason, he trusted her not to blab his romance-writing identity all over town. Somehow he knew she wouldn’t sell him out for a few laughs.
He wanted to get to know more about her, much as he hated to admit it. To actually talk to her before he stripped her down to her sexy lingerie and the milk-pale skin beneath.
Or maybe they could save the talking until after the sex. That would be even better.
Vincent turned off the music and set his laptop aside. The drugs they had him on must be potent stuff because he couldn’t remember talking ever taking precedence over getting a woman naked. Of course, he’d never been this blocked writing-wise before, either.
So it was time to use brute force to shake the muse loose.
He’d spent most of the last two weeks camped out in his boxers on his living room sofa with a quart of chocolate milk. His gran hadn’t even chided him for drinking directly out of the bottle that afternoon before she’d left for her volunteer shift at the library. She’d simply fussed over his pillows, supervised his pill popping, and made him homemade chicken soup with fresh herbs.
Canned soup didn’t exist in Lucille Carver Buonfiglio’s world. Vincent’s mouth quirked as he turned on the TV. Neither did porn.
She’d rented him a slew of movies to watch since he was off work, much as it royally pissed him off. But he was bypassing them all to entertain himself in another manner entirely. It had been a while since he’d even been able to consider the idea of sex, solo or otherwise. Tonight he needed to entertain his muse and to reactivate his body. He’d found just the video to do it, too.
Pleasure Times Two wouldn’t win any Pulitzers, but it had definite merits. Not only would it keep his mind off the book he couldn’t write, he could always count viewing porn as research. For a romance writer, studying sexual positions was on-the-job training.
Hell, if he couldn’t be having actual sex—and that was a highly unlikely proposition—watching it was a solid second choice. When watching led to…participating, well, sexual release was a known pain alleviator, wasn't it?
And h
e needed some alleviation, quick. His current level of soreness made the time he’d had his wisdom teeth removed without enough Novocain seem like a trip to Disneyland, complete with cotton candy and a picture with Mickey.
The pain probably wasn’t that bad, but he was sick of it. He’d certainly come a long way since the night of the shooting. He could move his arm sometimes without wanting to shout obscenities. Last night he’d turned over a few times in bed and not begged to die. Earlier today he’d managed to carefully sweep the dusting of snow off the porch. Hell, in a few weeks he might even be back in semi-fighting shape.
Until then, he’d liberally enjoy the pills that made his life more bearable. He’d also enjoy some visual entertainment.
He eased a hand into his boxers, his gaze riveted on the TV. While their swimming coach watched, the college co-eds onscreen twined around each other, hands roaming, nails glistening. Red nails, not virulent purple. And though one of the women had brown hair, it was long and wavy, not short and spiky and streaked with hot pink.
Positions changed, allowing the swimming coach to get into the action. Bad porno music swelled. Vincent rolled his eyes. Didn’t anyone listen to the music they put on these things?
No, of course not. The music wasn’t the point. So why was he paying attention to it?
The busty blonde fondled herself while her friend and their coach executed acrobatic feats to get their mouths to each other’s genitalia simultaneously. “Tandy” was Vincent’s preferred type: blonde, buxom, and she relished doling out oral favors. But he scarcely touched himself.
If he’d thought the situation had reached critical mass when his only issue had been an inability to write hot, welcome to the danger zone.
He couldn’t get hard.
His chest hitched, but he took a steadying breath. No need to panic. Clearly this was just a small pothole on the way to sexual satisfaction. He turned up the sound on the remote, then encircled the base of his shaft with his thumb and forefinger. Sexy sounds poured out of the speakers of his home theater, filling the room with moans and pants and the wet slurping noises that ordinarily would’ve pushed him over the edge.
He loved loud sex. Both onscreen and in real life. Especially in real life. But his dick had gone on permanent standby.
“Dammit.” He gave his cock a frustrated twist. Why couldn’t anything run smoothly for him anymore? Ever since that damned Kiki Wyatt had turned him on with her lavender lace-encased breasts, then turned him down—
It wasn’t much, just the faintest bump against his fist. Like a morning glory hesitantly peeking out under the warm rays of the sun.
How bizarre was that? On TV, two hot females were feasting on each other as if they were the featured entrées at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and from his cock, he got nada. But one thought of Kiki’s small, un-porn-star-worthy breasts, and boom. Instant erection.
He nearly shoved himself back into his boxers. Hadn’t he told himself to stop thinking about her? She hadn’t shown up in almost two weeks, so she obviously wasn’t interested in his vague offer of work. Or in him. Only an infatuated moron would jerk off while imagining her slim white hips straddling his waist, their tongues sparring as they had two days ago. Or her pale breasts bouncing against his chest as her unfathomable eyes locked on his….
Now we’re getting somewhere.
He lowered his head to the back of the couch. He’d read that trouble maintaining an erection was one side effect of his pain medication. So he’d have to make this mental picture especially good.
Mind blowing.
She would have rosy nipples that matched her lips. His pace increased. A delicate pink that would bloom red under his mouth.
“Ah, hell.” His cock bulged in his hand, proving that even an excess of meds couldn’t compete with a smokin’ fantasy. But the fact remained.
He didn’t want to fantasize about Kiki Wyatt, not when fantasizing led to thinking about her outside of the bedroom. Where she was, and what she was doing. Had she found another job? More importantly, was she thinking about him and the kiss he couldn’t pry from his head?
See, that’s what he didn’t need. What he needed was to masturbate in peace to thoughts of some mindless, faceless chick he’d never have to deal with again.
At the buzz of his doorbell, he frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Nor did he intend to entertain any guests now. Not while the getting—he smiled at his stiff cock—was good.
Determined to ignore the interruption, he closed his eyes and concentrated. It wasn’t difficult to bring back the image of Kiki’s lithe body. His rendering of it, anyway.
And he’d rendered it plenty.
If he’d undressed her more than once in his mind, who could blame him? She had an agile dancer’s body, combined with a wicked sense of humor and a made-for-sex laugh. But her sassy attitude did him in every bit as much as her round little ass or her smirking mouth. She wouldn’t come crawling to him.
Vincent prided himself on being as insistent as water wearing down rock when he pursued a woman. But Kiki couldn’t be had. Every blasted time he tried to flirt with her, she rebuffed him with one of her cool, measuring looks.
Until two days ago, when she’d kissed him with every ounce of that wildcat passion he’d guessed was under her buttoned-up, straitlaced exterior. She’d likely explode in one gushing rush the moment he touched the sweet heat between her legs.
Distantly, he heard pounding between groans, both the ones emitting from the TV and his own. But he didn’t pay the noise much mind. He was too close to the point of no return.
What he wouldn’t do for a woman. The woman. The only one he seemed able to focus on, for reasons he didn’t want to explore. Flesh and bone, with real lips, real breasts and a tight—
A thumping sound reached his ears, somehow rising above the thrum of his blood. His eyes blinked open just as the knob on the front door began to turn. Then his current fantasy poked her head inside his apartment.
Oh, shit.
“Oh, shit,” Kiki gasped.
This was a nightmare of epic proportions.
Next time she spoke to her father, she’d agree to go out with his latest idea of worthy date material. Rod or Jock or whatever the hell his name was might be a normal guy. If she were having regular sex, maybe she wouldn’t get aroused by a guy stroking himself.
But this wasn’t just any guy. This was the guy who had dominated her thoughts for a decidedly unhealthy portion of the previous six months.
At least Vincent had the decency to stop touching himself. But short of tucking himself away—and how he’d tuck something that size away discreetly, she didn’t know—there wasn’t much he could do to lessen the mortification factor.
“Obviously this is a bad time,” she said, lifting her voice above the cheesy porn music filling the room. And the panting. And the guttural, “Give it to me, give it to me, uhhhh!”
Her sex clenched. Damn him. If she had a gun right now, she’d shoot him herself. Not in the shoulder, either.
For a minute, they eyed each other. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was taking her measure. Assessing her, as if he weren’t the one caught with his pants down. Literally.
Then he did exactly what she’d thought he couldn’t. He nonchalantly pushed himself back into his black cotton boxers. While she stared, he slid his good arm along the back of the couch, a clear cut invitation for her to sit down.
A smart woman would’ve left. A smarter woman would have called him a few choice names before doing so. Unfortunately, she’d never been that smart.
She crossed the room and sat down next to him. But she didn’t glance his way as she muted the porno he’d been jerking off to.
How male. How crude. How frigging hot.
“I knocked,” she said, her voice low. “I pounded so loud your neighbor came down to see what the fuss was about. You didn’t answer.”
“Brent’s not my neighbor, he’s my tenant. As is my grandmother, though she gets a discount on
the rent.” His lips twisted into a smile. “And I didn’t answer because I was a little busy.” That his voice sounded as if he’d swallowed gravel excited her more than should be allowed by law. “Didn’t plan on answering the door until I’d…finished.”
Since the porno had yet to…reach its inevitable conclusion on its own, she hit pause. Naturally it froze the screen on a rather memorable T &A shot. “So I was just supposed to wait around?”
“Nah.” He laid his foot on his opposite knee and idly scratched his thigh, giving her an unobstructed view of his leg almost up to the crease of his hip. Hell, if his skin were any darker, she’d have sworn he sunbathed nude in the Mediterranean. Then there was his open shirt, gaping just enough that she could see the dark hair swirling around his nipples. “You could’ve come in anytime you liked.”
“Aw, Vincent.” That she could joke at a time like this amazed her. “I’ve never had a sweeter offer.”
His laughter poured over her, warm and soft as rain. “Glad you think so, since I was fantasizing about you.”
Her gaze snapped to his, but his lazy smile remained. For the first time, she noticed he was wearing his glasses again.
“Don’t believe me? Want me to describe what we were doing?” His voice dropped. “How your legs were wrapped around me, and I was digging my fingers into your hips as I sucked your—”
“Not possible,” she managed. “You can’t dig your fingers into my hips. You probably can’t even use your arm.”
As if she’d interrupted the movie reel playing behind his eyes, he directed an irritated glance at the appendage lying limply across his lap. “Wanna give it a shot? I’m game if you are.”
Her achy breasts and the fierce drumbeat between her legs screamed yes, but her mind whispered no. Damn shame her mind won.
“I came here to talk about…your offer. Regarding working together.” Not about his wide summer-brown hands with their sexy dusting of black hair. Not about his ripped chest. And definitely not about the promising bulge between his legs.