Arching a brow at the waiter, he let the guy know how close to the line he was stepping. The idiot must have a death wish because he quickly dismissed Robert’s warning shot and dished out a double helping of charm.
His jaw clenched, and dark thoughts clouded his self-control.
Kristal, of fucking course, had the dumb shit eating out of her hand. Neither for the first and probably not the last time, he debated giving her a good spanking for ramping him up like this. Her sultry glances each time she looked his way told him she knew exactly what she was doing.
A grenade went off in his head with emotional shrapnel ricocheting like mad when he realized she was actively playing him. It was a fucking miracle that he survived the meal without losing his shit.
When it came time to settle the bill, he was startled as her hand reached for him and squeezed his wrist.
“Be nice,” she murmured. “It’s not his fault.”
He met her eyes with a confused expression.
“Don’t under tip just because I acted like a brat.”
Robert paused and carefully considered what she was trying to say. “So you jacked me up on purpose?”
She giggled and offered a lazy shrug. “You accepted the challenge.”
Sitting back in his chair, he gawked at her for a second and then broke out in laughter. “You do know your antics almost earned him a black eye?”
“Hey. You were warned. I wasn’t kidding about the good girl thing getting moldy.”
“Yeah,” he replied with a leer. “But I thought I would be the beneficiary of your turn to the dark side. Not some pompous waiter wearing eyeliner.”
She smacked his arm and frowned. “He was not wearing eyeliner. And I don’t recall you asking for beneficiary status.”
“Well, what if I’m asking now?”
It was a toss-up as to which of them was the most shocked by his question.
Kristal was a quick thinker—always had been—and came back with a prompt answer. “Are you asking? I mean, don’t fuck around with me, Robert. A change in status comes with an expectation of certain rights and responsibilities. Better think it through, dude.”
Okay. Was she being serious, or was this just her having fun and giving him shit? He probed a little to see if she dropped any clues.
Cocking his head, he stared her down and asked, “Is there fine print? Maybe we should start there.”
She got up so fast he jerked his head in reaction and then nearly knocked over a water glass when his hand shot out to stop her from standing. The part where she ignored him was a given.
“Let’s go.”
He felt like a bad date left at the curb when she marched away, this time in a tight-assed stomp equally as hot and sexy as the hip sway. Quickly checking the table to make sure they weren’t leaving anything behind, he growled and dropped enough additional money to make the douchebag waiter’s tip the highlight of the guy’s night.
Fucker.
Scrambling to catch up, he didn’t quite make it to her side until she was tapping her foot impatiently on the sidewalk next to the valet stand. Common sense, a side of decorum, and fear that his dad would have him neutered were the only things keeping him from hauling her sexy ass into the shadows and finding out once and for all if she tasted as good as he imagined.
This was a very bad idea. What was she thinking? Izzy’s fault. That was what this whole crazy, ill-advised thing felt like.
Furious that she’d let her friend push a button that should have been off-limits, Kristal could barely contain her disappointment. At herself. For being so romantically desperate that she … what? Crossed a line with Robert?
She knew better. Sorta.
Giving the guy at the valet stand no more than an angry glare, she stomped to the far end of the waiting area and claimed a piece of sidewalk.
“What did I do?” Robert asked when he caught up to her. His grip on her arm shattered Kristal’s composure. Trying to slide from his hold, she wiggled her arm until frantic for release she managed to push his hand away.
“Kristal,” he warned. “Tell me what’s happening.”
The desire to kick him in the shins and laugh in his face made frustration explode inside her.
No. That was a lie. The frustration stemmed from the thousand other things she wanted to do—none of which would end with continued disappointment. She had a choice to make. Act like a brat and run away or face this thing head-on.
“We have to shut this down right now, Robbie.”
His expression registered surprise at the use of his childhood nickname. She regretted the slip the second it came out of her mouth. She only called him Robbie when she was scared. Or hurt. Or vulnerable.
He didn’t hesitate to take her hand and gently but decisively move her into the shadows. She was biting her lip so hard it was a wonder she didn’t taste blood.
They stared at each other in the darkness behind a large tree and some blooming hedges. It was the first time she didn’t actively attempt to screen her expression.
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He touched her forehead with his finger to move the long bangs off her face. “And I’m afraid there is no shutting it down. Now that we’ve let things get this far.”
She swallowed with difficulty. Tears were stinging her eyes and making her nose tingle. “Shit.”
Confusion and need swirled around them. She felt the competing emotions closing in. What happened in the next five minutes would seal her fate. Their fate.
They lunged at each other when they came to the same conclusion at the same time. When their lips met, something snapped inside her. In less than a nanosecond, their first kiss turned dangerously hot and ravenous. Maybe they’d explore soft, sultry kisses later, but right now, it was more like a claiming. He claimed her, and she him with loads of tongue, saliva, and moans.
He drew away first—his face a mask of panty-melting lust. The thin ribbon of saliva clinging to their parting lips was evidence of her reluctance to separate.
She’d never been kissed like that in her whole life. Trembling, Kristal covered her mouth with shaky fingers and met his gaze. What the hell did they do now? Letting this forbidden obsession have even a smidge of oxygen would complicate things.
“Well,” Robert drawled. “Now that that’s settled, what do you say we head to the theater? I know how much you enjoy the dumbass previews and movie quizzes.”
“Seriously?” Her voice had a disbelieving tone that matched her confusion. “You kiss me like the world is about to end, and now you want to watch a movie?”
His lazy shrug was unbelievably sexy. “Actually? Yes, I do.”
She saw his mouth quiver with amusement. “Is this funny to you?” she asked.
“Uh, kind of, yeah.”
Her brows bumped together, and she felt a fierce scowl form on her face. The shin kick was looking better and better if it turned out he was making fun of her. With a look that took her right back to the teenage moment when she first felt something other than sibling affection, he gave a resigned sigh and chuckled.
“Babe. You wore look-at-my-ass shoes, and I broke out the contact lenses. Let’s not play dumb, okay?”
“What, may I ask,” she snippily bit out with arms folded and a haughty smirk, “does that have to do with the movies?”
His return smirk almost got him pinned to the concrete.
“Answer me this.” He sniggered. “Who did you want staring at your ass? Hmm?”
The hot flush that broke out on her neck spread quickly to her face. He laughed. With a finger beneath her chin, he forced her to look up at him. “Busted.”
She could only think of one thing to say. “Shit.”
Like a scene from a schmaltzy rom-com, he took her hand and fed it through his arm. She had a story heroine moment and barely stifled her giggling swoon at his display of gentlemanly manners.
“So the movies, it is! I’m sure your bad girl side had mor
e than a kickass pair of shoes in her planning arsenal. Bring it on and let’s see where we end up.”
She swatted his arm really hard but didn’t take her hand away. “Don’t you dare make it sound like it’s just me.”
His shit-eating grin got added to the list of reasons why she wasn’t ready to abandon the shin kick scenario.
“Zip it. I’ve got a better use for that smart tongue of yours.”
She was sputtering all sorts of nonsensical stuff as he dragged her to his car waiting at the curb. When he made a production out of helping her into the passenger seat and actually patted her butt, she nearly vapor-locked.
As he joined her in the car and was putting his seat belt on, she rather pithily told him, “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
He grinned some more and drawled, “I know, right?”
She sat back with a husky harrumph and stared straight ahead. Two seconds of pique at how quickly he’d taken control led her conscience to break out in a four-alarm barnburner of shrieking laughter. Robert and control in the same sentence was enough to unleash a boatload of X-rated fantasies.
Keeping the smile off her face would require a Herculean effort.
With all his previous self-imposed constraints shaken off—courtesy of Kristal Devin’s tongue inspecting his tonsils—Robert lost little time taking full advantage of the situation in which he found himself, starting with being able at long last to touch her. Frequently.
They held hands at the theater, and when he waited for her outside the ladies’ room with five other guys doing the same thing, he decided right then and there that his only goal in life was to convince her that they were simply meant to be.
She was wearing a shell-shocked look when she joined him. He knew what she was feeling. Everyone else in the theater might not know it, but they did. This was the first time they’d been together when their sibling dynamic was not in play. He was a man, and she was a woman. The rest should be fairly obvious.
“We’re in theater five,” he told her. “Want anything from the snack bar?”
“What?” she asked. “The snack bar?”
“Yeah. You know. Drinks. Popcorn. Pretzels.”
She jerked slightly and threw up her hands with a laugh. “Wait! I believe the deal was that the popcorn was on me.”
Before he could stop her, she took off in a straight-line for the crowded concession stand. Kristal had a way of getting to the front of any line, and it didn’t matter the circumstance. If she was waiting for a ticket to see the queen and there were five hundred other people ahead of her, she always somehow managed to hit the line jackpot. Tonight was no exception.
Standing off to the side, he watched her with a smile on his face. She could charm the pants off a mannequin. Joking with the young, minimum wage employee, she got the guy laughing in no time. Nobody did the ditzy blonde thing better than she did—something the whole family found endlessly amusing.
Carrying a container the size of a small suitcase, she took the overflowing popcorn to the condiment station and went to town with the butter pump. Familiar with this drill, Robert started stuffing his pockets full of napkins. He also slid the bottle of water from under her arm before it fell.
In theater five, he let her take the lead. Kristal’s process for choosing movie theater seats was simple. Where could they plop down that might guarantee nobody sat near them? They had a long history of unfortunate movie behavior including bursting into full-throated guffaws during the first Twilight movie when Edward revealed his glittery inner vampire. That time, they endured dirty looks and more than a few murmured rebukes. Enough for it to be a lesson learned. Now they made an effort to spare everyone from their sniggers and groans.
Following her, he thoroughly enjoyed the view of her backside as she climbed the stairs to the final row against the wall and took the seats on the aisle. Was he being a shit when she sat down and he had to climb over her? Yes. That was the only way to explain practically smashing his crotch in her face as he passed.
Fire? Hi. My name is Robert. Let’s play, shall we?
Ordinarily, they kept an empty seat between them for the popcorn and a place to stash her purse. Not tonight. She looked at him with raised brows when he sat next to her, took the popcorn from her hands and raised the armrest separating their seats.
“Crack the cap on the water,” he told her. “And give me your purse.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll forget it if I’m not in charge.”
He spoke the truth. She wasn’t careless by any means, but Kristal had a habit of leaving either her purse, sunglasses, or keys all over the place. It wasn’t a case of being empty-headed. The complete opposite. Even when she was a kid, her head was constantly full.
It took her three or four times at standing, rearranging, and sitting before she was situated. He called this part of their regular movie outings the pre-launch closeout and watched the process with the same interest he gave a documentary. Everything had to be just right, or she’d sigh and squirm through the whole movie. If there was a draft, then her hair had to be down. If it was too warm, out came a ponytail elastic. He didn’t doubt for a second that if she didn’t care for the temperature in the theater, the manager would know about it in a flash.
Women really were strange creatures. Glorious and exciting one minute—fearsome and dangerous the next.
When she was finally settled and glanced his way, he gave her a cheeky smirk. “Now that’s what I call an entertaining preview.”
Her dry, less than amused expression revved his engine in a big way. “Do you think about these things before you say them?”
Chuckling, he tossed a wad of popcorn in his mouth. “Not with you, I don’t. Have to watch my mouth all the damn time at work.” He playfully nudged her with his shoulder. “Cut a guy a break, would you?”
She jerked in her seat and turned toward him. He was fairly certain he would remember the look on her face for the rest of his life.
“This is weird, right? Tell me you know this is weird.”
With a whole slew of answer options at the ready, he went with the one closest to his heart. Putting the enormous bucket of popcorn on the floor between them, he shifted in his seat too and looked at her. He reached for her hand and kissed it.
“It’s entirely possible that this is the first time it hasn’t been weird.”
She made a little gasping sound. “Just us. No, um … walls.”
“Right.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze.
“Robbie,” she murmured.
There it was again. Kristal’s secret tell. The one that said she was vulnerable to him.
“I’m totally freaking out.” Her whispered murmur gave away a lot.
Yeah. He was too, but he knew at the same time in his heart of hearts that they had to explore this thing, whatever it was.
There was a lot he could say but nothing seemed right so he took her face in both hands and brought her mouth to his. This time, their kiss was less frantic, but that didn’t mean they kept it light.
The commercials and movie trivia on the screen ended, and the lights dimmed. It was time for the previews, but he didn’t stop kissing her until he absolutely had to. When the first preview popped up, he ended the sweet torture and pressed her back in her seat.
Kristal’s heavy sighing wrapped around his nerves. He shifted closer until their sides touched and mentally got ready to enjoy the show.
The next two hours flew right by with their usual shrieks of horror, cringes of disgust, whoops of delights, and mocking groans. During a particularly gruesome throat slash, her hand shot out and grabbed his thigh in a death grip. The pressure of her fingers and sharp nail stabs turned him on. When she went to pull her hand away, he stopped her with a gentle press and held it against his thigh.
Per their normal routine, they didn’t budge until the last credits rolled. Critiquing the technical and creative teams was part of what they did. She was commenting about th
e sound effects when it hit him that no matter how you looked at it, they already enjoyed a fully formed and highly compatible relationship. The emotional intimacy was just part of who they were. The only thing missing was physical intimacy.
“I thought that was you,” a voice boomed.
Robert’s head snapped up. Dammit. Ron Bentley. The school district’s athletic director and fellow B-movie enthusiast.
He stood and shook Ron’s hand when the asshole leaned over Kristal like she wasn’t there. For her part, she sat back, folded her arms, and made a face. Her dislike of the other guy was legendary. For as long as Robert remembered, she’d reacted to Ron as if he was the schmutz on the bottom of her shoes.
“Thought the movie sucked,” Ron informed them in a clipped, annoyingly self-righteous way.
Kristal sniggered but said nothing.
Ron ignored her—which was what he always did.
Inside him, competing reactions fought for supremacy. The arrogant shithead lurking inside every red-blooded male wanted to touch Kristal in a way that left the guy in no doubt whatsoever about the nature of their relationship.
The other part of him, same arrogant shithead with a heaping dollop of pissed off thrown in, wanted to flatten the motherfucker for disrespecting her with his macho, steroid-infused bullshit.
The disrespect won out, adjusted for setting and common sense. If he couldn’t knock the guy’s lights out, he could certainly remind him that he had no manners and was therefore a pig.
Putting a hand on Kristal’s shoulder he gave Ron a belligerent smirk. “You know, Kristal don’t you, Ron?”
The dude sputtered for a few seconds at the implied putdown before finally acknowledging her presence. “Yeah. Sure. Hi, Kris.”
She stood so fast that Ron took a hasty step backward. “Hello, Ronald,” she bit out with a downright sneer.
Kristal hated when people arbitrarily shortened her name. She thought it was the height of laziness and showed a mountain of discourtesy that she just couldn’t abide. So she countered with Ron’s full name—enunciated with as much bold contempt as she could get away with.
Forbidden: A Sinful Shares Romance Page 4