by Erika Kelly
If Julian’s mother could see me now. She hurried back into the building.
But why had he gotten her all worked up like that just to shut her down? Isn’t that what he’s wanted all along? To be with me? The man frustrated her beyond reason. She grabbed her tote off the library table, dug around for her keys, and took off for the back exit.
Lost? What was he talking about? Next month she had an interview for her dream fellowship, which would lead to her dream job in her dream city. She was the opposite of lost.
She was a freaking warrior.
And why did he get to tell her what she’d regret?
Flipping off the lights, she pulled the door tightly behind her. Images chased her as she hurried to her dad’s truck.
The silky strands of Fin’s hair in her fingers, brushing over her cheeks.
His lips parting, closing over hers, so hot and firm and determined.
Her legs banded around his waist, grinding against his very hard erection.
Awareness burst in her chest, sending a shower of sparks into her limbs.
It hit her with a wallop: she’d almost had sex with Fin against the wall in her exhibition space.
Of course, she wouldn’t have gone through with it. She’d have come to her senses.
Except…when his hand had slipped under her shirt and skimmed her bare skin, need had ripped her wide open. The way he’d clutched her and squeezed so lustfully.
Okay, yes. Obviously, she would have. Well, who wouldn’t want him? The way he looked at her? Like she was smart and funny and sexy. Like even at her worst, she still intrigued and delighted him. Like everything that came out of her mouth impressed the hell out of him.
Yanking the door open, she hiked up onto the seat, tossed her bag onto the passenger side, and jabbed her key into the ignition. What really pissed her off was that he’d acted like she didn’t know her own mind. Like he was doing her some kind of favor by stopping. Jerk.
Buckling in, she tore out of the parking lot. A flash of his big hand cupping her chin, angling her for a kiss, sent another jolt of desire through her.
Come on, that wasn’t a kiss. That was a claiming. It was more than mouths and tongues exploring. It was…God, it was two souls clawing to get closer…to join.
And he’d killed it. What, did he think he was the Overlord of All the Things?
It’s my body. I get to decide what I do with it.
Her headlights lit up Main Street, a block ahead. Flashes of bright orange flames from the bonfire on the town green appeared between the bodies moving along the sidewalk. A band played in the gazebo, and barbecue from Skeeter’s Bar and Grill scented the night air.
Hitting the turn signal, she bypassed the crowds and cut through the back streets. She was done thinking about Fin-freaking-Bowie. As soon as she got home, she’d make a spreadsheet for the donations that had been coming in, figure out how best to use them. If she kept this exhibition going after she moved back to the city, she’d need to pay someone to run it. Would Barbara want to be the director? Recently widowed, she seemed the most interested in finding a new direction for her life. Might be just the right timing and fit.
The back road to Fin’s ranch loomed on her right. Her fingers flexed on the wheel, and she pressed the accelerator to avoid temptation. As much as she’d like to ask what the hell he’d been thinking—he’d finally gotten what he wanted from her and then he’d just tossed her aside—she was absolutely not going there.
Just ignore him. She’d pretend like he hadn’t just kissed her like a demon determined to suck her soul right out of her body.
The sounds he’d made—the desperation. Desire sizzled down her spine.
Yeah, definitely not a good idea to see him right now.
Thank God she hadn’t gotten naked. Imagine if she’d…no. Not imagining sex with Fin.
Especially since it’d been so easy for him to stop. Like it’d just been another kiss out of the millions he’d had over his lifetime.
Well, sure. He’s a passionate guy. He goes hard into everything—including kissing.
She couldn’t even imagine the trail of broken hearts he’d left over the past six years.
Whizzing right past the Bowie property, she noticed someone had left the gate open. She’d text him about that when she got home. No, she’d text Marcella. She didn’t want to talk to Fin right now.
Damn him. How could he have been so blasé about that kiss?
And why did he get to be the decider anyway?
Does he actually think he knows me better than I know myself?
Callie slammed on the brakes. No, he does not. Executing a three-point turn in the middle of the road, she turned back around. She’d tell him just what he could do with his arrogance.
The truck bounced onto the rutted dirt road, and the moment she cleared the gate, she jerked the gearshift into Park. Once she dragged it closed, she jogged back to the truck and hit the gas pedal. Her headlights lit up dual movie screens of dust and debris kicked up by the tires. Gravel pinged against the undercarriage.
If they were going to work together, they needed to set some boundaries. “Like no kissing.” Her voice sounded loud in the small cab, making her a little self-conscious. She was getting way too worked up over the fact that Fin had…well, he’d rejected her.
She couldn’t believe she’d gotten so carried away—she’d made porn star noises—when the kiss obviously hadn’t meant anything to him. Mr. Badass, with his aviators and stupid motorcycle. Mr. Hot Stuff, with the hard body and tight, bubble ass. Mr. Women-Just-Fall-At-My-Feet-Because-I’m-So-Confident-and-Sexy.
A hot rush of desire had her squirming in her seat, and it was plain mortifying to be getting all worked up when she was trying to ridicule him.
When the dirt road met asphalt, the truck lurched onto the driveway. Tires squealed when she took the ninety-degree turn too sharply. A minute later she slammed on the brakes, shut off the engine, and hopped out of the truck.
She’d just been whining about falling back into old patterns, so…had it been a pity kiss?
She didn’t need his pity. She didn’t need anything from him.
But she couldn’t stop remembering the way he’d pulled away from her—it had been like tearing off a layer of skin. Her legs had actually tightened around him. She’d come this close to begging him. And then he’d acted like he didn’t want to take advantage of her, like she didn’t know what she wanted.
I know my own damn mind.
I mean, maybe I’m a little confused, but if I’ve got my tongue in a guy’s mouth, my intentions are pretty damn clear.
She took the stairs to the porch two at a time. By the time she pressed the glowing light of the doorbell, she was so frustrated she wanted to spit.
The door swung open, and a towering wall of muscle smiled at her.
“Hey, Callie.” Brodie, with his neatly trimmed hair and strikingly handsome features, lifted an arm against the door jam and leaned into it. “S’up?”
And….all that outrage flash froze and crashed to the ground, leaving her with nothing more than flaming mortification. But, then again, did she really care what these guys thought of her? Not really. They might put their bodies on the line, but they’d never risked their hearts. They could go suck it. “Is he home?”
Brodie stepped back to let her in. “Should be in his room.”
Across the wide living room, Will leaned against the arched doorway to the kitchen. He wore athletic shorts and no shirt and looked like a cover model for Men’s Fitness magazine. “Callie.” He gave her a chin nod.
One lamp and a few recessed lights lit the cavernous interior of the overtly masculine home. Wrought iron and leather furniture made up clusters of sitting spaces around the gleaming dark-stained wood floors. The mantle and bookcases held no knickknacks and only a few framed photographs. In spite of the lack of feminine touches, the wide windows that let in the outside world, and the massive square footage, it still felt like a warm, com
fortable cave.
Knowing the formidable block of support they made behind Fin punctured her purpose, starting a slow leak. “Excuse me for dropping by so late.”
Brodie’s eyebrows lifted in a look that made her realize she was doing it again, channeling Mrs. Reyes. But you know what? Screw them. Her tone might not fit how they remembered her, but it fit just fine in the world she was going back to. “Is he asleep?”
“No idea.” Brodie gave a nonchalant shrug.
Soldiering on, she breezed past him and headed toward the grand oak staircase. As she started up, she heard their conversation—mostly because they didn’t bother lowering their voices.
“What got up her ass?”
“No idea. Glad I’m not going to be the one to find out.”
As soon as she moved out of hearing, she shook it off. She was here so she and Fin could get some things straight. With the opening the day after tomorrow, her focus needed to be on the exhibition and nothing else. Certainly not on kissing.
She headed down a long hallway lined with black-framed family photographs. No way did she need a trip down memory lane, so she kept her sights on the patch of yellow light spilling onto the hallway from the last bedroom on the left.
As intimidating as Mack Bowie had been, he’d also had a surprisingly gooey center. When the boys had come back from their stint in New York with their mom, their dad had bent over backwards to make it up to them, starting by giving them free-rein to design their own bedrooms.
Sports-themed, Will’s had a basketball arcade game, a mini batting cage, and a zip line that went from his window to Ballard’s pond. Brodie, always the most innovative, had a vending machine, an old school film projector, and a wall with a movie screen. True to Gray’s easy-going nature, his room was like an opium lounge, designed for chilling. It had all kinds of gaming devices, a refrigerator, an air hockey table, and a mini bar.
Thinking about those rooms didn’t prepare her for the hit when she barged into Fin’s bedroom. She got slammed back in time. Hard. Nothing had changed. Unlike his brothers, Fin didn’t have a theme or toys. He had an observatory. Basically, the bottom floor was a master bedroom suite furnished with a bed, a nightstand, and a couch, but a winding staircase led to the second floor loft with panoramic windows that let in the Tetons and the entire valley. The mood of the circular room always reflected the weather.
A press of a button opened the blackout shade of the skylight ceiling. She and Fin had hauled a futon mattress up there so they could “camp out” under the stars. Her heart squeezed at the rush of memories. So much passion, intimacy, love contained within those glass walls.
She scanned the unmade bed where they’d spent countless nights talking under that navy blue comforter. By senior year their parents had stopped fighting them—why bother when no consequence had kept them apart?—so they’d spent most nights in each other’s beds. How many times had they awakened each other, hungry for more?
That hunger—it had never gone away.
She remembered chasing him up that staircase, grabbing the back of his shirt, because he’d nabbed her pint of cookies ‘n cream ice cream. They’d been laughing so hard he’d tripped, and she’d landed on top of him. They’d sat right there on the middle step, sharing the ice cream, bodies pressed together, as close as two people could get.
She missed that connection, that intense intimacy. Missed it with a constant, unbearable ache. She’d done a great job burying it under her focus on work, but Fin’s kisses had reawakened it.
The glow of his laptop got her attention. Curious to see what he’d been looking at, she headed toward the bed, tripping on his sneaker. She caught herself on the edge of the mattress.
His room was the same disaster it had been six years ago. Their dad hadn’t allowed Marcella to make the boys’ beds or do their laundry. The older two, more competitive and disciplined, had clean, organized rooms, while the younger two, Gray and Fin, had pigsties. Still, they all knew how to cook, clean, and do laundry.
The room smelled of Fin’s shower gel and…flowers? She noticed a vase of wildflowers on his nightstand. What’s that about? He used to pick them for her. In spring and summer, wildflowers filled the meadows of Jackson Hole, so every time he’d gone out he’d grab a few for her. Automatically her hand went to her wrist, where she used to wear the flower chains he’d make her. Instead, she felt the cool, hard gold of Julian’s gift.
Had Marcella put them in his room? No, she wouldn’t come in here. Then why did he have them?
And why did it make her so angry to see them? They had nothing to do with her.
Oh, for crying out loud. What was she doing in Fin’s bedroom? She’d lost her mind. She had to get out before he found her. Whirling around, she took one step and then faltered at the sight of him standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
“Wild thing.” That deep, gravelly voice reached in and gave her bones a shake. Just out of a shower, Fin stood with his thickly muscled arms over his head holding onto a pull-up bar. Broad shoulders, sculpted torso, and a light smattering of dark chest hair gave way to a plush white towel tied carelessly around his hips.
All of her outrage turned to smoke and drifted away. Whatever she’d come to say flew right out of her head. “I…”
One half of his mouth cocked up in a smile. He knew his effect on her. “What can I do for you?”
“You can put a shirt on.”
“Nah. I’m going to bed.” He brought out the full smile, blasting her with its devastating mix of charm and carnality. “You know I sleep nekkid.”
Well, she wasn’t that seventeen year old girl ruled by hormones anymore. “I’d appreciate if you’d cover yourself up.”
A dark cloud passed over him. “Well, Calliope. I’ll point out that you’re in my bedroom. So if you want to have a formal conversation, I can put on some pants and meet you downstairs.” He lowered his arms and crossed them over his taut stomach. Damn, those thick biceps did a nice job of framing his well-defined chest.
She forced herself to look away. “I’m not going to be here long. I just want to get a few things straight.” Dammit, she did sound ridiculous. All prissy and uptight. But she’d lost her groove. There was the Calliope of New York and the seventeen-year-old Callie of Calamity, and she didn’t feel like either of them.
He leaned down and swiped his boxers and T-shirt off the floor. Wadding them up, he tossed them into the closet. The flex of his muscles, the sheen on his smooth, tan skin in the soft light, got her blood humming. “Why don’t you just spit it out? Whatever you want to say, talk like Callie. That’s the language I understand. I’m not that fluent in Calliope yet.”
“Would you stop making fun of me? I’m getting sick of it.”
“Not making fun of you. I just don’t like it when you talk like a fifty-year-old hostess at a Park Avenue dinner party.”
Like his mom, that’s what he means. Callie had passed his mom’s building countless times on her way to the Reyes’ but had never seen her. She’d only met the woman a few times in the early years, before his mom had stopped visiting.
“You don’t get to tell me how to talk.” But thank you for reminding me why I came over here. “Look, we have a lot of history, but it’s just that. History. I’m focused on the future.” Well, actually, at the moment she was distracted by the slight bulge under his towel. Had it been there all along? No, she would’ve noticed that. “My point is that, yes, I still have feelings for you. Of course I do. But I’m not going to act on them.”
“So?”
“So we can’t fool around anymore.”
“No fooling around. Got it. We done?”
“No, we’re not done. I didn’t come here to…” She turned away from the bulge—towel, whatever. “My point is that we have to work together, so whatever happened tonight, that can’t happen again.”
“Okay, I’ll try real hard not to kiss you. I can’t guarantee anything, though. That was a pretty hot kiss.”
His flippant tone pissed her off enough to shake loose what she’d come to talk to him about. She charged forward. “And furthermore I’m not ‘lost.’” Oh, God. She’d just made air quotes. “I hate when people tell me what I am.”
He lifted his hands to his wet hair, scraping it off his face. The motion made his biceps bunch powerfully, and it was just really, really…distracting. “Callie, maybe your friends in New York blow smoke up your ass, but I think you know I’m not gonna do that. I think you’re lost, plain and simple.”
“Okay, I don’t even know what ‘blowing smoke up my ass’ means, but if it means they humor me or keep the truth from me, you’re wrong.” Actually… he might be right. Come to think about it, if she was always on her best behavior, what did they have to shoot straight about?
What about Julian? Given how polite they were with each other, she couldn’t imagine him bluntly telling her a truth she didn’t want to hear. This is not the point of why I’m here. “The point is that I’m extremely focused and driven. Not many people can say they pulled together a pop-up exhibition in a couple of weeks. I know exactly who I am and where I’m going.”
With a big gust of breath, his gaze dropped to the floor. “Yeah, okay.” When it swung back up, he just looked sad for her. “Now are we done?”
And there he goes dismissing me again. “Oh, okay, awesome.” She held his gaze for a long moment. Did that kiss really mean nothing more than acting on your base instincts around a woman? She should never have come here. Time to go, but her feet wouldn’t budge.
“Come on, Callie. Did you really want me to fuck you up against the wall like some one-night-stand? Because that’s never going to happen with us.”
“Right. Because somehow you know what’s best for me. I’m ‘lost.’”
“I think we’re both lost. Half of me’s caught in what we used to be, and the other’s excited about we’re going to be.”
“We’re not growing—” His bulge had grown into a semi and, sorry, but given the tenting going on under that towel, it was impossible to ignore. “Going to be anything. We might’ve gotten a little confused for a minute there, but that’s a good thing. We got the closure we never had. But I would…”