Just Fooling Around

by Julie Kenner

  It was the burning look in his eyes that spurred her on, and Jenna knew she should be focused on getting Cam in the shower with her, getting him to take off the watch, but she was feeling remarkably at ease in this carnal playground.

  It had been so long. It had been never.

  Her finger slid inside her, stroking her clit, teasing him, and it felt so gloriously freeing. Cam didn’t move, his erection heavy, thick, pulsing for her, and she felt the swelling in her body that understood.

  Desire.

  Her lips curved with it, her nipples peaked with it, and her mind was drunk with it.

  “Come play with me,” she taunted.

  He shook his head. “You’re doing fine.” He moved his hand over his cock, and Jenna gulped.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, and adjusting the water velocity, adjusting the angle, letting the hard jets pulsate over her breasts, she began to play in earnest.

  Jenna knew her body, knew the way she needed to be touched, knew the exact length of time to get her to orgasm, but this wasn’t functional stress relief. This was pleasing him, seducing him.

  Pleasing her.

  The hard lash of the warm water stoked her arousal and she moaned.

  With his free hand, Cam reached out, obviously wanting to touch her, and she smiled, her invitation blatant because her puny finger was no substitute for thick, heavy male.

  The air was misty, a cloak of almost-privacy kept him away from her, and Jenna stroked harder, feeling the first twinge of orgasm.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Right now, she didn’t want to be alone. “Please,” she told him, and watched as he stripped off his watch, stepped into the shower and backed her to the wall. She nearly climbed him in her hurry, and then, she felt it. Felt him.

  Thick, heavy, pushing, filling.

  His hands wrapped under her ass, and there was nowhere to hold, and he moved hard and fast. She loved the wild look of him, the tense muscles in his jaw, the way his eyes locked on to hers. Jenna could feel the orgasm building inside her, begging for release. And when the dam inside her broke, she called out his name. She had no idea that she could feel this much pleasure, this much trust. Her muscles spasmed around him, and his body froze, his arms like bands around her. For a moment she stayed, impaled and boneless, shudders of satisfaction playing like an echo, again and again.

  Cam lifted his head. Tensed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Gently he let her go and handed her a towel. His eyes had lost that openness from before. Now he looked trapped and haunted. And the buzzing wouldn’t stop.

  “What’s that?”

  Cam’s smile held no trace of humor. His eyes met hers before he looked away.

  “It’s the fire alarm. The Curse. I have to get out of here.”

  5

  April 1, 4:00 a.m.

  AFTER HE THREW ON A pair of jeans, Cam dug around his bedroom, searching for the duffel bag he’d packed earlier, but was now nowhere to be found. Frantic, he dumped the sheets on the floor, and Jenna’s scent was in those sheets, flooding his senses. The buzzing from the building’s fire alarm cleaved through his head like an axe.

  Goddamn, he needed to leave. It was April Fools’ and he could feel the tension coiling inside him. This fear was the main reason he took April Fools’ on his own terms, in his own way.He’d call the car service, and what the hell did they care if it was 4:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m.? But first he needed to find the damn bag.

  It wasn’t under the bed, under his clothes or tossed casually in his closet. It wasn’t anywhere.

  While he tore his apartment apart, his skin starting to crawl. He couldn’t look at Jenna. He didn’t want to see her, wrapped only in his towel, watching him with her curiously detached doctor’s eyes.

  Watching Cam fall apart.

  He’d known this was a mistake. His heart was pounding double time in his chest, sweat was pooling on his neck. Why didn’t somebody shut off the alarm?

  Her fingers touched the bare skin of his back, and Cam whipped around to face her. He could feel the adrenaline pumping through him, destroying him.

  “What?” he asked, hearing the jagged edge to his words. Hating it.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, crisp and cool in a voice meant to soothe.

  “My bag was here. I swear. Did you take it?” It was a wholly paranoid question, the fevered imagination of a not-quite-lucid mind. In high-stress situations, people expected jagged nerves and heightened reflexes. In his own apartment, it only made him look weak.

  Jenna continued to study him with those nonjudgmental eyes, and in many ways, it was a helluva lot worse.

  “I didn’t take it. The watch was pretty much the extent of my derring-do. Oh, and I unplugged the clock.”

  It was the first time he noticed the way the normally positioned clock was turned toward the wall. He’d been so caught up in her that he hadn’t noticed. Not that it mattered, and finally—finally—the alarm ground to a halt.

  His heart resumed a less frantic pace, but still, the memory of the cackling bleat of the noise remained in his head, and he grabbed a handful of aspirin from a bottle on his nightstand, tilted back his head, swallowing the pills quickly.

  “You’re always like this?” she quietly asked.

  “No. Only if I wait it out. I don’t like to wait. That’s why I usually get a jump on it, doing something crazy before the curse gets a jump on me.”

  “Cam…” she started, and then stopped. He understood. There wasn’t anything to say.

  His vision began to blur, the world starting to circle around him, sucking him in. He stumbled backward, tripping over the bed, and that was all he knew.

  IT WAS AN HOUR LATER before Jenna’s blood pressure returned to something close to normal. Now she sat stiffly in his bed, Cam curled in her lap, his eyes blessedly closed. He was asleep.

  The idiot was lucky that it was cold medicine he’d grabbed, not something more lethal. Still, at least it brought him the peace he so desperately needed.Finally she understood.

  Her hand stroked through his hair, studying the dark lashes that lay so innocently on his cheek. Like a boy.

  The stubble on his jaw proclaimed something more. As did the marks on her breasts.

  The buzzer on his apartment rang forty-seven times, his cell beeped incessantly until she turned it off. There was a broken water pipe on the floor above, and the spreading stain on the ceiling was almost hypnotic to watch grow, but Jenna didn’t leave.

  She stayed in Cam’s bed, holding him in her arms, stroking his hair and jealously guarding his sleep.

  She’d come here expecting to help him, to save him from his devils, but instead, she’d found something new. A piece of herself that she liked, that she enjoyed, that she treasured.

  Mentally, she high-fived the loose harlot that she’d discovered inside. Right now, she felt relaxed, alive, desired.

  She owed him more than he ever knew. When he woke up, she’d tell him that. For now, she leaned down and pressed a warm kiss to his mouth.

  Exhausted from lack of sleep, Jenna closed her eyes, hearing the buzzer ring. Let whoever it was believe that Cam Franklin wasn’t home. Let them think that Cam Franklin was somewhere out risking life and limb.

  Right now, there was only one task for her, and it was a big one. While on her watch, Cam was finally going to be safe.

  6

  April 2, 12:37 a.m.

  CAM WOKE SLOWLY, scanning the disaster site that had been his bedroom, but there were no injuries, no blood. He pushed his face into his pillow and smiled.

  No pillow.Jenna.

  He pressed a grateful kiss to the inviting skin, and then frowned as the previous night’s events clicked back into place.

  The clock was now on, and he realized it was 12:27 a.m. on April 2. Cautiously he flexed his hands—no bruising, no fractures. The rest of him seemed to be fine, too.

  Had he slept through the entire day? Nah. It was imp
ossible.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” she murmured, turning on the light.

  Jenna.

  He lifted his head, unhappy to notice that she was sleeping in his bed with her red dress back on. Not that it had to stay on.

  “Did it go away?”

  She knew what he was talking about. The Curse. It with a capital I. “You slept the entire day. Welcome to April Two.”

  “You’re sure.”

  She clicked on the television, and he watched the date and time crawl on the news channel. She was right.

  “I have some connections, but not that good.”

  “What happened?”

  “You grabbed the cold medicine instead of aspirin.”

  Groggily he rubbed his head. “I don’t have cold medicine.”

  “Apparently you’ve forgotten about it, because it’s here,” she replied.

  The words played in his head, new implications, new ideas, new plans. Plans with Jenna. Cam sat up, stretched his arms, feeling amazingly good. “I can’t believe it—April second.”

  “Live and in person.”

  “And nothing bad happened?”

  “You might need a need roof at some point,” she stated, pointing to the wet patch on the ceiling.

  “No HazMat scares, no mislaid laundry, no misdelivered packages of live snakes?”

  “Sure, there were a few things.”

  “Bad?”

  “You should have seen me with the IRS auditor. Masterful. He won’t be back.” She smiled at him then, not so cool, not so detached, and a charge of lust shot through to his groin.

  “You really stayed all day? Why?”

  Her hands plucked at the sheets of his bed, a faint blush on her cheeks. “For the great sex.”

  “Like there was any doubt,” he said, because sex was the least of his problems.

  She gently laid a hand over his. “And for you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  Casually Cam rolled his shoulders, a nonchalant gesture to indicate that it had never mattered whether he was alone or not. Jenna stared at him as if she didn’t believe him. Cam didn’t mind.

  “I’m kinda liking having my own personal doc. It’s convenient.”

  “And cheap.”

  “Are we talking frugal or tawdry?”

  This time, she rolled a shoulder, a nonchalant gesture to indicate that it didn’t matter, and he covered her mouth, not so nonchalant, because it mattered.

  She mattered.

  He pulled her close, held her tight, fiercely tight, feeling the quiver within her. That quiet shudder always gave her away.

  “Doc?”

  Jenna looked at him, and despite the dim of the room, he saw something warm and good. Something that made him realize he would never be the same. “Yeah?” she asked.

  Cam hesitated for a minute then shook off his nerves. “You don’t think less of me?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because of the panic attacks,” he answered, not that he didn’t think she needed the answer. She was a doc. She knew. He loved that she understood him and accepted him, but Cam wasn’t sure he accepted himself. “Nobody knows. My family doesn’t even know.”

  “You should tell them.”

  “I like my other image better.”

  She quirked a brow at him, haughty and all-knowing. In fact, if it wasn’t for the sexy little love bite right below her neck, he might have been more offended. “The other image? You mean the stupid guy that takes death-defying risks?”

  “That’s not exactly the image I was thinking about.” He liked being the solid rock of the family. Would John Wayne suffer anxiety attacks? Probably not.

  “Why don’t you be you? Do what you want to do, not what you think you have to do.”

  Her dark eyes were loving when she looked at him, as if she didn’t care who he was. Actually, at the moment, lying next to her, feeling her fingers locked around his, he didn’t mind being who he was. It was nice to be taken care of for once.

  “What if I want to dive out of an airplane on April first?”

  Jenna put on her bossy doctor’s face, exactly like he’d hoped she would. He liked that face. He’d liked it from the first time he’d met her. “Do the skydiving on April second,” she instructed. “Play golf on April first. Or, alternatively, if you want to lounge in bed on April first, then maybe you should do that.”

  His fingers slid along her neck, underneath her dress, and whoops, accidentally exposed one shoulder. She had great shoulders. Soft, capable, sexy. “Lounging in bed is a very tempting idea. You’d be there?”

  “Would you like me to be there?” she asked, and he noticed the uncertainty in her eyes. Amazing that with all the letters after her name, after all the lives she’d saved, she still hadn’t clued in to how he felt.

  He took her face in his hands, kissing her gently and sincere. “Yes.”

  “Then, I’d be there.”

  Well satisfied with life at the moment, Cam leaned back against the pillows and pulled her into his arms, accidentally exposing the other shoulder, as well. “I’ll miss the E.R. I sort of liked the fights with Bertie. And I loved when you put your hands on me. Those were some good memories.”

  “We can make new memories. Better memories,” she told him, and oops, there went the dress, and they spent the next few hours making new memories. Definitely better memories.

  It was a long time later before Cam found the exact right instant, when the morning sun was warm on the bed sheets, when the city was humming outside, sounding so very far away, and when Jenna was curled against him, her hand resting over his heart.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “For what?”

  Cam stayed silent for a minute because he wasn’t good at this. Wasn’t good at talking about things that were inside him. Fears. Emotions. But he felt too good, too much at peace.

  “I always handled the First so badly, my heart always got so fried, pumping like mad, and there wasn’t any room for anyone or anything. But I don’t want to do anything next year. I just want to be here. With you. I thought my heart had to stay the other way forever. But it’s different today. It feels good, strong, not so anxious. You fixed that.”

  She raised her head, resting her chin on his chest. “You’re the one who fixed it.”

  No, he thought, and he noticed that her hand still rested on his heart, soothing it, calming it, fixing it. She had done that, but he knew better that to argue with the doc. So he kissed her instead, showing her how much he cared. Someday she’d figure it out. She was smart that way. She was the doc. His doc.

  She’d figure that one out, too, someday, because she was smart that way. Very, very smart.

  DARCY’S DARK DAY

  Julie Kenner

  1

  April Fools’ Day, three years agoTrain arrives Union Station 8:15.

  Will bring bagels.

  DARCY’S FINGERS HOVERED over the send button, knowing she was being an absolute chickenshit. If she had any sort of backbone whatsoever, she’d dial the phone instead and tell her big brother Cam that she was in town, and she was going to walk boldly through subway stations—even getting close to the edge. She was going to jaywalk in front of speeding taxis, and walk by herself through Central Park. She was going to eat from street vendors without carrying antacids, and she was going to go all the way up to the top of the Empire State Building and look waaaaay down to the ground below.

  She was going to do all of that, and she was going to be fine, dammit, because the whole idea of a family curse was just silly. Life had order and reason and mathematical certainties. Nature was about symmetry and patterns, not about random happenstance and curses, and none of her doom-and-gloom siblings were going to change that.So why aren’t you dialing the phone? Why are you sending a text?

  She scowled at the little voice in her head—a voice that sounded remarkably like herself. And she answered herself firmly. Because it’s early. He’s probably still asleep.

>   It’s tricky lying to oneself, the problem being that she knew, even as she was saying it, that it was a lie. Cam was Mr. Early-Riser. Mr. Meet-and-Greet-the-Day. Especially this day, one he met in grave defiance annually. And, she had to reluctantly admit, one he usually met with injury.

  It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, she told herself firmly, reaching down to hook her purse strap over her arm as the garbled voice over the loudspeaker announced the imminent arrival of the train at the station. Cam’s history of nasty April first E.R. visits was the direct result of her brother being a complete and total idiot about that particular day. If you go out and put yourself in harm’s way, harm would find you. Cam’s spate of bad luck wasn’t the product of a curse so much as the product of poor planning and carelessness. Considering how he always went out of his way to defy fate, it was a statistical certainty that his defiance would terminate with injury. He never saw it that way, though. She’d argued, diagrammed and even scrawled long, complex mathematical formulas, knowing her older brother couldn’t make heads nor tails of the symbols, but still hoping to impress him with the seriousness of her conclusions. Trust me, I’m a mathematician.

  Hadn’t ever worked. Not with Cam or Reg or Devon.

  It was, she thought, the reason she’d decided to study mathematics in the first place—because of the purity of numbers. They didn’t change because it was October 12 or March 16 or April 1. Numbers knew their place; numbers knew the rules. And numbers were the key to the universe—everything in the world could be reduced to simple mathematics. Even humans were the product of a near-infinite division of cells.

  Superstitions and curses had no place in such an orderly universe, and because Darcy knew that—even if her siblings didn’t—she’d decided to study what she already knew was true.

  Reason and order, those were her mottoes.

  But no matter how hard she tried to explain to her siblings that the curse was nothing more than a statistical anomaly skewed because of familial expectations, her brothers and sister still only saw a curse. At first, Darcy thought they blew her off because she was the youngest, in the way that big sisters and brothers do. But she was twenty-six now, and had been living on her own in Massachusetts attending MIT for the last seven years, through undergrad and now into her doctorate program. Even her siblings could no longer look at her as a kid.