Seven Books for Seven Lovers

by Molly Harper, Stephanie Haefner, Liora Blake, Gabra Zackman, Andrea Laurence, Colette Auclair

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “I believe you just mentioned the word ‘inappropriate.’ ”

  He chuckles and holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Relax. I’m harmless. And I’m not an asshole, so I wouldn’t sniff around another guy’s girl. Especially when that guy is my boss and my friend.” Simon looks down the hallway at nothing for a moment, then scratches the back of his neck. “Besides, the SS Loveship Simon has already set sail.”

  I sputter out a snort. “What?”

  Returning his gaze to mine, he shrugs his shoulders and grins. “It’s true. I have my own sexy, beautiful, smart girl to contend with. She also happens to be a very worthy opponent in the kind of verbal sparring matches that turn my crank.” Simon looks through the window and takes a quick look at Trevor. “I’ll probably spend the rest of my goddam life trying to get her to look at me just once the way you fog the glass over Trevor.”

  Jeez, now I feel all mushy inside. Over Simon and his supposed unrequited love. She’s probably a stripper, but still, he seems legitimately smitten. I smirk, and when he sees it, he laughs.

  “So, we’re good now, right? All of my blatant comments regarding your hotness are forgiven and we can be friends?”

  “Sure. Friends.” I stick my hand out, prompting him to shake it. When he does, I end up pulled into a giant bear hug instead.

  Once he releases me, Simon grabs the door handle to go into the studio and pauses before opening it. “Now that we’re friends, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “Why do I feel like I just stepped into a cartoon snare or something?”

  Simon wiggles his eyebrows and grins. “Nope, this is all serious now. My dad and I were listening to your interview on Fresh Air and with all the press you’re getting right now, we were hoping you could help us out. My family has a charitable foundation and we’re having a fund-raiser next month. I was thinking, if I ask nicely enough, you might autograph a copy of your book for the silent auction. No snare other than your signature.”

  I furrow my brow. Simon. Charitable foundation. Public radio listener. Things aren’t adding up correctly. Barely, I mutter, “Of course, no problem.”

  He laughs loudly and turns the door handle with a click. “Come on, Kate. I figured by now, you’d know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I’m more than just a pretty face.”

  The sound of his laughter catches Trevor’s attention and when he sees us standing in the open doorway, he comes barreling through it and shoves Simon out of the way in the process. “Go away, Simon.”

  When he lifts me up, I let out a playful squeal and drape my arms around his neck. Setting me down, he grabs my face in his hands and kisses my lips so sweetly that it feels like the first time. Behind us, the door clicks shut but Simon’s laughter still sounds through the heavy barrier.

  He wraps his arms around my waist and grunts a moan into my hair as he lifts my feet up off the ground again. This time, I pull my legs up and wrap them around his waist, burying my head into his neck, kissing along his skin where a little beard stubble has grown in.

  Mumbling through the press of my lips to his skin, I say, “Missed you.”

  I should probably care that the production team can see us, but I don’t give a lick. Moving his arms down under my ass, he backs us up against one of the hallway walls and really starts to kiss me. I take the opportunity to dive in again when he leans back to catch his breath and lay my lips against his chin, his earlobes, and his neck.

  “Baby, I missed the way you smell, the way you taste, the way your perfect little body feels against me, the way you kiss. Every single thing.” His hips push against me roughly, giving a few dry-humping thrusts that are more arousing than one would think.

  “Please get me out of here, Trevor. I need you. No more waiting.” As I’m moaning out this impatient plea, he growls into my ear in response, biting it a little.

  Dropping me down, he leaves me in the hallway and strolls the few feet back to the studio room.

  “Gentlemen, I am fucking out of here. I will see you assholes later. Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t e-mail me, don’t show up at my house. When I come up for air, I’ll let you know.”

  The room explodes in laughter, there are some high fives, and I cringe for three seconds. Then I don’t care because he’s behind me and there is only the scent of the spiced sweetness of his skin engulfing me.

  The drive is difficult, to put it simply. All I want is to pull over and have him in the backseat, but he reminds me gently it wouldn’t be a very good idea. After his proclamation on national TV, we have to be more cognizant of how long-range lenses might capture things you wish they wouldn’t. If only he would stop using his yummy lips to talk or his pretty eyes to blink, or his smooth strong hands to drive, I might be able to pull my mind from the gutter for a few minutes.

  In a pathetic effort to place my attention elsewhere, I give him the lowdown on Damien.

  “He really let me have it. Where I come from, those kinds of talks usually involve somebody’s dad carrying a twelve-gauge for extra effect. But I got the picture. No being mean to Trevor or else.”

  “He and your sister should get together, then. They can exchange notes.”

  Trevor grins and reaches out to touch my face for the millionth time since we got in the car.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I was leaving town, after I came to visit you? I stopped at that gas station and here she came out of nowhere. Proceeded to give me a terrifying sermon about what happens to people that hurt her family, complete with threats against my manhood if I’m screwing with your head. She probably carries a twelve-gauge in her trunk. She’s surprisingly scary.”

  Ah, Lacey. Tact and diplomacy have never been her strong suits. Still, I love her misguided sense of family obligation. I can’t bring myself to tell him that he’s right. She, like all good rural folk, does carry a shotgun in the trunk. It’s a twenty-gauge, but that detail probably doesn’t matter much.

  After nine hours in the car (perhaps it’s forty minutes but time moves slower when he’s wearing all those stupid clothes), he finally slows to turn down a long, sloping driveway and I roll down my window to take a deep breath in. The air still smells a bit smoggier than I want, but at least in Malibu there is salt off the ocean currents to temper it a bit. He stops at a menacing iron gate and hits a remote. The gate slides back and just beyond it, there are lush tropical plantings lining the rest of the driveway. Their scent is just like his skin, and I worry the sensory onslaught might be the death of me.

  At the end of the driveway, there stands a rustic yet refined beach house. The shape is all hard, clean lines, with low-slung roof pitches and concrete footers. But weathered gray reclaimed wood and stacks of bluestone along the foundation temper the modern design. I open my door and step out, desperate to get inside. At first, I wanted that so we could get undressed, but now, I just want to see the inside this house. If it’s half as gorgeous as the outside, it will be a feat.

  Trevor emerges from the back of the SUV, dragging my suitcases behind him. He stops in the driveway and looks at me.

  “OK, there’s something I want to say.”

  “Are you embarrassed that your house is a run-down shack?” I smirk. “It’s OK, I won’t judge you.”

  He shakes his head and grins at me. “Good to know. I want to say that I really want you here with me. I hope you don’t hate the place, because I want you to love it. I just want us to do this for the next three weeks, living together or whatever. No hype, just a regular life. Let’s make it as boring as possible, OK?”

  I twist my face up a little and let out an exasperated sigh. “I just wish you would have mentioned this earlier. I was expecting a bit more. Like caviar and pâté with craft cocktails every night. Maybe a swimming pool filled with champagne. I mean, I thought you were a big deal. That’s why I’m here.”

  Trevor turns the key in the door, shoving it open for me to enter. “Well, you�
�re screwed, because I think caviar and pâté are shitty. And I’m only interested in champagne when I’m licking it up off your naked body.”

  Pausing in the foyer, I see that there are huge planks of distressed black walnut that line the floor, which distracts me from the large windows that lie just beyond, but only momentarily. Then I walk right in, unescorted and unabashed, leaving Trevor behind. I stop in the middle of an enormous great room. A glorious kitchen sits adjacent, with concrete countertops and fancy black steel appliances that look so menacing one might be afraid to use them.

  Wandering toward the wall of windows facing the ocean, I feel him watching me. When I peer around to see how to get out there, Trevor emerges from behind me, flips a lock, and slides back one of the doors. There’s an infinity pool surrounded by weather-beaten decking that probably cost a pretty penny to make it look that way. A long set of stairs runs down from the house to a quiet sandy beach that leads to the ocean. I stand still and plant my feet, propping my hands on my hips, breathing in a bellyful of the sultry saline air, and turn at the waist to see him.

  “I hate to break it to you, but this whole regular-life thing you want, it ain’t going to happen. That”—I point toward the landscape—“is insane and I love it.”

  Trevor grins and claps his hands. I shake my head at him and giggle. “Now show me the bedroom.”

  Throwing me over his shoulder, he smacks my ass the way I like it and then gives me the full tour by having his way with me in every single room.

  22

  We burrow into the sheets for a few days, taking our time to be isolated together and laugh until we complain our jaws ache. The wonder of it is interrupted only by a few strolls on the beach with Dax, Trevor taking a couple of hours to surf, and the necessary time required to eat. While it isn’t very “regular” or “boring” the way Trevor said he wanted, it’s relatively simple compared to his regular crazy daily schedule.

  After those initial days, once we get the first layer of need off our skin and gratify all the primitive lusts, he wants to show me things and take me places. When we’re sure we can keep our clothes on for an extended period, he drives us up the coast, and we trail run for hours. A few times, I even run his ass into the ground, which is awesome. Then he drags me to a bike shop so he can fondle some parts and educate me on the difference between titanium and carbon fiber frames. I listen patiently and smile like I’m totally getting it, when, truthfully, all I really grasp is that Trevor really likes mountain biking. And looking at bikes. And touching bike parts. And talking to the guys at the bike shop for hours and hours. The rest of the time, I just enjoy how he looks handsome while his mouth moves.

  We take a day and drive to Joshua Tree, just to see the stars at night. Crashing in the back of the SUV like college kids, we make out until our lips burn and our bodies ache with desire. Then he refuses to let it go any further. Why he won’t give it up in that damn car is beyond me.

  At the farmers’ market over the weekend (yes, even we fell victim to the sickeningly cute charms of holding hands and carrying reusable shopping bags filled with arugula, fresh-cut flowers, artisanal goat cheese, and blackberries), Trevor announces that he wants me to meet his niece.

  “I’m going to pick up McKenna after school on Monday anyway. I want you to come and meet her. We usually hang out for a couple of hours and then I drop her off at my mom’s.”

  He’s holding a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand and trying to dig out his wallet to pay for some rainbow carrots I’ve spied. It’s an adorable sight, his tattooed arm flexed while grasping the bright yellow flowers and his opposite arm draped in bags filled with other purchases. He’s wearing a ragged plaid flannel, some old-school loose khakis, and boots that have seen better days. When he can’t seem to fish his wallet out because his poor limbs are already too imposed upon, I wave him off, grabbing my own money and paying the vendor.

  “I can’t wait to meet her.”

  Smiling on the outside, on the inside I’m already starting to panic. Meeting the family. That’s something I haven’t done in a while.

  Monday afternoon, we pull into the gated entrance of Carlton Country Day and follow a line of expensive cars down to a traditional-looking redbrick school. The grounds encompass acres and acres of perfectly manicured green grass, dotted with strong oak trees that probably photograph exceptionally well for the full-color brochures they certainly have piled up somewhere, brimming with smiling kids in lacrosse uniforms.

  Staged all along the curb, there are no minivans in sight, just shiny luxury SUVs with dark tinted windows. Minivans might be the mainstay of most school parking lots in the rest of the country, but not in upper-crust California. Also, the women who cluster around waiting for their progenies look nothing like the mothers that waited outside my grade school, that’s for sure. None of them are wearing sweatpants, and there isn’t a single bad perm or dye job in the bunch.

  As manufactured as it seems, it’s hard not to envy their fancy clothes, well-manicured nails, and surgically enhanced bodies. When I look down at my own boring ensemble, I curse myself. Dammit! WWKD, Kate, WWKD!

  I never should have left the house like this. Yes, the skinny jeans and fitted V-neck tee skim my body just right. So much so that Trevor spent most of the morning grabbing my ass and feeling me up from behind as I tried to do some basic things around the house. All that boring stuff he wanted, like laundry, making the bed, and unloading the dishwasher. I suspect he just likes the fact that these mundane chores involve a lot of reaching up and bending over on my part.

  Trevor narrows the car in behind a group of five women who stand on the sidewalk next to a BMW so glossy I could have used it to put my eyeliner on. I get out of the car and practice a self-conscious meditation, trying to look natural next to him and not appear as though I might have a panic attack in anticipation of meeting a six-year-old. The women all around are obviously paying attention to us, while still trying to look like they don’t care one bit about the frumpy woman who emerged from Trax’s vehicle.

  They probably assume I’m a new au pair, up until the point when Trevor sidles up to me, snakes his arm around my waist, and lets his hand fall to rest on the upper curve of my hip. He leans in and whispers some raunchy things in my ear before planting a biting wet kiss on my neck. Well, maybe they still think I’m the nanny, just one who he also happens to be screwing.

  High-pitched voices of children start to punctuate the air and they all seem to emerge from the building at the exact same time, in a perfectly timed chorus. There are a hundred or so kids, dressed in the same blue jumpers and pants, with matching white shirts, their shining bright faces and ruddy cheeks looking especially adorable. Trevor cranes his head looking for McKenna, and when he spots her, he waves up high.

  She’s an appallingly cute kid, all weighed down with a backpack that threatens to topple her and grasping some kind of construction-paper creation in one hand. When she sees him, her face breaks into a child’s wide grin. Embarrassingly, I think I have the same one when I see him. She breaks into a run as Trevor weaves through the other little ones and meets her down at the end of the sidewalk. I melt as he bends down to hug her and then removes her backpack from her precious pint-sized shoulders. While he kneels down, she crawls onto his back to wrap herself around him, and when he stands up, he hefts the backpack exaggeratedly, feigning that it is simply too heavy for him to carry.

  McKenna throws her little head back and laughs, making her pretty, fine blonde hair wisp into the afternoon sunshine like rivulets of summer wheat. When they start to walk toward me, he’s grinning and pretending to buckle at the knees.

  I know it isn’t physically possible, but I think my ovaries start to yearn and croon just watching him. I tell them to pipe down so I don’t accidentally get pregnant from holding his hand, because that’s how bad I want it for a split second.

  Arriving in front of me, Trevor stands up straight and gives up the your bag is so heavy act. McKenna is still hold
ing her construction-paper art in one hand, something covered in glitter and glued-on cotton balls. She’s waved it around enough as they walk that some of the glitter has shaken off, landing on Trevor’s cheek and I see a few glints in his hair.

  “Panda Cub, this is Kate. Kate, meet McKenna.”

  Waving at me and grinning with her unreasonably cute mug, McKenna giggles. “Hi, Kate. Uncle Panda talks about you all the time.” She draws out the word “all” for effect and lolls her eyes around.

  “It’s nice to meet you, McKenna. I talk about Uncle Panda all the time, too, so we’re even.”

  I really just wanted to say the words “Uncle Panda” aloud and shoot Trevor a smirk, so he knows that I think it’s the silliest, sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. My stupid ovaries start in again when he looks at me and bites his lip into a smile. He shouldn’t touch me for a good long while because who knows what might happen.

  “Auntie Devon always says that you must suck tires . . . Wait, I don’t remember . . . What does she say, Panda?”

  Her little voice is confused and she taps Trevor on the shoulder to prompt him. More glitter flies off her paper and some lands on his nose now.

  He snorts a laugh and looks at me. “Be able to suck tires off a semitruck.”

  My mouth drops open. “Trevor!”

  “What? I didn’t say it, my sister did. She has a mouth like a drunken sailor on leave. It’s not my fault. But I can’t say I disputed her when she said it.”

  He purses his lips together to suppress a laugh and swings McKenna down so she can crawl into the back of the car. Thankfully, she’s already distracted by the time he shuts the door. I take a swing at him and land a reasonable punch against the top of his arm. He ducks and then winks at me. “Have you tried? I bet you totally could. That mouth of yours is fucking incredible.”

  Driving from the school, Trevor heads back down to the highway and eventually pulls off at a quiet little recreational park by the ocean. I open McKenna’s door and she stands on the floorboard, holding her arms out to me. Taking her prompting, I lean in and grasp her, thinking she just wants help getting down. Once I lift her up, she swings her legs around my waist so she is sitting on my hip. When Trevor comes around from the back of the car, she’s running her hand down my hair.