by Alison Kent
“You mean he’d expect me to live up to my reputation?” And wasn’t that just exactly what she’d done?
Sydney’s brows drew together as if she were trying to grasp Chloe’s response. “Chloe, you banana. The man is in love with you.”
Chloe’s eyes drifted closed and she let her head fall against the back of the chair. She couldn’t deal with this now. No matter that Eric had been but a breath away from telling her before she’d stopped him with her fingers to his lips.
Sydney cocked her head to the side. “He probably won’t tell you, you know.”
Of course he wouldn’t now. Even Chloe knew that a man had his pride. “He won’t tell me because it’s not the case at all. I’ll admit he has the hots for me. Hell, I’ll admit I have the hots for him.”
“I think you admitted that when you let him drag you out of the dinner.”
Chloe uncrossed her legs and sat forward primly. She was here about gIRL-gEAR, not about Eric. “I owe you an apology, Syd. You and the others. I haven’t held up my end of the agreement we made about keeping our closets clean.”
Sydney sat back, her fingers gripping the curved ends of her armrests. “What do you want me to do, Chloe? It sounds like you’re here for more than an apology. In fact, I’ve thought for a while that you haven’t been as excited about gIRL-gEAR as you were at the beginning.”
Chloe gave a huff of a laugh. “And here I thought I’d done such a bang-up job convincing everyone otherwise.”
“It might have worked if you’d first convinced yourself,” Sydney said, dispensing the sort of wisdom Chloe was coming to recognize as the truth.
“I do love gIRL-gEAR, Syd. Don’t get me wrong. If I’m unhappy it’s because of what I have going on personally.” Chloe screwed up her mouth. “Sort of a pre-mid-midlife crisis.”
After several thoughtful seconds, Sydney released a long, pent-up sigh. “You know, Chloe, it’s not easy being the boss. I have to put aside our friendship, including all the juicy stuff I’m dying to hear about Eric, to consider what your lowered enthusiasm might mean to the company.”
Chloe quietly laughed. “Not to change the subject, but I have never thought about you as the juicy stuff type.”
Sydney stuck out her tongue. Then she smiled. And then her humor turned wry. “It’s my all-business-all-the-time demeanor that fools people.”
“I’m not sure you’re fooling Ray,” Chloe remarked, struck with the thought for not the first time. “I was watching him the other night. And something tells me he knows what lurks beneath.”
“Unfortunately, he does know, though I’ve always hoped he’d forget.” Sydney picked up her pencil and tapped it against the spreadsheet on her desk. “Did you know that I went to high school with Ray?”
It was Chloe’s turn to squeeze the metaphorical orange. “I had no idea. Neither one of you has ever even hinted that you have a past.” When Sydney appeared on the verge of a squirm, Chloe added, “It wouldn’t be a lurid past, would it? One still skulking about in your closet?”
Sydney’s chin went up. “I do not skulk. And neither do my skeletons.”
“You keep them under wraps, right? And that would make them mummies?”
“That’s terrible,” Sydney said, with both a frown and a chuckle.
“That’s what I told Eric,” Chloe said and, after both women were quiet for a minute, softly added, “Can you give me some time? To work this out? Trust me. It won’t be long, because I’m starting to get on my own nerves in a bad way.”
Sydney got to her feet and circled her desk, her long, peach-colored skirt hugging her hips as she walked, her classic camp shirt in a geometric pattern of peach and black silk delineating her narrow waist.
She settled into the chair next to Chloe and mirrored her head-back, legs-crossed pose. “How about I give you my friendship? Unless I see a noticeable downturn in your department. Then I’ll have to hang you out to dry.”
Spoken like Nolan Ford’s daughter, though Chloe would never voice the comparison. “Just make sure I’m not wearing leather.”
“It’s a deal.” Sydney held out her hand and Chloe laced their fingers together, swinging their joined hands between their two chairs until Sydney turned her head. “You want to get some lunch?”
Chloe considered her stomach, which seemed to have settled. “On two conditions. We go to Mission Burritos and you fill me in on all the juicy stuff about you and Ray Coffey.”
ONE OF THE PERKS of owning Haydon’s Half Time and keeping involved in the local sports community was getting to know several of the city’s professional athletes on a first-name and buddy basis.
Palling around with the players wasn’t about boosting his ego or his in-the-know reputation. The interaction, however, allowed Eric to feel part of a brotherhood he’d belonged to all of his life.
He’d been headed for a career in baseball, had attended University of Houston on a full scholarship, had been the pro scouts’ favorite son ever since pitching his high school team to three consecutive state championships.
He’d been ejected from his dreams of a pro career by a torn rotator cuff that three surgeries hadn’t been able to fully repair. He’d thought of coaching; hell, he still thought of coaching.
But being on the field, day in and day out, was asking a lot of a man whose dream had been painfully ripped from his future by the shoulder socket. Eric harbored no resentment, but neither did he see any point in rubbing salt where salt wouldn’t do a bit of good. He’d learned a long time ago to walk away and leave his past in the past.
Tonight Haydon’s had been closed for a private party, a couple’s wedding shower Eric, with Chloe’s help, had hosted for a rookie member of the Houston Astros he’d known from his days of college ball.
Strange, the twists and turns life took. Here Eric was, content with the life he’d made for himself, feeling no bitterness toward his buddy for achieving the professional success of which Eric had dreamed.
What he did envy, however, was his buddy’s relationship with his woman.
And it had taken Chloe Zuniga, of all females, to turn Eric on to what was missing in his life.
His house felt amazingly empty when he went home at night. The big downstairs rooms echoed with silence. The television only provided impersonal voices, chatter to listen to, and he found himself talking back a little too often.
But even more quiet were the rooms upstairs, the bedrooms he used for storage, the ones he’d left empty. And, most of all, the one where he slept alone. He was tired of sleeping alone. He was tired of living alone.
And the companionship he craved was not the sort to be satisfied with an overgrown, mixed-breed, big-footed mutt, even if he did have a puppy-perfect backyard.
No. While he was here in Haydon’s kitchen cleaning up the party remains, the companion he wanted was in the bar, sitting on a stool, her head resting on crossed arms, taking the nap she claimed to need after working her ass off as his co-hostess.
Chloe Zuniga could deny she had feelings for him until the Red Sox won a pennant.
Eric knew better. It wasn’t the seeing to drinks and hors d’oeuvres and staying on top of the caterers for ice and trash detail and linens and clean crystal that had tapped the bottom of her energy well.
She was beat up by emotion, her exhaustion a result of the bombardment of happy couples, the whispered questions about their relationship, the congratulations on snagging one of the city’s most eligible bachelors.
Eric had heard Chloe’s insistence that they were nothing but good friends. But he’d heard the rest of the talk, too—talk that had hammered away at her resistance to admitting that what they shared had long since moved beyond friendship.
Sure, they were friends—the best of friends as a matter of fact. Intimate friends, though he wasn’t sure lovers was an accurate definition. The sex they’d enjoyed had been too intense, too combustible to be free of consequences, but not tender enough to be called making love.
S
he hadn’t let it be.
Oh, he’d given her the orgasm she’d begged for that night in her kitchen and, yeah, he’d gotten his, too. And then he’d left the way he’d come, through her courtyard, though this time he’d opened the gate and walked out. One wall at a time was plenty.
He’d seriously thought about not coming back, not seeing her again, blowing off his last wish and her Wild Winter Woman fashion show. He’d been hurt. He’d been pissed. But he was a man of his word, or he was nothing.
And Chloe’s cold shoulder, her fingers pressed to his lips, even her trembling body and quiet sob of release, hadn’t told the same truth as her eyes.
In the end, her eyes were what he’d listened to. What had convinced him that her ivory tower was tumbling down. He’d read more than physical gratification in those eyes and, by God, from now on he refused to cheapen himself and the woman he loved.
No matter his past reputation, Eric Haydon was no longer an easy lay. His princess would not be getting him naked again until they were in his bed and he could make love to her the way she needed to be loved. With heart and soul as well as body.
Resolved, he stored the last of the food he’d come to the kitchen to put away, and headed back into the bar. Chloe was right where he’d left her, with her head down on the bar…asleep. And snoring.
He couldn’t believe it. His princess snored.
If he hadn’t already been a goner, she’d just sent him on his way as she sat there, ankles primly crossed to one side, her deep-rose-colored dress softly draped over her legs and lap, the tiny cap sleeves hugging her shoulders.
He’d turned out all the lights in the bar earlier, once the last of the guests had left, leaving on only the two that lit the swinging doors into the kitchen and the one that glowed from the hallway to his office.
It was enough light to see how relaxed Chloe’s face was in sleep. Her lips were lightly parted and drawn into a bow. Strands of her hair fluttered in her face with each exhalation of breath.
Eric eased up onto the stool next to hers, wanting nothing more than to watch her sleep, preferably on the pillow next to his. Her expression appeared so gentle, so pure, and this was the part of her he loved the most. The part he didn’t understand her reasons for hiding.
He reached out and with one finger tucked the fallen strands of hair behind her ear. She frowned at the contact, shifted slightly, then slowly opened her eyes. Her frown deepened.
“Don’t do that.” He drew his finger down the tiny crease between her brows. “Your face might stick that way. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that when you were a kid?”
She blinked once, twice, then raised up, propped her elbow on the bar and cupped her head in her palm. “I didn’t have a mother when I was a kid. In fact, I’ve never had a mother, period.”
Whoa! He’d known she’d been pretty much raised by her father but…“What do you mean, never?”
She covered a tiny yawn, shook her head lightly. “My mother died in an auto accident before my first birthday.”
Trust Chloe not to milk his sympathy in past discussions. She was too tough for that. Eric tucked back her hair, which had again fallen free. “Why didn’t your father ever remarry?”
“Are you kidding?” She lost the frown for an expression of mocking disbelief. “Where would he find a woman as perfect as the wife who’d given him five children? Who’d never smoked or drank or raised her voice? Who was beautiful and gentle and content to be the happy homemaker?”
He studied Chloe’s face, the way her cynicism remained, the way her gaze never wavered. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “It’s the truth I grew up with. I only recently found out it was a lie. She couldn’t measure up to his impossible standards when she was alive, so he created a paragon of virtue after her death. After a few years, I think he actually believed it himself. He sure as hell made me believe I was inferior.”
Oh, now this was interesting. It wasn’t a past lover, but her father who’d made it damn near impossible for Chloe to trust men. “How did you find out?”
She straightened where she sat, stretched, then draped her upper body over the edge of the bar. “My brother recently came to town and told me.”
“Yeah? Which one?” He knew she had four, but that she rarely saw them.
“Aidan. The oldest. The cowboy.” Her fond smile said he was also her favorite.
“Cowboy.” Eric snorted under his breath. “Why didn’t I know that, Chloe? Why don’t we both know more things like that about each other?” He toyed with the drawstring tied into a bow beneath the baby-doll top to her dress. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea if we learned?”
She pulled the silky strings from his hand. “You’ve had your three wishes. I have the Wild Winter Woman fashion show to get through and then we’ll go our separate ways. I think the best idea is to keep focused on our deal.”
That damned deal again. A devil’s bargain. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours? Is that it?”
“Do you have an itch that needs scratching, sugar?” Her eyes were still sleepy, her smile relaxed, her posture a limber melting of tired muscles and bones. She looked like she harbored a sexy secret, and when she reached out a hand to share, Eric tensed.
She scraped her short fingernails down his thigh to his knee. The sensation was less the abrasion of a chalkboard and more the downward pull of a zipper. Eric was not going to let this happen.
He knew what she was doing, could see in her eyes the offer she was going to make. She didn’t want to talk about what he wanted to discuss, so she was turning the channel, switching stations, working to tune him in to her broadcast instead.
He should have jumped up from his stool right then, but he couldn’t leave without seeing how far she planned to take him. Or how far he’d let her get before he told her no. Because he would tell her no.
“I can do better than that, you know.” She pushed up from the bar, then from the bar stool. Trailing her nails in a reverse direction until she reached his hip, then drawing them up his torso to his shoulder, she circled to stand at his back.
He’d long since lost the jacket he’d been wearing, and his white oxford shirt did little to deaden the effect of her touch. Her fingertips pattered along his shoulders to his neck, where she skimmed her nails into the hair cut close at his nape. She scratched and rubbed, finally cupping her hand and massaging his tired muscles. He couldn’t help but groan.
“See? You like it when I scratch your itch.” She whispered the words close to his ear, her breath a tickle of warmth across his skin.
“I never said I didn’t like it. When did I say I didn’t like it? Liking it isn’t the problem, Chloe.”
“Then what is the problem, sugar?” The question rolled off her tongue and she cupped the shell of his ear.
He pulled in a shuddering breath. “The problem is that I can’t do this anymore.”
Her hands paused in their working of his shoulders, but she quickly resumed her pace. “I don’t get it, Eric. What can’t you do?”
She’d called him Eric. He could deal with her calling him sugar. But when she said his name it made it hard to keep her at a distance. “I’m going to lock up the bar. I’m going to drive you home. I’m going to walk you to your door and, if you’re lucky, I’ll kiss you good-night. But that’s it. No more getting naked.”
For a moment, she hesitated. Then she leaned forward to run her hands from his collarbone to his pecs. Her breasts pressed firmly into his back. “You know, sugar, we never have gotten naked. Not together. Or at the same time. I think we should do something about that, don’t you?”
Eric took the biggest breath his lungs would hold and slipped out from under Chloe’s arms, turning on his stool to face her. He spread his legs, pulled her between, linked his arms behind her back to hold her still.
He knew from the spark reflected in her eyes that his own burned with the fire eating him alive. “Are you sure you want to
know what I think?”
Her flirtatious, come-on smile was uncharacteristically unsteady. “Of course I want to know what you think. I also want to know what you feel like—” she ran her hands up his thighs “—what you smell like—” she leaned toward his neck and inhaled “—how you taste.”
He managed to survive her seduction with only a slight adjustment to his fly and his shorts. Now it was his turn. And he hoped she was ready.
“What I think, Chloe, is that I should kiss you. Kiss your eyebrows—” which he did, one then the other “—the tip of your nose—” he kissed her there, too “—the corner of your mouth—” here he had the most trouble sticking to his game plan because he knew her mouth was so sweet “—before I nuzzle your neck.”
He drew the line at any more physical contact, beyond the fact that his hands were still pressed to the small of her back. He wasn’t made of stone, though in another minute he’d be hard as a rock. The look on Chloe’s face didn’t help. Her eyes were soft and dreamy, and the play of her lips and tongue spoke of her own obvious arousal.
Eric lowered his head, catching a hint of her floral perfume and the clean scent of her skin as he whispered close to her ear, “What I think is that I should tug down your dress and dip my tongue into your cleavage. Then I think I should peel you out of your bra and work you over with my mouth.”
Chloe released a breathy moan, pressing her upper arms together and lifting her breasts for his attention, while walking her hands over his rib cage and around his waist. “I like the way you think, sugar.”
But she’d hate what he was going to do.
He raised his head because he needed to breathe air that didn’t smell like her skin grown damp with arousal. Her wide violet eyes were fairly glazed, and her hands worked madly at his belt buckle. Her juices were flowing, and he had to be crazy, but he knew he had to pull away.
When he slid from the barstool, she took his hand in both of hers and backed toward the end of the bar, obviously intent on using it as a makeshift bed. But he dug into the pockets of his pants for his car keys.