“MR. HALL IS A big dumb jerk!”
Matt glanced at the angry pout on Carly’s face and realized she was right: she didn’t drink much. He’d only now refilled her glass of wine—and not a large one at that—and already she was demonstrating the effects of the first.
“You already said that three times,” he replied, fighting back a chuckle.
Somehow the two of them had ended up stretched out on the fuzzy shag rug that covered the hard oak floor of her living room. At Matt’s side was a half-empty bottle of wine and a fireplace filled with a dozen lit candles. Short of the cat that had taken up residence on his butt and a meager glass of wine that had gone straight to Carly’s head, the scene might have actually been romantic.
Carly was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, a blue-and-white-striped seat cushion acting as her pillow. “I’ll say it three more times before the night is out.” She lifted her head to take a sip of her wine. “I’m really mad at him. He should not be putting us in this position.”
She set the wine back on the coffee table at her head, plopped against the cushion and huffed.
“We’ve been through this. We agreed we’d help each other out, do the best job we could and let Hall decide in the end who he wants to manage the new unit.”
They’d come to the decision after feeling each other out and realizing neither of them was willing to step aside and let the other have the job. Apparently, Carly had her eyes zeroed in on that promotion as much as he did, and the only truce they could find was making an honest effort to help one another strengthen their weaknesses and let the best man—or woman—win.
And, ironically, once they’d made that decision, their differences had melted away like ice cream on hot asphalt. It seemed once they’d been honest with each other about what they wanted, all the stress had eased between them and they were able to relax.
“I still think he could have saved everyone a ton of trouble by just giving it to us straight from the start.”
“Well, Hall’s never been one to take the standard route with anything.”
She lifted her head and eyed him with all seriousness. “He doesn’t, does he?”
“No, but we’ve talked enough about Hall today. We were playing Truth or Truth, and you never answered your question.”
The game started out as a twist on the classic Truth or Dare, Matt deciding the option of having a dare was probably a bad idea, but both of them wanting to end the day having aired every grievance between them. Thus the game Carly coined Truth or Truth.
“I forget my question,” she said.
Propped on his elbows and lying on his stomach, he pointed his thumb toward his backside. “What’s up with your cat?”
Carly sat up and gasped. “Mr. Doodles! Get off Matt!” She swatted at the cat, but the gray tabby didn’t budge. “Gawd, he’s such a bad cat. He doesn’t listen to anything I say.”
“He’s not that bad. I only wondered if he had a fetish for men’s butts is all.”
“No, he’s just not well trained. Honestly, I grew up in apartments, and this is the first time I’ve ever had an animal. I don’t know what I’m doing with him. And there’s no such thing as a cat trainer. Trust me—I looked.”
“You’ve never lived in a house before?”
She leaned against the cushion and stared proudly at the space. “This is my first and it’s all mine. I bought it myself, you know. I wanted to make sure my kids grew up in a real house with a real yard.”
“And a badly trained cat.”
“Exactly!” she laughed.
He watched as she stared at the ceiling and envisioned her dream, her face filled with such hope and pride it felt contagious.
“Your parents could never afford a home?” he asked, taking a casual sip of his wine.
She snorted. “My dad could probably afford three homes. It’s just that all those mistresses get expensive.” She furrowed her brow. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he did own homes in a couple states. For as little as we see him, he’s probably one of those guys with a bunch of families none of us know about.”
Matt gaped. “Are you serious?”
She shrugged. “I really don’t know. I get so frustrated with my mother. Every time I try to pump her for information she gets upset and we end up fighting.” She turned and placed a hand over her mouth. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love my mom. She’s the only thing steady in mine and Jodi’s lives and she works her fingers to the bone. I just don’t understand why she hasn’t dumped him for something better. I’d never let a man treat me like that.” Then her expression soured. “It hurts the whole family, not just her.”
Matt hadn’t meant to open sore wounds, and judging by the bitter pain in her eyes, it seemed her father stung sharp and deep.
Another thing the two of them had in common.
He redirected the subject, preferring that gratified look he’d seen before. “Well, now you’ve got a home of your own.”
“In all its pink splendor.” She turned her head and met his gaze with a smile. “You ever hate a color so bad you never want to see it on anything again?”
“You aren’t fond of pink?”
“Nobody can handle this much. You should have seen it before I ripped out the carpet.”
He scanned the room. “I can imagine.”
“It’s the only reason I got the place at the price I paid. Nobody could handle all the pink, not even the flippers. I bought it way under market, and now it’s just a matter of time and money before I turn it into the home I want.”
Matt looked around and took it all in, his reaction a mix of pride and pity. On one hand, he admired her for being so resourceful in chasing after her dreams. On the other, this quirky oversize dollhouse was a pathetic start that would take a lot more than paint and elbow grease to bring it around. Through a sliding glass door he saw a backyard of little more than mown weeds. Though the wood floors weren’t pink, they were long overdue for a good sanding and polish. Kitchens and baths were expensive to rip out, and even once landscaped, this oversize lot would be big enough to require plenty of constant care.
Rather than a savvy investment, the house looked like a little girl’s desperate attempt to create the home she’d been denied, and his heart went out to her. The need in her eyes made him want this for her as much as she did, and as a man who hadn’t grown up with a real home, either, he understood the desire.
“Hey, wasn’t that more like three questions?” she asked.
He smiled. “I guess it’s your turn.”
She studied him for a while, the smile slowly fading from her lips and sobering her playful expression.
“So…what happened with the Nationals?” she said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Though his failed career in baseball wasn’t his favorite topic, he shrugged and shook his head, well accustomed to dealing with questions. A guy didn’t leave town with a bright future ahead of him and return with nothing without people wanting to hear the story.
He took a quick sip of his wine and smacked his lips. “I wasn’t good enough. It’s as simple as that. I had the national talent, but not the work ethic to make something of it. I’d been cocky and immature, assuming I was better than I was. And though a dozen coaches and trainers had tried to warn me, I never gave it my best before it was too late. They released me before I got it through my head that hard work was just as important as natural talent. And in a tough field like baseball, you needed both to be successful.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was somber and that annoyed him. He’d spent enough of his life feeling sorry for himself, wallowing in grief and anger over that devastating blow, and like an alcoholic being offered a drink, he didn’t like people pulling him back to that state again, even unintentionally.
“Don’t be,” he said. “We don’t always get what we want out of life. It’s how we handle what’s left that matters.”
It was the line Stu had given him and it had become the rule he
lived by. It was only when he’d really listened to those words and accepted their meaning that he’d started to turn his life around. He’d gone back to school to study graphic arts and discovered in the process he had more talents than just baseball. Stu called it a great gift to be able to remake a life once failed, and Matt was determined not to let this one slip through his fingers.
“And you took what was left and became a successful Web designer,” she said.
“I’m trying.”
Her voice softened and she rested a comforting hand on his arm. “There’s no trying about it. You really are very good, you know. I’m not just saying that.” She pulled a reluctant smile to her lips. “I’d give anything for your eye for art. I’ve tried to mimic some of the things you’ve done before, but it never comes out right. You’ve got a gift that just can’t be taught.”
There was something in the way she said it, not only sincerity but respect, that made the compliment mean more to him than he would have expected. He felt her words deep in his chest. In a place he reserved for very few. And it occurred to him at that moment how much her opinion mattered to him.
Weeks ago—heck, even hours ago—he would have scoffed at the idea that Carly’s opinion mattered. Maybe it was that she’d never complimented him before. Maybe her persistent disdain for him had always kept him in armor. But here, with their shields down and their hearts slightly ajar, he realized how much her approval really meant to him.
Staring in those bright blue eyes, the end result of two years of anger showed its face to him and he finally saw it for what it had been. He’d treated Carly badly out of jealousy. Not jealousy on the job but jealousy of the fact that this woman everyone loved wouldn’t turn her affections toward him. She was the ray of sunshine beaming on everyone she passed but clouding over in his presence, and he didn’t realize until now how much he’d desperately wanted that sunshine, too.
In Matt’s life, very few people made their way into that place in his heart. It had been cemented over too many times by affections he’d been denied. His father had been the first to close over the hole instead of fill it, and despite his mother’s efforts and those of a dozen teachers and coaches, no one had been able to break the barrier Jeff Jacobs had created.
Only Stu had found an opening, had crept into that space where Matt kept the few people he cared for, and through Stu Matt had learned to let more people in. There’d been college professors and some mentors along the way, the latest being Brayton Hall, who Matt sought approval from and drank in whatever respect he could earn. But he’d known all this and had accepted the risks of opening his heart.
What he hadn’t realized was that in all this time Carly Abrams had mattered, too. She’d been that slice of something special he hadn’t noticed until he’d squashed it, and rather than work to make amends, he’d fallen into his old familiar ways by simply shutting her out.
“I…um…I think you can be taught some basic rules when it comes to art and design,” he said hoarsely, this sudden realization leaving him shaken and a little unsettled.
She shook her head and smiled. “Not the kind of talent you’ve got.”
She was making this hard, her expression sobering as if she’d come to some sort of revelation of her own. Maybe she’d caught the look in his eyes, maybe the fleeting effects from the wine were wearing off. He didn’t know for sure, but the mood was quickly shifting, and his thoughts started drifting to places they shouldn’t go.
She stretched languidly next to him, a funny smile crossing her face that disappeared just before she asked, “Did you really mean what you said before? About having sex with me all over again if I’d let you?”
His cock heard the comment and responded, but the rest of him tried to shake back the reality that they needed to go to work Monday on good terms. As much as he’d love to spend his weekend in her bed, he feared unraveling all the progress they’d made this afternoon.
Unfortunately, he’d gotten used to their game of honesty, and when he opened his mouth, he heard himself say, “I meant every word.”
She grinned, then rolled onto her side, propping her head in one hand and leaving the other free to toy with the hem of his dress shirt. “I have a confession of my own.”
He swallowed, not certain he should hear it.
“I didn’t lie on the whole survey.”
Now he knew he shouldn’t have heard that. Nor should he have allowed himself the peek down her blouse into the spot where two voluptuous breasts collided into mounds of cleavage a guy could sink his face into.
“That part about the sex—that whole bit about toying with Mr. Hall—it was all a lie.”
He let his eyes drop down to the teal low-rise sweats she’d changed into before he’d shown up, the ones that fell just under her navel, held in place by a little drawstring he imagined pulling off with his teeth. The thought had whisked through his mind earlier, shut out by his insistence that this visit would be about clearing the air between them and doing what he had to do to get along. At the time it had included dismissing his aching need for her and keeping his thoughts platonic.
Apparently, Carly had other ideas.
“I was embarrassed that you’d seen my answers. I didn’t know what you’d think of me if you knew I had a secret dream about engaging in kinky sex.”
Her eyes were focused squarely on his lips, which twitched involuntarily, his body far more responsive to her words than his conscience. It, on the other hand, was still trying to keep him from losing his job.
She let go of his shirt and began trailing a finger up his arm, tracing a line along the edge of his sleeve where he’d rolled it up at the forearm.
“But then I saw your answers. Did you know we answered all those questions the same?”
“We did?” he asked, not recognizing the voice that croaked from his throat.
“Uh-huh.”
His hard cock pressed uncomfortably against the floor, crushed by the weight of the fat cat on his butt, so he shifted to his side, dumping Mr. Doodles to the floor, where he voiced his displeasure before scampering away. It felt good to ease the pressure, though Carly wasted no time taking advantage of his new accessibility. The finger that had been trailing his arm now made its way down toward his crotch, and his erection stiffened as if to meet her halfway.
“Carly,” he said, making a last-ditch effort to keep perspective on the moment, though as her finger met the top button of his jeans, he nearly forgot where he’d been heading. “If we don’t start getting along at the office, we could lose our jobs,” he said, pleased he’d managed to get the sentence out while he had the chance.
“I think we got along pretty well during that hour in the lab.”
When her finger passed the threshold of his jeans and made contact with the bulge inside, her eyes dropped and widened, those luscious coral lips parting in the barest hint of a gasp.
Had she really not expected she’d been turning him on?
She spread her palm over his shaft and slid her hand between his legs, the pressure testing the limits of what a man can take without buckling.
Yet he still gave it one last shot.
“Seriously, Carly, we can’t afford another fight.” She slid her palm back up his shaft. “I can’t afford to stick my foot in my mouth and piss you off again.”
“Then you should probably shut up and kiss me.”
Wiggling those curvy teal hips, she scooted toward him, giving his nose a whiff of sweet peaches and wine. She let her head fall against the cushion, her hair splaying around her like a halo, her eyes teasing and her lids heavy. Her shirt stretched as her breasts settled back into perfect clutchable mounds, and the hem rode up to display a silky flat stomach, hips arched and ready for him to reach in and take hold of the offering.
And the last thing he heard was a curse sliding from his lips before he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her against his chest and crushed his mouth to hers.
His body sighed. Waves of achin
g tension slid from his limbs, escaping through his breath, while coils of hungry need slipped into their wake. He groped and sucked like a starved and thirsty teen, one arm clutching her close while the other roamed and explored, and her curvy, tender body held a landscape of possibilities so vast he couldn’t decide where to start.
Slipping a hand up under her shirt, he groaned when his fingers met with naked flesh, and she responded by arching closer, shoving the fleshy soft mound into his waiting palm. Her hand fisted his shirt, using it like a leash to pull him closer while her tongue stroked and fed. She smelled of fruit, tasted like dry red wine, and when she wrapped a leg around his waist and pressed her hips to his erection, a pulse of pleasure ripped through him so sudden and striking he grunted.
Why did this woman drive him so wild? What was it about her that took the wind from his lungs and the decency from his soul? Since they’d met he had never been able to stay lukewarm around her. He either ran scorching hot or frigidly cold, the woman digging through his layers and pulling out the best and worst in him, not settling for anything in between.
And having seen his bad side, he now wanted to show her the good.
His lips left hers and kissed a path to her ear. “We need to get to your bedroom.”
She held up a limp hand and spoke through a breath. “It’s that way.”
Looking up, he noted the hallway at the opposite end of the room, then moved to his feet, reaching out a hand to pull her up into his arms.
She heaved in a breath and grinned when he whipped her off her feet, wrapping those delicate arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his cheek.
“Promise me we’ll stay friends after this,” he said, though in truth he was beyond worrying about where this was all headed. He’d begun to figure out that Carly Abrams was a woman masterful at getting her way—and he was powerless against her will. So instead of fighting like a fish swimming upstream, he might as well just shift direction and enjoy wherever the current took him.
“I’m not promising you anything,” she said, proving his point to a T. “But if we can’t be friends, I guarantee you can be my lover.”
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