Sinful Paradise (Kimani Hotties)

by Christopher, Ann

  Her mind shifted, taking her back to their delicious moments on the sofa last night and the way his virtuoso hands had played her body. Flushing, she remembered drifting to sleep with him, wrapped up in his hard body with their legs intertwined. She thought of how relaxed she’d been. How content. And she looked at the smooth half of her bed, where the impression of his body would be now if he’d lain there with her. And she felt a sudden ache of loneliness inside.

  She and loneliness, man. They were BFFs, weren’t they?

  “Why would I miss you?” she asked coolly.

  “Right.” Another laugh, this one with an edge of derisiveness, as though he’d hooked her up to some invisible truth detector and knew she was full of B.S. “I get it.”

  “Get what?” she snapped.

  “I get you, Gloria,” he said in a low murmur that sent a shiver—a delicious shiver—up her spine and across her scalp. “Did you get some sleep?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. Determined not to melt into a puddle of chocolate pudding, she rubbed her arms, trying to get rid of the unwanted goose bumps. “I don’t remember getting in the bed, though.”

  “I tucked you in before I left.”

  “Tucked me in?” She thought of the five pounds—recently blossomed to seven—that she’d been trying to lose for the past, oh, fifteen years. “I have the gross tonnage of a newborn orca.”

  “No, you don’t.” His throaty laugh did nothing to help eradicate those goose bumps, and neither did the low seductive note in his voice. “And I’m hoping that me putting you in bed is the only thing you’ve forgotten about last night.”

  She remembered everything, alas. Every embarrassing, delicious and unexpected detail. His kindness...the intensity of his bright blue eyes, focused entirely on her...the way she’d thrown herself at him like the woman of questionable morals she clearly was...his chivalrous refusal to take her up on her semi-drunken offer to sleep with him...and, most disquieting of all, the way he’d refused to kiss her mouth even as his hands danced across her body like Horowitz playing a Steinway.

  Oh, yes. She remembered.

  But that didn’t mean she had to admit it to him. She opened her mouth to issue a denial and discovered, too late, that it wouldn’t come.

  “I...” she said faintly.

  Her voice trailed off, and that was more than answer enough.

  The soft rasp of his breath was his only response. The silence between them intensified until her skin felt tight and her blood hot. Which was a disaster in the making, because her body shouldn’t crave a new man—she shouldn’t like a new man quite so much—just as she was coming to her senses about the old man. She had no intentions of repeating any of her past foolish choices.

  “Cooper,” she began, determined to put the brakes on this thing between them, whatever it was, “about what happened last night—”

  “No explanations.” His voice was firm. “No apologies. No regrets. Okay?”

  “But—” Thrown for a loop, she tried to decide which would be worse: being let off the hook entirely when they probably needed to clear the air, or keeping the conversation going by arguing that all the champagne she’d drunk last night had lowered her inhibitions and made her into gooey caramel when he touched her. “I feel like we should—”

  “We shouldn’t. Trust me. So how do you like your new phone?”

  Faltering at this abrupt change of topic, she blinked and tried to refocus.

  “It—It’s not my phone.”

  “It is now. Since you threw your old one out the window last night and you need a phone.”

  “I was planning to get a new phone. Today. When I woke up at a normal hour and not—” she checked her nightstand clock “—seven twenty-nine in the morning. Sunday morning.”

  “Maybe, but would you have given me your new number? I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “So you—what? Found some twenty-four-hour drive-through cell phone store? Unbelievable.”

  “Pretty much. Well, Bruce, the driver, did.”

  “Well, that’s really nice of you.” She pulled the phone back a little, looking wistfully at the huge bright screen, which was sleek and way nicer than her old phone’s. “And it’s a great phone, but I can’t keep it.”

  “Why not? It’s all set up in your name.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course.”

  She frowned, determined to find a loophole in this offer and force him to reveal himself to be the jerk she knew had to be hiding in there somewhere. All men were jerks who wanted only one thing from women. The only variable was how well they hid it.

  “I can’t accept it. Cell phones are expensive.”

  “Yeah,” he said drily. “That couple hundred bucks really set me back. I’ll be eating canned chicken soup all month now. What will I do?”

  She rolled her eyes, knowing damn well, as every New Yorker did, that the Davies family and their auction house did extremely well for themselves and could probably buy and sell half of Manhattan if they wanted to.

  “I’ll write you a check, smart-ass.”

  She could almost hear him shrug. “Suit yourself.”

  A troubling new thought hit her. “And did you put some sort of tracking or listening device in it?”

  There was a long pause.

  “And why would I do that?” he asked, a distinct chill in his voice now.

  “What if you’re a stalker or something?”

  This seemed like a very reasonable concern for a single woman to have, even though she found herself fidgeting uncomfortably. Worse, prickly heat was inching up the sides of her face, as though her body knew she’d gone too far by being rude to a man who’d done her a favor, even if her stupid brain refused to acknowledge it.

  There was a longer pause.

  “If I was a stalker or something,” he said finally, and she could practically hear the clink of ice cubes in his tone now, “I think we both know that I could’ve done you some serious damage last night.” A beat or two went by. She squirmed. “But if you don’t want the phone, I’m sure you’ll think of a creative way to get rid of it. You’re good at that. Garbage disposal, maybe?”

  She laughed. “Eagle Scout rides again. Do you have a cape to go with your uniform?”

  “I think you’re getting the wrong idea about me.” His voice was considerably warmer. “I’m no angel.”

  This simple statement killed her humor, especially when an image of Aaron flashed through her mind. “I would never think any man was an angel,” she said flatly. “Trust me. But I really appreciate the phone. Thanks.”

  “Hmm.” He seemed to detect that she was sliding into a dark mood, because he came up with a quick diversion. “So listen, the thing you need to remember is the three raw eggs and a full tablespoon of hot sauce. Got it?”

  “Got it,” she said, trying to rub away some of the headache that was currently pounding between her eyes.

  “So.” His tone was crisp now. Impersonal. “I’ll let you go. I’ve got my flight.”

  “Oh. Okay. Yeah.” She hesitated, trying to squash the unsettling swoop of disappointment in her belly. Was that it, then? Just like that? Was he going to hang up without trying to see her again? Without asking her what she planned to do about Aaron now that she’d slept on it? “Are you packed?”

  “Almost.”

  “When will you be back?” She wanted to bite her tongue off as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but she’d developed an irritating and persistent desire to know more about him.

  “I’m not sure,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  There was an awkward pause, which he did nothing to fill.

  “Well.” She pressed her lips together, rolled her eyes and shook her head at herself, glad he wasn’t there to see h
er in all her waffling idiocy. “Travel safe.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well,” she said lightly, flopping over onto her back and taking her inexplicable frustration out on the mattress, which she thumped with her feet. “Bye.”

  “I’ll be in touch, Doc.”

  This simple statement made her ears perk. She stopped thumping and abruptly sat up again, making the room swivel like an amusement park ride. What did that mean, he’d be in touch?

  “You will?” she asked.

  But the line was silent.

  “Cooper? Hello?” she said, pulling the phone away from her ear to check the display, which was now blank.

  Someone knocked on her front door, startling her. Luckily, it also stopped her from wondering whether she should call Cooper back. She hesitated. The knock sounded again, more insistent this time.

  What the hell?

  Since she wasn’t dressed and the sun wasn’t fully up yet, she was tempted to ignore it. Most likely someone had come to visit a neighbor and needed to take a closer look at the numbers on the doors. But then the knocking turned into the kind of frantic pounding that signaled a fire or some other disaster, so she grabbed her robe from the end of the bed, yanked it on and hurried out into the hallway, where she heard a muffled voice calling her name.

  That wasn’t her sister, Talia, was it?

  She’d made it across the living room and was almost in the foyer when the lock clicked, the door swung open, and Talia and the building manager, both looking wild-eyed, tumbled into her apartment.

  “Gloria!” Talia cried.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Gloria snapped, glaring at them both as she jerkily tied her robe’s belt. “It’s a quarter before dawn!”

  “We thought you were dead!” Talia snapped back, now looking outraged. “I had to wake up Roy and ask him to break in to make sure Cooper hadn’t abducted you or you weren’t dead of a heart attack on your bathroom floor or something! Why haven’t you answered your phone all night?”

  “Um...” Gloria tried not to fidget or look shifty. “It’s, ah, broken.”

  “Broken?”

  “That’s what I said.” Gloria realized she was ruffling her hair and forced herself to drop her hand. “Broken.”

  “Well, what’s that in your hand, then?”

  Gloria frowned and dropped her replacement phone into her robe pocket. “I’ll tell you later.” She shifted her attention to the building manager, who was now yawning and withdrawing his master key from her lock. “Sorry, Roy.”

  “Always glad to help, Dr. Adams.” With another yawn, he left.

  This gave Gloria the opportunity to focus on Talia, who didn’t look too good as they headed for the living room. Which begged the question: Why had Talia been looking for her this early? After last night’s triumphant unveiling of her mural at the auction house, Talia should have gone home and spent the night being chased around the bed by her boyfriend, Tony Davies. Not showing up here with ashen skin, hollowed-out eyes and the haunted expression Gloria remembered all too well from traumas past.

  She stilled, the words stalling in her tight throat because she didn’t want to ask the question. She opened her mouth, then shut it. Cleared her throat and tried again, sinking onto the edge of the sofa as she did so.

  “You’re scaring me, Tally. What’s wrong? Why were you looking for me?”

  “I think it’s back.” Tally’s face twisted. She sat on the ottoman opposite Gloria and looked up at the ceiling. Muscles contracted in her throat, as though she was trying either to force the words out or to swallow them back. Ducking her head, she wiped her eyes and stared at Gloria, her expression bleak. “Actually, that’s not true. I don’t think.” She took a shuddering breath. “It’s back.”

  Gloria stared at her, mute and uncomprehending, even though there was only one thing that had ever made Talia look that lost. Not even the death of their father, who’d left the family for his secretary when they were teenagers and then died of cardiac arrest in his other girlfriend’s bed two years later, or the lung cancer death of their mother three years after that had made Talia look so forlorn.

  No, there was only one thing that struck this kind of fear in their hearts, only one it.

  Talia’s Hodgkin’s disease was back.

  “Oh,” Gloria said faintly, twining her fingers in her lap to keep her hands from shaking. “Okay.”

  “I’m going to the doctor Monday. First thing.”

  Gloria nodded, grateful for the numbness that was setting in. “Okay.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” Talia looked relieved. “You can explain the medical jargon to me in plain English.”

  Gloria kept quiet on that one. She’d long ago realized that that was the ironic thing about her medical license: it was worthless when it came to her baby sister, the only living relative she had left. Talia was the most important person in her life, and when her life was threatened, Gloria wasn’t an M.D. She couldn’t think rationally. She couldn’t interpret test results and blood counts, and she damn sure couldn’t discuss prognoses and likelihoods. She was just a scared little girl in need of a dark closet where she could sob her eyes out.

  And to think that ten minutes ago, her biggest worries had been Cooper and Aaron. That was the sad truth about cancer, she supposed: it put all of life’s other nonsense into perspective.

  “Did you tell Tony?”

  Talia’s stoicism seemed to waver, making her lips twist and her nostrils flare. She nodded, blinking back tears.

  “And?”

  “He was angry with me for keeping it from him last night at the party.” Talia brushed the back of her hand past her eyes and took a deep breath. “He’d been planning to ask me to marry him.”

  A bitter chill started in Gloria’s gut and spread all the way to her fingertips. She didn’t know Tony well, and she’d known a lot of rat bastards in her life, but Tony didn’t seem to be one of them. She thought of the way she’d seen him look at Talia as though her gray eyes held all the secrets to the universe, and it just didn’t add up.

  “He didn’t retract his proposal, did he?”

  “No,” Talia said quickly. “But I can’t ask him to go through this with me.”

  This, like it, required no explanation. This encompassed the tests, the chemotherapy and the additional tests to make sure the chemotherapy was working. Not to mention the possible surgery and side effects. There were always side effects, and they were often painful and disgusting, and Gloria knew that Talia didn’t want Tony to see her like that.

  She probably also didn’t want to test the strength of Tony’s feelings for her this early in their relationship, because what if he failed? What if he couldn’t take it when her hair fell out?

  Gloria understood all of Talia’s fears. But then she thought again of the way Tony looked at Talia, and she knew they were baseless.

  “He loves you, Tally,” she said quietly. “Don’t push him away now. You’re going to need him.”

  Talia didn’t seem to know how to handle this information. A sound—half laugh, half sob—burst out of her throat. “I thought you suspected him of all kinds of nefarious motives!”

  “All men are guilty of nefarious motives, Tally. Have I taught you nothing?”

  Talia laughed weakly.

  “But Tony’s motives seem less nefarious than others’,” Gloria assured her. “Which is why I’ve let him live.” She thought about that. “Thus far.”

  Another halfhearted laugh from Talia, and then a lightbulb seemed to go off over her head. “I almost forgot. Speaking of the way men look at us—”

  Uh-oh, Gloria thought.

  “—what happened when Cooper brought you home last night? Anything?”

/>   “Nope,” Gloria said lightly, shrugging.

  “You’re such a liar! You always shrug when you lie!”

  “Not true,” Gloria said, fighting her shoulders’ desire that very second to lift up to her ears. In the end, her right shoulder hitched up and she played it off by using it to scratch her earlobe. “Just an itch.”

  That broke up some of the tension. They grinned at each other and then, just as quickly, Talia’s laughter turned to racking sobs.

  “I’m so scared,” she said, doubling up and curling in on herself. “I am so freaking scared.”

  Since they both couldn’t be scared at the same time, Gloria decided that this was her moment to be the strong one. There was always time later for her to fall apart in the shower.

  “Come here.”

  Gloria opened her arms, and Talia scurried over to her side of the sofa and collapsed gratefully against her, sobbing. Together they settled in, getting comfortable as they assumed the positions they’d used so many times before, when they had only each other to rely on. Gloria put a pillow in her lap. Talia laid her head down and stretched out, her entire body shaking as she cried.

  Gloria eased off Talia’s wig—today’s version was a black pixie cut that covered the downy wisps that had grown in since her first round of treatment—and ran her hand over her sister’s overheated and damp forehead. Then she rubbed her shoulder and down her back before circling back up to her forehead and starting all over again.

  The whole time, she shifted her knees back and forth, rocking Talia, and absently hummed “Danny Boy,” the song their mother had always used on them when they needed comforting.

  It took forever to settle Talia down. She quieted several times only to start back up again, as though she’d been stockpiling tears for just such an occasion. Or maybe Talia’s sorrow was magnified because she was in love with Tony now and therefore had much more to lose.

  Not that it mattered. Anyone facing a serious diagnosis deserved at least one good cry without someone muttering platitudes about how it was all going to be okay, so Gloria didn’t say anything or try to shush her up. There’d be time for pep talks later.