by Julia London
“That enormous platter that looks like a cabbage leaf? Look around you, Curtis—there is no room,” Wallace said.
“Speaking of room, there isn’t enough seating, either.”
This opinion was offered by Janet, who had returned to the kitchen and was pushing in behind Wallace and Curtis. Dax felt cornered now, trapped against the sink next to Heather.
“I have some folding lawn chairs,” Kyra offered. “I could run and get them.”
“Perfect!” Janet said.
“That’d be great. Let’s go,” Dax said.
“You don’t have to come—”
He cut Kyra off before she denied him an out. “You’ll need help carrying them,” he said and gave her a look that he hoped conveyed she was not to argue under any circumstance.
“Maybe Wallace could go,” Heather suggested.
“Me?” Wallace exclaimed, flattening his palm against his chest.
“I’ll do it,” Dax said. “Come on.” He began to bulldoze his way through the crowd, sort of hustling Kyra along ahead of him and trying not to ogle her butt as he did.
“You’re going to get wet,” Kyra warned him as they went out of the kitchen.
“It’s not that bad,” Dax said. To those in the living room, he announced, “We’re going to get chairs.”
“Chairs! Why didn’t you say so?” Mr. McCauley asked and tugged absently on his very large ear. “I’ve got a shed full of folding chairs for the occasional wedding or what have you. I’ll just go up and get a few.”
“Stay right there,” Dax said. “Kyra’s cottage is closer.”
“Well, hurry up, will you? My knee begins to ache if I stand too long,” said John Sanders.
“For heaven’s sake, John,” Mrs. McCauley said. “I told you to sit on the couch.”
Dax nudged Kyra to hurry it up. She dipped around John and Bev McCauley and made it to the front door. Dax was right behind her. He leaned around her for the door—catching the scent of her hair as he did—and yanked it open.
Kyra didn’t go through the screen—she stopped in her tracks, and Dax plowed into her back. He guessed Kyra had come to a halt at the sight of the rain, which had turned into a full gully washer. He winced a little at the thought of dashing across to her cottage in that.
But then he saw the real reason for her halt—there were two elderly people standing on his porch in rain ponchos.
“Hello!” the woman said. She was holding a bowl of cantaloupe.
Dax was busy trying to work out who they were and didn’t respond right away.
“Are you Dax?” the woman asked.
“I am.”
“Well, thanks for inviting us! We’re Sid and Mary Branson.”
“Okay,” he said.
“We just pulled into Number Six this morning,” Sid Branson said. “Mr. McCauley told us you were having a welcome-the-neighbors barbecue tonight. Thanks so much for inviting us. We’re going to be here for a few weeks before heading on down to Florida. We’re just taking our time and seeing the country and meeting folk.”
“I saw the family in Number Five getting things together,” his wife added. “They ought to be here in a few minutes.”
Dax looked at Kyra. She looked at him. He could tell she was trying very hard not to laugh. “I’m Kyra Kokinos,” she said and pushed open the screen. “My daughter, Ruby, and I are in Number Three.”
“Squeeze on in,” Dax said. “You might want to stand out on the porch if you prefer to breathe. We’re going to get some extra chairs.”
Mary Branson brushed past him. “We brought cantaloupe!” she announced to everyone in the living room.
With the Bransons now taking up the last of the air in the living room, Kyra and Dax stood on the top steps of the porch and looked through the sheets of rain to Number Three.
Dax sighed. “I guess we—”
Kyra leapt off the porch and ran. And she was fast, too. Dax ran after her, catching her at the bottom of her steps and seizing her by the waist, dragging her up with him.
When they were under the covered porch, Kyra laughed. “Not that bad? Look at you! You look like you just crawled out of the lake.”
“So do you.” Her thin summer dress was clinging to her, and Dax had trouble tearing his gaze away from her figure.
Kyra glanced down. “Great. I just bought this dress,” she groaned.
“It’s nice,” he said. “Really . . . nice.”
“Thank you. You know what else is nice? Your girlfriend. Come in and I’ll get you a towel.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Dax said loudly as he followed her inside.
Kyra had disappeared into the hall. She reappeared a moment later with two pink towels and pushed one up against his chest. “She thinks she is,” she said and let go. She wrapped the other towel around the ends of her hair as she walked into the kitchen.
“Well, she’s not.” He followed her.
“You don’t have to try and convince me, Dax. You don’t have to explain.”
He frowned at her. He pointed a finger at her. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Smiling,” he warned her.
Her smug little smile only widened. “Am I smiling?”
“Like a fat cat.” He moved closer and used his towel to dab some of the rain off her cheeks.
Now her smile was a grin. “I’m not going to stop smiling just because you say so.”
“Will you at least stop talking about Heather?”
“I’m not talking about her. Why does the mention of her name make you so nervous, anyway?”
“You know what makes me nervous?” he asked as he dabbed the water from her shoulders. “You. I’m scared to death you’re going to kiss me again.”
“Big baby. You didn’t seem to mind it when you kissed me. I thought you really liked it. In fact, you sort of—”
“God,” he said and pulled her into his body and kissed her.
He didn’t mean to go all-in, he really didn’t. He didn’t want to have all those confusing feelings and emotions come rushing at him the moment his lips touched hers, but he was gone before he even realized what was happening. Her lips were soft and wet and so damn arousing. He was hard almost instantaneously, and he pressed that against her like a caveman.
That should have been her signal to back away, to run, but Kyra’s arms went around his neck, and she pulled his head down so she could kiss him back.
They engaged in a ferocious kiss, harder than the storm outside, harder than hickory wood. But it was weird, because it was a soft kiss, too, the kind that dissolved a man.
Dax grabbed Kyra’s thighs and lifted her up, setting her on the kitchen table. He heard something crackle beneath her, heard something else hit the floor. He stood between her legs, pressing against her. He wasn’t sure where he was going with all this, but he suddenly couldn’t get enough of her. He was burning to touch her, and he slid his hand into the V-shaped neckline of her dress and filled it with her breast.
Kyra’s kiss deepened. She was feeling this thing between them, too. Dax moved his hand to the hem of her wet dress and moved up, slipping his fingers beneath her panties. Holy shit, she was wet, and he was on his way to bursting with desire. He hadn’t touched a woman in a very long time, and it made him slightly dizzy. He wanted to put her on her back on this table, logistics be damned, and pump into her like a madman. But he also wanted to hold her and kiss her ears and her nose and the hollow of her throat.
He settled for swirling his fingers around and over and in the folds of her sex, because Kyra was making tiny little sounds in the back of her throat, and if there was one thing other than being inside her that revved his engines, it was knowing that he was capable and adept, apparently, at giving her pleasure.
She squeezed her thighs around him and began to pant. She tore her mouth from his and dropped her head to his shoulder, gasping. Dax intensified his efforts and knew she was enjoying it when she bit the hell out of his sh
oulder in an attempt not to cry out.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” she whimpered.
Dax tried not to puff up with pride. After all that had happened with Ashley, there had been a moment or two that he’d wondered if maybe he’d lost his touch, but clearly, he still knew how to rock it—
Kyra suddenly pushed him hard, and he staggered one step back. “What?” he asked, startled. In general, he didn’t think women shoved men away if the man was rocking it.
“Are we crazy?” she said, still panting, and hopped down from the table.
He didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “Jury’s still out.”
“I’m serious! You have a house full of company. My daughter is next door.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, holding up his hands. He didn’t feel crazy. He felt . . . he felt alive. He felt like a man again. He felt like he mattered, like he cared, like he could lift this little house up and twirl it on the tip of his finger. But he said, “Fair point. I get it. But . . .”
“But what?” she asked impatiently as she arranged her very luscious breasts in her very sexy dress. “This is insane.”
Was it really so insane? Had he been out of touch with himself and his own desires and feelings for so long that he didn’t know what was real anymore?
Kyra stalked the three feet to the back door, where he could see she’d jammed three aluminum lawn chairs between the fridge and the wall.
“But what if I didn’t have company?” he asked, trying to feel her out. “What if your daughter was, say, with a babysitter? Not that woman who comes to watch your TV, but a legit babysitter. Would it be so insane?”
Kyra paused. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Her cheeks were enchantingly pink. She pulled a chair out and shoved it at him. “You shouldn’t ask complicated questions when we’re in a hurry.”
Dax took the chair. “Is it complicated?” He meant it sincerely. He needed to know. He was confused, uncertain about what was happening inside him right now.
“Isn’t it?” she asked as she yanked another chair free.
“I guess if you think sex is complicated,” he said, thinking out loud. “I don’t think it’s complicated. I have a pretty good feel for it. I go right in and get down to business and everyone is happy.”
Kyra blinked. Then she laughed. “That’s so sexy, Dax.”
“You have no idea,” he said in all seriousness. Maybe that’s all this was, an intense need to have sex. Maybe he was assigning feelings and ideas and desires to plain ol’ lust. “I’m just saying, it’s not so complicated.”
She shoved the second chair at him with such force that he dropped the one he was holding.
“It’s not complicated, huh? What about Heather?”
“Okay, that’s it,” Dax said and dropped the second chair so he could take Kyra’s fool head between his hands and kiss her again. Only this time, he kissed her very slowly. He wanted to savor it, because damn it, her lips were so soft, and he wanted to make sure the name Heather never came out of her mouth again. He did not want to think of anyone or anything but Kyra.
She touched his face, quite tenderly, then slid her hand to his shoulder and pushed a little until he broke the kiss. “We have to get back.”
“We’re going back . . . in just a minute,” he said and kissed her again.
She sighed, and she let him kiss her some more, and just when he was getting into it, when he was thinking of unzipping her dress and walking her into a bedroom, she pushed him back again. “Seriously, Dax. Ruby will wonder where I am.”
“Fine,” he said, disgruntled. Every muscle, every fiber, every vein was on the verge of erupting into a massive barrage of confetti, after which, he was certain, there’d be nothing left of him. What a rotten time to have a barbecue. Really, was there ever a good time to have a barbecue?
He picked up the chairs. Kyra tried to take one from him to carry, but Dax wouldn’t let go, forcing her to look up at him. “You never answered my question. If it was just you and me, if this was any other time, would this be insane?”
“Honestly?”
Did he want honest? He wasn’t sure about that. But he did want to know in a very bad way. “Yes.” He steeled himself.
“If it was just you and me . . . I would rip your clothes off.”
Dax blinked. He felt a peculiar little flutter inside that went straight to his groin and made him hard all over again. He smiled broadly. “Well, all right, then.”
She poked him in his overinflated chest. “So is this a thing now?”
He didn’t know what the hell was going on, if this was a thing or not, but it was good. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s damn sure a ‘moment.’”
“A ‘moment.’” She nodded, as if she liked the sound of that. “I don’t know what to think about you, Dax Bishop.”
“Feeling is entirely mutual, Kyra Coconuts.”
She smiled as she yanked one of the chairs free of his grip and walked to the front door. “Are you coming?” Dax realized he hadn’t yet moved. Before he could answer, Kyra was already out the door.
When they reached the porch of his cottage, Wallace was standing there with Curtis, his arms folded across his chest. “What took you so long?” he demanded, eyeing them both suspiciously.
“The chairs were behind some boxes I haven’t yet unpacked,” Kyra said with a flick of her wrist. “Here you go,” she said, shoving the chair at him.
Wallace studied her closely. “Hmm,” he said and shifted his narrowed gaze to Dax.
“Dax?” Mrs. McCauley had stepped out onto the porch behind Wallace. “The natives are restless. Are you going to get the food started? Goodness, look at all the leaves the rain has brought down,” she said and shook her head. “I’m as grateful as the next person for rain, but my husband tracks all those leaves across my front porch.” She smiled at Kyra. “I’ll just have to get my little helper on it. Ruby’s very good at sweeping.”
“She is?” Kyra said. “She’s swept your porch?”
“And my kitchen,” Mrs. McCauley said, laughing. “She comes around about once a day to see if I have any cookies. Sometimes I put her to work for that cookie.”
Kyra looked genuinely surprised, and Dax wondered how she could be so surprised. The coconut wandered the neighborhood like a nomad.
“Oh, it’s no problem,” Mrs. McCauley said. “She’s such a lovely little girl. I enjoy her company and her very vivid imagination, too. She claims her father is a policeman, and that you train monkeys.”
“Her father is a policeman?” Wallace asked.
“No,” Kyra said. “And I’ve never seen a real monkey that wasn’t in a zoo. I’m so sorry, Mrs. McCauley. I didn’t know she was visiting you every day.”
The screen door opened with such force that it caught Kyra by the arm and forced her back into the table saw.
Heather emerged, holding a blue Solo cup. “There you are!” she said to Dax, ignoring Kyra entirely. “I was just telling Janet that I finally convinced you to come with me to hear some jazz in Black Springs.”
“You did?” he asked, confused. “No, I—”
“Dax!” Heather said laughingly. “We were talking about it in the kitchen, remember?”
What he remembered was that the last thing she said was is that a yes, and then he’d answered yes to Kyra. Good Lord, he had to end this. After what had happened between him and Kyra in the last twenty-four hours, Dax was not even mildly interested in Heather.
“Have you ever been, Wallace?” Heather asked, heading off any disagreement before Dax could make it.
“Are you talking about this Dax? In a jazz club?” Wallace asked, pointing at Dax.
“I didn’t say—” Dax tried, but Heather was too quick for him.
“You should totally go,” she said to Wallace. “They’re a lot of fun.”
“Maybe I will,” Wallace said. “And bravo to you for getting the Lone Ranger out of the cottage.” He beamed at Dax. “I mean
, what else has he got to do?”
What he had to do was build a scaffold across two oak trees down by the lake so he could hang himself, that was what. He looked around for Kyra, but she had disappeared into the house with Mrs. McCauley.
He was more than a little annoyed that the “moment” he’d had with Kyra had been almost ruined for him by Heather and her damn jazz club.
How had he gone from living without the complication of women to suddenly being utterly bewildered by two of them for very different reasons?
Chapter Thirteen
Kyra was stuffed full. She usually didn’t eat so much, but she’d been more than a little disconcerted by that unexpected, sexy, surprising interlude in her kitchen with Dax, for which she’d been totally on board until she remembered all the people waiting for them to return. And then she’d come back to Dax’s cottage and reality had seeped in, and she didn’t know what that interlude had meant, or what a “moment” was, and she’d never been the type of girl who could politely nibble her way through stress. Nope, she was an all-in kind of eater.
Now she could hardly breathe in a dress that had not been too tight only an hour or so before. No one showed any sign of going anywhere—they all seemed to enjoy a claustrophobic baked-burger-and-hot-dog barbecue—but Kyra decided it was time for her and Ruby to go.
“So soon?” Wallace asked.
“I’m working a brunch shift tomorrow,” Kyra said. That was the polite excuse. The real excuse, besides being on the verge of exploding, was that she couldn’t bear to watch Heather fawning over Dax another moment.
“I don’t want to go yet,” Ruby said.
Of course she didn’t—the family from Number Five, the Caldwells, had a boy and a girl around Ruby’s age, and Ruby had been leading the pack.
“It’s getting late,” Kyra said and put her arm around Ruby’s shoulders.
Ruby wrenched out of Kyra’s loose embrace. “I don’t want to go,” she said again, and the tears appeared, and Ruby sank to the floor like a sack of bricks, refusing to move. Kyra had to pull the punishment card in front of everyone, threatening a loss of privileges if she didn’t get up and move. So Ruby sobbed and stomped her way to the door and made sure the screen door slammed behind her.