“I don’t do a lot of cooking.” He settled on the stool near the island while she cracked a few eggs into the pan and put bread on to toast.
“Hands, or knife and fork?”
“Hands.”
She took two plates from an overhead cupboard and filled the toaster with another two slices of bread. “See those two tablemats? Pop them on the table, would you?”
He did as asked while she served up two neat bacon-and-egg sandwiches, his twice the size of hers. He waited for her to sit first, having learned that nicety from his brother who had learned a bit of class from his wife. Handy trick.
He had probably made himself hundreds of bacon-and-egg sandwiches in his lifetime, but the one he ate with her was the best. Even the rhubarb sponge was tasty. The way she treated him and spoke to him, made him feel like an interesting person, not a prospective partner or simply a sex machine. “So, what do you want to watch on TV?”
“Are you staying?”
“We don’t have TV.” He settled down again, and she sat beside him. The cat sat on his lap. This was about as domestic as he had ever been, and he laughed.
Calli glanced at him in query.
He put his arm around her, and she snuggled into his chest. For a while he stayed like that, holding her, but she began to undo his shirt buttons, and one thing led to another.
Chapter 8
Calli wished Kell could stay the night, but of course that was impossible when she didn’t want Trent to know that she had been so frantic to have sex with Kell that she had practically jumped him, not once but twice. The second time she had managed to drag him into her bedroom first, but she hadn’t quite managed to draw back the cover on the bed. Fortunately, he had seemed more than eager to cooperate.
Neither time had she been completely naked. Nor had he. She would like the full deal, naked and in a bed, and she had absolutely no doubt he would comply with both, had she made the request. The man had complete confidence in his body, unlike her, though she was certainly building a little. He had a way of making a woman feel uniquely interesting and very much desired.
In the lamplight, she glanced over at him, lying on his side facing her, his lips curved and his eyes a mystery. Her insides a shaky mixture of desire and uncertainty, she moved her hand to his shoulder—and her phone rang.
During the past few weeks, she hadn’t answered any calls. Her family sent text messages, and her needy body was inclined to ignore the sound. However Kell, clearly not as focused on her as she was on him, reached over and behind her to the bedside table.
“Yours,” he said, his voice sex-husky as he passed her the phone.
In the belief that she would look normal rather than persecuted, she glanced at the screen and saw the number. “It’s my sister. Don’t worry. I’ll send her a text later.”
“So, if you don’t want to talk, how about if we take a shower?” His eyes smoldering, he placed her phone back on the bedside table and rolled onto his back.
“Okay.” She watched while he sat up in one fluid motion and pulled the white T-shirt he still wore over his head—and she was a goner again. His chest was everything she had imagined, hard, broad, with short dark hair in T across his nipples and arrowing to a trail that led under his chinos that he had only very recently pulled back over his narrow hips. “How many condoms do you have?”
“That’s an interesting question.” He rolled slightly, jammed his hand into his back pocket, and dragged out his wallet. After a quick inspection, he gave a grin as lascivious as any man’s could be. “I’m provisioned for a couple of days as long as I don’t get too ahead of myself.”
Dressed in an unclasped bra and her amber top, she sashayed into the bathroom, him right behind her, undressing as he walked. He almost teased her to death in the shower, apparently not about to try anything too slippery, but she had decided to take whatever she could get while she still could. Soon enough he would hear the gossip about Calli, the tempter of men—the woman who knew how to part them from their money.
She had to prove herself to herself, but not to Kell, nor to the whole wide world. Without a doubt, Emily would tell Trent the story she had heard in the women’s room—not true, of course, but deniers always looked guilty. He would repeat the story to Kell as soon as the two spoke again. On the plus side, Trent might not return tonight—which made no difference in the long run. Kell would eventually hear, no matter what. Therefore, she may as well keep him for the night if she could. “If you hide your car, you can stay until morning,” she said as a tentative invitation, while rubbing her hair dry.
“Hide? Who from?” He had a towel wrapped around his waist and a languid smile on his face. Anyone would think he’d recently had sex, whereas he’d recently had a wild old time almost making her beg.
“Trent. Do you want him to know we had sex tonight?”
“Apparently you don’t.” He tilted her face up to his with a forefinger and kissed her lips slowly and gently.
She breathed out, trying for a sensible expression on her face instead of a kiss-me-again one. “It wouldn’t be a good look. Not when we live next door to each other.”
“I see your point. Perhaps you could park your car behind mine. Then mine wouldn’t be visible from the street.”
So, half-dressed, they shifted cars in the dead of the night, Calli as guiltily nervous as a rebellious teenager hiding her naughtiness from her parents, something she had never done. She had been the quiet and obedient daughter. Antigone had been the rebel. Wondering what Tiggy had wanted to tell her, Calli raced back inside the cottage with Kell. She had barely crossed the bedroom threshold when he tossed her onto the bed and got her completely naked yet again.
In bed with him, she had nothing to prove. As a lover, the man was inexhaustible. When she finally slept, she slept like the dead. The ringing phone finally awoke her. Tiggy, again.
She sat up, this time too stupid with sleep to remember how to switch off the phone. Before she knew herself, she was listening to her sister’s voice. “Calli, where are you?” Slats of morning light glimmered through the plantation blinds.
“In bed. Give me a minute. I’m not quite awake,” she said in a grouchy voice, not immediately remembering what she had done with her clothes.
With a half grin on his face, Kell passed over the sheet that had somehow twisted into a rope on the bottom of the bed.
She draped herself, and trailing most of the sheet, she stumbled into the kitchen. “Okay, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I haven’t seen you for more than a month. Aren’t I allowed to worry about you?”
“No need. I’m doing well, or I would be if people let me sleep.”
“It’s after nine,” Tiggy said, indignation spiking her tone.
“It’s also Sunday morning.”
“Don’t be a pill. How’s the new garden coming along?”
Calli pulled out a kitchen chair with her foot, and sat on a lump of sheet. “As expected. I’ve done this before, you know.”
“Not for a couple of years. You had your minions to do the dirty work for you. I don’t think you’ve set a foot on a shovel for quite a while. Did you hear about Hagen?”
“What about Hagen?” Calli asked in a suspicious voice. Hagen, her older brother, the golden boy, had recently married a very beautiful woman. His lovely young bride had spent the past year modernizing his heritage house, apparently unable to see the beauty in his sparse but classy furnishing style. Every time Calli went to the house, a stark desolation filled her. The bright shiny objects that Mercia, his wife, had introduced made the whole area look as nondescript as a coat of paint on the Mona Lisa.
Tiggy snickered. “He told Mercia he wouldn’t have the front garden redone. She wanted a lawn at the front, and the box hedges removed.”
Calli gasped. “It took me months to get the box hedges shaped into those Georgian angles. Which was probably the problem. I designed the garden. I suppose most wiv
es want to design their own.” She made a rueful face to herself.
“Stop being fair. You know she is the most irritating woman in all creation. And that’s exactly what she wants to be. It takes a lot to rile Ma, but she has even managed that. I heard Ma muttering to herself the other day, but she wouldn’t say a word about whatever Mercia did or said. She wants to stay onside because, you know, grandchildren and all that.”
“Yes. Mercia is now one of Ma’s own and must be tolerated as such. So, how are you doing, Tiggy?” Calli watched the cat slink into the bedroom. Did she know Kell was there or was she simply trying to avoid Calli? Hobo had to be the most ungrateful creature in the whole wide world. At least she could smile at her rescuer once or twice, or even simply acknowledge Calli’s existence other than at meal times.
“I’m still matching up the colors for the public areas in Aldinga. Far would like you back. He’s not pleased with the garden design that has been presented to him for the complex.”
“If I worked for him, it would have to be gratis, and you know he won’t accept that.”
“I think you need to get over yourself, Calli. Plenty of people owe money to their parents—you know, school fees, university fees, first home loans, et cetera. You don’t have to pay it all back within months.”
“I do. I lost the money. It wasn’t Ma and Far’s debt, but mine. I can’t ever be independent if I’m leaching money from my parents. I don’t want to be that sort of person.”
Tiggy gave an audible resigned sigh. “So, what’s he like?”
“Who?”
“The reason why you are whispering.”
“I’ve had a bad throat, Tiggy,” Calli said in a holier-than-thou voice, speaking nothing but the truth. She did have a bad throat a few days ago. “Anyway, thanks for catching me up.” She ended the call and sat at the table, torn between two emotions. Like her sister and the rest of her family, she disliked Mercia, who tried to distance Hagen from everyone he knew, his friends, and his family. The woman was a troublemaker born and bred. Even so, Calli didn’t want her design of Hagen’s garden to cause a rift between the couple.
When she trailed back into the bedroom, Kell was lying on his back, the bed covers drawn to his waist, idly tickling Hobo who sat on his chest, interviewing him. “Bad news?” He glanced away from the cat.
“What makes you ask that?”
“The look on your face.”
“That’s my thinking face, not my bad news face.”
“Glad to hear that. I don’t feel in the mood for bad news. Come over here and snuggle with us.”
She dropped the stupid sheet that had done nothing but try to trip her, and sat beside Kell, tentatively bringing her feet back onto the bed. He put his arm around her and she wriggled down until she lay beside him. Hobo frowned at her, apparently not willing to share her man.
Calli reached over to stroke the cat, who turned her back. “That’s a statement, for sure. Look, Cat, I brought you in, I bathed you—”
“You bathed her?” Kell laughed. “Even I know that cats don’t take well to water.”
“She didn’t mind. Until you came along, she thought I was okay.” Calli continued to stroke the cat, whose fur quivered under the indignity. “I’m the one who feeds her.”
Kell scooped one hand under the cat and held her straight up above his head at arm’s length, her body supported by his palm, and her long skinny legs dangling helplessly. “Are you being ungrateful?”
The cat’s head nodded.
“Are you sorry?”
The cat’s head nodded again while the cat aimed her pretty golden eyes at Kell.
“Okay,” he said, taking away the finger he had placed on top of her head to control her movements. “All is forgiven. We all snuggle together, right?”
The cat slitted her eyes, clearly disagreeing.
“She’s not used to threesomes, and she doesn’t quite approve. I think you’ll need to tell her it’s okay.” Kell gave Calli a sideways smile.
“I don’t approve of threesomes either.” Calli smiled back at him. This might be the nicest Sunday morning she’d ever had, despite the early phone call.
“But a snuggle threesome is okay.” He darted a glance at Calli. His arm moved under her shoulder, dragging her closer to his big warm body. Hobo frowned for a moment before deciding to settle between them.
“A man, a woman, and a cat are okay.”
He nodded, his hand smoothing her shoulder, which he briefly kissed. His hand lazily massaged the back of her neck, and her hand toyed with the hair on his chest, while the cat purred. “What do you eat for breakfast?” he asked in a hinting voice.
“You don’t want breakfast here. You wouldn’t eat what I eat.”
“Does it involve Brussels sprouts?”
“No.” She glanced up at him.
“In that case, I would like it. I thought you would never ask.”
“I eat cornflakes.”
“So do I. What do you want?” he asked the cat, who appeared to have gone to sleep. He lifted his head so that his ear was closer to the cat’s mouth. “Caviar? No. I’m afraid you’ll have to have cornflakes like the rest of us.”
Calli slid out of bed and into her robe. With the cat clasped to his chest, Kell swung his legs over the side of the bed. He put Hobo on the floor, where she stretched sinuously before strolling to the door.
“You’ll need to put on your pants if you want breakfast,” Calli said to Kell who appeared to either be losing an erection or growing one. The man was a gorgeous, sexy, wonderful lover. “I don’t want any distractions.”
He pulled on his jocks and his chinos, and found his cotton knit in the corner of the room. “What will we do after breakfast?”
“You will go home.”
“It’s Sunday. I might take a day off and do something lazy. Aside from that, Trent is home. I heard him drive in last night.”
“What’s wrong with Trent being there?”
“He might ask me where I’ve been. Could I tell a lie? No.”
She placed her fists on her hips. “You’re trying to blackmail me into doing something with you today?”
“Admit it. You want to.”
She stalked into the kitchen and filled two bowls with cornflakes while she rattled around in her head for an answer. “I see you as a diversion,” she said to him as he loomed beside her. “Good for sex—well, great for sex, but I don’t know that I need anything else from you.”
“You’re getting way ahead of yourself. I’m offering you a visit to the library with me, and you’re already seeing us in a relationship.”
“The library?”
“That was an example.” He firmed his perfect jaw.
“A better example might be going to the nursery to look at plants.”
“If you insist.”
“That was probably what I was going to do—go to the nursery.” She hauled the milk out of the fridge, glancing at him over her shoulder, not quite knowing how she had agreed to spend a few more hours with him. Not that she really minded. The last few months of her life had been lonely. Now she had a cat and a date, a surfeit of company, though the cat preferred the man to her.
Right on cue, Hobo tapped her on the ankle.
“Yes?”
“I want to go outside,” Kell said in yowly cat voice.
“Ask Kell to open the door for you,” she said before she realized she was answering a cat who certainly didn’t speak person.
Kell stood, walked to the door, and Hobo followed, showing that she must have channeled her thoughts to the only person in the room who was receptive. He closed the door behind her. “She’ll knock when she returns.”
“I suppose she told you that.” Calli slowly shook her head as she sat at the table, staring at Kell the Cat Whisperer. “That was good last night,” she said in a friendly voice, not wanting to make too much of the mind-blowing sex she had participated in.
/> “I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“You might not have noticed but I was there, too.”
“Oh. Yes. I thought you were big-noting yourself.”
“I thought you were asking for a compliment.” He stuffed a huge spoonful of milky cornflakes into his mouth.
She laughed. She didn’t appear to be able to squash him. Well, of course not. The man was a demi-god and likely un-squashable. “Are you planning on shaving before we leave?”
“Nope. You only have a pink plastic razor, and I don’t think that will suit my chin.”
“The color?”
“The rust. I look okay, don’t I?”
She pretended to consider. “Passable.” Her heart flitter-fluttered. Best not to look at him too much or she would get a goofy expression on her face. “In the interest of keeping your car hidden, I think we ought to take the Jaguar out today.”
“You have the keys?”
“I thought you might be able to hotwire it.” She stood, leaned over, and took his bowl while he sat with his mouth half-open. After stacking the dishes in the dishwasher, she glanced back at him, hopefully.
He gave her a wide-eyed grin. Apparently he had taken a while thinking the matter over. “I’m surprised you can’t.”
“It’s not a girl thing. I’ll put on some lipstick, and we can leave.”
“Do I hear a knock?”
She stopped and glanced at the door. “It’s more of a scratch.” Sure enough, when she opened the door, Hobo was standing there. She slipped between Calli’s legs and bounded over to Kell.
He stood, and Hobo arose to her back legs, placing her front legs on his shins like a child asking to be picked up. Kell obliged and took her over to the couch, where she deigned to be dropped by him. “We’ll be back later, puss. If you want a snack to tide you over, you’ll have to be nice to Calli.”
Calli waited, arms crossed. The cat considered for a moment and, after making her decision not to mess with the current situation, she curled herself into a ball and shut her eyes.
Perfect Scents Page 11