A Charmed Little Lie

by Sharla Lovelace

  “Please stop talking,” I said.

  “Just bringing up old times,” he said.

  “You lost the right to chat about old times when you joined forces with my cousin,” I said. “Against me.”

  Something alarming flashed across his eyes as I reached that level, and I glanced passed him to see Katrina wrap her legs around Nick’s waist.

  With a grunt of disgust, I pushed on.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alan said.

  “Sure you do,” I said, using his hips as leverage and toe holds for my feet. “You’re funding his little pet project, aren’t you? With a 100 percent interest, I’m sure.”

  It was that point when my hoo-hah was in Alan’s face and he growled playfully against it, probably trying to distract me, that I lost it and made an executive decision. First by kneeing him in the eye and making him drop a foot in pain while I stepped on his head. Then after I looked over to see Katrina rubbing her boobs in Nick’s face, taking her sweet time climbing on my husband, I found a sudden surge of energy. Screw this taking turns thing. I had to get it over with. I couldn’t be body-to-body with Alan again, and I needed to help get Nick out of Katrina’s chest and before she was hoo-hah level with his face in her tiny short-shorts.

  Grunting and making noises I didn’t know I could make, I climbed. I didn’t stop for Alan; I kept going. Foot by foot, I squirmed my way up, not stopping till I reached the little yellow flag at the top. It wasn’t ice cream, but some crazy intense motivation, just the same.

  The crowd cheered, and I looked over to see Nick grinning proudly at me. Completely oblivious to the hoo-hah waving at him. A surge of warmth came over me. Even more so when he removed her legs and climbed down.

  All that remained was the three-legged race to the cake. Alan tied our legs together, his knuckles brushing almost illegally close to third. He glanced up and I glared at him, not caring that his eye was bruising. He was lucky I missed his teeth.

  At the start line, we lined up. Alan and I with our arms around each other, and Nick and Katrina the same. Almost done. We’re almost done.

  “You have a spirited one here, Nick,” Alan said. “Lucky you.”

  “I think so,” Nick said.

  Aw.

  “How long have you been married?” Alan asked.

  Shit. Did we ever say? Had we ever decided? Shit!

  “Long enough to know not to grope another man’s wife, Alan,” Nick countered. “How long have you been married?”

  Wow. See, this was why my Nick was the bomb.

  My Nick?

  “Nice deflection,” Alan said. “Funny how I was under the impression that you two were married for at least five,” he said. “But a little bird told me that an internet search brought up—”

  “Go!” Dean yelled.

  Katrina and Nick instantly pulled ahead. They’d evidently talked strategy. Whereas Alan and I fought each other, our legs out of sync, probably due to my impending heart attack at the mention of an internet search. What was he playing at?

  We finally got our timing right, yelling what leg to use, but Nick and Katrina made it to their cake table before we did. They were halfway through one, shoving cake into each other’s mouths, when a particularly overzealous cake shove on our part knocked us off balance. I groped the air but got a handful of cake instead. Alan crammed a large piece into my mouth on our way down and we hit grass. It was funny. I had to admit it was funny, and I started laughing but it was short lived.

  Before I knew what was happening, Alan’s cake-covered face was on mine, and he was kissing me. Cake, and all. Laying on the grass.

  Stunned wasn’t a strong enough word. Shocked and appalled was a better description. I heard the amused gasps of the crowd, and I pushed at him but the angle and positioning was so odd I had no leverage.

  “Alan, stop!”

  Then weight was lifted. In the span of five seconds, Nick was looming over us, free of his leg ties with Katrina, a murderous look on his face and Alan in his hands as if he were nothing more than a heavy pillow.

  There was a snap and I was free of my ties as well, and I rolled to the other side as Nick hauled Alan up against an electrical post.

  “That’s the last straw, man,” Nick hissed through his teeth. “You and your psycho wife stay the fuck away from us. And if I ever see you put your hands on my wife again, I will break every one of your fingers. Do you understand me?”

  “Your wife,” Alan drawled. “Please. You didn’t even know Lanie a month ago. Don’t act all noble.”

  I was on my feet as I heard the words, and a sick dread went down my spine. You didn’t even know Lanie a month ago. Nick didn’t seem to be affected by it however, as he pulled him off the post and pushed him into it again.

  “Don’t speak her name,” Nick seethed. “Don’t breathe her name. Treating her like this and what you’re trying to do to her, you’re lucky I don’t beat the shit out of you right here.”

  The goose bumps. They took over. The protectiveness coming off him like sonar was unreal.

  “Nick, he’s drunk,” I said, touching his arm. He was as hard as steel.

  “I know,” Nick growled. He dropped him and backed away. “He’s not worth it.” He turned to me then, his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I whispered as thunder rumbled again, closer, and the sun disappeared behind a dark cloud. “Let’s go.”

  But we only made it four steps when we heard the yell. The sound of a stupid, inebriated man, charging his prey and announcing it like a screaming banshee. The whole thing lasted seconds but I saw it in slow motion. Nick shoved me sideways, spun in place, and met Alan’s open roaring mouth with his fist.

  “There’s no such thing as almost. If you get to almost, it’s done in your head.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alan’s head popped back, his feet went out from under him, and down he went on the grass, blood gushing from his upper lip and Katrina shrieking at his side.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth as the crowd did a collective chorus of gasps and cries, and Mayor Dean leaped in out of nowhere to work crowd control and hold a hand up in front of Nick.

  “Go home, man,” Dean said.

  “That’s what I was doing,” Nick said, his lip curling.

  “I know,” Dean said, nodding. “Just go.”

  “He hit me!” Alan yelled, blood dripping from his mouth as he sat up, Katrina kneeling beside him. “He’s a fraud and he threatened me! You all heard it!”

  Several of the people watching waved a hand at him and walked away, disgusted with his behavior. And even Dean picked him up and muttered for him to shut up.

  “Lanie, you okay?” Dean asked me.

  I nodded and went through the motions of cleaning myself up from the cake fiasco, shaking from Nick’s words, from his coming to my rescue. No one had ever done that before.

  Nick stood like a statue on fire, anger radiating off him. When the crowd was gone, and it was just him and me, he finally met my eyes.

  We both heard the things Alan had said, and that wasn’t good. Even if Alan was a blowhard and no one believed him, the digging would start. Something needed to happen.

  Something already was.

  My gaze fell to his hand, and I reached for it. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, pulling it back.

  “Nick—”

  “I’m done with this today,” Nick said. “With this place and this town and—I’m going back to the house.”

  “Wait for me,” I said, my mind reeling. “Let me—”

  “Take your time,” he said, holding up a hand half-heartedly. “A few minutes by myself walking home will do me good.”

  I watched him walk off, slinging cake from his hands as he did and flexing the fingers he’d hit Alan with. He was pissed, or upset, or—just tired. I could understand that. I was too. I was exhausted f
rom this game. From always having to be on and pretending.

  I cleaned myself up and started walking home, just as the first drops fell from the sky. Oh, the drama that could have been saved if that would have just come around ten minutes earlier.

  By the time I reached Aunt Ruby’s front porch, it was a full white-out, and I was clean of all things cake-related. I didn’t care how soaked I was. All I could think about and see over and over, was Nick hauling Alan off me. Defending me with his words, defending his wife, churning inside me so deeply I had to wrap my arms around myself to contain it. All because of this place. This house. Because of me.

  I looked up at the sky, at the raindrops coming from what looked like infinity, and felt the heat behind my eyes join the trouble in my chest.

  “Why?” I asked softly, blinking against the rain. “Why are you making all of this so hard?” A sob shook me as the warm rain mixed with my hot tears. “What did I ever do but try to make you happy?”

  No epiphanies came. No intuition. Aunt Ruby left me high and dry. Here’s your house, child, but only if you jump through fifty different hoops and cartwheel down the street every day. But hey, the wooden spools and the carnival glass is my treat.

  I left my shoes on the porch, and walked in, noting that Nick had left the front door unlocked for me. I peeled off my shorts in the living room, not even caring that he was there somewhere. I was too tired to care. Too exhausted to play the charade right now. And too annoyed to be modest. I yanked my wet T-shirt over my head as I topped the stairs and buried my face in it, dropping it when I heard the bathroom door.

  Nick in a towel.

  Of course he was.

  His expression looked as beat up as I felt, but his eyes took me in in my tiny but plain white undies and bra, soaked to probably see-through. One look at my face, however, and Nick’s demeanor changed.

  He reached for me immediately, pulling me into his arms, and the warmth of his skin against mine took my breath.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his mouth against my hair. “I shouldn’t have left you there.”

  I shook my head, unable—or unwilling—to form words while my face was against his chest. One hand came up under my wet hair and the other trailed patterns down my back.

  “You did nothing wrong,” I said, my voice a whisper against his wet skin. “I’m just—”

  I had no idea what I was. The feel of his hands moving on my body again made my head all foggy, and the ratio of underwear to towel was calling to me. My fingernails dragged themselves up his back of their own accord. I couldn’t help myself. He was—he was—oh God, he felt amazing.

  His response was even better, splaying both hands down my back to my ass, squeezing me against him and then moving up to my head and cradling it as he pressed his lips to my hair, my forehead, down over my eyes.

  “Lanie,” he whispered against my cheek. “Tell me what you need, baby.”

  Everything inside and out turned hot and liquid at that sentence.

  “You,” I breathed, dragging my lips along his jaw.

  Nick pulled my face back to meet my gaze, his eyes heavy with need, with desire, with places we didn’t go.

  “I’m yours.”

  His mouth landed on mine with a hunger we hadn’t tapped into yet as he backed me into the wall. Last night was about tasting, exploring. Now it was—it was just on. Like a fucking freight train with no brakes, kind of on. It was everything we said we shouldn’t do, diving into each other, pushing every boundary. I didn’t care. I wanted him. I wanted this man like I’d never wanted anyone in my life. I wanted more. I wanted all of him.

  One flick of his fingers and my bra was gone, replaced by his hands, caressing my breasts and rolling my nipples between his fingers. I groaned as his kisses traveled down to meet them, sucking, licking, his mouth making love to my breasts.

  “God, you taste so fucking sweet.”

  “Come here,” I gasped, pulling him back up. I tugged at his towel and it dropped at our feet and in less than a second he was in my hands, huge and hard.

  A guttural roar shook his body at my touch, sending every ounce of blood in my body to one hot burning place. He slammed a hand against the wall as if to hold himself up. “Fuck, Lanie, what you do to me.”

  “I need you,” I begged, stroking him against me.

  “You have no idea,” he said against my neck, his hands traveling me again as if they might not get another chance.

  Then I left the ground. I wrapped my legs around him as he lifted me effortlessly, not caring where we were going. He could have taken me to the roof for all I cared. I just wanted this. All of it. When he sat down on his bed, pulling my legs tighter around him, I moaned into his mouth, moving against him.

  His fingers dug into the soft flesh of my hips as I moved, guiding me; one thin little strip of panties was all that kept him from pushing inside me.

  I was about to go off the fucking rails. Shaking with need, every nerve ending in my body reaching for this man who was driving me to the brink of insanity. My fingers twisted in his wet hair, pulling him impossibly tighter, kissing him with all I had as we moved against each other in the tease from hell.

  I pulled back and held his face in my hands.

  “Please.”

  It barely held sound.

  It didn’t need to.

  In the time it took to blink, Nick wrapped an arm around me and had me on my back, his eyes boring into mine with something—something that made my skin tingle. Something beyond the dance our bodies were doing. Something I couldn’t look away from if I tried, until he did. And that was only because he curled two fingers into my panties and was sliding them down, then standing at the edge of the bed with the world’s most glorious hard-on.

  “God, you’re beautiful, lying there,” he said, almost to himself, as if it wasn’t meant to be out loud. Which hit my heart and brought prickles to my skin.

  His fingers ran up my calf as he crawled up my body. “Goose bumps.”

  The trail of flames his fingers left behind made my toes curl under.

  “You do that to me,” I whispered, my breaths shallow and fast as he dropped light kisses on his way up and I reached for him. I needed to feel him on me, in me, over me—like now.

  His eyes met mine as if no one had ever told him that before, and that was inconceivable. He was breathtaking. He was maddening.

  He was mine.

  Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as that thought landed hard. As his mouth covered mine and a hand cupped my face as the other one lifted my leg. He was mine. Nick was mine as he touched me, making me arch into him, mine as he poised himself to join me. His ass was in my hands, and I was ready to pull him inside.

  When the doorbell rang.

  * * *

  Really?

  Ralph howled.

  Let them go away.

  That’s what his eyes were saying as the same thought played in my head. Potentially the hottest sex I’d ever had was about to unfold, and a visitor was the last thing I needed. Maybe it was the doorbell going out. Or Aunt Ruby trying to be funny.

  It rang again. Ralph set up a barking frenzy like it was the second coming. Damn it, it was a person.

  “Expecting someone?” he asked.

  “Not ever, for the rest of my life,” I said, pulling his face back down to mine.

  Our lips had just touched when it went off again. This time in a cute chopsticks pattern. Which froze his progression. The deepening of the line above his nose told me volumes. Namely that we weren’t letting whoever it was go away.

  “Hold on,” Nick said, rolling off of me, and then rolling back. “Don’t move. Don’t change a thing. Please.” He kissed me. “I’ll be right back.”

  He got up and grabbed a pair of jeans from a chair and pulled them on commando. Somehow that was even hotter than the sight of him naked. Maybe because I could see myself sliding my hands down those jeans to take them off in a f
ew minutes.

  I heard his quick footsteps on the stairs and smiled as I thought of him turning someone away so he could come back up there and ravage his wife.

  His wife.

  That kept wrapping around me like a warm—

  Female laughter broke my thoughts, and I sat up. I heard the rumble of Nick’s voice and then the female voice again. No more barking. I scrambled off the bed in a panic. Who the hell? Carmen? No, it didn’t sound like her. The only other woman I could imagine just dropping by would be—ugh, Katrina. But she wouldn’t be laughing with him right now. Not after he just socked the shit out of her husband for mauling me.

  Still, he wasn’t coming right back, so he knew her.

  I ran down the short hall to my room and snatched my white robe off the back of my door. The one I stole last year from a fancy hotel and then had to pay $80 for, but hardly ever wore. It seemed like an appropriate time.

  Wrapping it around myself, feeling kind of pleased with the thought that Nick would know I was naked underneath all the fluff, I finger-combed out my wet hair and sauntered down the stairs.

  And stopped midway.

  A stunning brunette woman was hugging Nick around his shirtless torso, her head thrown back in that effortless hair-tossing way that some women have, looking up at him adoringly.

  My breath froze in my throat, and my fingertips went numb. I didn’t know her, but he did. I didn’t know her, but I’d seen her before. In the pictures on his phone.

  Tara.

  Random thoughts pinged through my brain, with no logical progression or connection.

  Tara was here. In our house. In my house. Funny how it just became my house again. He told her where we live. She has sex hair. The bitch has sex hair. And better boobs than me. Did she tell anyone? She’s the one that always got under his skin. Under his skin.

  And fuck if that wasn’t the thing that lodged in my throat and threatened to take me down in a chokehold. This was the woman he couldn’t forget, the love of his life, the mother of his child, the one that he could never quite shake, that he kept coming back to. She looked like a million bucks in tailored capris and a blingy fitted T-shirt that most definitely was not purchased at Target. With skin that most definitely had a more expensive care regimen than Noxzema pads and Oil of Olay.