Once in the family room, she fed her GloFish and debated grabbing a snack to nibble on while she wound down with a movie or TV show. Perhaps some ice cream?
Nope, she mentally lectured. You’re eating healthier, remember?
Right. Maybe some berries then? She had some delicious strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries in the fridge.
She nodded. That sounded great.
Drawing back the blinds that covered the sliding glass doors, she peeked out at the back patio. Bright solar-powered floodlights illuminated a neat cement slab decorated with an abundance of potted plants.
Her eyes fell on her pepper plants, then narrowed. “Damn it!”
She stomped into the kitchen, yanked her keys off the hook above the junk drawer, and headed into the laundry room. After tugging her jogging shoes on over her fuzzy socks, she unlocked the back door and headed outside.
A cool breeze brushed her hair back from her face and raised chill bumps on her bare arms. She’d forgotten temperatures were actually nice for a change tonight. Houston didn’t get much in the way of autumn or winter anymore, just occasional half-assed cool fronts that only made temperatures dip for a day or two before it became shorts weather again.
Oh well. At least yoga pants covered her legs.
She crossed to her veggie plants, then leaned over the bell peppers in search of her prey. “Aha! I knew it!” A large snail munched away at a leaf, having already eaten every damned flower on the plant and clearing one limb. “You’re going to pay for that, you little bastard.”
She grabbed it by the shell and tugged, grimacing when it stuck to the plant.
“Damn, Nick,” a woman said. “What’d you do to piss off Kayla?”
She froze and looked at her neighbor’s fence.
A low masculine chuckle floated on the night, doing funny things to her insides.
“Nothing, I hope,” a male replied, his voice carrying a faint French accent. Grass crunched as footsteps approached the five-foot fence.
When a handsome face appeared above it, butterflies filled her belly.
Nick Belanger smiled at her, his brown eyes glinting with amusement in the ambient illumination cast by the floodlights. “Everything okay?”
Straightening, she returned his smile and held up the snail. “Yes. Just stopping this little bugger. He and his buddies keep devouring my pepper plants.”
He grinned. Damn, he was handsome. Not in a pretty-boy way, but in a ruggedly masculine way. His short black hair was slicked back from his face, still wet from a recent shower. His strong jaw bore a five-o’clock shadow. His straight white teeth provided sharp contrast to the dark stubble that coated his cheeks.
She’d been attracted to him ever since she had moved next door to him six years ago.
Two small hands gripped the top of the fence beside him. A moment later, a lovely woman stepped up onto the horizontal brace on the other side and peered over the top of the fence. “Hi, Kayla.”
“Hi.” Reality crashed down, making a mockery of every fantasy she’d woven around Nick.
Eliana’s long black hair was slicked back from her face like his. Clearly, the two had just showered together.
Kayla envied the woman that. Nick had a fantastic body—broad shoulders with plenty of muscle to enable him to lift a woman up and pin her to the wall as he drove into her. Eliana was his perfect counterpart. The woman’s pale, porcelain skin practically glowed and lacked the freckles that peppered Kayla’s. Her brown eyes sparkled with warmth. Her full lips stretched in a friendly smile.
And while Kayla and the other woman were built the same—petite, slender, lightly muscled with full breasts and rounded hips—Eliana appeared to be at least ten years younger than Kayla’s thirty-eight years.
“Whatcha killing?” Eliana asked.
“Snails.” Dropping her slimy nemesis, Kayla crunched it under her boot. “They keep eating my pepper plants.”
Eliana nodded. “They’ve been really bad at my place, too. I think it might be because so many of the frogs have died off.”
“You noticed that, too?” The frog population seemed to get smaller and smaller each year. The damned mosquitoes and other insects were loving it.
As if on cue, a hungry mosquito landed on Kayla’s arm. She smacked it.
Eliana smiled. “Hey, would you like to join us?”
Surprised by the invitation, Kayla glanced at Nick in time to see him send Eliana an indecipherable look from the corner of his eye. “Oh. No, thank you. It’s late. And I wouldn’t want to in—”
“You wouldn’t be intruding. We were just going to snag something to eat and see if we can find something to watch on TV.”
Nick nodded. “It won’t be anything fancy. I’d offer you something better, but Oliver is out of town, and I didn’t cook tonight.”
Oliver was Nick’s best friend. When she had first moved in, Kayla had believed the two were a gay couple until Becca had mentioned Oliver having a girlfriend. They hadn’t seen Nick with a woman (hence the rampant fantasies Kayla had fabricated around his handsome ass) until Eliana started coming around.
“Please,” Eliana coaxed. “I’m around men all the time when I work and could use a break from the testosterone.”
Kayla smiled but hesitated nevertheless. She didn’t want to be a third wheel.
“If you don’t,” Eliana added with a mischievous glance at the tall man beside her, “I’m going to make Nick sit through another Gilmore Girls marathon.”
Nick’s eyes widened and fixed on Kayla with feigned dismay. “Please join us.”
She laughed. “Okay.” Might as well. She had nothing else to do. “Let me change first.”
Eliana waved a hand. “No need. We’re in our slouchy clothes. You’re perfect as you are. Meet me at the gate.” She disappeared from view.
Nick smiled. “You are perfect. See you in a minute.” Then he, too, disappeared.
Kayla stared at the fence, bemused.
Nick thought she was perfect?
After taking a minute to lock her back door, Kayla headed for the gate on the side closest to Nick’s. It released a loud groan as she opened it. She could probably get rid of that with a little WD-40 but had opted not to so she would hear it if anyone tried to open it.
Her damn ex-husband had tried to sneak in the back a few times after she’d moved here. And that creaky groan had worked well as an alarm.
As she closed the gate, the one on Nick’s side opened and Eliana stepped out.
“Good to see you again,” Eliana said with a smile and drew Kayla into a hug. She was so nice. Even Becca, who had briefly borne a deep crush on Nick, had been unable to dislike her despite the jealousy she inspired.
“Good to see you, too. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose. “Work has had me bouncing back and forth from here to Austin.” She ushered Kayla into Nick’s backyard and closed the gate. “Wow. You are rocking that tank top, girl.”
Kayla shot Nick a look. Surprise rushed through her when she caught him staring at her breasts. She glanced down and noted the hard peaks the cool breeze had made prominent beneath the cotton material of the tank and her thin bra. Heat flooded her face. “Thank you. You’re rocking that crop top.”
Eliana’s short-sleeved black top boasted a V-neckline and left a strip of lightly muscled flesh at her midriff bare. “Thanks. I’m lucky I had a spare set of clothes in my car. We both got muddied up at work, and Nick was kind enough to let me use his shower.”
“Oh.” She glanced at Nick, who waited on his barren back patio with his hands tucked in his pockets. Eliana made it sound as if they had showered separately. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked what line of work you’re in.” Or how it got them muddy. She vaguely recalled Nick mentioning something about security and had pictured him as a guard of some sort.
“Global security,” Eliana responded with a smile. “I can’t tell you who we were protecting tonight, but some assholes th
ought they could take our clients out, and proving they couldn’t got a bit messy.”
Kayla wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Global security? Take them out? As in kill?
Were Nick and Eliana part of one of those high-end security firms that protected executives and billionaires and the like? Had someone tried to kill one of their clients? Did that sort of thing happen often? She hadn’t realized Nick had such a dangerous job.
She sent him a questioning look.
Before he could respond, Eliana said, “Nick, you should ask Kayla to help you do something about this backyard because… damn.”
Kayla bit back a laugh. There wasn’t a single potted plant on the back patio, just a table with four comfy chairs. The large oak tree in the center of the yard thrived. But the grass beneath it was spotty. And there weren’t any shrubs or flowering plants to draw the eye aside from the weeds that thrived in long-abandoned flowerbeds.
“Seriously,” Eliana continued. “Did you see Kayla’s backyard? It’s beautiful! I’m going to start hanging out over there if you don’t fix yours up.”
Nick’s handsome features contorted in a grimace as he glanced around. “Yeah. It is pretty pathetic back here. But Oliver doesn’t have a green thumb and I have no idea what kind of plants do well in this region.”
Eliana rolled her eyes. “You’ve been here like ten years.”
He arched a brow. “And you’ve been here two. Can you tell me which plants can survive the long droughts, the extreme heat, and whatever level of sun and shade each of the flowerbeds receives?”
“Hell no.”
Kayla laughed. “I’d be happy to help if you’re really interested in sprucing things up back here. I like gardening. It relaxes me.”
Nick grinned. “Except when snails devour your hard work?”
“Exactly.”
“I’d like that. Thank you. Now that temperatures are cooling down a bit, I enjoy sitting outside and winding down after a long night’s work. It would be nice to have some color to enjoy when I do.”
A black cat appeared atop the back fence and began slinking its way across the planks’ edges. When Eliana made kissy noises to try to draw it closer, it froze, stared at them a long moment, then scurried to the far side and ducked out of sight.
Eliana laughed. “Not very friendly, is he?”
Kayla smiled. “He’s a stray. I think the neighborhood kids torment him, so he tends to keep his distance.”
“Poor little guy.”
Nick opened the back door and motioned for them to enter.
Kayla stepped inside his home for the first time.
Wow. It was the polar opposite of his backyard. And much nicer than her own. She glanced around. Either Nick or the previous owner had put some serious work into updating the place. Beautiful wood floors that she thought might be bamboo shone beneath her sneakers. His kitchen had definitely been expanded and boasted gorgeous granite countertops and a large island with barstools pulled up to it. Appliances that looked as though they cost as much as Becca’s tuition gleamed in the bright overhead lights.
The living room looked just as high-end. The large open space was dominated by a sofa so huge that she suspected she’d look like a child if she sat on it. Would feel like one, too. But damn, it looked comfortable. A matching ottoman nearly the size of a single bed was parked in front of it. A large flat-screen television hung on the opposite wall.
The other walls drew her gaze. Even the artwork appealed to her. Modern paintings bursting with color joined framed sketches so detailed they could’ve been photographs. She wished she could have such awesome art hanging on her walls. But anything that good would be way beyond her budget.
Eliana and Nick entered behind her.
Kayla glanced up at him and told the butterflies in her stomach to simmer the hell down. He was so close she could feel his heat and catch his scent. No cologne. Just Nick. “You have a lovely home.”
He smiled. “Thank you. It used to belong to a friend of mine. I bought it when he moved to North Carolina.”
She studied the paintings that graced the walls. “I love the artwork.”
“You do?” He seemed particularly pleased by that.
Eliana chuckled and nudged her with a shoulder. “Nick painted those.”
Kayla stared up at him, eyes wide, totally impressed. “You did? They’re fantastic.”
His smile widened into a charming grin that carried just a touch of aw, shucks. “Thank you. I’m glad you like them.”
“Did you do the sketches, too?”
He nodded.
“Wow. You are really talented.”
“Yes, he is,” Eliana agreed, then narrowed her eyes at him. “So why does every sketch you do of me end up looking more like a caricature?”
He laughed. “You can blame Max for that. He wanted to see how long it would take you to say something.”
Eliana rolled her eyes. “I should’ve known. That man loves to aggravate me.”
Nick chuckled as he headed into the kitchen. “Is fruit okay, or would you like something more substantial to eat?”
Eliana arched her brows at Kayla.
She smiled. “Fruit sounds good.”
“For me, too,” Eliana called, then lowered her voice. “Let’s go claim our places on the sofa before Nick sits his big behemoth ass down and takes up all the room.”
“I heard that,” he called from the kitchen.
“I notice you aren’t denying it,” Eliana said on a laugh as she guided Kayla over to the sofa and sat on one end. “Is this thing huge or what?” She patted the cushion in the middle. “Have a seat.”
Wondering what Nick would think about having to sit beside her instead of Eliana, Kate perched on the edge of the cushion. “Oh wow. This is ridiculously comfortable.”
“I know, right?”
“I could sleep on this sofa.”
“I have slept on this sofa. Scoot all the way back.”
When Kayla did so, her feet dangled quite a distance above the floor.
Eliana did the same. “I swear it makes me feel like a five-year-old sitting in her dad’s favorite chair.”
Kayla laughed, wondering if Eliana had slept on this sofa with Nick. “So, who is Max?”
“The man I live with,” she replied with a smile. “I love him to pieces, but he lives to tease me.”
Kayla glanced over her shoulder at Nick, who was pouring fresh blueberries into bowls. “Aren’t you and Nick…?”
Eliana waved a hand. “Nah. We’re just friends. He’s more like a pain-in-the-ass big brother.”
Nick approached, balancing three bowls heaped with blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries.
He likes the same snacks I do! a little voice inside whispered with glee.
He shot Eliana the stink eye as he set the bowls on a wooden tray resting on the ottoman. “I heard that, too.”
Eliana winked. “And you aren’t denying that either.”
“Because you’re a force of nature, and I’m too tired to battle you tonight.”
Eliana shot a fist into the air. “Yes! Girl power!”
Laughing, he headed back into the kitchen and returned with three glasses of ice water. Kayla’s heart began to race when he settled himself beside her.
He didn’t sit way on the end of the incredibly long sofa. He sat near enough for his arm to brush hers every time he moved.
She drew in a subtle breath. He smelled so good. Looked good, too. Positively edible.
Unlike her and Eliana, he had no trouble planting his feet on the floor when he sat back, knees splayed. The muscles in those long legs flexed beneath his cargo pants as he shifted and reached for the remote on the ottoman.
“So what are we watching tonight?” He glanced at Kayla.
Her mind went blank. She’d been so focused on being this close to him for the first time that…
Wow. He was really big, wasn’t he? Her ex had been five feet, seven inches tall. And though he had
been pretty buff—something she supposed had aided him in attracting all of the women he’d cheated with—he had never made her feel so petite by comparison. Nick’s shoulders were deliciously broad and muscular. His ab muscles rippled beneath the tight T-shirt he wore. Even his beard stubble appealed to her.
He stared at her expectantly.
Oh crap. What had he asked her? “Um…”
“Have you ever watched Luther?” Eliana asked.
Kayla tore her gaze away from Nick. Right. They were trying to decide on a show to watch. “No.”
“Then let’s watch that.” Eliana sighed and stared up at the ceiling with a dreamy smile. “I love Idris Elba. He plays Luther in this and reminds me so much of David.”
Nick aimed the remote at the television and started pressing buttons. “Except David maintains a much stronger hold on his temper than Luther does.”
Eliana snorted as she reached for a bowl. “Thank goodness. That man can do some damage when he lets loose.” She popped a blackberry into her mouth. “Mmm. So sweet. Try one, Kayla.”
Kayla leaned forward and picked up a bowl, then scooted back again.
Nick glanced at her feet dangling above the floor and grinned. “You two are so small. I love it. Want me to bring the ottoman closer?”
He liked that they were small? “Yes, please.”
Eliana shook her head. “We aren’t small. You’re a giant.”
“I’m not a giant. I’m six one. Seth is a giant.”
“Hell yes, he is,” Eliana agreed. “I’m only nipple high on that man.”
Kayla laughed. “How tall is he?”
She smiled. “Six eight.”
“Wow. Nipple high sounds about right.” Kayla’s breath caught when Nick slipped a strong arm beneath her calves and lifted her feet up. All kinds of tingles raced through her while he dragged the ottoman close enough for her to prop her feet on it.
“How’s that?” he asked as he lowered her feet and withdrew his touch.
“Great. Thanks.” She sounded normal, right? She didn’t sound like she wanted him to slip his hands under the hem of her yoga pants and slide those long fingers up her bare legs, did she? Because she totally wanted him to slip those big hands of his under the hem of her yoga pants and caress his way up her calves.
Broken Dawn (Immortal Guardians Book 10) Page 3