“No. You stay here for a minute.”
I checked the house. In corners and under furniture (meticulously clean). Behind curtains and in the cabinets (neat and organized). Her spare room was unoccupied. Bed (made), night tables (ballerina statue and lamp) where they should be. The closet was empty of anything but winter coats and shoes. I checked the safety of her bathroom. Jack and Jill. Accessible from both bedrooms. Bathtub empty. The window was locked. The shower rod had underwear hanging from it. Her underwear.
Was it normal that I wanted to sniff her panties?
No, that was not normal.
I backed away from the underwear and into her bedroom. It looked exactly like her bedroom was supposed to look. Queen-size bed with a blue floral duvet. Thick area rug. Pale wood dresser. Closet that smelled like lemongrass. Locked sliding doors that led out to the little yard. I could see the bed in the glass’s reflection.
I could really fuck her senseless on that bed. I could make her grip those blue flowers so hard the petals fell off.
In the reflection, I saw her peek in the door. “Well?”
I felt as if I’d been caught with my pants around my ankles and my hands around my dick. I cleared my throat as if that would get the filthy thoughts out of my head, but it did nothing at all but rattle my throat.
“You’re all locked up.”
“Good.” She kept her gaze everywhere but on me, tucking her hair behind her ear. The cuff of my jacket brushed up against her cheek, and she reacted with a smile. “I forgot.” She slipped off the jacket. “Thank you.”
She held it out for me. We met in the middle of the room, both our hands on my jacket. Her bed was behind her, and her brown eyes were wide and expectant.
“Can you unzip me?” she asked with her hand over the red marks on her chest.
“Sure.”
She turned, pulling her hair to the front. My hand on her shoulder, my other hand clasping the zipper, I opened up a V of skin to my touch. I couldn’t help what I did next; or I could have but didn’t know how, or didn’t think of it, or just kicked my good habits to the curb and locked the door. I drew the zipper down slowly, letting a finger drop below the teeth to stroke the skin.
I don’t think my dick had ever been that hard. Ever.
“Carter,” she said. I’d gotten to the center of her back when she said my name.
“Yes?”
“Did you want to check the back gate?”
“Yes.” I laid my lips on her shoulder. She tasted like her closet. Sweet lemongrass. Yes, I had to check the back gate, but the texture of her skin was like a magnet, and the way she put her head back and sucked in her breath, pushing her body against me, got my cock thinking instead of my head.
I pushed her dress over her shoulders, and she turned. All my alarm bells went off. She was a yes. It was go time. Eyes open wide. Lips slightly apart. Chin tilted up. Hands keeping her dress barely over her breasts.
“Kiss me first,” she said.
CHAPTER 18
EMILY
The first time he’d kissed me, it had been unexpected, unformed. It had been a first practice before we knew all the steps. This time he took it slow, brushing his lips over mine, only enough to waken the nerve endings. I pushed harder against him until I could feel the shape of his jaw when he opened his mouth, prying mine open to meet him.
He was a wave, a tsunami drowning me. My whole body tingled for him. My blood pumped fire from heart to fingertips, igniting on his gunpowder smell. Smoke and electric air. Fifth of July. New Year’s Day. The air after the fireworks at Santa Monica Pier. The explosive potential of combustion and danger. His tongue probed the mouth of a body alive and crackling for him. My resistance went pop pop pop, leaving the white smoke of desire in the air.
My arms were around him, and I was lost. My dress was around my waist, held up between our bodies. His hands were at my lower back. I shifted my body so I could feel his erection. I groaned into his mouth.
A sound outside. A crack or a snap. He pulled away violently and pushed me down. I hit the rug with the top of my marked dress bunched around my waist.
Carter shut the lights. I could see the entire backyard.
“Stay down.”
In half a second, he was gone.
I didn’t know what was going on. He’d left the bedroom sliding doors locked and gone out either the front or side door. I couldn’t see him in the yard. Just the leaves on the lawn furniture and the shadows of the big ficus that took up half the space. The front door of the garage was bright red and made me think again of the X on my white dress.
Nothing happened. I laid there forever, listening to my breath against the rug, waiting.
Carter was outside because of me. I didn’t have to be afraid for him, but I was.
I’d met Peter in the ER after Vince broke his nose. He wasn’t an asshole about it. He didn’t blame me, but he was a guy in glasses who’d worked his way up to the executive offices at Overland Studios from the mailroom. He had a communications degree from Michigan. He wasn’t an athlete or a fighter. He was the kind of guy who would make you laugh, put you at ease, and move so slowly to get what he wanted that by the time he asked for it, you threw it at him. And that was just what his boss at Overland said. I was pretty sure everything I liked about him had made him an easy target.
Vince had come from behind Peter with no warning. Carter wouldn’t let that happen. But if Vince was prepared to attack and Carter was distracted? That was an ambush, and it wasn’t fair.
And if Vince thought Carter was that much more of a threat than the sweet, artsy Peter, he was going to hit harder.
The motion-sensor lights flicked out, and the room was totally dark again.
My heart started pounding as I thought of Carter’s head snapping back from a crack to the face or him falling forward from a surprise blow from behind.
And. No.
No, not again. I wasn’t going to be the reason someone got attacked.
I got up and darted for the back doors. My dress fell, exposing me. I got my left hand through an armhole while I used the right to slide open the door.
I stepped onto the patio in my stockinged feet. Twigs and leaves snapped under me. The light from the studio went back on.
This was stupid. I was walking right into danger.
I put my hand through the right armhole and took a step down, leaving the glass door open in case I needed to run back inside.
On the other side of the hedges and cinder block wall, the traffic on Olympic was quieter than usual. I pushed the dress back up. Without the zipper to hold it, the shoulders kept sliding down.
“Hey!” A male figure on the edge of my vision.
My heart stopped. Or maybe it thumped too hard. But it hurt, and I sucked in a bunch of air as if it was my last breath. I snapped my head to the sound and stepped back.
“Carter! You scared the hell out of me.”