Indecent Read online

  Her heart gave such a hard squeeze she nearly gasped.

  “Don’t treat me like a child, Colin.”

  “I’m not treating you like a child. I’m a man who would like to have an issue addressed and I’m calmly asking you to address it. Why didn’t you use the key?”

  She stared at him, realizing he wasn’t going to give up until he got an answer.

  So she gave him the only one she had.

  “I didn’t want to use the damn key, that’s why.

  Is that enough for you?”

  She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, curving one of her legs under herself.

  “And the reasoning behind that…?”

  “Because I didn’t feel comfortable coming in here when you weren’t home, Colin. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Why? What could you do while I wasn’t here that you couldn’t while I am?”

  She made a scoffing sound. “You’d be surprised.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, then asked, “What are you saying? That you might be tempted into doing something I wouldn’t like if I left you here by yourself?”

  “Now you’re putting words into my mouth.”

  Frustration bracketed his sexy mouth. “Well, somebody has to, because you’re not offering any up.”

  Lucky looked at him long and hard. Colin McKenna touched her in ways she couldn’t begin to describe. Along with being the sexiest guy she’d ever met, he didn’t pass judgment on her because of their differences. He was generous to a fault.

  And he’d given her the key to his place—even if it was for a single use—mere days after they’d first slept together.

  But she could do without the third degree. She liked having to worry only about herself. And she didn’t particularly like when others started butting into her business.

  She fidgeted, feeling more than a little agitated. “What is it with shrinks and their habit of talking everything to death?”

  He didn’t even blink in the face of the criticism. “What is it with beautiful stubborn women afraid to share how they’re feeling?”

  She held his straight gaze for a long moment, and then a smile began working its way up from her heart to her mouth. “Touché. I guess I deserved that one.”

  His return grin eased her ruffled feathers. “While I, on the other hand, didn’t deserve the shrink jibe.” He put his hand on her knee.

  The movement was so natural, so unaffected, that her stomach pitched to somewhere in the vicinity of her feet.

  It made her want to coax the skillful limb a little farther to the north. If only to chase away the unwanted thoughts clouding her mind and help her focus on something else.

  She briefly closed her eyes. “What if I told you I didn’t use your key today because…because it…this…is moving too fast for me?”

  The fingers on her knee tightened.

  He didn’t answer so she cracked open her eyes, half expecting him to call her a liar.

  Instead, he nodded, appearing unhappy with the question but open to it. “Then I’d have to accept that’s how you feel.”

  Lucky maneuvered herself on the sofa until she was curved against his side. Both of them stared at the opposite wall, their fingers intertwined on her knee.

  She wasn’t sure how he knew, but she was fully aware that he realized her answer wasn’t the true reason why she hadn’t used his key earlier, why she had waited until now to come over so she wouldn’t have to use it.

  But she was grateful that he didn’t pursue the matter.

  Maybe it was because he sensed that to pursue it would be to end it.

  “You know,” he said quietly, rubbing his temple against her hair, “I’ve been looking forward to this moment all this day. This time when I could see you again…touch you.”

  Lucky took a deep breath and smiled into the side of his neck.

  “Me, too,” she admitted, surprised by how easily the admission came…and how outside the norm it was for her.

  And how very much she wanted to have this man inside her again, stroking her until the out side world no longer existed.

  She got up and held her hand out to him.

  He hesitated, then put his into it, allowing her to lead him to the bedroom, the imminent pizza delivery, and the key momentarily forgotten.

  Momentarily…

  COLIN AWOKE to the smell of bacon frying.

  Sure he was imagining things, he rolled over and groaned into his pillow, only then realizing something was missing from the bed.

  Lucky.

  He reached for the alarm clock that sat face down on his nightstand and squinted at the time. Just after nine.

  Just after nine?

  He pushed up to his elbow then ran his hand over his hair and face several times. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept past seven, even on a Saturday morning. By now he would have been out for his morning run, had his breakfast, read the Toledo Blade and The Wall Street Journal, and would have been on his way to whatever he had on tap for this morning.

  Which happened to be tennis with Will.

  He reached for the cordless receiver on the bedside table and pressed the speed dial for his friend.

  “You’re late,” Will said without preamble.

  Colin grinned as he swung his feet over the side of the bed. “Actually, I’m not late yet.”

  “‘Yet’ being code for you’re not on your way here, I take it?”

  “Mmm. Let me call you back in a half hour.”

  “Well, what in the hell does that mean?”

  “It means what it means.”

  “Well, holy hell, Colin, how long do you expect me to wait?”

  He sensed he was no longer alone and looked toward the door to find Lucky standing in it wearing nothing but the barbecue apron his ex-fiancée had bought for him as a housewarming gift. It said, Master Of All Things Hot.

  Colin suddenly had a hard time getting his thoughts together as he followed the white shoulder straps to where they just covered Lucky’s bare breasts. Her fiery red hair was slightly damp and framed her face in a riot of sexy curls.

  She held a large metal spatula in her right hand and seemed to indicate, if the need arose, she could use it for something other than turning food.

  “Will, I’ll, um, call you back.”

  “Jesus, Colin, don’t you dare hang up—”

  Colin hung up on him then replaced the receiver on the night table.

  “Will, as in Dr. Will, your obnoxious friend with the British accent from Harry’s?”

  Colin’s throat tightened as she leaned against the doorjamb, causing one of the straps to move slightly right of center allowing her nipple to peek out. “That would, um, be him.” He stared intently into her face. “Come here.”

  Her green eyes twinkled at him naughtily. “I would but I’m afraid I might burn something.”

  “Baby, the only thing burning is me sitting here looking at you looking like that.”

  She laughed, the throaty sound filling the room, the apartment and Colin’s heart with the sweet sound. “Cheesy. Definitely cheesy.”

  “What matters is the end result.”

  She seemed to consider his words, slapping the spatula into her opposite palm, her gaze traveling leisurely over his nude body where he sat on the bed. The word Master printed on the apron made him entertain all sorts of ideas on what he might allow her to be the master of.

  “Over easy or sunny-side up?”

  Colin allowed his mouth to curve into a slow, suggestive smile. “Any which way I can get you.”

  She pointed the spatula at him. “You have a very dirty mind, Dr. McKenna.”

  “That’s because you bring out the best in me.” He waggled his brows, completely aware that another part of his anatomy was making its thoughts known on the subject and that Lucky hadn’t missed that fact. “Or should I say beast?”

  He started to get up, to pull her back into bed and the hell with breakfast, but she quickly t
urned around, laughing as she ran for the kitchen.

  Colin chuckled then sat back down, watching as her delectable bare ass disappeared back into the kitchen.

  He shook his head, having a hard time reconciling the playful, provocative woman of this morning with the closed-off, defensive woman from the night before.

  Ignoring how badly he needed to use the bathroom, and how badly he wanted to follow after Lucky, he lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to superimpose the latest picture of Lucky on top of the one she’d presented last night when he’d repeatedly prompted her for the reason why she hadn’t used his key.

  He hadn’t received the answer; she’d given him a reason.

  He absently rubbed the stubble covering his chin. He couldn’t help feeling that there were a few things Lucky wasn’t sharing with him, and not just because she wouldn’t use his key.

  He forced himself up and off the bed, stepped into the connecting master bath, then braced himself against the wall with one hand as he aimed his stiff member toward the toilet with the other.

  It had been a long, long time since he’d spent this much time with a woman. Since Amanda, actually. He grinned, thinking his ex-fiancée wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing the apron and nothing else, and wondering what she would make of another woman wearing it.

  Lucky…

  Lucky’s mere presence seemed to brighten everything she touched. A man given to routine, he gladly interrupted his schedule in order to accommodate her.

  But was she giving him the same consideration? Or was he, as he was coming to expect, a momentary distraction for her?

  Ten minutes later, showered, shaved and dressed in his tennis whites, he found Lucky in the kitchen. He frowned when he discovered she’d changed from the apron into her clothes. She buttered whole wheat toast, her sensual expression making him think of everything but food.

  Finishing up, she brushed the crumbs from her hands then pointed toward one of the two chairs at the island. “Sit.”

  Colin raised a brow as he did. “Who knew you were so bossy?”

  She brushed against his back as she put a plate of eggs, bacon and homemade hash browns in front of him. “Are you interested in seeing how bossy I can be?”

  Colin always seemed to be in various stages of arousal whenever he was around Lucky—hell, even when he thought about her—and right now an erection tented the front of his shorts.

  He heard her soft laughter in his ear before he felt her tongue along the outer shell. “Looks like you’re not the only one who’s hungry.”

  He reached for her and she easily stepped out of range, smiling as she filled a glass with orange juice then added it to the place setting in front of him.

  Only then did he notice there was only one set ting.

  She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

  “I’ve got to run.”

  Colin knew a disappointment so complete that he felt like a kid whose favorite toy had just been taken away.

  “Where?” he found himself asking, wincing at the slight whine he heard in his voice.

  She hugged him from behind and laughed softly. “To work, of course.”

  She kissed the back of his neck then released him.

  “I’ll see you later?” he asked, again sounding a little too needy for his liking.

  “You’ll see me later.”

  And just like that his apron angel left him sitting alone in the kitchen, his hard-on rivaling the dried Italian sausage hanging in its casing over the island.

  11

  “OH, YOU’VE got it bad.”

  Colin sat back in the lounge chair on Will’s first-floor balcony and stretched his feet out to rest on top of the stone railing. He folded his hands behind his neck and grinned at his unhappy friend across the glass table from him.

  “You’ve got it real bad,” Will concluded.

  “No, buddy,” Colin disagreed. “I think what you meant to say is that I’ve got it good. Real good.”

  And he did. Mostly because when he had finished breakfast and walked back through the living room he’d noticed his apartment key was gone from the coffee table. At first he’d thought Lucky had moved it. But a brief look around had told him it wasn’t just gone from the table, it was gone.

  And he liked that.

  Something resembling a growl came from his friend’s direction.

  Colin chuckled. “I take it that means your new girl from the hospital is sticking to her no-nookie-until-her-wedding-night promise?”

  “You take correctly. In fact, I wish you could take it literally.”

  Will had played like a man dealing with plenty of pent-up sexual frustration on the tennis court today, growing further frustrated still when Colin refused to rise to the challenge.

  “Your Lucky wouldn’t happen to have any friends, now, would she?”

  “And what would your girl have to say?”

  “She’s not my girl,” Will said vehemently.

  “She won’t be my girl until we sleep together. Sleep not being the operative word.” He flopped back in his chair. “I mean, this is such a load of horse crap. It’s not like she’s a virgin. She freely admits that she’s slept with her share of guys before.”

  “Ah, a born-again virgin. Dangerous, those types.”

  “What do you know of it?”

  Colin held his hands up in surrender. “Whoa, buddy, looks like you could do with a bottle of oil and a porn mag. The sooner the better.”

  Will cursed under his breath, something Colin always found amusing when combined with his proper accent. “I haven’t masturbated since I was fifteen years old, for Christ’s sake.”

  Colin cocked a brow. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Since then there’s always been one willing female or another to take care of those needs for me.”

  The midday summer sun was beginning to hit the edge of the balcony. Colin took his feet down from the railing. “And you say I’m the one who’s got it bad. Sounds like bad is exactly the word for what you’ve got.”

  Will shook his head, then began nodding, as if torn between which expression was the right one.

  “I swear, if I don’t get some soon, I’m going to explode.”

  Colin heard the main door of the building open and close, then he idly watched two young women in skimpy bikinis walk by on the path below the balcony, likely heading for the complex pool.

  Will grumbled again. “Then you have her and the other one…”

  “Who?”

  Will jerked an arm toward the women. “The one in the green swimsuit. I’ve been going crazy thinking about her and her roommate in bed together right above me every night.” He was heartily shaking his head. “This morning I think my sheets were wet.”

  Colin made a face. “That’s something I could have gone without knowing.”

  “Tough. I’ve got to put up with you being late for our tennis date because of some floozy who’s good in bed—”

  “Lucky is not a floozy.”

  “You’re missing my point.”

  “That’s because I don’t think you have one.”

  “My point is,” Will said, sitting forward as if getting ready to tell a patient he had a progressive, malignant form of cancer and had no more than a week to live, “you’re getting some and I’m not.”

  “And you don’t like that.”

  Will pointed at him. “Exactly!”

  Colin picked up a towel from the table and tossed it at his friend. “Come on, Casanova, let’s go get cleaned up and get something in your stomach before you melt into a puddle of quivering hormones.”

  “What? It’s only eleven.”

  “And I have an appointment at twelve-thirty.”

  “Oh, you’re just full of all kinds of good news today, aren’t you?” Will glowered. “I take it it’s with her.”

  “I wish. But, no. This appointment is with my attorney.”

  “Your attorney? I don’t know of any attorneys who
keep weekend hours.”

  “Yes, well, my attorney does.”

  “Bully for you.”

  Colin walked back inside the apartment and waited for his friend to follow.

  COLIN FOUND himself whistling an hour and a half later as he left his place after a shower and a change of clothes. He glanced at his watch. He had five minutes to get to his attorney’s office in the nearby Spitzer Building. He thought about walking the distance then remembered his work-outs this morning—and last night—and decided he needed to conserve his energy for Lucky later.

  Earlier he’d parked at the curb for easier access, so when he now exited the front of the building he pressed the button for the door lock release. He was shrugging into the suit jacket he was holding when he got a look at his car.

  Not so much at his car but at what somebody had done to it.

  On the side facing him, he saw a long key mark engraved from the back bumper to the front. His gaze dropped down to the tires to find them slashed down to the rims. Colin’s adrenaline level kicked up a notch as he looked around, spotting nothing and no one out of place. He crouched down to inspect the damage to the front tire, then looked under the car to find the same attention had been given to the other side.

  Jamie.

  It had to be.

  He stood up and fished his cell phone out of his pants pocket. “Jack?” he said when his attorney picked up. “You’re not going to believe this…”

  ACROSS TOWN Lucky was walking back to work after making a run for lunch munchies. She was crunching chips from an open bag she held when she spotted something wrong with her car. The strip mall parking lot was crammed full of cars and hers was caught between a large SUV and a customized van. Across the back in red spray paint was written the word Whore.

  Her mouth dried up, making it a chore to swallow the potato chips she’d barely chewed. Drop ping the remainder of the chips into the grocery bag, she neared the old Chevy, the smell of fresh paint assaulting her nose. She couldn’t remember if she’d looked at the car when she’d gone on the store run.

  Rounding to the driver’s side, she read more words. He’s my man.

  Her heart started pounding in her chest as she backed up and rounded the other side. Stay home!