Heat of the Night (2 page)
How could he be so freaking insulting? At first she’d been hurt and depressed, but after Bryce left the spacious San Francisco condo they’d shared for five years, leaving her alone and upset, she’d gotten pissed off. And now here she was, two days later, staying in a strange apartment in San Diego and jotting down a list of every naughty act she’d ever fantasized about. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the list. Rip it up? Deliver it to her insensitive fiancé?
Annabelle looked at the list again, feeling her cheeks grow warm as she read the last item she’d written.
Having sex with someone else—while you watch.
She took another sip of tea and added another item.
Sex in public (preferably a place without security
cameras).
Now that would be a lark, seeing the suddenly-uninhibited Bryce pull down his Armani trousers and risk a random passerby seeing his cock.
She snorted. Yeah, right.
The cell phone next to her glass began to ring. She didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who was on the other end of the line. Her parents nearly had joint coronaries when she’d announced she was
9
Elle Kennedy
going to San Diego for a few weeks. They hated the fact that she was “slumming it”, though Christina’s apartment was hardly a hovel. The apartment building was small, but pretty and clean, and Annabelle was looking forward to taking a dip in the pool tomorrow morning. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone swimming anywhere other than her father’s country club.
“Hello,” she said as she put her cell to her ear.
“When are you coming home?” came her mother’s shrill voice.
“I already told you, Mom. I’ll be here for a few weeks.”
Sandra Holmes sounded crushed. “But what about the anniversary dinner?”
“I said I’d be home for that,” she reminded her mother. “I’ll be back for the weekend, and then fly back to San Diego, okay?”
Her mom let out a loud, over-exaggerated sigh. “I don’t like knowing you’re all alone out there, living in a hippie’s apartment, carousing around in an uncivilized city.”
Annabelle snorted. “First of all, Christina is not a hippie. She’s studying to be a doctor. Secondly, San Diego is a perfectly civilized place. Chill out, Mom. I won’t be here forever. Christina comes back in a month, so I’ll have to leave then anyway.”
Never satisfied, her mother went on for a few more minutes about all the hazards Annabelle would face in such a dangerous city, but Annabelle tuned it all out. Thank God for Christina. If she hadn’t run into Christina’s parents at the market two days ago, she wouldn’t have known their daughter would be out of town for the month, and then she would’ve had to move in with her parents. Eek.
“And why would she just leave you there in that apartment alone?” her mother was reprimanding.
She suppressed a sigh. “I told you, Christina eloped with her boyfriend. When I spoke to her on the phone, she said I could have the place until she gets back.”
“I never liked that girl,” Sandra said in a frosty tone.
No kidding. Sandra disliked all of Annabelle’s college friends, including Christina. She also disliked Annabelle’s co-workers, her boss, and pretty much anyone her daughter got close to. Except for Bryce, of course. Sandra
loved
Bryce. The Holmes and Worthington families had been close for years, and throughout Annabelle’s entire childhood and adolescence, all she’d heard from her mom was what a wonderful husband Bryce would make.
“Christina is a great girl,” Annabelle said in her friend’s defense.
Her mom ignored the remark. “Your father and I want you to come home. Oh, and Paulette Worthington and I wanted to sit down with you to talk about the details for the wedding.”
Annabelle held her tongue. She hadn’t told her mother about her and Bryce, so Sandra was still under the impression a wedding was in the foreseeable future. No point bursting that dream yet, not until she figured out for sure what she wanted to do about Bryce.
“I’ll call you when I know when I’ll be home,” she said instead. “Talk to you later, Mom.”
10
Heat of the Night
“Annab—”
She hung up, then quickly powered off the cell phone so her mother wouldn’t be able to call back.
Jeez. Talk about overbearing. Although she knew her parents loved her, sometimes she wanted to strangle them. They were snobby, overprotective, presumptuous, and had total tunnel vision when it came to Annabelle’s future. Marry Bryce, move into a mansion on Nob Hill, spend the afternoons at the country club, the evenings entertaining San Francisco’s elite. If it weren’t for her job, Annabelle might have left San Francisco years ago, but she’d been lucky to land a position at one of the top event planning firms in the Bay Area, and as much as she hated her parents’ interference in her life, she loved her work.
Fortunately, her boss had given her the month off, which meant she could take a breather and really think about what she wanted out of a relationship. Yeah, Bryce had dumped her, but their lives had been intertwined since they were children, and she knew eventually he’d try to win his way back into her life.
Question was—did she want to let him back in?
Sighing, Annabelle folded up the silly list she’d been constructing and tossed it on the hardwood floor beside the bed. This was stupid. She wasn’t going to give the list to Bryce. A list of fantasies wouldn’t erase the hurtful words he’d spoken two days ago, and it sure as heck wouldn’t help her figure out what she truly wanted from a relationship.
Rising from the bed, she headed into Christina’s small bathroom and got ready for bed. Brushed her teeth, exfoliated, combed her unruly brown waves, and then she slid into bed and settled beneath the covers.
She planned on using this time off to really think about her life and the choices she’d made.
Particularly her choice in men.
Did she really love Bryce? His break-up words had upset her, but was that because she was genuinely in love with him, or because the fairytale life her parents had outlined for her since she was a kid had now gone up in flames?
She rolled over, gritting her teeth.
Don’t think about it now. Figure it out in the morning.
Her muscles instantly relaxed as she willed her mind to go blank. Ten minutes later, she drifted into a deep, relaxed sleep.
Christina’s apartment was dark when Ryan let himself in with the key tucked on top of the doorframe.
Christina might very well be the coolest chick he’d ever hooked up with. She had just broken up with her boyfriend when Ryan and Matt met her, and she was so completely comfortable with her sexuality it almost scared him. She hadn’t had any qualms about engaging in a hot threesome with him and Matt the night after they’d met, and she never seemed to mind if one or both of them dropped by when she got home from work, no matter how early she had to get up in the morning.
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Elle Kennedy
He crept down the narrow hallway toward her bedroom, his groin hardening the closer he came to the door. Fuck, this was exactly what he needed. A night of hot, no-strings sex was guaranteed to make him forget all about Jane’s startling announcement. A baby. God. Not that he’d ever really thought there would be a chance for him and Jane—she was madly in love with Becker—but this pregnancy pretty much snuffed out even the faintest spark of hope.
Ryan pulled his T-shirt over his head as he entered Christina’s bedroom. His faded jeans were next, dropping to the weathered hardwood next to his discarded shirt. He could make out Christina’s form in the shadows, curled up on her side under a puffy blue comforter.
He grinned in the darkness. These were his favorite kind of wake-up calls.
He moved to the bed and lifted up the edge of the comforter, easing his way under the heavy cover and spooning against Christina from behind. Lowering his head to her neck, he breathed in the appealing scent of…orange blossoms? She usually smelled like plain old Ivory soap, but Ryan wasn’t complaining.
He liked this new scent. A lot.
“You smell delicious,” he rasped into her ear, one arm reaching around her waist to pull her closer.
She whimpered in her sleep, wiggling her ass against his now-throbbing erection. Wow. He was wildly aroused. Not that Christina didn’t usually turn him on, but this was…different. Every muscle in his body was taut, coiled tight like a rattlesnake ready to strike, and his pulse drummed in his ears in sharp, rapid beats. She felt soft and warm against him, and that scent drove him crazy. He suddenly couldn’t wait to be inside her.
“Come on, baby, roll over,” he murmured.
She shifted, and he helped her along by cupping her ass cheeks and moving her onto her back. He frowned as he ran his hands over that ass, which was much rounder and sweeter than he remembered. And come to think of it, her hair was longer too. Five days ago, when he’d last seen her, she’d had a short blonde bob. Now her hair cascaded down her shoulders in soft waves. And the tits beneath that thin tank top seemed bigger too—
Clarity sliced through his mind at the same time the woman beneath him blinked open her eyes. A pair of brown—not blue—eyes stared up at him in shock.
Ryan shot up into a sitting position, a wave of surprise slamming into his chest. Fuck. Oh, fuck. This was
not
Christina.
“Oh my God,” came a high, terrified voice.
Nope, definitely not Christina.
He opened his mouth to apologize just as the curvy, curly-haired female bounded to the edge of the bed, shoved the comforter up to her neck, and said, “Please don’t rape me!”
12
Chapter Two
Ryan was off the bed so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet. He didn’t embarrass easily, but the sight of the terrified woman on the bed brought a wave of mortification to his gut. Shit. He’d accosted a complete stranger. Where the
hell
was Christina?
He opened his mouth to explain but the stranger he’d just felt up was suddenly on her feet too, and the next thing he knew, she hurled the little lamp on the bed table at his head.
Ryan caught it easily. “Hey, listen!” he shouted. “I’m not here to—”
But the woman wasn’t listening. Instead, she’d started babbling. “Seriously, you don’t want to do this.
I have, like, eight different types of STDs, so your health is at risk and really, who wants to be at risk?” Her words kept popping out like coins from a slot machine. “I’m actually doing you a favor here, Mister. You should go find someone else to rape—wait, that’s not what I mean, because you shouldn’t be doing this to any woman, ever, I’m not encouraging this at all, I’m just saying…” Her voice trailed off, and that spark of fear returned to her face. She looked around wildly, as if scanning the room for another weapon.
Ryan stared at her for a moment, bewildered.
Then he burst out laughing.
A pair of chocolate-brown eyes glared at him. “Seriously? You’re
laughing
at me?” Her tone hardened with anger, while one slender arm stuck out and fumbled for something on the nightstand. “I’m giving you five seconds to get the hell out of here, you…you sexual predator!” She made a victorious sound as she found what she was looking for—a cell phone. “I’m calling the police, asshole!”
Ryan’s laughter died in his throat. No matter how entertaining he found this woman, he wasn’t in the mood to be dragged off to jail. “Hey, now, wait,” he said immediately, setting the lamp she’d thrown at him down on the floor then holding his hands up as if he were surrendering. “This is just a misunderstanding, babe.”
“Babe? I am
not
your babe.” Her finger jammed on a button on the phone. “Nor will I be your rape victim so—”
“I’m not here to rape you,” he cut in, running one hand through his hair in frustration. “Would you just shut up for a second so I can explain?”
Her eyes flashed, but her mouth promptly closed. Ryan drew in a calming breath, collecting himself, all the while noticing just how freaking hot the woman in front of him was. Along with those vibrant brown eyes and amazing dark hair, she had delicate features that included a cute upturned nose, high cheekbones
Elle Kennedy
and sexy pink lips, the bottom one fuller and poutier than the top. Was she a friend of Christina’s? And if so, why had Christina never introduced them?
“You’re not explaining,” she said, shooting him a dirty look.
Ryan sighed. “Look, I came here to see Christina, okay? I thought you were her when I got into bed with you.”
“Christina?” she echoed.
“Yes. Christina. You know, the woman who lives here.” He frowned. “So who the hell are you and why are you in her bed?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Who the hell are
you
and what are
you
doing in her bed?” she shot back.
More frustration crept up his spine. “Are you always this fucking difficult?”
“Are you?”
Ryan released another breath. He suddenly felt extremely awkward, standing there in his blue and white checkered boxers, but he made no move to pick up his clothes. He was scared to turn away from this woman. Who knew what she’d do if he took his eyes off of her.
“Okay. Let’s calm down here,” he said quietly. “I’m Ryan, all right? I live downstairs. What about you?”
“I’m Annabelle,” she answered, sounding reluctant. “Christina’s letting me stay here for a few weeks.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “See how easy that was? So, where exactly did Christina go?”
“Vegas. She eloped with her boyfriend Joe.”
Surprise jolted through him. “She told me they broke up.”
“They did.” Annabelle shrugged. “But she said he sent her all these flowers and then this super sweet card begging her to take him back, so she did, and then he proposed, so she said yes, and now they’re in Vegas. Anything else you want to know?”
The disappointment he experienced at the news that Christina was back with her boyfriend wasn’t all that great. That was the nice thing about flings. You didn’t get attached, didn’t feel crushed when the other person left. If anything, he was happy for Christina. She’d admitted to him that she still loved her ex, but the guy had been too much of a selfish jerk to appreciate the good thing they had. Evidently the guy smartened up.