More Than Friends (Kingsley #4) (14 page)

Scoffing, he stepped back too. “You gotta go? Just like that, you’re just walking out? You brought this up, Renee – you’re the one who got upset. Over what, I don’t even know. I tell you everything, Renee, you know I do. But I … I didn’t think you’d need to know my booty call frequency.”

She shook her head, disgusted. “I don’t need to know. And that’s not even –“ Breaking off, she sat on the edge of the coffee table, sighing. Her hands twisted in her lap, and she spread the long fingers of one hand out suddenly against her thigh, inspecting her fingernails. “I guess I’m just surprised, is all. I didn’t ever really think of you like that before. You’ve always just been Michael. Not …” When she trailed off again, Michael sat too, lowering himself to the edge of the table. She looked at his leg, pressed against the side of her own, and sighed. “You know,” she said. “Just regular Friend Michael. Not … not Man Michael.”

Surprised, Michael laughed and stood up. “You haven’t noticed I’m a man? Look at me.”

She did, swallowing as her eyes climbed the baggy legs of his lounge pants, the flat planes of his stomach, the dips and ridges that defined his torso. “That’s not exactly what I meant,” she said. “I mean, I had
noticed
. I just hadn’t … noticed.”

Michael turned away, stalking back into the kitchen to grab his drink from the counter. He tipped the glass to his lips and drained it, slammed it back down on the counter, and lifted hers. Swirling the glass so that the cherries whirled crazily through the dark liquid and stirred the scent of bourbon, he brought her glass to his lips too, and emptied it. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He wanted to ravage her.

Ever since the first day he’d met her, Michael and Renee had been a perfect match. They liked the same movies, they laughed at the same jokes, and generally enjoyed the same music. And in all that time, how could both of them have never noticed what the other was? How could he not notice her as a woman until she was unavailable, and then suddenly all he could think of was how much he wanted her? Even when he’d been with Sherry, Renee was there, in the back of his mind – hell, he might not have turned to Sherry at all, if not for the fact that he’d been hurting and lonely. But was it possible that Renee had been feeling the same things all along?

Did she have feelings for him – feelings that had caused her to seek out someone else in the first place?

They had been close for so long, had spent so much time together. They had laughed together, shared stories of their histories, their memories. She had been the balm that soothed his heart as he grieved the loss of his marriage. She mattered greatly to him; she was often on his mind, and the most fun he had was when he was with her. Could she feel the same way, and somehow neither of them had noticed?

“What are you doing?” she asked.

When he turned, she was standing there again, framed in the doorway of his kitchen, the living room light shining softly from behind her, her hands clutched nervously together in front of her. She had long, slender arms, softly defined from her work at the yoga studio; they met at the wrists, where she clutched her left wrist with her right hand, just above the apex of her thighs. Her eyes were soft, her hair was falling over her shoulders, she looked delicious, and he wanted nothing more than to walk over and touch her. If he did though, he might never stop. Whatever the cause, Michael had experienced a transformation in the way he saw her, and he was afraid she was right – they were no longer simply Friend and Friend. No, now they were Man and Woman, and he was afraid that if they acknowledged the change, there would be no going back. He shrugged, dragging his eyes away from her body and forcing them up to her questioning face. “I’m drinking,” he said, and turned to pour another glass.

“Michael,” she said softly, barely audible even in the silence. He heard the soft click of her throat as she swallowed, and the wet sounds of her mouth as she licked her lips. “What is this? Whatever this is that’s going on, this isn’t us, it’s … not how we always were.”

Watching the bourbon fill the glass, Michael briefly entertained the notion that he should stop pouring – that he should mix the liquor with soda. That he needed to slow it down. Still, his hand ignored his head’s command, and then the glass was full.
Too late for soda, then,
he thought.
Might as well drink it.
He lifted the glass and took two large swallows, gasping slightly as he felt the liquor burn its way down his chest. Nicolette had left him, had turned her back on him. She hadn’t trusted him to love her anyway, to be there for her. And Sherry had walked away from him, too. Eighteen months of mindless screwing, reduced in a second to worthlessness.

Now this, with Renee. “No, this is not us,” he agreed. “This is definitely
not
us.”

“Why aren’t we talking?” she asked, and he turned at the sound of her voice, watched a tear slip down her cheek. “I don’t know what’s wrong between us lately, but … something’s changed, right? But we’ve always talked before.” She stepped into the kitchen, still watching his eyes, searching his face, and he felt the air around him thicken as she approached.

Slowly, deliberately, Michael raised the glass again and emptied it, his fingers clenched so tight that he wouldn’t have been surprised to have it shatter in his face. It didn’t though, and she was still looking at him when he lowered it. He reached behind him and set it on the counter, not breaking the eye contact between them, clenching his empty hand tight at his side. His chest was heaving – when had he started breathing so heavily? More importantly, when had she? His fingers were shaking when he reached out to touch her face, and he ran the rough edges of his knuckles softly down the curve of her cheek. “Maybe there just aren’t words for this,” he whispered.

She tipped her face back as he moved in, her eyes wide and curious, her lips slightly parted. “Is that what this is, Michael?” Her breath was a whispered caress on his lips, and he ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip in anticipation.

“Maybe it’s what it’s turning into,” he answered.

She brought her hands up so slowly that he could feel the air stirring around them as she moved, and when her hands closed on his wrists, it was like suddenly being locked in irons that hadn’t had time to cool. The heat seared his skin, flowing up his arms; it pooled in his chest before spreading deliciously through his blood. She swallowed, still watching him, and he opened his hands on her face, cradling her jaw with one hand as he moved the other to cup the back of her head. Her hair spilled over his hands, and he fought the urge to fist his fingers in the silken strands.

“Michael?” she whispered his name against his lips, uncertain. Her breath was coming faster now, and he could feel her fingertips fluttering nervously against his forearms.

“Only one way to find out,” he whispered back, and brushed his lips gently over hers. Her lips trembled against his, but she didn’t pull away. She didn’t close her eyes, either, and he watched the play of emotion in them as they shared that first tentative kiss. All at once, she looked panicked and excited, both joyous and afraid.

Renee watched his eyes too, her lips still barely brushing his. He slid his tongue against the curve of her upper lip as her hands fell away from his arms, and he groaned softly when she brought them flat against his stomach, the warmth of her palms sending shock waves through his blood. “I should go,” she whispered. “You have laundry.” She swallowed, reached to press her lips to his once more, and stepped away. Her hands lingered on his stomach, sliding slowly lower to brush against the waist of his pants before they dropped away – he stepped back too, to stop himself from reaching out and dragging her back to him.

Swallowing, Michael closed his eyes and took a deep breath, struggling for control. It had been a very chaste kiss, almost hesitant, but somehow that moment had burned itself in his mind as the singular most erotic moment of his life. He would swear he could still taste her breath, that he had memorized the feel of her glossed lips, pink and soft and warm against his own.

He thought of the time he had spent that evening with Sherry, the sexiness of the way they were together, the raw way they took from each other, the way he had felt as he asked her to stay. Lonely, wanting, perhaps even vulnerable – but this? What he felt after kissing Renee was entirely different, and something he had not felt before, not even with Nicolette. Sure, he still felt lonely, and yes he very definitely was
wanting
. But he was maybe more vulnerable in that moment than he’d ever felt; somehow desperate to pull her to him and crush her against him, desperate to take her and claim her and possess her, to mark her, but also equally desperate to push her away before he could give in, desperate to protect what they had by limiting what they might be. Reaching out, he took her hands in his, smiling softly as he felt the shaking in her fingers that echoed his own.

“I guess we should talk,” he said.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered, nodding slowly. She pulled her hands away, running one through her hair as the fingertips of the other touched her lips. “I’ll call you. Tomorrow.” She lowered her eyes, brought them back up briefly, and lowered them again. Then, for the second time that night, Michael watched a woman walk away from him.

Alone again in the house, Michael turned and headed into the laundry room to move his bed sheets from the washer to the dryer – then back into the living room, where he dropped bonelessly onto the couch. “What the hell was that?” he asked, his voice hoarse as it bounced around the room. “What … in the ever-loving hell?”

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Having Renee show up just barely after Sherry left, watching the flicker of jealousy in her eyes as she had realized there was a woman in his life, and then the glimmer of excitement shining behind the fear as she realized that he was going to kiss her – it made him feel cheap somehow. He felt like the red light special Sherry had referred to, like he had some kind of revolving door on his house.
Like a whore
, he thought wryly. “And a lousy one, too,” he muttered.

Dropping his head back against the cushions of the couch, Michael sighed. His head was pounding, his stomach was heaving, and his entire body sang with the memory of Renee’s fingertips as they skimmed over his arms. The touch of her lips was still on his mouth – and as he closed his eyes, his imagination gave him the image of her face, the pupils of her eyes widening as their lips touched.
Damn, I can still feel her hair in my hands
.

He looked down at his hands, empty now and pressed flat against his thighs. He brought them to cover his face, breathing inward, seeking the coconut scent of her hair – but like Renee, it was gone. She would call though, and they would talk; if she promised to call – and she had – then she would.

And then what? How does a man have a conversation with his best friend about how
right
it felt to touch her face, how much his body longed to cover hers? How does a man find the courage to risk the best friendship he has, and ask her if she feels it too?

And how does he recover if she doesn’t?

“Damn, damn. Damn!” Rising, Michael stomped through the living room and up the stairs, down the hallway to his bedroom. He stood in the doorway, his chest heaving with his breath and his mind a chaotic mess, staring at the bare foam mattress of his bed. Only a few hours ago, he’d been in that bed, his mind clear and his hands full of woman. Sherry.
Why didn’t he miss her? What kind of man was he?

She was wrong – wrong about the part where she thought she wasn’t good enough. What was it that she had said? She wasn’t “Sunday brunch?” Shaking his head, he crossed to the windows and stood staring out into the night. She could be someone’s Sunday brunch. Someone’s Christmas dinner. But not his.

As many times as he had held her, Sherry had never made Michael feel electrified. As many times as he had buried himself in her warmth, he had never been lost in her. And as well as they had always fit together, he didn’t feel the same pang of loss at her leaving as he had when he’d watched Renee walk out to her car in the dark. Had he felt this with Nicolette? Maybe – maybe not. Yes, he had
loved
her, maybe he had even
needed
her. He had, after all, been shattered when she left. But was it because he needed Nicolette, specifically? Or was it simply because her leaving made him feel like a failure? Sighing, he rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window. He needed company, but it was late; almost everyone he knew would be in bed.

Almost. Dragging his cell phone from his pocket, he unlocked the screen and brought up a blank text. He addressed it to his brother Drew, and started typing.
“Hey bro, how’s work?”

“It’s work, man,”
said the reply when it came.
“I’m between calls right now. You’re up late …”
The read-aloud feature made Drew’s words robotic and strange, and Michael grinned to himself, listening.

Finished smoothing the clean sheets from the dryer on his bed, Michael snatched his phone from the dresser.
“Yeah, can’t sleep,”
he texted back.
“Dude, I just screwed up so bad.”
The sudden shrill ringing of the phone in his hand came as no surprise, and he was laughing as he answered the call. “I’m okay, Drew – you didn’t have to call.”

“Did too,” Drew retorted, his voice warm with an answering smile. “Can’t leave you hanging, can’t keep texting. I’m on the way to a call, so I’m driving.”

“Do you need to go? Man, I’m okay for real. You can just call me later.” Tucking his phone between his jaw and his shoulder, Michael grabbed the edges of his blanket and flicked his wrists; the blanket settled smoothly over the now freshly-made bed, and he turned to the pillows next.

“Speakerphone, Michael,” Drew laughed. “I’m okay right now, and it’s not anything big. Some woman thinks she has a prowler – probably her neighbor’s dog out in the yard again.”

“Again?” Michael paused in the middle of stuffing a pillow into the pillowcase and listened. “She calls you guys over a dog?”

“You’d be surprised what people call us for. But she’s got dementia, so she calls like every other day.”

“What do you do for her?”

Drew sighed. “We just sit with her until someone from her family shows up. Keep her company so she’s not scared. But it’s not a long drive so quit beating around the bush, dude. Tell me what’s up.”

Smirking, Michael turned and dropped into his bed. "Renee came over tonight," he said.

"She comes over all the time," Drew responded dryly. "What else is new?"

"Well, kissing her was pretty new."

"What?" It was a surprised shout, and Michael moved his phone away from his ear as Drew kept shouting, far enough to muffle the sound but still close enough that he could hear Drew screaming something that sounded suspiciously like, "Hot damn! It's about damned time, Michael!"

When the noise died down, he brought the phone to his ear again. “’About time?’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Drew laughed. "Come on, Michael, really? Is she still there with you?"

Rolling his eyes at the phone, Michael groaned.
'About damned time?' What the
hell was that about?
"I really have no idea what you're talking about. And no, she left," he said. It annoyed him when Drew burst out laughing, and he rose from his bed to wander through his bedroom, picking things up and putting them down again as he went.

"Don't you know we've all been waiting for years for you two to realize you like each other? Is she coming back?”

Michael froze, his grip tightening on the pair of cufflinks he had just picked up from the top of his dresser. He tipped his head, staring at the phone in his hand, and very slowly forced his hand to relax. “What? No, we’re supposed to talk tomorrow. She said she’ll call when she’s ready to talk.”

Drew was quiet for a moment, stunned into silence. “Dude, seriously? Everyone’s gonna go nuts.”

“How the hell does anyone else know anything about it?” Michael was angry for a moment, upset at – he didn’t even know what. But then he remembered the conversation he’d had with his mother in the hospital, the wry looks she’d given him, the comments she had made about Renee being
his
‘Little Miss.’

“She’s a sweet girl with a kind heart,”
his mother had said,
“but do you really think she spent the night sleeping in a waiting room chair in the lobby because she likes me?”

He felt his forehead wrinkle as he drew his brows together, thinking. Until that moment, yes, he had thought that Renee had been there because she liked Eva. Sure, he appreciated her presence as a gesture of their friendship, and he had enjoyed her company the night he had stayed in the hospital with his parents. But he had always enjoyed her company, and had thought nothing of it. But had it meant more than he had thought? And if it had, then what the hell was she doing going on dates? “You’re wrong,” he said to his brother. “You’re all wrong.” Drew laughed again, but Michael went on. “No, seriously man, she just went on a date, tonight. And not with me.”

“Yeah,” Drew answered. “But where’d she end up?”

“It’s not what you think, man,” Michael said, shaking his head in denial. Refusing to entertain that thought, he stalked out of the bedroom and down the stairs, out the front door and into the dark evening air.

“If you say so.”

“Seriously, she came because the date was married. His wife showed –“

“His wife?” Shocked again, Drew was shouting. “She’s dating a married man? Man, Cass’ll –“

“No man, hang on. Don’t tell Cass about this – Renee didn’t know he was married. That is, until his wife showed up.”

“Alright, tell me the rest quick because I’m turning on this lady’s street and I’ll have to go in a minute,” Drew said. “And I
need
to hear this latest development in the Michael and Renee saga.”

“Shut the fuck up, dude, it’s not a saga. And don’t tell Cass. If Renee wants to talk about it,
she
can tell Cass. Man, I don’t want her to think I’m on the phone talking about her.” He rolled his eyes at Drew’s bark of laughter, fighting back an answering grin of his own. He was, after all, on the phone talking about her. “Anyway, the guy’s wife showed up and made a scene, and Renee left. But the wife was a little out of control and Renee was freaked out. So when she left, she was like watching the cars around her or something. She told me she thought she was being paranoid, but she kind of felt like –“

“She was being followed?”

“No. I don’t think so,” Michael answered, watching the street in front of his house. He looked up both ends of the street and saw nothing unusual, no cars out of place, no extra cars parked along the street that weren’t always there. “She said she thought she was probably just being silly, but she was rattled. And if someone was following her, she didn’t want to lead them to her house. Chelsea’s not there tonight, so she’d have been home alone.”

“And again I’d like to point out – when Renee felt like she needed a safe place to run, where’d she end up? Look, I gotta get off here, bro. I can text you when I leave here though, or call if you still need to talk.”

Michael shook his head. “Nah, man, I’m okay. I’ll just – Maybe I’ll just go to bed.”

“Alright, dude. Well, keep me updated. She’d be good for you, Michael – and we’ve all known that for a long time. Besides … she did end the night with you, man. She ran to you.”

Michael grunted, refusing to answer, and Drew laughed quietly. They hung up, and as Michael stuffed his phone into his back pocket, he wandered across the yard to the little shed beside the house, still thinking over the things his brother had said. Drew was wrong. She hadn’t come to his house for
him
. She had come because she had been creeped out and it was a safe place for her to go.

But she had kissed him back.