Tempt Me Twice 1

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Excerpt—Love Me If You Dare

Excerpt—Two Are Better Than One

M
y pink lace bikini panties were dangling from the fingers of the worst human to ever live.

Shocked speechless, I looked up into the smirking face of Kevin Hung, my landlord and roommate, though I used the latter term loosely—I tried my damndest to spend as much time as possible away from the nasty, smoke laden, grime infested apartment that he called home.

I stopped abruptly, my sneakered feet skidding on the broken concrete of the sidewalk. Kevin waved the undies in the air like they were a flag and he was a patriotic American on the fourth of July.

“What the
fuck
?” I finally found my voice and with it my anger. I stormed up the gravel path that led to the apartment building, shuddering with disgust.

Dammit, I
liked
those panties. And no way in hell was I ever going to wear them again. But I still wanted him to drop them. I wanted his greasy, loser fingers off of what was mine.

“I don’t know what made you think you could go through my stuff, but drop those undies.
Now
.” I tried to make myself sound reasonable, thinking it might make Kevin realize how far out of line he was, and I thought I pulled it off pretty damn well. I was in law school, after all.

But as I spoke I realized two things. One, lower life forms like my landlord only responded to fury and to pheromones.

And two, the scrap of pink lace wasn’t the only item of my intimate apparel that was currently available for public consumption. My jaw worked, clenching and releasing, as I saw my underwear scattered over the lawn.

Ripped plastic bags holding my clothing dotted the grass, and a cardboard box with the bottom half ripped out of it lay on its side at my foot. Purple ooze that I recognized as my shampoo took on a life of its own as it undulated over the gravel.

“
Kevin
.” I’d always been direct, but I rarely lost my temper. I could feel it inside of me now, a growing entity unto itself, burning everything in its path, including the nerves that had been jumping around in my stomach all day.

The jerkface smirked; I imagined tugging on that pouting lower lip and slowly pulling it up and over his head. I wasn’t what you’d call a violent person, though while growing up I’d been more than ready to throw a punch—the neighborhood I’d grown up in, it was necessary.

Kevin brought it out in me.

“You can’t do this.” I’d only moved into this dump after Nick and I had broken up—I’d needed something fast and cheap. I’d never intended to be there for long, yet seeing my possessions torn from the sanctuary I’d created in my room sprawled across the grass like garbage was hugely upsetting. “There are landlord and tenant laws. I’m going to kick your ass for this.”

“Don’t quote your law school bullshit at me, blondie.” A ditzy giggle layered in with Kevin’s smoker’s rasp, and I couldn’t stop from rolling my eyes when Tammy, the friendly neighborhood stripper, sashayed out of the balcony doors of the apartment and draped herself over him.

Gee, I guess you couldn’t blame the girl. He was rocking those cut-off man-pris. And a stained wife beater? Never goes out of style.

“Your rent cheque bounced,” Kevin continued. This seemed to make Tammy very happy, because she started rubbing herself up and down Kevin’s left leg like it was the stripper pole she’d left at work. Her nails were long, glossy purple talons, and I felt a twinge of satisfaction when she dug them into Kevin’s upper arm in excitement and he winced.

Wait.
What
?

“That’s not possible.” I rejected the notion outright. I wasn’t rolling in cash, sure, but I did have a decent student loan, and I had some money saved up from work I’d done in the summer to get me through.

I documented every penny that I spent. I had to, cause there was no one to bail me out if I fell short. Because of this I knew Kevin was full of shit.

“You could have just asked me to leave instead of making up this stupid story and chucking my stuff on the lawn.” By now I was shaking with anger. My five foot, five inch self had been stuffed full of emotion all day, ever since the phone call from Nick, and I didn’t have room for even one drop of the anger that was brewing.

Storming to the front door of the apartment building, I punched in my code. The light blinked red, telling me it hadn’t worked.

From above, I heard Tammy cackling with laughter. I could imagine her riot of brown curls, and her equally untamed silicone breasts, bouncing as she chortled with glee.

“You’re out. I’m in, bitch.” Her voice was sugar sweet and sounded like she huffed helium while she gave her ass its daily g-string flossing.

I kicked the door in frustration, the rubber sole of my sneakers bouncing right off without inflicting any damage. Well, any damage to the door—my toes throbbed but good, and I hissed in pain.

Leaning back, I shielded my eyes from the late afternoon sun and squinted up at Douche Bag and his little Baguette. I felt my lips pinch together tightly with distaste as Tammy leaned over and ran her tongue down the pale flesh of Kevin’s neck.

Oh, ewwww.
Now I wanted to scrub my corneas with bleach.

“I get it now.” Oh, did I. “I wouldn’t let you in my pants. You want a roommate who’ll put out.”

He didn’t answer, but wiggled his fingers lasciviously, making my pink panties dance.

“Smart girl like you, I bet you could think of something to do to make it up to me.” He lifted the panties to his nose and inhaled deeply. I gagged. Tammy screamed with outrage and, reaching out with those lethal looking nails, twisted his nipples.

Howling, Kevin dropped the panties. I caught them before they hit the ground and shoved them into my pocket, cheeks flaming.

“Kevin—” I wanted to ask him if he was serious about my cheque bouncing, or if he’d just made up the story as an excuse to install Open Legs McGee in the apartment.

“Kayla?”

I cringed even as the nerves that had been plaguing me all day leapt back to life. I knew that voice—had once listened to that voice when it was aroused, when it was tender, when it was full of affection.

As Kevin and Tammy continued to wrestle on the balcony above my head, I turned to find one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever met standing on the edge of the sidewalk, hands tucked into the pockets of his neat, fashionably distressed jeans.

Though his black hair was tousled, his look was too well put together to have been anything but intentional. That was Nick though—well-dressed, well-mannered, both attributes coming from the comfortable cushion of money that his parents had.

After his call that morning, I’d timed my day so that I’d have a chance to change before dinner. In our entire relationship, I’d never felt quite as well put together as he was, because hey—who could compete with a guy who looked like an Abercrombie and Fitch model?

But I’d needed the armor that a nice dress and an extra coat of mascara could give me. Instead, I was painfully aware of my ripped blue jeans as I watched his bright blue eyes look me over from head to toe, bouncing back to rest at my hip.

“That’s not how you normally wear those.” One corner of his mouth turned up in a sexy as hell smile as I looked down, then flushed.

“Damn it, Nick.” He was referring to the pink panties that I’d apparently not stuffed all the way into my pocket. He was intimately familiar with said panties, given that, until six months ago, he’d been my boyfriend.

“Should I ask why the rest of your underwear is on the lawn?” He looked concerned, but the flash of heat in his eyes when he bent and scooped up the bra that matched the underpants in my pocket sent a tremble right through me.

I hadn’t had sex since we’d broken up. And the sex we’d had together had been
good
. I focused on the physical, on the way the scent of cologne that was wafting to my nose on the damp December air made my hormones stand up and pay attention.

If I focused on that, then I could ignore the crack in my heart that still hadn’t entirely mended.

“Should we go?” Nick cleared his throat, the sound barely discernible over the caterwauling from above. Grimacing, I realized that Kevin and Tammy had apparently finished with the titty twisters and moved on to noisy makeup sex—right on the balcony. Oh, eww.

Nodding somewhat frenetically, I scurried down the sidewalk, brushing past Nick on my way to his car. My fingers threaded through the ends of my ponytail self-consciously; I wished I’d had enough time to comb it out.

“Just a mix up. Let’s just go. I’ll clean it up later.” If any of my skeezy neighbors tried to even touch my stuff, I’d hunt them down and cut them. An d once again Kevin brought out the Elizabeth Bathory in me.

Still... I’d grown up with six younger brothers and sisters. I’d had to be fierce to keep a grip on what was mine.

I hadn’t kept a hard enough grip on Nick, I thought as I cast him a sidelong glance. Or maybe I just hadn’t wanted to.

The thought sent a pang through my belly, so I shoved it away.

“Don’t forget... if you’re broke, I’d be happy to
help
you out with your rent.” Kevin shouted over Tammy’s grunts of bliss, which caused her voice to again rise in a shriek.

I paused, my hand frozen on the car door.

What was that?

Worry, hot and razor sharp, sliced through my gut. Surely my cheque hadn’t
actually
bounced. It just wasn’t possible.

“Kayla?” Nick had rounded the car, and had rested his arms on its low roof, staring at me quizzically. I felt that little surge of lust again, but combined with it was irritation that he hadn’t bothered threatening to kick Kevin’s ass for me.

Of course, I could handle the ass kicking myself. But what girl wouldn’t appreciate the offer?

There was another man whose face haunted my dreams, a man as messy and casual as Nick was sharply put together. If Jax was here, it would be the scent of soap and engine oil that I’d smell, rather than designer cologne.

If Jax was here, he’d have broken down the door to the apartment building and would be dangling Kevin off the edge of the balcony, just to prove his point.

Stop it.
There was no point in comparing the two men who, at one point in their lives, had been best friends.

What they were to each other now was anyone’s guess. And what I was to each of them...

Well, that was even more complicated.

Sliding into the passenger’s seat, I buckled my seat belt with fingers that were chilled from nerves. But shaking away thoughts of my pathetic love life only left room for the nagging suspicion that Kevin wasn’t lying to flood back in.

“Ready for dinner?” Nick swung himself into the driver’s seat, and despite my worry, I noticed the flex of his bicep under the short sleeve of his shirt. December in California could be chilly, but Nick was rarely bothered by it.

“Can we actually stop at my bank on the way?” I could hear the tightness in my voice. My rent was pretty low—that had been the entire point of living in that slum—so if my cheque had truly bounced, it meant that there was less than three hundred dollars left in my account.

The thought made my pulse stutter.

“What’s going on?” Nick’s expression was concerned, but I felt a trickle of resentment creep in when I realized that he had no true idea of my anxiety. He couldn’t.

But that wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t really even a fault at all.

“I don’t know yet,” I finally replied, rubbing my hands over the thighs of my jeans. They were damp with cold sweat.

“Take me to the bank, please, so I can find out.”

***

“P
lease. I just need five minutes of your time.” I ground my teeth together as the prim woman in the mauve business suit hesitated, then shook her head at me. I’d caught her just as she was drawing the moveable cage across the wall, the one that separated the interior of the bank from the entrance, where the ATMs were.

I was desperate to speak with someone. I needed to know what was going on in my account. Unfortunately I’d wasted precious minutes at the machine, printing out a list that showed a balance and the most recent transactions.