This Perfect Kiss (25 page)

And, oh God, he did. Jilly shivered, suddenly so afraid of all the ways that he did have her…her body, her heart. She pressed her lips together to stop herself from blurting it out.

His mouth found her ear, traced it with his tongue. He pressed deeper still. “Do me, baby,” he said hoarsely.

Jilly closed her eyes, the dark words lifting her higher. She raised her hips and matched his rhythm, letting desire take her one more time. He was relentless, coaxing her slow, then fast, insinuating his hand between them to add another teasing pressure.

Their gazes met. There was wonder in his, she thought. Something beyond desire. Something that made her heart slam against her chest. Something she wanted so badly to believe in.
Trust me
, he’d said. Then he closed his eyes and bent his head to bite the curve between her shoulder and her neck. Jilly cried out his name, and their bodies shuddered against each other.

She was still shivering when he rolled off her and onto his back, throwing one forearm over his face. Jilly fought for breath, still stunned by what he’d wrung from her body and even more by what she’d seen in his eyes.

“Jesus, Jilly,” he said hoarsely.

Her heart speeded up again. Maybe—

“You’re one hot fuck.”

Her heart stopped. Her skin went cold. She looked down at her hands, still bound by the tasseled cord.
Trust me
, he’d said.

She’d been taught better. With a wrenching movement she shook free of the cord and then slid out of the bed, pushing the sheer drapes to one side. “I’ll be going now,” she told him quietly.

He grunted. “See you later.”

“No. I’m done.”

He opened his eyes and found her with his gaze. She didn’t even flinch or attempt to cover her nakedness. “What?”

“I finished yesterday. Everything is cleared out and accounted for. I have a few boxes I’ll take away in my car, but other than that, it’s finished.”

“We’re
not.”

“Our bargain’s off.” She couldn’t do it anymore and survive. Not when she had to work so hard not to tell him she loved him, and he only wanted a…a “hot fuck” in his bed. If she kept coming back here, she’d end up spilling her feelings to him, and God knew she didn’t want to give him that kind of power over her.

Not when she knew he was never going to love her back. He wouldn’t want to. Rory saw her as some
thing
to enjoy, but not some
one
to truly care about. She’d been oh, so wrong. There was no victory in this kind of surrender.

He sat up slowly, his expression hardening. “I won’t listen to your friend Kim. I won’t help her.”

Jilly drew in a long breath. “You should. You’re wrong not to. But I’m not going to sleep with you anymore. Not even to get you to do the right thing. Good-bye, Rory.”

With quick footsteps she walked toward the bathroom for her clothes. She was half dressed when he appeared in the doorway, dangerous
and gorgeous in a black silk robe. Even now, that slice of his tanned chest she could see had the power to make her fingers clumsy.

“Not good-bye.” His voice was harsh. “There’s still the fund-raising party. You’re expected to be there as my fiancée.”

She shook her head and awkwardly slipped her arms into her shirt. “Expected by whom?”

“By me.”

“Too bad.” She grabbed her shoes, unwilling to take the time to put them on.

When she brushed past him in the doorway, he grabbed her arm. “I—I need you there at the party.”

She paused, then steeled herself to deliver the ultimate wickedness, the ultimate lie. “You’re a good fuck yourself, Rory, but not that good.”

He dropped her arm as if it burned him, and she ran out of his room and ran out of the house, and wished she could run away just as easily from the futility of loving Rory.

Kim wandered about the floor of Things Past. The shop wasn’t due to open for hours and she wasn’t scheduled to work at all, but her apartment upstairs had seemed too…empty without Greg in it and in her bed. She hugged herself, not quite able to believe it hadn’t all been a dream.

He’d left when it was morning, yet still almost dark, whispering something about wanting to be at Caidwater before Iris woke. “Don’t think too much” had been the last words he’d said before giving her a kiss that had sent a sweet, sharp ache through her womb.

Greg had made her feel again.

She entered her small office, crossed to the pot of coffee she’d started brewing earlier, and poured herself a mugful. She cupped it in her palms, astonished at the heat pouring through the ceramic. Nearly burned, she quickly set the mug down and held her hot hands to her cheeks.

Heat, aches, desire. One kiss from Greg and it had all flooded back. No, that wasn’t quite right. It had happened when he’d talked about his love for Iris, when he’d told Kim he’d stayed at Caidwater for her little girl. At that admission, pain had pierced her, nearly doubling her over. He’d loved Kim that much. No. He’d loved Iris that much.

She sat down, unable to trust her suddenly trembling legs. What was going to happen now? What would all this feeling do to her?

The sound of the locks turning on the front door and the cheerful jingle of the bells had Kim twisting in her seat to see Jilly slip into the shop. Her friend looked exhausted and Kim jumped to her feet and rushed toward her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Jilly’s eyes were shadowed. “Oh.”

Oh?
Kim’s stomach dipped. Jilly had never merely said “Oh” in her life. “How bad is it?” she asked. “What happened?”

“It’s that obvious?” Jilly said glumly.

“You without a forty-word answer for the color of the sky is enough to terrify me,” Kim said. “‘Oh’ is a nine-one-one call.”

Jilly looked down at her feet. They were bare and she was carrying her shoes. “Oh,” she said again.

“You’re scaring me, Jilly,” Kim said. She grabbed her by the arm and led her into the office, where she pushed her down into a chair and poured her a cup of coffee. Three packets of sugar, the real stuff, and then she handed the mug to her friend. “Drink some, then tell me everything.”

Jilly obediently sipped, then stared into the liquid. “I broke our vow.”

Relief coursed through Kim. She laughed shakily. “Is that all?”

“And Rory knows who you are and he was really mad because he thought I was using him for your sake, so then we made a bargain and I was sleeping with him until he told me I was a good f—the ‘F’ word—and then I couldn’t do it anymore because I actually, truly, really l-love him and I don’t want him to see me just as a good f—the ‘F’ word—and so I walked out on him and I refuse to play his fiancée anymore and he’s so angry I don’t know what he’ll do and I f—effed up everything.”

This remarkable explanation was punctuated with one, tummy-deep sob. Jilly hastily set the mug on the desktop and buried her face in her hands.

Jilly in love? Kim had known her friend long enough to appreciate how much she feared the emotion. This truly
was
disaster. Kim waited for panic to set in, even as she put her arm around Jilly’s shoulders. But instead, she felt undeniably calm as she murmured words of comfort. “It’s going to be okay. You were foolish to make such a bargain for me, though.”

Jilly looked up. “I did it for me,” she whispered brokenly. “I wanted him, if just for a little while.” She swallowed. “What are we going to do now?”

Kim blinked. The question was to her? Jilly was always the one with the plans. Always certain, always forging ahead. Kim just went along, or, at most, tweaked a detail here and there.

“Greg will probably be back soon,” she said uncertainly. Surely he would know what to do next.

“Who?” Jilly asked.

Kim groaned, all that she’d kept from Jilly pinching her with guilt. “I broke our vow, too,” she confessed. “With Greg Kincaid. You see, we…knew each other a long time ago. I was ashamed to tell you about it.”

Jilly’s face went paler as Kim related the details of the situation with Greg. When Kim was done, Jilly rubbed a shaking hand over her eyes. “You spent the night with your ex-husband’s grandson? Rory isn’t going to like this, Kim. I just know it.”

Now
the panic welled. Kim swallowed, trying to ease her suddenly tight throat. Once more that question rose up in her mind.
What are we going to do?

Kim grabbed Jilly’s supersweet coffee and gulped it down. Someone had to think of something. Greg. Maybe he could come up with a plan. Someone definitely had to come up with a plan.

That someone should be Kim.

Her throat tightened again at the thought.
But it was true
. For all these years she’d let someone
else rescue her, first Roderick, then Jilly, and now she was turning to another person—to Greg—to solve a problem she’d created herself when she’d made the choice to marry. Once again she’d been resorting to the easy way.

But maybe she could face her own demons now. It certainly wasn’t fair to expect anyone else to do it. “I’m going to talk to Rory myself,” she said.

Jilly’s hand jumped to her throat. “Y-you’re going to Caidwater?” She knew how the house symbolized Kim’s feelings of pain and powerlessness.

Kim paid no attention to Jilly’s shock and grabbed her car keys off the desk. “Yes.” It was time for her to face
all
her demons.

The bells hanging from the shop’s front door shook as she exited, just as her hand quivered while she unlocked the car. But she was able to ignore her body’s nervous response on the drive from FreeWest to Caidwater. Not until she reached the wrought-iron barriers at the bottom of the driveway did fear finally overtake her.

Twenty feet from the gates, Kim halted under the partial cover of an overgrown clump of scarlet bougainvillea. “You can do this,” she whispered to herself, mustering the courage to pull up to the button that would announce her return.

As if sensing her presence, the gates suddenly began swinging open. Kim gasped, but then a low-slung Mercedes took the final curve of the driveway and came flying through them. She couldn’t see the driver, but she guessed it was Rory.

Meaning she could go home. Her insides melted with relief. Some other time—

Coward
.

The accusation lashed across her mind. The time to face Caidwater was now.

Biting her lip to stop the trembling, she met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Do it,” she whispered to herself. “Drive up to Caidwater and wait for Rory to return.”

With a determined twist of the key, she started her car. Her foot slammed on the gas, accelerating the vehicle through the slowly closing gates. They shut silently behind her.

Kim braked, peering anxiously up the curving driveway. The house wasn’t yet in sight, but its image hovered in her mind anyway. Like Roderick himself, Caidwater had become a vengeful, angry, and suspicious presence.

But her daughter was there.

Kim pressed the accelerator again, and the car slowly climbed the narrow blacktop. Then the house came into view. Kim shuddered, its salmon color reminding her of raw flesh. Gritting her teeth, she pulled into the curve that swept past the front door and parked.

It took all her willpower to open the car door and step out. She stared at the imposing entrance, trying to remember a time when the place hadn’t terrified her. The front door was open, and it seemed like a voracious and greedy mouth, ready to swallow her up.

Kim walked forward reluctantly, with each step ticking off a mistake or weakness that had brought her to this point. She’d traded her body
for security. She’d lost her daughter. She’d relied on Jilly to address her own mistakes. Cold waves of shame washed over her and she hated herself and her failures all over again.

How could a woman like her think she deserved a night of joy with Greg, let along a lifetime with her daughter? The past had tainted her.

Courage shredded, she abruptly spun back to her car. Pain sliced through her, but she ruthlessly ignored it. She’d left Greg and Iris before, dammit. She could do it again.

Then a commotion from the interior of the house made her glance around. “He’s out again!” someone yelled. Little-girl squeals joined more shouts.

“Mrs. Mack! The front door’s open!” The sound of pounding footsteps drifted through the open doorway.

Kim swiftly turned her head, anxious to get in her car before someone saw her. She rushed away from the house to the tune of more tumult coming from inside Caidwater. With her hand on the car’s door handle, she glanced back nervously once more, just in time to see Greg—with Iris perched on his shoulders—erupt through the front door. The little girl clutched a big butterfly net.

But Kim didn’t have time to puzzle that out. Intent on getting away, she fumbled with the door handle as the pair rushed toward her.

“Kim!” Greg called. “Kim, wait!”

Still fumbling to open the door, she closed her eyes to the sounds of his voice and the too-near footsteps, which was maybe why she couldn’t avoid something furry and gray that reached her
first. The creature scrambled up her clothes to perch, unbelievably, on top of her head.

Her head was then, just as unbelievably, completely covered with netting as Iris yelled, “Gotcha!” and swung her butterfly net to capture her prize.

Kim froze. Greg grinned. Iris shook her forefinger. “You’re not supposed to be running away.” Kim supposed she was talking to the furry thing.

Yet Greg’s gaze met hers. “That’s right. You weren’t, were you?” he asked softly.

Iris was still scolding her pet. “Don’t you love me?”

“Don’t you?” Greg’s voice, soft and low again. “Don’t you, Kim?”

Oh, God, she did. She loved both of them so, so much.

“And you belong to us,” Iris continued crossly.

“That’s right,” Greg murmured. “You do.”

And, oh, Kim wanted to.

“Now, you be good, Kiss,” Iris said.

Kim frowned. “Kiss?”

“Certainly,” Greg answered, and with one smooth movement he deposited Iris on the ground, plucked the creature and the net off Kim’s head, and handed them both to the child. He leaned forward, his mouth near Kim’s. “Your wish is my command.”