Touch Me (9 page)

He trailed Rose in that direction, noting the healthy state of the lush landscaping. Hibiscus bushes were bright with red, yellow, and pink flowers, their innocently ruffled petals circling unapologetic, upthrusting staminal columns. Citrus trees were beginning to bud and their sweet scent floated on the warm breeze that tickled the ends of Rose’s hair.

Her booted feet made barely a dent in the thick carpet of grass as she cut across the expanse. She carried a bowl of some kind of salad, of course, because she was the kind of woman who didn’t go empty-handed to a get-together. As Cilla greeted her and exclaimed over the offering, Payne saw Reed Hopkins and his squeeze, Cleo Anderson, standing nearby, under the cantilevered overhang that provided partial shade. As he approached them, Reed leaned down and laid a whopper on his woman’s mouth.

Payne clapped his hand over his eyes and raised his voice. “Gah! The PDA! It burns, it burns!”

“Shut up, Payne,” Reed said, laughing.

Dropping his hand, Payne grinned at the pair. The fact was, he was happy the man had stepped out of the dark and into the light of day to be with Cleo and her sons. A writer of horror novels for children and teens, for too long Reed had lived in his dark imagination instead of out in the world.

“Good to see you, Professor,” he said, slapping the other man on the back. He dropped a kiss on the top of Cleo’s short blonde hair. “You too.”

Her eyes were bright and they darted toward Rose. “You brought your…”

“Warden. Housemother.” He glanced her way himself, noticed how those little pom poms danced around her toned thighs. Temptress. Torturer.

“Now, Payne—” But Cleo broke off to address her sons who ran by with water guns nearly as big as they were. “If you’re going into the pool, I need to be watching!” Then she hurried in the boys’ wake.

Reed followed more slowly, and Payne joined the other man, waving a hand or lifting a chin to other members of the tribe as he passed.

“How are you feeling?” Reed asked.

“Sick of recuperating. Tired if I do too much,” he admitted.

“So calling Rose in was a good idea after all?”

It was a terrible idea. She’d invaded his house, his dreams, his fantasies.

Be still, darling,” he ordered. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”

Instead of confessing any of that, Payne shrugged. They came to a stop on the other side of the tempered glass enclosure surrounding the pool. Teenagers Lucy and Jeb were in the heated water, watching Cleo’s Eli and Obie cannonball off the side. At a round table nearby sat Honey and Walsh, both engrossed by their smart phones while Cleo kept her eye on the children.

Reed gestured toward his brother. “All work and no play. Walsh is getting very dull.”

“So says the man who used to work vampire hours. Sleeping during the day allowed you very little social time.”

“Now I have Cleo.” He smiled in her direction. “Thank God.”

At the sound of footsteps, he glanced over his shoulder to watch Bing and Alexa approach. They were hand-in-hand and wore self-satisfied smiles. “They just got them some,” he muttered to Reed.

The other man shifted his gaze, spotted the pair. “Oh, yeah. Probably in a closet. Or up in the Maddox castle’s turret.”

Payne ignored his sudden surge of envy. He could get some himself, if he wanted. All he needed to do was make a phone call.

Or sniff his pillowcase and take his dick in hand.

Spinning around, he set off for a short solo walk around the compound, his gaze taking in the place of his wild childhood and his decadent adolescence. Upon leaving the place he’d doubted he’d ever return, but it was Cilla’s idea for them to reclaim the space. Build new, better memories, she said.

Cilla, maybe the only one of them with a true open heart.

Laughter in the distance caught his attention and he glanced over to the dining area. A knot of the Velvet Lemons kids were there, smiling, plates in hand. They looked like any normal group of people enjoying a meal and each other’s company.

Except they weren’t—probably even Cilla—what they appeared to be on a sunny, Southern California afternoon. Each of them was shadowed.

Payne knew he was tainted with a darkness that could never be removed. There was no substance strong enough to bleach the stain, no way to alter the fundamentals of his character.

Now his eye caught on Rose. Cozied up with Cilla, she had a glass of wine in hand. Her head was ducked as she listened to what the other woman said. Her hair was pushed behind her small ear and it gave him a view of that half-hitch smile. Knowing her better now, Payne realized it revealed something about her he’d not been aware of before.

She was always holding a little something back, he decided. Not just joy, but passion, too.

And that didn’t stop him from wanting her in his bed.

He wanted her bad enough that he didn’t trust himself not to cheerfully, willfully, lie and deceive her. A man like him might say anything to get her under him, over him, her small fingers on his dick, his long ones spearing inside her wet, clasping heat.

His groin tightened and he thought about diving into the pool, clothed, but it would too warm.

Beer, he thought. Cold and bracing.

The direct route to the outdoor beverage refrigerator meant passing Rose and Cilla, so he circled around instead, coming behind them to reach the brew he craved. Eyes on the back of the head of his nemesis, he reminded himself of how unsuited they were. He was reckless, she was wedding rings. He was a fast ride, she was a forever promise.

Bending low to grab a beer, he knew they couldn’t see him behind the half-wall they had at their backs.

Still, Rose’s low voice traveled to him. Something about wanting a change. Needing a shake-up.

He froze, now avid to hear her secrets. Fuck, he thought, shaking his head. He wasn’t even faithful to his promises to himself.

“I want a fling,” she told Cilla. “If only I can find the right man to make it worth my while. No strings. No thought of a future or anything permanent. Just hot sex.”

Damn
, Payne thought now, an idea electrifying him. Fling, no future, hot sex.
Is it possible? Could I have her?

At the end of the next week, Payne sat at his kitchen table, one eye on his laptop and the other on Rose as she moved about the room, making dinner. Because of her nephew’s pediatrician appointment that day, she’d stayed with Lily and the baby and accompanied the pair to the doctor’s office in morning. Around noon, she’d called to say she wouldn’t make it until late afternoon because the child was fussy with a slight cold and she wanted to spell her sister.

He’d told her to skip the day altogether, but she’d insisted.

One thing he knew about Rose, she followed through on her obligations.

Whether or not she truly was after a fling—
hot sex!
—he couldn’t be sure. Maybe he’d dreamed up that part. Because she didn’t look like a woman who needed some kind of sexual jolt.

Instead she looked damn lovely, in a floral skirt, a loosely woven sweater pushed up to her elbows, those clunky boots. Her hair wasn’t its usual smooth sweep. Instead, it hung in loose, beachy waves and he thought the bohemian style suited her well. She looked young and fresh and like the hippie girls who’d come to Laurel Canyon decades ago, seeking enlightenment, excitement, freedom.

But no-strings sex?
Rose?

He tried returning his attention to work. He had handwritten inventory sheets, newly scribbled by his manager at the new yard and Payne had taken it upon himself to enter them into the database. The records needed updating and he could hunt and peck as well as anyone.

Rose approached, sliding a plate of cheese and crackers in front of him.

The scent of her broke his concentration. He followed her return to the countertop with his gaze. Her spine didn’t give away a hint of what was going on inside her head.

An unfamiliar spurt of frustration rose from his gut. Women didn’t confound him like this. Women didn’t transfix him like this.

Without thinking, he rose from the chair and stalked toward her. Maybe she sensed him, because she glanced over her shoulder then immediately walked toward the pantry in the corner. There, she retrieved a roll of paper towels and crossed back toward the sink, ignoring his presence.

When he moved to stand behind her, she froze for a moment, then continued replacing the roll of towels on the holder. His breath stirred her hair and then she was on the move again, this time to rummage through the refrigerator.

He followed her there, too, because her reaction to him gave away that he was getting beneath that calm exterior she’d been wearing for the past week.

It had been as if she’d been shutting him out.

As she pulled carrots from the crisper, he reached over her shoulder for a bottle of juice, deliberately allowing the inside of his forearm to slide along her shoulder. Her head turned and she looked at him through those magnificent eyes, smoke surrounded by a thicket of long, dark lashes. They narrowed.

“Is there some reason you’re hovering?” she asked.

“Is there some reason you’ve been absent?” At her puzzled look, he tacked on a few more words. “Mentally. It’s as if you’re not here.”

She slipped away from him, sidestepping so that he was no longer close. “I’ve a lot on my mind.”

Thinking of that hot, no-strings fling? She’d said she was looking for the “right man.” Did she have a particular one in mind? If not, how about him?

Why not him?

After all, hot, no-strings sex was his specialty.

Shutting the refrigerator door, he stepped close to her again. “What kind of things are on your mind?”

She strode toward the sink. “My future.”

What? Flings didn’t have a future. That was the whole point. Was there actually something else going on inside her head besides the desire to get fucked?

Of course there was, you dolt, a voice inside him said. She hadn’t relocated from Seattle to L.A. just to get shagged. He’d come to that conclusion before.

Something else entirely had sent her running from her life there to her sister here.

She’d been hurt, he had to guess

And the thought of that had his temper edging up. What had happened? Who was responsible? How could he get her to tell him?

But shit, he thought, retreating once more to his chair. That was none of his business. He’d been considering offering himself as her temporary sex partner, nothing more. She was welcome to hold her private thoughts close.

He didn’t get personal. It wasn’t one of his talents.

If a woman didn’t get that—and why wouldn’t she, when he banned kissing on the mouth?—he quickly moved on.

But hell, his…curiosity wasn’t stifled. It wasn’t concern, he assured himself. It was just that he’d been stuck in this broken body for months, with no outlet for his energies. It made him bored. Inclined to wonder about what was going on with his cuddly little caretaker.

He leaned the chair back, balancing it on two legs to prop his feet on the table. She glanced over, then returned her gaze to the carrots she’d begun to chop.

“So…” he began.

When she didn’t look up, he had to accept the truth. Clearly she wasn’t planning to just up and take him into her confidence.

Lacing his fingers behind his head, he studied her again, trying to understand his fascination. Was it mere proximity? But when she was a girl, he recalled she’d always tapped into his streak of protectiveness, usually reserved for his little sister, Cami. But then one night Rose hadn’t felt like a little sister at all, when she’d pressed against him in high heels, her breath scented with peppermint. And instead of feeling protective, what had welled up was possessiveness.

Christ, had that never gone away?

An unsettling thought.

The sound of a cat’s meow had him setting his feet and the chair legs back on the floor. Rose glanced around as he made his way into the pantry and came out with a small bag of kibble. He grabbed a small dish on his way to the back door.

Aware of her stare, he glanced back. “Something the matter?”

“You have a cat?”

“A neighbor of mine has a cat. I have an occasional moocher.”

She watched in apparent fascination as he opened one of the doors that led to the pool and yard and poured a small amount of dried food into a saucer, all while the feline played wind-the-ankles with his legs.

“Looks as if it likes you,” Rose said.

Her surprise kind of irked him. “I only torture goldfish,” he replied, bending down to caress the animal as it picked at the kibble. “Pretty kitty cats now…they get my best strokes.”

His double entendre was intentional, and he’d thought Rose might laugh or make a face. Instead, sudden color washed up her face and her gaze remained glued to his hand, moving lazily over the animal’s fur. Interesting. The woman’s cool façade was slipping. “Everything all right?”

She started, then returned her attention to her chopping. “Everything’s, uh, fabulous. I was just admiring your…um, way with the cat. Did you have pets growing up?”

Did the
Penthouse
magazine cover models-of-the-month count? Bringing up those types of pets was probably a lousy idea, though, so he stowed the bag of food in the pantry and returned to his seat.

She went back to silent mode as she finished the dinner prep. He put his laptop and papers away and set the table himself—two places.

Her frown communicated she wasn’t quite sure about that. Usually she left dinner for him in the refrigerator before heading back to Lily’s house, but today the schedule had changed. “Do you have other plans?” he asked Rose.

She seemed to think. “No. Self-defense class is Thursday nights.”

“There’s plenty of food and it smells great.” She’d stir-fried vegetables and chicken and there was rice in the cooker. “Join me.” Maybe if they shared a meal she’d relax.

Unfortunately, it only made things more awkward. Everything tasted as good as he’d expected, but she picked at her food, darting nervous glances at him. Their legs tangled once under the table and she pulled hers back as if burned. He asked her to pass the soy sauce and in doing so she knocked the small carafe over.