Wrecked (Sons of San Clemente Book 2) (3 page)

“I think...”

“Don’t think,” he said. “Overrated.”

“Thinking’s my specialty.” She jumped up, completely flustered by his presence, by his...his everything. “And now I think I’ll go—” She broke off. She couldn’t go to bed. He would be in the bed. “Ummmm.”

“Duchess.” He caught her hand. “I never imagined you’d be shy still.” He allowed the last syllable to slowly roll off his tongue, linger in the space between them.

She stared down at his hands. The long lean fingers, graceful, strong and dark from years in the sun, brushed along her pale fingertips, but she felt the burn all the way to her soul. His arms were totally inked, except one oval spot on his left inside forearm, but the tats stopped at his wrists, which had always made his hands stand out, strong and able to bring her such pleasure. She squirmed just thinking about it.

“I could be a gentleman and offer to take the couch if I had even one gentlemanly tendency,” he finally said when she thought her brain would burst trying to think of something to say to dissipate the tension stretching between them.

She pulled her hand away and made a hiss of annoyance. She’d driven twenty hours over the past couple of days, stopping only to refuel and pee. She so could not cope with him on her best day. And her best days were so far in her past she could barely remember them.

“I’ll take the couch,” she said.

For tonight. After tonight she’d have to figure something else out. He had to go. Somewhere. There had to be so many women who would be eager to take him in and nurse him back to his terrifying, risk-taking, attention-basking self.

She turned to go back inside but realized that he hadn’t quite let go of her fingers.

“Duchess.”

She ignored him. Breathed shallowly so she couldn’t breathe him in. His thumb stroked circles on her fingertips and chills raced up her arms.

“I’m...” He paused.

She braced herself and looked at him, at his chiseled features that she could still trace with her eyes closed, that she still found herself sketching when she allowed her mind to wander, at his eyes that were so deeply blue and discerning that they should be illegal. He gazed at her moodily. She swallowed hard, wondering what he was going to say.

Her lips parted. “What?” She could barely breathe.

“Going to bed.”

She pulled away. “Yeah. Good idea,” she said quickly and turned toward her car.

Yes, she could bring in her weekender bag that had enough for a few days. And her duvet with the quilted cover that her grandmother had made for her many years ago. By that time he’d be asleep, and she could lay on the couch and figure out her life.

O
nly he wasn’t sleeping.

And she couldn’t figure out her life. She’d turned so many corners, dead end after dead end, and her feet couldn’t move as if her mind and feet had lost their will, their way.

Wrapped in her duvet, Hollis stared blankly up at the skylight, eyes cruelly wide and dry and sleepless. Where could she go tomorrow? She only had a maybe a thousand left in her bank account. She’d hoped it would last long enough for her to find a part-time job. She couldn’t pay rent. She couldn’t drive too much. The gas prices would drain her dry in a few months. Plus her Jetta needed an oil change and tune up. What was she going to do?

“Duchess?”

“Don’t call me that.”

But it was a relief to hear him speak. Somehow it made the situation of lying in the dark, knowing he was close, yet separate, less surreal.

“Are you thirsty?”

She sat up. Huffed a laugh and was surprised that she was almost amused. “You peeked in my grocery tote.”

“You did threaten to spike my tea. I was a good boy and drank it in hopes.”

She rolled out of her duvet and padded on her bare feet to the kitchen.

“I’m not making it for
you
,” she emphasized. “It’s for me actually. Me.”

Not everything was about him. Arrogant bastard. She pulled the ingredients out of her tote. Six limes, rose water, prickly pear blossoms, salt and, of course, tequila. She’d just add a splash of that. Nothing too crazy. She wanted to sleep, not dance on tables, and tonight she definitely wanted to cling to every single inhibition she’d ever possessed.

Hollis crushed two prickly pear blossoms and put them in the shaker with the other ingredients. She could feel him watching her. The calculated stare that made women want to undress because he’d noticed them. At first, she tried to ignore him, but screw that. She wasn’t a young girl anymore. She’d banished those dreams years ago. And this was her house. Well, not technically, but she had a standing invitation from her grandmother for whenever. She was family. He wasn’t. Not that that had stopped him from totally making himself at home. Or her grandmother treating him like family, sometimes more than she had Hollis.

So she leaned against the counter, to prop her weak-kneed self up, but he didn’t need to know that, and stared back at him, wielding the shaker like it was a weapon.

“This might be perverse because you look angry, but you are turning me on.”

She stopped. “You’re always turned on.” She forced the words out so she could hear them. “By anything.”

“Not just anything,” he drawled.

He sounded like warm honey drizzled on a heavily buttered, toasted baguette. He should have been from New Orleans or somewhere in the true Deep South. Faraway from here. She never would have met him. Would never have had him to compare with other men.

“Anyone,” she corrected, “female.”

She swirled two glasses in her sea salt and lime sugar mix and turned them over to add the ice.

“No, not anyone,” he said, getting up and moving toward her.

He was directly behind her, trapping her against the countertop, his long lean body hard and warm against her chilled exposed skin. She caught her breath, dropped one of the glasses. He caught it. Of course he did. Pain and injury and exhaustion not affecting his coordination where as hers was shot to hell.

He put the deep blue, handblown glass next to its twin. His fingers brushed against hers and every nerve in her body woke up, clamoring hello and more please. Right now. She bit her lower lip. Refused to say thank you. It was his fault she’d dropped it. His fault for getting injured. His fault for being here. His fault for being unable to love her longer than a few months and more deeply than the next girl and the one after that.

She closed her eyes tightly, willed the tears to go back. Stay away.

“Thank you.” His warm breath tickled her ear.

“What?” She couldn’t think what he’d possibly thank her for since every thought she’d had since she’d arrived involved him being far, far away from here forever.

She heard the splash of liquid and a husky huff of a laugh.

“I knew you’d make me one.”

He’d poured out two, evenly, and handed her a glass.

“Cheers.” He clinked her glass. “Welcome home.”

The words resonated all the way to her toes. She held the glass to her lips, but had to swallow several times before she could sip.

She was so predictable, she felt her heart crack open all over again, deeper and in new places, as if the healing had never happened.

“Practically a virgin.” He grinned at her.

The slap was loud in the room. It seemed to echo. The margarita spilled over her toes, spread on the throw rug and the glass clunked on the carpet and rolled across the wood.

“Just keep your mouth shut,” she hissed.

He laughed and lifted his drink as if approving of her move. Her palm had turned his cheek white then red spread across those cheekbones sharp enough to cut like diamonds.

Hollis stared at the dark bedroom with no bed. The small cottage that offered no place to hide, no reprieve from him.

“Defensive much, duchess?” His voice was low in her ear, his body so close to hers she could feel the heat, the electric pulse of his soul. “I meant the drink.”

She practically jumped away to keep from slapping him again. He was the most arrogant, irritating man ever to ride the Pacific, and that was saying a lot. He completely unnerved her.

He staggered. She spun and caught him, her hands gripped his biceps, and she held tightly, ensuring that he was steady, even though her fingers barely spanned a third around his highly chiseled arms.

“Thank you,” he said, his smile taunting her. “Always the good Samaritan, duchess. But I’m good.”

She wasn’t. She was a wreck. His eyes were sharp with pain, but he barely winced. And his gaze held her prisoner.

“I’m tired,” she said, and it felt like defeat.

“Come to bed.”

“You are such a slut, Kadan. Not even in your dreams. I’m done with that.”

She stalked across the room and grabbed up her quilt and held it in front of her as if that would ward off his evil, sexed-up spirit.

“That being sex?” His blue eyes traveled down her body like he owned it, and honestly, he still did. “For Lent or more permanently?”

“Go to hell, Kadan. I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“How Victorian.” He finished his margarita. “And uncomfortable.”

“I said go to hell.” She plunked down on the couch and began to fuss with her quilt.

“At least there I wouldn’t be cold, alone, or bored. Good night, duchess. Good to see you, too.”

She grit her teeth then covered her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear him hobble back to bed when she should not be acting so childishly and instead help him.

H
ollis wrapped her quilt tightly around herself and stared at the ceiling. The couch was comfortable. It wasn’t that. It was everything else. Kadan. She definitely hadn’t planned on him being in her grandmother’s beach guest house. She’d thought she’d have at least a month to sulk and feel sorry for herself all alone before she had to figure out what would be next. In the dark, her eyes prickled, and she felt like she was strangling with panic and defeat. She needed a new life plan. What the hell letter was she on now? She’d passed plan B a long, long time ago. She sat up, gripped her quilt, and tried to breathe. The room seemed to swing crazily around her. She pressed her forehead hard against her knees, mouth open to drag in a breath that just wouldn’t come.

“Duchess?”

Didn’t he ever sleep?

She scrunched her eyes closed like she was four again, and if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her.

“Duchess, you good?”

She squeezed out a sarcastic laugh that was smothered by the tightness in her throat.

She was so far from good it was in another country.

“Duchess.”

The silence stretched between them like a guitar string strung too tightly, about to break and cut her on the chin.

“Hollis?”

“Fine,” she said, feeling strangled because if she didn’t speak, he’d come over here.

He never let anything go. He never had. Push. Push. Push. Until she had nothing left to give. Empty. Then he would grin his cocky grin, curl her hair behind her ear, and whisper something meaningless and swagger off. Another wave to catch. Or a plane. Or a deal to make. An autograph to sign.

She heard the bed creak and her heart pounded. He was getting up. Oh, God. He had to stay there.

“Just tired,” she said. “I’m cool.”

She could feel him calculating her words. Her tone. Every nuance. For a man who’d only managed to graduate high school with a ton of help from her relentless grandmother, who’d tutored, encouraged, and bullied him, Kadan Carson was the smartest man she’d ever met. And she’d graduated from Stanford before heading to UCLA Medical School.

“You know, duchess, we have a history.”

She rammed her fist against her mouth to keep from shouting something at him that would prove that A, he still made her crazy and/or B, anything between them was hardly history to her.

What was she supposed to say? ‘Yes,’ all polite like they were at a fundraising cocktail mixer or ‘duh’ like she was an obnoxious teen again.

“But it never involved lies.”

Lies? Mr. So-Dubbed-Truth-Teller was going to lecture her about lies. Again?

“Give it up, Kadan.” She lay back down and rolled over, away from him and even held a pillow over her head to shut him out. “Leave the phony philosophical babble for the bikini babes at the bar.”