Good Girls Don't (4 page)

“You’re saying you aren’t thinking about it now?” Amy asked, though the question lost its potency when compared to the size of the fluorescent orange vibrator in her hand.

“I’ve never even kissed him.”

Amy tossed a bottle of edible massage oil in her bag. Then she lifted it back out and removed the top. “Hey, try this new flavor. It’s called wild banana.” She held the pale yellow container toward Colette.

Knowing Amy wouldn’t leave her alone until she tasted the stuff, Colette took the container, held her finger over the top, flipped it, then gave it back to Amy.

“Go on, Lettie, try it,” Amy encouraged.

Resignedly, Colette put her finger in her mouth and tasted Amy’s latest concoction. The sweet, tangy oil teased her palate. “It’s delicious.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Amy tasted a drop, then closed the bottle and put it in her bag. She continued gathering her toys, plopping them in her shiny duffel.

“You called me Lettie.” It had taken a moment for Colette to pinpoint the oddity in their conversation.

Amy stopped short, her fist clenching a fur-embellished pair of pink handcuffs. “I did, didn’t I?” She seemed as surprised as Colette.

“You know I hate that name.” She’d been “Colette” for twelve years. The name emanated everything she strived to be—mature, sophisticated, goal-oriented.

Tilting her head to the side, Amy looked skeptical. “Do you? Really? Or did you simply hate that it reminds you of Sheldon? It wasn’t all that bad a place, you know.”

“‘Lettie’ sounds like a girl who lives for having fun and being reckless,” Colette informed. But she
had
liked the way it sounded from Bill.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of reckless fun every now and then.” Amy lifted a silver-bullet vibrator from her bag of tricks. “Speaking of fun, you ever tried this one? It has a remote control unit with three speeds. You can pulsate, vibrate or throb.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Colette asked, eyeing the tiny silver contraption, more like an egg than a bullet, in Amy’s palm.

Smirking, Amy shook her head. “You’ve never been good at lying. Be thankful people on the other end of the line can’t see your face.” She rubbed the bullet between her thumb and forefinger, holding it at eye level in front of Colette. “You already have this one, don’t you? And I bet you use it regularly.”

Colette couldn’t fight the tinge of heat creeping up her neck to settle in her cheeks. “It’s one of my favorites.”

Amy laughed, wiggling her arched brows. “I’m betting Erika’s uncle may want a try at being your favorite.”

“I can’t even imagine sex with Bill.” And the moment Colette made the statement, she did. A vivid picture of Bill Brannon, his dark eyes filled with desire, flashed in her thoughts.

Oh man. She swallowed and pushed the thought away. For now.

“Hopefully, you won’t have to imagine it,” Amy said, smiling wickedly, as though she had actually seen where her sister’s mind had roamed. “I should’ve realized you would have known him at Sheldon. It never occurred to me that Erika’s uncle could’ve been that guy I remembered.”

Erika’s uncle. Colette still hadn’t learned everything there was to know about that situation. “You said he’s her guardian?”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “Her mother died when Erika was fifteen, and he took her in. She finished up high school in Atlanta and then we ran into each other a couple of months ago. She was a few years behind me, but I helped her when her mom died.” Amy shrugged. “Erika needed someone who understood. Even though I hadn’t lost a parent, I sure knew what it was like to barely have one around. I guess we kind of connected from that.”

Colette wasn’t surprised. Although Amy tried to pretend she didn’t care about family relationships, or the lack of family she and Colette had growing up, she really did. And it would’ve been just like Amy to seek Erika out during that hard time and try to help the young girl cope.

“So she’s been living with Bill for three years?” At twenty-seven, Bill had taken in a teen. Again, Colette wasn’t surprised. He would have wanted to make certain Ginny’s daughter had everything she needed, emotionally and physically, after losing her mother. That was Bill.

“Yeah. And she says he’s great and all,” Amy added. “Don’t get me wrong. I think he’s been a terrific uncle, but Erika says he’s having a hard time realizing she’s an adult. She said he’d hit the roof if he knew she wanted to spend a week with Butch.”

Butch. Colette hoped the name didn’t fit the man.

“But wouldn’t it be cool if you and Erika’s uncle hooked up? Who’d have thought that Erika using My Alibi could help you reconnect with an old flame?”

“He wasn’t an old flame,” Colette corrected.

“Did I say ‘old flame’? I meant ‘old friend’,” Amy said, but her glittering eyes betrayed her words.

“Don’t get any wise ideas about commitment here, Amy. If we do anything—”

“You mean if you have sex,” Amy said, evidently enjoying the shock value of this conversation.

Colette remembered the way the sound of his voice had brought a response from her long-deprived libido. Yeah, it was definitely a possibility.

“Okay.
If
we have sex, that’ll be it, pure and simple.” She recalled his promise, and mumbled, “He hinted he’d find my G-spot.”

Amy’s green eyes sparkled as much as her embellished duffel, and Colette immediately wished she’d kept her big mouth shut about that little tidbit.

“Did he now?” Amy asked, withdrawing the pink vibrator from her bag and grinning. “So, Pinky here has nothing on Bill, huh?”

Might as well go for broke. She and Amy had never kept sex secrets in the past. Why start now?

“He said maybe Jeff didn’t know where to look.”

Amy curled her arms around her stomach, causing the misshaped vibrator to poke her side while she cackled with delight. “So, not only is Bill Brannon God’s gift in the looks department, a sweetheart of a nice guy and has an ass like nobody’s business, he also knows his way around a woman’s body. Why would you want to go for someone like that?”

Colette scooped up the dislodged pillow and flung it at her sister. “An ass like nobody’s business?”

Amy turned her head, letting her ponytail take the blow. Then she twisted toward Colette and winked. “Hey, I may have been little the last time I saw him, but I wasn’t blind. Face it, sis. You should’ve hooked up with him years ago. I say, go for it. Burn up the sheets.”

“Then accept the fallout when he finds out I’m lying?”

“He won’t find out, unless you tell. And you’ll only have to lie to him this once, I promise.”

Bill stared at the sleek automobiles displayed on his computer monitor as though envisioning the new advertising campaign for Bentwood Motors. This was what he should have been doing, since his proposal was due by the end of the week.

Unfortunately, the words Alvin Bentwood conveyed as key phrases for his new slogan weren’t foremost on Bill’s mind. Lettie Campbell’s confident words in gym class on her first day in fifth grade were, however.

“I can do it,” she had said, eyeing the cheering groups of kids all eagerly participating in double Dutch.

The students at Sheldon Elementary had jumped rope double Dutch since the first grade, and admittedly were pretty damn impressive. Lettie, however, hadn’t been exposed to Mrs. Wilson’s favorite form of exercise for physical-education classes.

“You ever double Dutched before?” Bill asked, still intrigued by the pretty blonde who had made his preteen heart skip a beat that morning.

Lettie flashed a confident grin at the rest of the kids. Then she turned toward Bill, lowered her voice and whispered, “Can you tell me how—fast?”

Bill knew better than to laugh. He may have only been eleven, but he already knew girls didn’t like being laughed at, and he wasn’t going to ruin his chances of winning Lettie Campbell’s trust.

“Come on,” he said, and guided her through the gym to the stage, where they practiced her footwork behind the thick velvet curtains.

Ten minutes later, Lettie Campbell—double Dutch extraordinaire—emerged ready, willing and able to give double Dutch a go.

She tripped on the rope during the first jump, but remained fearless. Snatching a quick look at Bill, she cleared her throat, tossed her blond curls and asked to start again. The second time, she got it right. And thanked Bill profusely afterward.

It was the beginning of a friendship that would last through high school. Bill had hoped that eventually their friendship would provide the basis for something that would last much longer. That hadn’t happened when he told her how he felt on graduation night. Unfortunately, his ego had been too bruised to see that he simply needed to keep the friendship intact and give her time to think about the possibility of the two of them together.

But time had passed. He’d matured beyond the boy who’d been crushed at her rejection. Starting tonight, with their first date, he’d keep his promise . . . and show Lettie Campbell exactly what they’d missed out on back then. And what they could have now.

In high school, Lettie had seen him as a friend and all-around good guy, which was an accurate depiction. In fact, Bill was still the one that friends and family could count on, particularly now, taking in Erika when she should’ve been sent to live with his parents in Branson. But a teenager didn’t want to be raised in a haven for the silver-haired. Besides, Ginny specifically asked Bill to take care of Erika when the cancer took its toll.

Ginny never thought she’d die so soon, merely three months after she made the request. Or that he’d end up inheriting a fifteen-year-old when he was merely twenty-seven. But he had. And it hadn’t been so bad. True, it was hell on his love life—having his niece, a striking young woman with every bit the sexual awareness her mother had at that age, under his roof. He couldn’t very well expect her to abstain if he was playing bump-and-grind down the hall.

So he’d abstained too. For the most part. At least under his own roof. And, although the main reason had been because of Erika, Bill hadn’t denied another possibility for his few-and-far-between lovers over the past few years.

He’d never had the one he wanted.

Tomorrow, that could change.

In the fall, Erika would move into her own apartment near the Georgia Tech campus, where she’d attend college. Then Bill would, once again, be on his own. This week he was getting a taste of that life again. Erika was out of town taking the training course for her summer job, a position that would help her pay for college textbooks.

Not that his niece needed help, with Bill footing the bill for everything, but Erika was headstrong and was determined to assist him with the finances, particularly since Ginny died without an asset to her name.

Erika. It thrilled him to hear Lettie verify his niece’s new job was on the up-and-up. He’d thought it extremely odd a company would hire a girl fresh out of high school, then pay to send her to Florida for a training session, especially when she was only planning to work at the place through the summer. But he couldn’t deny she was a smart kid. Smart and strong and determined. Much like Lettie was in high school.

Which wasn’t a bad thing. Not bad at all.

It’d taken him a little longer to get his master’s degree, since he tried to bounce his classes around part-time jobs and full-time parenting. But it had been worth it. Erika was ready to spread her wings and fly. And he had a chance to grab Lettie Campbell’s attention again.

He’d nearly swallowed his tongue when he realized who was on the other end of that line. Lettie.

In high school, she’d liked the boys who were tough, confident and a tad wild. Bill never fit that part. But he could, couldn’t he? Long enough to win her over? Surely, he could pull it off for a while, then ease her into the realization she’d fallen for her friend.

He’d heard her sharp intake of breath when he promised to find her elusive treasure. The one Jeff had failed to locate.

Whoever the hell Jeff was.

But she and “Jeff” were over. He’d heard that much in her conversation with her coworker. And from what he gathered, no one else was currently in the picture, since the other woman had offered something to help Lettie find her magic spot.

Bill grinned. His comment had “bad guy” written all over it. It had “the kind of guy that Lettie Campbell would want” written all over it. And she did want him. He heard it through the line. Her breath quickening on the other end. Her excited gasp when he’d made his claim.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she’d said.

Little did she know, Bill had been looking forward to it for much, much longer. And little did she know, he didn’t plan on anything ending after one week. Because a week with Lettie Campbell would merely whet his appetite. A lifetime was more like it. He wanted her. Had wanted her for as long as he could remember.

Now he’d have her.

C
HAPTER
4

A
my Campbell typically didn’t make personal calls from work, but this was an emergency. What would Erika say when she found out her uncle and Amy’s sister were old friends? And when she found out they were having a date—tonight?

She picked up the phone and dialed, then put the receiver down when her door opened and Wallace Baker barged in. His Albert Einstein-style white hair spiked out in even more directions than usual, and his wire-rimmed glasses barely balanced on the tip of his nose.

“Wallace, you really need to knock before entering my office.”

“I did. You didn’t hear it?” He nudged his glasses upward with a knuckle and looked genuinely confused as he glanced back at the door. “I mean, it wasn’t locked, so I came in, but I did sound off as I was coming.”

Amy held back her laugh. He really should watch his word choice, particularly while working at a sex toy company. She tried not to think of the man, over thirty years older than herself, sounding off while he came.

“Next time, if you’d wait for me to tell you to come in, that would be better.”

Wallace had only been at the company for two weeks. He was a perfectionist, which was why she’d hired him. Plus he could see the big picture, understand the potential of what Adventurous Accessories could be and was eager to help her achieve her goals. Moreover, he was an honest-to-goodness genius, and you could never go wrong with a genius on board. Or so she’d thought.