In my Arms Tonight (NYC Singles Book 2) (13 page)

He immediately removed his hand from the table to assure her he would never take his anger out physically, but a sound pulled his attention away.

“What’s going on here?” The door to Jane’s office was pushed to the wall by a sturdy-looking man in a yellow shirt and red tie.

Alex glanced at David King—Jane’s husband—who was glowering at him, his hip resting on the doorjamb. The body language screamed,
Get out from my wife’s vicinity, Summer, before I maim you.

David was physically large and intimidating. This was one man Alex wanted to stay away from.

Jane pressed her stray hairs into a neat bob. “Everything’s okay, David. Alex and I were just discussing… er… the video. He’s understandably upset about it.”

“I’d appreciate if you could keep the volume down while talking to my wife, Alex.” Decidedly unhappy, David gave Jane a quick visual check before leaving the door open and dragging himself back into his glass-cocooned shell.

“Sorry about that. David’s… overprotective sometimes. I understand your anger, but it’s all in the past now, so I hope we can continue to work together and let it go.” Flushed, Jane dripped coffee into her mouth.

Crawling with competing, self-destructive thoughts, Alex lost the desire to explain himself. “I’ll find my way out.”

The parting line was weak, lacking in any effort.

David directed another bloodthirsty glower at Alex as he removed himself from offices of Patterson & King.

Still dealing with the emotional aftermath of his meeting with Jane, Alex knocked on doors that afternoon, canvassing people to vote for him.

Ahmed, who was supposed to be doing this with him, had bailed out five minutes ago. His wife had hurt her toe and being the hypochondriac that she was, she’d made a huge fuss about it. Ahmed had left to check on her just in case it happened to be something more than a toe fracture.

Alex could’ve left with him, but he wanted to finish this street by afternoon, so he’d stayed on.

“Hello, I’m Alex Summer. I’m running for mayor. Can I have a few minutes of your time?”

He repeated his introduction to an exhausted young mother who looked utterly disinterested. Behind her, her kids were having a three-way tug-of-war in the doorway with a porcelain vase, yelling at the top of their voices. Wiry, with bits of tomato puree stuck in her frizzy hair, she eyed them warily.

“It’s mine!”

“No, it’s mine!”

“You have very energetic kids,” Alex flashed his fakest grin.

“Do you want to take them? Adopt them?” Desperation oozed from her face. From how tight her face was, she could snap and lose it any moment now.

“No, no, thank you. I’m sure they’re happy with you. I can tell that you’re a very good mother.” It was a weak attempt at sarcasm. “This is my leaflet. Please go through it in your own time. It discusses my stance on issues affecting the city. I’m strongly lobbying for after-school support in public schools. As a parent, you must be worried about your children’s education.”

“Education? I’m more worried about how I’m going to feed them this month. My ex-husband’s not sent me the check for child support… as usual. Do you know my youngest was eating sand the other day at school?” Rambling, she ignored the noises in the background. “Maybe I should have given him custody of the kids. What was I thinking, spending thousands in lawyer fees and signing up for so much responsibility? Nobody’s grateful for everything I do. I feel like a maid.” She sighed, putting up her fingers to her temple, when a shriek cut through the two other shrieks.

“Mom, Jimmy bit me!”

“Not again.” Gesturing in the air, she slammed a hand on the door.

Alex was spared from having to respond by an earth-shattering yell. “Mom!”

“Do something!”

An awkward pause chugged by. The lady attempted to get her kids to stop fighting over the vase, but with no success.

When she returned her attention to him, Alex tried to quickly finish. “Please consider voting for me. If you’d like to learn more or you have any questions, I’m having a meet-and-greet in the park over there next week, where you can—”

“I’ll vote for you if you can shut my kids up.” Her dark circles sank an inch deeper when she heard the crash of the vase splintering into fragments. “Shit. That was my mother’s antique vase. Boys! Which one of you broke it?”

“Thank you for your time, ma’am. I believe my plans for busy working families will be of special interest to you.” Sensing things were going to get ugly, Alex slunk away, pitying the poor woman, as the din of shouts spun out of control.

He inched towards the next door.

A wet drop hit his shoe.

In no time at all, thunder growled and water droplets came down like furious bolts, drenching his head and soaking his clothes. Rather than a slow drizzle that grew in intensity, the clouds threw down bombs of water straight away.

When it rains, it pours, huh?

Using the leaflets he was carrying to shield his head, Alex sprinted across the street, but it was coming down so hard, he had to find shelter. He found a dry spot under a door awning in front of house number 1715.

Shaking the moisture away, he took an involuntary step backwards when a stray drop of rain splashed over his face.

His spine pressed into the doorbell and it went off.

K
at was lying on the bed, her vibrator driving her towards an orgasm, when the bell rang.

Moaning one third in pleasure, one third in annoyance and one third in pure frustration as the climax she’d been building up to fizzled out, Kat fired a sigh to the ceiling.

This was the first time in six weeks she had made some time for sex and somebody had chosen to drop by right at this moment.

“Argh!” Her nails attacked the fluffy mattress, trying to tear through it.

She’d been so close to coming—seconds away. And now she was God knew how many weeks away from coming again. Cursing, she snatched a few tissues and got to work wiping herself up.

Who the hell was outside her house in the rain at the precise time when she was trying to give herself some much-needed sexual release?

She’d ordered nothing on Amazon or eBay and she had no relatives or friends who wanted to see her so much that they would battle the crappy weather for it.

Slipping on the first item of clothing she could locate, which happened to be a white camisole and a pair of shorts, Kat scurried to the door.

This had better not be a salesman trying to sell her insurance or she was going to blow up in his face. Wrapped up in her anger, Kat didn’t notice the television remote in her path. She stepped on the remote, which turned on the television.

She always left that thing dangling precariously on the edge of the couch, so it was no surprise that it had fallen off. Since she was in no mood to shut off the noise, Kat proceeded to the door, letting whatever was playing on TV play.

The face on the screen of her home security system was one she didn’t expect to see.

“Hello, I am Alex Summer. I’m running for mayor and I—” His sentence cropped itself midway when she opened the door and his chocolate eyes nailed her.

“It’s you.” Her voice grew unnaturally husky. He was the last man whose face she wanted to see when she was on the edge of am orgasm.

“Yes.” The monosyllable was weak. “I had no idea you lived here.”

Kat considered slamming the door shut in his face, but he was pitiable in his drenched clothes. Plus, she considered him almost a friend after the deep conversation they’d shared that night.

“Wanna come in? You’re wet.” She pushed open the door wider.

Alex’s gaze grazed her ankle.

That was when she realized that her boobs were pouring out of her top and she’d forgotten to wear a bra—something that was pretty obvious from the way her nipples protruded. Reflected in Alex’s eyes were her glazed eyes and bed hair.

On a scale of one to ten, this would be a solid ten in terms of embarrassment factor.

“Did I disturb you while you were doing something important?” Alex glued his eyes onto her face rather than to the other more interesting bits of her that frankly, any man would have wanted to look at.

Give the guy some points for decency,
she thought.

“Just watching Netflix.” The TV blared in the background and saved whatever shred of dignity she had remaining.

Alex crossed the threshold to her house. “If isn’t too much to ask, can I get a towel?”

“Sure. And I might have a spare T-shirt your size, too.”

The click of the door locking behind her made all the hairs on Kat’s back stand up.

Alone with a man in her house.

Anxious, she grabbed her phone from the coffee table. Every safety app developed in the history of humankind was installed on it. She didn’t think Alex would harm her, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“What were you watching?” Alex’s gaze settled on her TV screen. “Looks… interesting.”

Kat kept a safe distance from him. “Have a seat. I’ll try to trace the whereabouts of that T-shirt I promised you.”

Moving into her room, she grabbed a towel then battled the mess in her closet until she managed to locate the oversized T-shirt her boyfriend had left here five years ago. Yes, she still had that.

“You have a camera in your living room,” Alex remarked when Kat handed him the towel and T-shirt.

Not wanting to talk about the stalker thing and the home security system she had installed in response to the incident, she said, “Use my room to change.”

Alex negotiated his way to her room and shut the door.

Settling into the couch, Kat busied herself trying to make out a storyline from the images on TV. If he ever came back and asked her what the movie was about, she’d need an answer.

The film was called
The Capitol Game
and from whatever little she could make out, it was a B-grade political thriller—one involving a fictional president who had gotten an intern pregnant. She was now out to destroy his life and have him impeached.

Did screenplay writers never get sick of writing derivatives of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal?

In the scene that was playing, the nutcase intern was stalking him, trying to find an opening to exact her revenge. Generally, Kat didn’t appreciate movies with such hare-brained plots, but what the script lacked in story, it made up for in its (mostly unintended) comedy. She was rolling over with laughter, tearing up within minutes. Alex cleared his throat behind her.

“This is so funny—” Her hands stilled and the rest of her body followed as soon as she realized that Alex was bare-chested.

And holy hell, he had tattoos.

Alex Summer, Mr. Uptight, model citizen had tattoos. Plural.

Starting right below his collarbone, they wound down his right arm, stopping a few hairs shy of his wrist. No wonder he never stepped out in anything but full-sleeved shirts, even in the middle of summer. If somebody saw him like this, they’d be unable to buy into the ‘responsible, dependable, clean’ image he had cultivated with the help of his army of political consultants and press secretaries.

Warmth snaked over her body and hit her in her groin. Taylor Swift’s
I Knew You were Trouble
randomly started up in her head.