Just One Night (2 page)

“His dream. Not mine.”

“Look, I’m not saying that you should’ve stayed. You’re an amazing artist, and I know you’re going to be successful. I just think now that it’s been a few months and tempers have cooled, it’s time to think about how to start mending fences.”

The room was quiet but for the sizzle of bacon as she let his words sink in.

Apparently, he had said his piece and wasn’t waiting for a declaration from her, which was good. She wasn’t ready to make one. The hurt was as fresh as it had been the day her parents had slammed the door in her face. But damn it all, his words made all kinds of grown-up sense. Maybe her father hadn’t been so much against her having a career in the arts as he was invested in her taking over his business.

Tomas clapped his hands together, breaking the tension along with the silence. “Let’s eat.”

Glad for the distraction, she gathered up two forks and some napkins. She turned around and slammed right into what felt like a brick wall.

“Cold!” she screeched, as icy, sticky liquid drenched her from neck to waist.

Tomas’s shocked eyes met hers. He held one full glass of orange juice and one almost empty. He’d managed to catch it just before it shattered on the floor, but not before she ended up wearing most of it.

“Sorry, I—” The words died on his lips even as his mouth continued to open and close for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Putting aside her discomfort, she scanned him quickly, looking to see if maybe she was standing on his toe or something. Then she realized he was staring at her shirt. She glanced down and gasped. She might as well have been topless. SpongeBob clung to her skin tighter than a barnacle on a boat, and whatever coverage the thin, worn cotton had provided when dry had vanished in the face of eight ounces of OJ. Her nipples were clearly outlined as the cloth hugged the dusky, tight points.

“Go change.”

His brisk tone shocked her into meeting his narrowed eyes despite her embarrassment. She’d heard it before, but he’d never aimed it at her.

She set down the napkins and utensils and crossed her arms over her chest. “You bumped into
me
. I don’t know what you’re so mad about. It was an accident.”

He turned on his heel and put the glasses on the table but didn’t turn back to face her. “I’m not mad, just go change while I clean this up. Hurry up before breakfast gets cold.”

Geez. After the kind of night he’d had, he should be in a better mood. It wasn’t like he was the one covered in juice. Hungry and too tired and wrung out from the emotional roller coaster of the past thirty minutes, she didn’t argue. Maybe they’d both be in better moods once they ate and got a good night’s sleep. Then again, it was kind of hard to get a good night’s sleep when the man she loved was just one door away, oblivious.

Chapter Two

Holy gorgeous tits.

He had seen them once before, and although it was more than a decade ago, he thought they’d been burned into his memory forever. Either things had changed or his mind wasn’t as sharp as it once had been, because his mental picture didn’t touch the glory of Mike’s breasts. High and so full, tipped with rosy nipples that made his mouth water.

He groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. If he were a religious man, he might think the gods were conspiring to torture him. His cock throbbed heavily, and he closed his eyes, willing it to go down.

He’d just spent the last few hours having energetic sex with an enthusiastic partner. She’d even been down with a little kink, and he’d worked her over with the flat of his hand before they fucked. It should have taken the edge off. It always had before. But the leading lady in every dream he’d had since he was fifteen wasn’t living with him before, either.

Shit. Mike needed him, and he wouldn’t think of failing her, but how was he going to manage this? After their talk tonight, it was clear she was nowhere near ready to go home to her parents, and she was a good six months away from being able to afford a place of her own. That was a damned shame, because he’d be dead in two if something didn’t give. Already, he was working twenty hours a week overtime just to be away from the house. Not to mention going out every weekend to try to get some relief for the aching need that dogged him whenever she was around.

He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and sucked in a breath. He’d been a split second away from grabbing her, tearing the shirt from her body and licking the sticky juice from those hard nipples. From flipping her around, wrapping his hand in her hair and bending her over the kitchen table. From sliding his cock in deep, pinning her in place with one long thrust. Smacking her round, white bottom with his hand as he rocked forward and back until she screamed his name.

“Tomas?”

He flinched as she walked into the room straightening a fresh new T-shirt over her ample chest. Still no bra. Fantastic.

“I got more juice,” he said dumbly, turning away so she wouldn’t see the erection fighting the good fight to escape his jeans.

“Good. Everything okay? You look weird.”

“Yup, all good. Long night. I think I kind of hit the wall. Let’s eat so we can both get some sleep.”

He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat. He took his seat across from her, and she sent him a beaming smile. “This looks so good.”

As he watched her dig in, he wondered idly how she would react if she knew he didn’t even really like to cook. He’d only learned because he loved watching her eat, and even now, twelve years later, nothing gave him more pleasure than feeding her. He would hustle around the kitchen, sautéing, chopping, mixing. She’d set the table, bouncing around on the tips of her toes, almost vibrating with excitement. She’d lift the top off a pot or pan gingerly, peering inside, inhaling the scents with a moan. She’d slide the fork from between her lips and close her eyes for a second as the flavors exploded on her tongue.

He would give his left nut to be one of those flavors.

“How do you get them so dang fluffy?” she asked, shaking her head in wonder as she cut into her omelet. “Mine are always flat and floppy. Like a deflated whoopee cushion.” She crinkled her nose in disgust at her nonexistent culinary skills.

“It’s okay, babe, I can’t even draw a stick figure, and your paintings put the Mona Lisa to shame. We’ve all got our thing.”

She was too preoccupied with the food to argue and forked a bite into her mouth. She groaned, and his cock leapt in response. Food untouched, he sat and watched as a long piece of melted Swiss plastered itself to her chin. She laughed, curling her tongue out to capture it then sucking it into her mouth.

“Forget ambrosia. Melted cheese is the food of the gods. This is really hitting the spot.”

She said that every time, and every time he had to bite his tongue so he wouldn’t offer to show her where the
real
spot—which he could keep hitting over and over if she let him—was. His balls tightened at the thought of being buried deep inside her.

“You going to eat?”

He choked back a long-suffering sigh. It was going to be one of those weeks. Usually when he found a willing partner and had some fun, he could deal all right for a while. He still wanted Micah afterward—always wanted her—but he could manage it. Other times, no matter what he did, nothing worked. This was one of those times, and everything that came out of her mouth sounded sexual.

“Mmm, this is so creamy. You really should have some.”

His eyes nearly crossed. Rather than risk a response, he started shoveling fork-loads of food into his mouth. Prime objective? Get out of the room pronto, while he could still walk.

Twenty minutes later he was behind closed doors breathing a sigh of relief. After they had eaten, Mike had done the dishes while he fed Martha their leftovers. As she finished cleaning up, he let out an exaggerated yawn and she sent him off to bed. She was going to take Martha for a quick walk then try to get in a few more hours of shut-eye herself.

That had been music to his ears. He might actually be able to fall asleep before she got back. Whenever they went to sleep at the same time he ended up tossing and turning, picturing her getting undressed, maybe rubbing the fig-and-pear-scented lotion she loved on her smooth, shapely legs, or worse, masturbating.

He covered his eyes with a hand, in an effort to will the image away. Refocusing, he turned his thoughts to Lisa, his date for the evening. She was hot. It hadn’t mattered that her hair was brown without even a hint of red in it. And she had a good body, even if she was a little tall for his taste. She’d seemed nice when they’d chatted for a while before they’d left the club for her place. So what if she wasn’t funny? Not everybody was funny.

Mike was funny.

Back in high school they used to play practical jokes on each other all the time. Once, he’d made a date with Mindy Polaski. Mike had thought she was a stuck-up bitch—which she was—so she’d stuffed a paper bag full of onions, tuna fish and liverwurst deep underneath the seat of his car, right before his date. The Mustang had smelled a little off, but not too bad, when he had picked up Mindy. After their all-day date on the lake, though, with the car sitting in the beating sun, the ride home had been brutal. It took him two days to finally locate the source of the smell and two weeks to rid the car of it. Worse, Mindy had gotten so nauseated from it, she declined his invitation to go to the lighthouse and make out.

He hadn’t needed to ask Mike if she’d been the one to do it. By that time, he knew her as well as he knew himself. Smelling up his precious car was one thing, but cock-blocking him was a whole other animal. He’d had no choice but to retaliate, and so it went. Neither ever said anything to the other—it was part of the game. Since that first time, not a year had gone by without at least one practical joke.

It was her turn now, since he’d plastered a “Honk if You Love Star Trek” bumper sticker on her car a couple months ago. It had taken her a full week and two drive-by marriage proposals from Trekkies before she’d found it.

He lay in bed, contemplating the ceiling and Mike’s possible next move, when he realized he was grinning, which made him stop grinning immediately. He’d just had good sex with a fine woman, and rather than reliving that, he was laying there wondering whether his roommate was going to dump out his Gatorade and refill it with pickle juice.

Again.

He had it bad. As bad as ever, and there was no getting around it. He was still, and always would be, in love with Micah Kincaid.

He had to get her the fuck out of his house ASAP, before he did something they’d both regret.

Chapter Three

Micah stared in the mirror and made a fish face.

“Oh, that’s good. You’ll drive ’em wild with that look.” Renee stood in the doorway of the bedroom, eyeing Micah from head to toe. “Seriously? That’s what you’re wearing? We’re going to a club, not a PTA meeting. How are guys going to know if they want the merchandise if you don’t give them a peek?”

Her friend since college, Renee had long extolled the virtues of giving guys a peek. Micah eyeballed her friend’s slinky outfit and flawless makeup. With the black hair styled in finger waves around her face and classic, vampy red lips, she oozed old Hollywood glam.

“Who actually wears a corset in this day and age, besides you? How am I supposed to compete with that?” Micah asked with a deflated sigh. “You need to let me be me. I’m not sexy, I’m cute. The jeans and peasant blouse represent me perfectly.”

“Really? You’re a poor cowpoke with questionable taste? Because that’s what that ensemble says to me. In fact, it looks to me like you’ve given up.” A crimson-tipped index finger shot in the air as Renee’s face brightened. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Instead of going to the club, let’s stop by the pet store and see if they’re having a sale on cats. Maybe they give a discount if you buy in bulk.”

Micah pressed a hand over her heart. “You wound me with your poison word-darts, milady.”

“Yeah, right. As if you actually care what I think. Come on, can’t you just let me dress you one time?”

“No.” It wasn’t the first time she’d asked, or even the hundred and first, and Micah’s answer was the same every time. Despite their banter and the jokes, she was fully aware of what she was—a five-foot-two redhead with a cute-ish face and a figure that was ten pounds away from being pretty good. She would never be a bombshell like Renee, and she’d only look like an idiot if she tried.

She cast an eye to the mirror and took in the full picture again. “Tell you what, you can pick my shoes, okay? I’ll even wear the slutty ones if you want.”

Renee clapped her hands together and gave a little squeal. “I want, I want!”

Micah grinned and pulled from her closet the sky-high, nude wedges she’d planned on wearing anyway. Crisis averted. Once she got on this track, Renee was a juggernaut, so Micah was thrilled to have pleased her friend enough to allow the matter to drop.

They made their way to the living room and gathered up their purses, getting ready to head out. “Where’s our Latin Lothario tonight?” Renee asked.

Micah tried to act nonchalant and shrugged. “Don’t know. He said something about going out with the guys and catching the baseball game.”

Up to now, Micah had made it a point to keep her feelings for Tomas under wraps. The last thing Renee needed was something else to obsess over. The girl
loved
a good project, and Micah didn’t relish the thought of being her guinea pig, or worse, the object of her friend’s pity.

Strengthening her resolve, she made a vow to herself to try to have fun. Who knew? Maybe this would be the night she’d meet a guy who would make her forget all about Tomas.

It could totally happen.

Three hours and two margaritas later, Micah would have traded a nonvital organ for a pair of flip-flops. Her feet had vaulted past sore to a sort of blinding pain that had her wincing with every step.

“But they still look hot,” Renee said, and tore her gaze away from a guy she’d been making cow eyes at over the bar to give Micah a reassuring wink.