Lingerie Wars (The Invertary books) (24 page)

She read the text, her lips practically moving along with the words. Then she glanced from the screen to Lake. Whatever it was, he was about to be distracted again. Excellent. She put the phone down and stood up. She began gathering dishes that were still half full of food.

"Come on, we're going to the kitchen to get pudding. You're helping."

Lake picked up what he could and did as he was told. The kitchen was conveniently located at the back of the flat—well away from the windows that overlooked the street and his shop. As Kirsty put the dishes on the sink, her phone buzzed again. She read the message and looked at him nervously. He wondered if she even knew that she bit her bottom lip every time something worried her.

"I'll wait in the living room," he said to wind her up.

"No!" She opened the freezer and yanked out a tub of ice cream. "You take this. I'll get the bowls."

He was momentarily distracted when she bent over to retrieve two bowls from the cupboard under the counter. The silky smooth material of her dress hugged every delightful curve and made his mouth water at the sight. Without thinking, Lake took a step towards her, still holding the tub of ice cream. There was a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. Oh, hell. He hung his head. The Stooges were trashing his place. Kirsty jerked upwards, stepped back and slammed into Lake, sending the ice cream flying to the floor. The mess made a vanilla puddle at their feet.

"Can this evening get any worse?" Kirsty wailed as she reached for a cloth.

Lake took pity on her. Clearly she wasn't cut out for this level of stress.

"Here, let me help," he said as he crouched beside her.

He reached for the cupboard under the sink, the place people usually kept all their cleaning stuff.

"Don't open that," Kirsty screeched beside him.

It was too late.

As Lake read the lists written on the inside of Kirsty's cupboard doors, he grinned even wider. This evening was just getting better and better.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kirsty hung her head and counted to ten. It didn't help. There was humiliation and then there was this.

"Things that make me anxious," Lake read aloud.

"That's private," Kirsty told him, but she knew it wouldn't make any difference.

"Lack of money. Lake. Lingerie war. Lake's steroid-induced muscles. Marketing." Lake read the list with a grin in his voice, while Kirsty closed her eyes and pretended the evening was a figment of her imagination.

"Lake's lips," he continued. "Lake's backside. Lake's lips again. Lake's hands. Lake's lips, yet again. Lake seeing my scars. Lake naked. Lake in a tux. And again, Lake's lips."

He turned around slowly. She couldn't even begin to describe the look on his face. It was somewhere in the middle of mystified, amused and delighted.

"You've written 'Lake's lips' four times," he pointed out. "They must make you really anxious."

Kirsty finished wiping up the ice cream and sat on one of the kitchen stools. She may as well endure it. There was no escape. It wasn't like she could send him packing while her mum was breaking into his shop.

"For the record," he told her as he stood up, "I have never taken steroids."

He flexed his muscles to make the point and Kirsty's fingers tingled to get a hold of the board marker and add "muscle flexing" to her list.

"You weren't meant to see that," she said.

"Kind of stating the obvious there, babe."

He folded his arms over his faded blue shirt and stared at her.

"We need to do something about the list," he said.

"It's a coping mechanism," she said pointlessly. What it was, was a sign of insanity.

"It's a helluva long list. You're running out of door space."

Kirsty rested her elbows on the counter in front of her and put her face in her hands.

"They say," Lake said, "that if you confront the things that make you anxious and think them through logically, then they won't upset you any more."

Kirsty's head shot up.

"Who says that? Who exactly is 'they'?"

"I did psych courses as part of my training."

He walked around the counter, never breaking eye contact. Kirsty checked her exit—it was behind her, there was still time to bolt. If she was fast she could lock herself in the bathroom until the evening was over.

"Now, seeing as my lips feature quite a bit on your list, I think we should start there."

"I don't need your help. I'm perfectly fine. See? No freaking out. What I really need is a lock on the cupboard door."

He stepped right up against her.

"What you need to do is realise that the world isn't going to end if my lips touch yours. Sometimes, a kiss is just a kiss. It doesn't need to lead to anything. I think that's what's really freaking you out. And the only way I know to stop that is to kiss so long that you stop worrying about what comes next."

"Oh," she said.

"Ready?" he said as he stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

She shook her head.

"Glad to hear it," he said with an evil twinkle in his eye. "Pucker up, Kirsty—it's for your own good."

And then he leaned forward and kissed her. He kissed her long. He kissed her slow. He kissed her in ways she'd never been kissed before. She clung to him, feeling waves of desire wash through her body as his lips kept coming at her. And, sure enough, he was right—soon she could think of nothing but kissing Lake. Kirsty wasn't sure how long she'd been lost in him, but when he stepped back she felt like every bone in her body was made of jelly.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" His voice was heavy with desire.

"It wasn't so bad," Kirsty conceded.

Kirsty's mobile phone rang. Lake looked at it.

"You're not answering that, are you?" he said. "We're in the middle of something here."

They were in the middle of something, all right. Kirsty just wasn't sure what that something was.

"I have to," she said with genuine regret. "It might be important."

He leaned against the counter and gave her a look she couldn't quite decipher. Kirsty picked up the phone, told him she would be one minute and headed for the bedroom.

"What?" she snapped into the phone.

"We talked about your tone, Kirsty," said her mum.

Kirsty sighed loudly. She pulled back the bedroom curtain to see her mother standing in the middle of the road again, looking up at her.

"What's going on?" Kirsty said. "I don't have much time to talk."

"You think we want to be dilly-dallying? Jean is here with her grandson and he says that it will take too long to get into Lake's laptop. He also said there are other computer things and the list of competition entries might be on them instead. So, what do we do?"

Kirsty chewed her bottom lip. This had been so simple in her head. They broke in without causing a mess, or a scene, and sabotaged one teeny-tiny email list. No problems. She should have known it would never go that smoothly.

"Okay, you'll have to take it with you and work on it at home," she said at last.

"Take what?" her mother said.

Kirsty bit her tongue to stop from saying what was in her head.

"All of the computer stuff."

"That's stealing, Kirsty Campbell!"

"Mum, do you really think we should worry about that? We're already breaking in to his shop. Plus it's not really stealing. We'll return it all tomorrow once Jean's grandson hacks the list."

She could see her mum thinking. Kirsty waited while tapping her toe on the carpet. She needed to get back to Lake. She had no idea where he was or what he was getting up to, and she didn't like it one bit. Something caught her eye in Lake's shop window.

"What's Heather doing with the life-size picture of Lake?"

Her mum turned around and shouted at Heather. Kirsty hit her head gently on the window. They were shouting in the street now. Her mum came back on the phone.

"She's taking it home," she said.

"She can't! That's not what we planned."

"So stealing all that expensive computer stuff is okay, but taking one wee picture isn't?"

"It isn't a wee picture, it's the same size as Lake. Don't you think people will notice it in Heather's house? Someone will tell Lake. Tell Heather to put it back."

"I'll try, but I can't promise anything."

Kirsty made a strangled noise.

"Fine. I need to go. Just get the computer equipment and make sure you lock up after you leave. We don't want any real thieves getting into the place."

"I take offence at that," her mum said with a frown. "We might not be real thieves but we're getting the job done."

Kirsty didn't have time for her mother's logic.

"I need to get back to Lake," she said.

She waved goodbye, snapped the phone shut and took a deep breath. As she walked past the small mirror above her dressing table she was disgusted at what she saw. She looked like a woman who was losing her mind. With resignation she went back to the kitchen to deal with Lake and whatever fun idea he was planning now. When he wasn't there she was almost relieved, thinking he'd given up and gone home.

No such luck. She found him in the living room. He was sitting on the couch with a grin on his face.

"What's so funny?" she said with suspicion.

"Nothing. Just happy to see you."

Kirsty's eyes flicked to the curtains. They were still shut.

"Finished with the phone calls, then?" he asked.

"I blooming well hope so," Kirsty grumbled as she threw the phone on the coffee table.

He patted the couch beside him. Kirsty's eyes narrowed. She went over to the dining table and sat stiffly on a wooden chair.

"So suspicious," he said with a shake of his head.

She didn't want to tell him that it wasn't suspicion, it was self-preservation. She was in over her head and had no idea how to swim.

"About your list..." he started.

Kirsty held up her hand to stop him.

"I've had enough of that for tonight."

"We haven't even made a dent in it," he said with a wicked smile that did funny things to her resolve.

"It will still be there tomorrow. I can wait. The kissing worked fine, let's quit while we're ahead."

"Glad to hear the kissing worked," he said as his blue eyes darkened. "But the night is young and I'm here to help you."

"I don't need your help."

"Yes." He stood up slowly and walked to stand in front of her. "You do."

Kirsty swallowed hard as she looked up at him.

"Now, what else was on that list?" he said with a smile that could tease paint off a wall. "Oh yeah, my steroid muscles and the fact you're worried about scars."

Kirsty jerked up straight.

"If you think I'm showing you my scars, Lake Benson, then you have another think coming," she said.

Lake leaned forward and kissed her again. It was gentle and sweet. His hand trailed down her cheek before he stood away from her.

"No, you're not showing me your scars. I'm showing you mine."

Kirsty's eyes went wide as Lake kicked off his boots.

"You're doing what?" she squeaked.

He shrugged with a heavy dose of false humility.

"I'm helping you," he said. "Focus, Kirsty—this is just like therapy. Only better. You obviously have a thing about muscles and scars. So I figure the best way to help you get over it is to let you look at mine." He grinned widely. "Let you touch mine."

Kirsty felt a pull deep in her body.

"And you won't touch me?" she said suspiciously.

He shook his head.

"It wouldn't be therapy if I did."

He pulled his shirt out of his jeans and unbuttoned it, all the while watching her, watching him. It was surreal. The first time she asks a man to dinner in her home and she gets a private strip show in her living room. Kirsty swallowed hard at the sight of him half naked in the middle of the room. The maleness of him was completely at odds with her soft feminine decor. He reached for the button on his jeans. Kirsty's hand shot out to stop him.

"I'm not ready for this," she said.

She felt like her heart was racing hard inside her and was going to crash against the wall of her chest any minute.

"Yes. You are. You can do this. Just like the time you posed in the street. It's no big deal."

"I'm not the person I used to be. I'm..." She faltered. "I'm not ready for anyone to see me."

"I'm not asking to see you," he said. Then he thought about it. "I'm not asking right now. But yeah. I want to see you. I want to touch you. Every damn inch of you. I want to eat you up like dessert and come back for seconds."

Kirsty stopped breathing. His dark eyes were so intense she felt the words as he spoke them. He took a deep breath and she watched the muscles of his chest ripple with it.