Three Little Words (9 page)

            She laughed at my words, and we resumed walking. “In fact, I’m begging you to.”

            “I bet you have more women than you know what to do with.”

            I looked at her in my peripheral vision, searching for the hints of jealousy that were always big red flags for me. But she seemed calm, amused even.

            “I do okay.” I offered her a wicked smile. Oh, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this woman and do all the things I was dreaming of doing. “I’m in a band.”

            “Aah, there you go.” Still no tightening of the lines around her mouth, no white knuckled fists.

            Of course, I hadn’t told her
which
band. Clearly she didn’t listen to our stuff, or she’d probably have recognized me. Not like we were super famous or anything—we certainly didn’t have the pay cheques that the big guys did—but we had a pretty loyal cult following among American universities, which is why we’d moved from Oz.

            “And there
you
go.” We’d reached my apartment building, and as I gestured at the ugly as sin brick building with one hand her mouth fell open with looked like disbelief.

            “You live
here
?” Her words were incredulous, and I raised an eyebrow at her. Normally I couldn’t have cared less what people thought of me, but for some reason, I cared what
she
thought.

            “It’s not much to look at, sure, but it’s not that bad.” Well, actually it was, but it was cheap as fuck, which meant that more money could go to the things the band needed.

            Taking a roomie doubled that amount. Oh shit, Mal was supposed to move in today. I wondered if he was home right now—that would definitely throw a kink in my seduction plan.

            Well, maybe he’d be into watching. He’d just broken up with his girlfriend Emma, a girl who was dull as dishwater and who he’d never seemed that interested in anyway. He needed to get laid.

            Not that I’d be sharing Adele with him, however. He could look, but if he touched I’d rip his nuts off.

            “No, no. It’s just... ah... I used to live in this building.” Wariness crossed Adele’s face, making me think that it was something more than that, but I didn’t push.

            The sheila had clearly accepted my flirtation because she was looking for some fun. I intended to indulge her, at least for now.

            “Well, then you’ll feel right at home.” By the time I turned to look at her again, she’d squared away that expression that made her look like she wanted to flee. Her own flirtatious smile was back, to my relief. “Let’s go. Our coffee awaits.” Or not, cause I didn’t have any. Shit.

            I heard her sharp intake of breath when we turned left from the entryway of the building. When we reached the door of my flat, she groaned softly beneath her breath,

            “Oh, no.” Her words were soft. The perverted part of me was really looking forward to hearing her groan, but something told me that this wasn’t going to be one of those sexy times.

            I was already opening the door when she spoke. A lonely shred of clear packing tape caught on the carpet at my feet told me that Mal was now in residence.

            I pushed the door the rest of the way open, then turned and held my hand out for Adele. She looked a little bit sick to her stomach.

            “Are you all right?” I asked, concerned. Just my luck, I find a girl that’s really interesting, and she’s nauseous at the thought of coming home with me.

            She nodded, though her lips were pinched together, and followed me in.

            “Not much to look but it’s... well, it’s a place to sleep.” I cast my arm around at the old couch and packing boxes, then shouted out for my roomie, hoping against hope that he wasn’t here. “Oi! Mal!

            Where you at, you bugger?”

            I heard water running, and then Mal appeared in the doorway to the bathroom, still wiping his hands on a terrycloth towel. He grinned when he saw me.

            “I’m beat, man. I’ll finish unpacking the rest of my shit tomorrow, I promise.” His gaze flicked past me to Adele, who inhaled noisily and pressed her fingers to the small of my back. “Adele?”

            Adele stepped forward, and I noted that once again her jaw was set. “Hey, Mal.”

            Mal looked from Adele to me, then back again. His expression when he looked at her was hopeful, and that hope shifted to irritation when he looked back to me.

            “How do you two know each other?” Jealousy was ripe in his voice.

            “We just met.” I kept my voice level. If I’d known that Adele had some kind of history with a friend I would have avoided her—or maybe I wouldn’t have, because in the last hour she’d already managed to get under my skin like no one else ever had before. Either way, she was here, and she was with me.

            I watched the thoughts flickering over Mal’s face as he worked out exactly why Adele would be coming home with me if we’d just met.

            The crunch of his teeth grinding together with tension was loud in the suddenly still room.

            And then it hit me.

            “
This
is her? The girl you were going to that night?” Fuck, fuck, fuckity fucker fuck. “Shit, you never told me her name.”

            The look on Mal’s face told me what he didn’t say. Adele was the woman he’d loved—still loved, I guessed. The one who’d gotten away. The one he’d never gotten over.

            And I saw now that he hadn’t told me her name because it had been too painful to say. In fact, after that conversation we’d had when we first met, he’d never mentioned the girl...
Adele
... again, though I’d heard plenty about his now former girlfriend Emma.

            This was not such a great start to our living situation—and both of our names were on the lease for a full year. I should be a good mate, should step back. But a possessive streak the likes of which I’d never known struck me down, taking my moral code with it.

            But when the gorgeous redhead shifted beside me, and her warm, sweet scent hit my senses, I already knew that I’d fight for the chance to have her.

            I’d always known that there was a pretty good chance that Dorian would be bringing girls home with him. Hot, eager girls, girls dazzled by his status as the lead singer of a band who had some kind of cult following in colleges in the States.

            I’d never in a million years guessed that one of those girls would be Adele. I could tell from the look on Dorian’s face that he’d had no idea that Adele was the girl in my past. And I had no right, absolutely no right to be upset, not when I’d fucked things up with her so badly.

            But the situation was more than a bit surreal, given that her lip prints were still on a juice glass in the sink.

            Dorian and I eyed each other, and I couldn’t for the life of me tell what was going through that cocky asshole’s mind. But I could feel my temper rising over the fact that he hadn’t backed right off.

            What was it he’d said to me once?

           
Don’t get me wrong—I’m no saint. But I believe in soul mates, fairy tales, happy ever after, all
that shit. And I tell you, once I find the right one, I’ll do whatever it takes to make her mine.

            “Want a drink?” He asked Adele finally, the words failing to make a dent in the thick awkwardness that hung over us all like fog.

            “She doesn’t drink.” The words were out of my mouth before I even thought about it. I scowled as I shoved my glasses up my nose.

            I sounded like an absolute ass, but my caveman urges were out in full force. I’d just found her again. I couldn’t lose her.

            “I can speak for myself, thank you very much.” Adele glared at me, and it hurt as much as if she’d stabbed me with a scalding hot knife.

            “I was just...” My voice trailed off. Posturing wasn’t going to help my case.

            Catching her angry stare, I felt my heart thump in my chest. This situation sucked.

            “I know she’d doesn’t drink booze, but I’m sure she
drinks
.” Dorian raised an eyebrow at me, and I found my fists twitching, eager to knock that smug little smile off of his lips.

            Nope, not a great start to our living arrangements.

            An exasperated sigh came from Adele, and she held her hands up, one palm facing each of us.

            “I’m going to get a glass of water.” She looked at us each in turn, and I wished that I didn’t feel so much heat rocketing through me when her eyes met my own. “You two finish with your testosterone pissing contest, or I’ll leave.”

            “I might leave anyway,” she added in a mutter as she stalked off toward the tiny kitchen. She was leaving us with the illusion of being alone more than anything, since the kitchen wasn’t really separated from the rest of the room, but her message was clear.

           
Get your shit together, guys.
 But I had to believe that she still had some feelings for me too, otherwise when faced with a pissing contest between some guy she no longer cared about and some guy she’d just met, I had to believe that she’d just leave.

            Tamping my temper into submission, I turned to Dorian, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking for all the world like James freaking Dean. In contrast, I was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, and probably looked like a homeless bum.

            We stared at each other for a second, silently daring the other to speak first. Well, I wasn’t going to act like any more of a douche than I already had, so I swallowed the great mouthful of my pride.

            “Arguing over a girl’s not a real great start to the year.” A voice inside my head was screaming at me for relegating Adele to the status of just some girl, but I couldn’t say out loud what she’d been to me in the past, what feelings had been brought to the surface by seeing her this afternoon. Saying it aloud would make it real, and then there was a very real chance that she would stomp on my heart the way I’d done to hers once.

            “She didn’t tell me she was... attached.” Sometimes Dorian was hard to understand, with his thick Aussie accent, but right now his words were precise and clear. “I didn’t have any way of knowing she was your bird.”

            I heard the words he didn’t say, too.

           
And now I want her, too
.

            “We’re not dating right now.” Irritation whipped through me at the implication that Dorian might pursue her anyway. “She’s my ex.”

            “No, I’m not.” Adele spoke from right behind me, and I wanted to bang my head against the wall.

            “We were never officially an item.”

            “Right. I think I’m going to leave you two to sort things out.” To my surprise, Dorian pushed off the wall and planted his feet shoulder width apart, stuffing his hands into his pockets. I hadn’t thought he’d give up so easily.

            When he held out a hand to Adele, clasping her fingers in his own and raising them to his lips for a kiss, his eyes sparking with possession, I seethed and thought that I should have known better.

            “I’d like to get to know you better, Adele.” He gave her that smile that I’d seen him use on girls at the bar, the one that got him pretty much whatever he wanted. “But the choice lies with you.” With that he sauntered off down the hall to his bedroom, shutting the door firmly closed behind him, leaving Adele and I starting at one another wordlessly.

            She crushed my growing hope under the heel of her boot when she turned to leave.

            “I’m going,” she said as she slammed through the door. Panic clawed at my throat, and after one long, frozen moment I ran after her.

            “Adele!” I shouted, probably louder than I needed to, lengthening my strides to catch up to her.

            She whirled, her eyes spitting fire.

            “Just leave me alone, Mal,” her voice was desperate, and it made my heart clench. “I can’t do this again.”

            “Adele.” When I said her name, I infused it with every molecule of regret that I’d felt since I’d been such a jackass to her years ago, when I hadn’t been able to make it right before she’d gone. “I...”

            I trailed off. Words seemed inadequate, but never before had it been so important to find the right ones.

            “I don’t have an excuse for what happened between us, other than I was young and stupid.” This was the truth. “When I saw you this afternoon, I felt... I hoped I’d have the second chance that I was too late to grab.”

            She was silent, her eyes wide and wary.

            “All I’m asking for is a chance to know you again.” I could hear the tight, painful need in my own voice. “And not even... you know, like that. Just to spend some time with you.”

            I wasn’t prepared for her to launch herself at me. But my body was more than happy to receive the contact when, with no advance warning, Adele slid one of her hands into my hair and roughly brought my head down to hers.

            I groaned aloud when she crushed her mouth to mine, when she nipped at my lower lip, then ran the tip of her tongue over my front teeth. She tasted exactly the same, hot and addictively sweet.

            But even though she tasted the same, the kiss felt different. We’d had plenty of heat between us before, but this kiss...

            This kiss was a volcanic eruption, the lust like lava, exploding outward, not caring where it landed or who it burned.

            The hand that had settled against the wall of my chest slid down, and her fingers played with the waistband of my jeans. I felt the tight muscles of my belly quiver at the proximity to my cock of fingers that I knew firsthand to be talented.

            When she tore her lips from mine, when she sank her teeth into the cord of my neck, I lost control.