Naked Truth (Crimson Romance) (13 page)

“It’s not nearly as comfortable without you here,” she called out as he headed toward the kitchen. She rolled off the couch, shuffled down the hall, used the bathroom, and went into the bedroom to change into shorts and a t-shirt. When she returned to the kitchen, her glass of wine was perched on the counter, and Jack was staring at the contents of the refrigerator.

He turned when she entered the room, his eyes serious as he watched her pad lightly on bare feet across the cool tile. She lifted the glass, took a sip, and arched her brows in question.

“Can’t decide?”

Jack closed the refrigerator and leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest. “Do you think Sabrina’s right?”

• • •

He watched the confused look crawl across her face. Clearly, she’d moved on from the conversation they’d had on the couch. Well, he hadn’t. It was still bothering him. He needed to know what she thought of him. What she felt. For some reason, it was important.

“Do you think I’m a player?”

She arched that brow again and took another sip of wine. “Aren’t you?”

“Do you think I am right now? That I’m playing you?”

Kennedy hesitated. Her confused look turned nervous. He suspected she didn’t like these types of conversations any more than he did.

“Answer me, Kennedy.”

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I don’t know what you’re doing or what you’re thinking. You have to admit, Jack, you have a reputation. And you’re the one who clarified that this was a no-strings attached, uh, situation, during Sabrina and Cullen’s wedding.”

Before he could protest, she lifted her hand, palm out.

“And I’m okay with that. I get it. I can live with it.”

“Can you? Yesterday you gave me a key to your house.”

“You asked for it,” she protested.

“I ask for a lot of things. Are you really going to give me everything I ask for?”

Nervousness turned to bewilderment. “What are you trying to say, Jack? I don’t understand.”

He stalked toward her, and when he was directly in front of her, he leaned forward and placed both palms on top of the counter, on either side of her hips. “I’m not easy to live with, Kennedy. I’m lousy at relationships, which is why I avoid them. I enjoy sex, a lot, which is probably why people consider me a player. That reputation allows me to get laid all I want without the complications of … more. But I’m also extremely demanding, and even though I try to remember to ask, I still have a tendency to just take what I want. You need to understand all of this.”

Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “O-okay,” she said, but he knew she didn’t understand. He knew she didn’t have a clue that he’d all but laid his heart out there, offered it up, if she was willing to take the chance on him. He was afraid to try to explain, because if she did understand, she might not respond with even a hesitant, “Okay.” She might just show him the door and suggest he have a nice life.

Jack wasn’t ready for that yet. He pushed away from the counter and strode to the door. “Let’s go grab something to eat. Cooking sounds like too much of a pain in the ass right now.”

• • •

When they returned from dinner, Vanessa was sitting on the front porch. With luggage.

“What are you doing here, Vanessa?” Kennedy asked warily. Jack had told her that Cullen wanted to hustle all three women into something akin to a witness protection program until this case was closed, but Sabrina had flat out refused, and Jack figured Kennedy would, too.

“You figured right,” she’d responded as she’d splashed hot sauce onto her shrimp po-boy. “Especially because I’m still convinced it’s you they’re after, and if I’m tucked away somewhere, all I’m going to do is stress over your safety.”

He’d been pleased with that comment, even if he wasn’t pleased in general that she was still essentially in the line of fire. Yes, that made him a hypocrite, since just a few days prior he’d walked out on her when she’d expressed concern over him risking his life for the case, but he was entitled to a change of opinion. This whole something-more-than-just-sleeping-together concept was new to him.

“I’m staying with you,” Vanessa announced. She stood and brushed at the back of the short green and white sundress.

“Cullen kick you out?” he asked.

Vanessa glared. “No. I chose to leave.”

“Why?” Kennedy wanted to know.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? You are sleeping with the man with whom I wish to have an affair.”

His reaction reminded him of the cat he’d had when he was a kid. The thing had made a god-awful noise whenever it’d hack up a hairball.

“So I’m going to see to it that you two aren’t sleeping together anymore. It’s just wrong. He should be mine. At least for one night.”

She gave Jack a look that implied if he were willing, she would happily trot him back to the bedroom right now. He glanced at Kennedy. She offered up a helpless look in return. He lifted his hands in surrender.

“Not my house or my cousin,” he pointed out. “I’d suggest we just go to my house, but I’m not comfortable leaving her here alone after what happened this morning.”

“Plus, I’d just follow you,” Vanessa added.

“How does Sabrina put up with you?” Kennedy asked.

Vanessa shrugged. “We don’t normally spend so much time together.” She wrinkled her nose. “And now I understand why. Did you know she doesn’t even have a housekeeper?”

“Neither do I.” Kennedy sounded as if she were hopeful that statement would cause her cousin to rethink her decision.

“But you have Jack.”

“Do you want me to just sleep with her and get it over with?” He directed the teasing question to Kennedy, but Vanessa answered. Actually, both women responded.

“Yes.”

“No.”

It was going to be a long evening.

Despite his injury, Jack went back to posing as a stripper on Wednesday. He slapped a flesh-colored bandage over the stitches and called it good. In truth, it was almost a relief to have a break. Not that he didn’t thoroughly enjoy most of the time he spent in Kennedy’s company, but hanging out at the house all day with Vanessa hitting on him and Kennedy flip-flopping between irritable and temptress—or maybe that was just his impression because he wanted to get laid—had been exhausting.

Try as they might, he and Kennedy hadn’t been able to convince Vanessa to leave, and Kennedy was too damn kindhearted to get downright mean about it.

“What if Mac really did cheat on her?” she had whispered when they lay in bed, not having sex because she was self-conscious over the fact that Vanessa was sleeping in the next room. He might have been more annoyed with her refusal if the other woman hadn’t made a point of bursting into the bedroom every two hours throughout the night.

Considering Kennedy’s own past experience with a cheating husband, he figured he couldn’t argue with her sympathy. He’d obviously never been in the same type of situation. Hell, he hadn’t had a real, full-fledged relationship since high school.

When he arrived on her doorstep at five the next morning, he slipped into the house and headed straight back to her bedroom, only to discover Vanessa asleep in the spot where he wanted to be.

“What the hell?”

“I’m sorry,” Kennedy whispered, as she looked up at him with doleful eyes. “She had a breakdown about Mac, and she was crying and crying, and then she just fell asleep.”

“Well wake her up.” He knew he sounded like an ass, but damn it, he wanted to sleep with her. He didn’t even freaking care if they had sex. He just wanted to be in the bed with her.

Instead of waking Vanessa, she climbed out of the bed, snagged his hand, and led him from the room. He admired the way her ass swung to and fro under those short boxer shorts she favored as sleepwear, and he changed his mind. He did want to have sex with her after all.

“We can sleep in the guest room or on the couch.”

“Couch,” he replied as he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting his hands and cupping her breasts as he guided her toward the living room. “What if she gets up in the middle of the night and tries to climb into her own bed?”

She didn’t respond. She turned in his arms, grasped his biceps, and turned him around before pushing him down onto the couch.

“I’m all yours,” he murmured as she placed her hands on his shoulders and straddled his lap. Something flashed in her eyes, something that should have been concerning, but he was too caught up in the moment, too desperate to connect with her, to try to figure it out. Instead, he twisted his hands in her sleep-tousled hair and pulled her close for a kiss. Just as he hoped, she melted against him, sighing into his mouth as she tilted her head, slanted her mouth over his, and gave in to what they both wanted. What they both needed.

• • •

When he woke, Kennedy was sprawled on top of him, naked, sound asleep, while Vanessa stood over them, sipping coffee and analyzing the scene with a critical eye. He groped around on the floor, found the blanket that had slipped off at some point in the last few hours, and pulled it over his sleeping partner’s body. She stirred but did not wake.

“You’re making a mistake,” Vanessa commented.

“It’d be even bigger if I slept with you.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because you’re married, and I’m pretty sure you love your husband. And you don’t even know for sure if he cheated. You should make sure you have all the facts before you make such a monumental decision.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My job is to gather all the facts before making a decision. If I don’t, the guilty party won’t be convicted. So actually, I
do
know what I’m talking about.”

Vanessa thrust out her chin and stomped away. Jack wrapped his arms around Kennedy’s sleeping body, nuzzled her soft hair, closed his eyes, and fell back asleep.

Only to be woken up an hour later by his phone.

“Time to look at some film,” his partner said in greeting. Cullen sounded too damn cheerful for only having gotten a handful of hours of sleep. Probably because he’d gotten to sleep in a real bed last night. Lucky bastard.

• • •

On Friday morning, when Cullen once again called and told him it was time to review film, Jack managed to corner Kennedy in her bedroom before he dragged his exhausted self out the door. She’d just changed from pajamas to her workout clothes. He wanted to strip them right back off her and do all those wicked things he alluded to while he was up on that stage, dancing for other women’s pleasure. He was suddenly ravenous for her body, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it because Vanessa was still there, hovering like a damned overprotective queen’s maid, ensuring her charge didn’t let the big bad man steal her virtue.

He settled for backing her against the wall and gyrating his hips against her pelvis while he kissed her breathless. “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said when he finally tore his lips away. “Be careful. Do not do anything stupid. Do not go anywhere alone. And for the sake of my sanity, get rid of your cousin.”

His plea didn’t work, although Kennedy insisted it wasn’t for lack of trying.

“Seriously,” he muttered as he slouched against the counter while Kennedy chopped ingredients for a grilled salmon salad. Vanessa had disappeared down the hall, giving them a brief respite. “I’m going to go fucking insane if that woman does not leave soon. Like tonight.”

“Why does she bother you so much? She fawns over you. You don’t like that sort of attention?” Kennedy teased him as she shredded lettuce.

“Not from her. The only person I want to pay attention to me like that is you.”

She turned her head and cocked an eyebrow.

“I want to get laid,” he qualified, realizing that he’d let slip something far more personal than he meant to. “With you,” he added before she had a chance to say something smartass, like suggest her cousin. Every time either of them said anything that could remotely be construed as too personal, they tended to either ignore the subject or dance around it, treating the comment as if it had been a joke.

The problem was, he wasn’t joking anymore. If he ever had been. With Kennedy, he had a suspicion there had never been a point when it had been casual, just sex. But how did he tell her that? And what if she didn’t feel the same? She wasn’t exactly forthcoming with her feelings either. Unless she was writhing underneath him, begging him for more or screaming his name, he had absolutely no clue how she really felt. So she liked the sex. A lot. But what about the rest of it?

Jack had never really considered the whole package before because he had never really considered anything beyond a simple, straightforward good time. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder, was he good enough—for more?

Kennedy added red onion to her salad and began slicing a tomato. “I’ll see what I can do,” she assured him. Her voice was neutral. He couldn’t tell if she was just saying that to appease him, or if she, too, was desperate for a little alone time.

“It’s not necessary.” He pulled a beer out of the fridge, all too conscious of the fact that she would not have beer in her fridge if he were not spending so much time at her house. Kennedy didn’t drink beer.

“You just said—

“Yeah, well, I’m over it now. I don’t want to put you out.”

She snorted. “Put me out? Are you kidding me? You have no qualms with waking me up at all hours of the night, and half the time I don’t know if you’re going to jump my bones or pass out cold next to me. And now, suddenly, you’re worried about putting me out?”

He slammed the nearly full beer onto the counter and glared at her. “You know what? Forget it. I’m out of here.” He strode from the kitchen, leaving her standing there, probably leaning against the counter and wondering what the hell just happened.

Which was just as well, because he was wondering the same damn thing.

• • •

Marie just loved the Internet. It was truly amazing what one could find with just a little patience and perseverance. Sometimes it cost money to get the information one wanted, but who cared in the grand scheme of things? If the results were to her satisfaction, Marie considered it a purchase well worth the money.