One Wicked Night (21 page)

Her reputation. She rolled her eyes then realized she was still standing in the middle of the yard and pushed forward again. What exactly was a reputation anyway? Mrs. Wirth had said that people loved her. People who cared about her knew her and knew if she was a good or a bad person. People had judged her dad after his injury, because he was different, but he wasn’t a bad person because of it.

She wasn’t going to run away from Mapleglen because of that. If they fired her over some rumors that nobody could prove, she’d sue them for wrongful dismissal. If people didn’t want to talk to her or didn’t want her to visit them at the seniors’ home, that was their problem. She’d lived through people looking at them and talking about them and feeling sorry for them once before when her dad had been hurt, and she could do it again.

If she left Mapleglen it wasn’t going to be because of that. It wasn’t going to be because she was running away in fear. It was going to be because she was brave enough to start over.

She felt a compelling need to see Tyler again. And Nick. To reassure them of that. So they knew that even though she’d done what she had, to her it didn’t really seem like any kind of sacrifice. She wanted Tyler’s parents to know the truth and so she’d told it.

There was no reason she couldn’t go to Chicago for a few days.

Other than Taz. She gazed at her little dog and bit her lip. What would she do with him? She couldn’t put him in a kennel. She just couldn’t. Maybe one of the neighbors…

“Hi, Kaelin.”

She looked up to see Dillon standing at her gate. “Hey, Dillon. How are you?”

Taz ran to the boy, tail wagging, yipping excitedly. Dillon grinned and held out a hand to Taz to sniff, then bent and picked him up. “I came to see if you wanted your lawn mowed, but I guess I’m too late.”

She smiled back at him. “Yeah. I’m just about finished for today. But how would you feel about dog sitting? And maybe a regular job cutting the grass for the next while. I’m thinking of going on a little trip.”

Chapter Fifteen

Friday night Tyler walked into the apartment. He’d done the happy hour networking thing after work for a couple of hours while Nick—the numbers guy, not the people guy like Tyler was—went to the gym to work out. Nick still wasn’t home, the apartment was empty. Tyler yanked at the tie around his neck, but stopped at the fridge for another beer before changing.

What a fucking brutal week. He and Nick were still at odds over the Healthy Solutions contract and they had to make a decision by Monday one way or the other. They’d dicked around long enough. Other problems had come up and Tyler knew he wasn’t able to deal with them with his usual quick decisiveness. He was distracted and restless and grouchy. His neck and shoulders were killing him. He was going to have to make an appointment to see his massage therapist. Nick hadn’t been offering to do the massage he often did. And that was another thing that was fucking with Tyler’s head. He hated that things between him and Nick were strained.

He guzzled down some of the beer, flipped through the mail. Bills. Crap. He tossed them onto the desk. He rubbed the back of his neck. He’d thought once he’d had it out with his parents things were supposed to be better. Ha.

A knock at the door startled him. What…? Did Nick forget his keys or something?

He strode to the door and flung it open.

Kaelin stood there.

He stared at her. She gazed back at him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Nice greeting.” She stood there in a pretty pink flowered sundress and flip-flops, her purse slung over her shoulder. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.”

He regarded her dumbly. “You were?”

She bit her lip, starting to look a little uncertain. Then he noticed that her fingers on the strap of her purse were shaking. Just a little. “No,” she whispered.

“Come in.” He stood aside to let her into the apartment.

She walked in and looked around. “Nice place,” she said, standing in the middle of the living room. The older building had been recently renovated, the oak hardwood floors refinished, the original creamy brick walls cleaned and new windows installed in the arched frames looking out onto the tree-lined street.

“Thanks. It’s a lot better than the dump we lived in during college. How’d you know where we live?”

“Avery gave me your address.”

“Ah.”

She turned to face him, looking so pretty and fragile, her slender calves bare beneath the hem of the dress, curvy arms revealed by the narrow straps. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed in shallow breaths. Her eyes flickered. Again, they both just stared at each other in thick, sticky silence.

“Uh, want a beer?”

“Sure.”

Her answer surprised him. She didn’t seem like a beer-drinking kind of girl. When he said so, walking to the small galley kitchen, she replied, “Beer reminds me of that summer we were hanging out.”

Hanging out. Yeah. They’d been hanging out. Having fun. Falling in love.

Christ. He closed his eyes, one hand on the handle of the fridge door, then yanked it open and pulled out another beer.

“Nick’s not home?” she asked.

He found a glass and handed her the beer and the glass. “No. He’s at the gym.”

“Oh. Yeah, I could tell he’s been working out a lot.”

“He should be home soon. Ah, have a seat.” He gestured to the big leather sectional.

She perched on the edge of the couch, her purse on the floor, her beer clasped in both hands. Awareness sparked between them. He wanted to grab her and pull her onto his lap and kiss the breath out of her.

“So. You gonna tell me why you’re really here?”

“Okay. I just wanted you to know that…” Her voice went low and throaty. “I just wanted you to know that you didn’t have to be mad at me for telling your parents the truth. Even if you were just mad because…” She stopped and swallowed. “Because you were worried about me, you don’t have to be. Because I’m fine. And I wanted you to know that. To know that I’d already been thinking about leaving Mapleglen, and if I do, someday, it won’t be because of that. It’ll be because I want to.”

He watched her, listened to her, his gut tight, her bravery and courage making his heart turn over in his chest and ache. Christ, she was special.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Kaelin.”

She regarded him warily. “Sorry for what?”

He sighed, bent his head, the words stuck in his throat. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry I keep acting like an asshole, especially to you.”

Waves of silence had him lifting his head to peer at her. Her face shone with trails of silvery tears, her bottom lip full and quivery.

“Fuck!” He slammed his beer onto the coffee table and shifted across the couch toward her. “Don’t cry! Jesus, I did it again!” She came into his arms willingly, her body slender and trembling against his. He pressed her wet face to his shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweet baby, I’m so sorry.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice muffled in his dress shirt. “Why did you want to hurt me that way? That night…”

“You mean with Tracy?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted you to know the truth about me.”

“What truth? That you like to tie girls up?”

“Yeah. That. But mostly just that I was no good for you.”

“Oh, Tyler.” She sighed. “If you weren’t interested, you should have just told me that.”

He snorted. “No shit. Would’ve saved myself and Nick a whole helluva lot of grief if we hadn’t done that, that night. How was I supposed to know Tracy was going to freak out like that? Telling you would have been the smart thing to do, but I never claimed to be that smart. And besides, I
was
interested in you.”

She lifted her head and gazed at him with big, wet, questioning eyes. He eased a strand of hair off her face. “But I was still no good for you,” he said. “I was in trouble more often than not. I did like to tie up girls. I did like to screw around with Nick. I was so messed up.”

She closed her eyes and looked as if someone was breaking her fingers. “You’re such an idiot, Tyler.”

“I know. I fucked up a lot of things. Believe me, I know.”

He brushed a kiss over her mouth, that soft, sweet mouth. Her lips parted. Their eyes met. Their breath mingled. His eyes closed as he moved in for another kiss, long, slow and warm. One hand slid over her hip, rested on her waist, the other smoothed over her jaw, rubbing away the tears. A wave of such intense pleasure and heat washed over him, he groaned into her mouth.

He deepened the kiss, slid his hand into her silky hair and cupped the back of her head, his tongue sliding inside her mouth in slow strokes, tasting her. She tasted sweet, so sweet, the sweetest girl he’d ever known, but he also knew she was more than just sweet, she was as dark and deep as he was. It was the difference between vanilla soft-serve and the extra dark Scharffen Berger chocolate he loved.

She kissed him back, her mouth opening to him, her tongue rubbing on his, making small moaning noises in her throat, trembling in his arms. She pressed her whole body into him, especially soft breasts against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his head and held on, and they kissed, endless, long, drugging tongue kisses.

“Kaelin,” he whispered, his cheek pressed to hers. “Christ, Kaelin. You scare the crap out of me.”

He felt her smile and she rubbed her face against his beard stubble. “The big bad boy is scared,” she murmured, fingers drifting across his shoulders, into his hair, sending pleasure cascading down his body.

“Oh hell yeah. I’ve never…I don’t know what this is,” he said. “Seriously, Kaelin.” He rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop aching for you. I don’t know what to do about it.”

“I don’t know either,” she whispered. “But I know I feel the same. That’s why I’m here.”

He groaned again and slipped a hand beneath her legs, then stood with her in his arms. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and he strode from the living room into the short hall and into his bedroom. The blinds were still down, shutting out the evening sun, the room cool and dim. He let her feet slide to the floor, stood her in front of him and, watching her face, slowly drew the straps of her dress down her arms then pushed the bodice down to her waist. She stood before him, letting him study her, with his eyes, with his hands. He slid his hands across her shoulders, brushed over her collarbones, traced his fingertips over the curve of flesh above the edge of her hot pink lace bra.

“Very nice,” he murmured, lowering his gaze to her smooth stomach. His hands slid down her sides, the inward curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, pushing the dress as he went until it slid past her hips and fell to the floor.

She tugged on his loosened tie. “This is very sexy,” she murmured. “Very businesslike.”

She unbuttoned his shirt and parted it to kiss his throat, her lips soft and warm. Her mouth moved lower as she unfastened each button, one by one, kiss by kiss. He started to go down, or maybe up, up in flames, especially when she reached his quivering abs and began tugging the shirt from his pants. And licked. Jesus. Christ. She licked his stomach, his bellybutton, while she opened his pants and reached inside.

He was hard, throbbing hard, and her hand closing over him sent heat racing through his veins in scorching pulses. The stroke of her hand on him had a harsh tremor shaking his body and then she went lower still, to her knees in front of him, tugging his pants down, her hands caressing his thighs. More heat rushed through his body and his brain cells started sizzling and popping. He was pretty sure that’s what that noise was.

“Kaelin,” he croaked, his fingers in her hair, sifting through the silky strands. And then her mouth closed over the head of his cock and he made some kind of unintelligible, embarrassing noise that almost sounded like a sob.

Scorching wet heat surrounded him, her little tongue rubbing and teasing, her mouth sucking and sliding on him. More noises escaped him, his fingers tightened in her hair. Electric thrills raced from his balls up his spine and he clenched his teeth to try to stop the whimpers in his throat. He looked down at her, her slender nose nearly pressing into his hair there, her eyes closed, her mouth stretched over his girth. Christ she could take him deep. Not all the way, because he was big and she was small, but damn, he was in her throat and she was sucking hungrily on him and making little pleasure noises.

“Damn, that’s good.” He managed to articulate three words. Tried for more. “So good, sweet baby. So, so good. Suck me. Oh yeah.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, their gazes snagging and holding, her big brown eyes surrounded by long eyelashes, her cheeks pink. He caressed her cheek with his fingertips, then widened his stance and rolled his pelvis forward in a gentle thrusting motion into her mouth. Her eyes went dark and she let him fuck her mouth. Emotion punched him in the gut, took his breath away, pleasure consumed him, love and lust twisted up inside him. And then she let him slide out of her mouth and with her hand she held his cock up and dipped her head to lick his balls.

He groaned. He was dying and she was taking him down with every flick of her tongue and murmur of appreciation. Heat stabbed at him, his seed boiled in his balls and flames licked over his entire body, centered right there at her little tongue on his testicles. Holy, holy hell.

He grabbed at her hair, tried to pull her head away. “No,” he groaned, though it took everything he had to try to make her stop, so close, so close. Fuck. “Not like this, Kaelin, I want…”

She pulled back and smiled up at him, the sexiest, most seductive smile he’d ever seen. “What? You only have it in you to do this once tonight?”

Damn her.

“Yes,” he growled, and hauled her to her feet. Her lips were shiny and swollen and his body pulsed with urgent need. He kicked his pants and underwear aside, shucked his socks and then stripped her out of her bra and matching panties, sweet Jesus, a tiny hot pink lace triangle held together with a couple of satin ribbons. “Love your underwear, babe,” he muttered, tossing them aside. Her low laugh tugged at his heart.