Notorious Read online

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Maybe. But it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  “Be careful. You have no idea what Luke has gone through. I should be going. I stopped by on my way to the Everharts’ to pick up Tim. I was going to see what types of things I needed to pick up for Luke. He told me he would finish moving in this weekend, but apparently, he’s not only moved in, but also done the grocery shopping as well. I’ll see myself out. Sorry to disturb you.”

  She spun around and left. The chill of her tone lingered. Still, even if Nancy didn’t like her, Nancy’s love for her son was obvious in her eyes. What did Nancy think Kelly was trying to do to Luke? Why would she automatically assume Kelly would hurt him? It really didn’t take a genius to have some idea of what Luke was going through. Yes, maybe she hadn’t witnessed it, but she witnessed what Luke was like now. He was a man frozen in time, and in dire need of a kick-start. Painful though it may be for him, it was time Luke moved in a different direction.

  He didn’t have to shift forward or away from Shelly, but rather toward her, keeping her a part of his current life. It really didn’t matter what Nancy had inferred about her being in Luke’s condo, because Nancy had disliked her from the start and didn’t fail to make that opinion crystal clear.

  ****

  Luke walked into his new home for the first time alone after work. He let the unfamiliar silence settle over him. He was going to be living alone, something he hadn’t done in ten years. He lived with Shelly for nearly seven years, and then his brother in the three years since Shelly died. And now here he was…alone. There was finality in this move. This was it for him. There would be no reason he’d ever need to move again. He had to quit avoiding that, hiding from the fact that he was a widower. And as always, life progressed on. His brother was now married with his own family. And it was well beyond time that Luke took responsibility for himself. Letting go of the house he had so many dreams in was hard, but three years ago, he knew this day would come. Shelly was dead, and he had no more dreams and no more future. What he had was the present and getting through each day. Maybe now, in this new setting, that would be a degree easier.

  He looked around. He wouldn’t be surprised if Kelly hadn’t left a big bow tied to his couch. The entire condo was clean, organized, and decorated. She created an entire household for him in a handful of days, something he doubted he could have done in two years. It was her way of helping him move on from the house. Her gift to him. But a week ago, he’d have laughed at the notion that Kelly could be so sweet.

  His gaze landed on the wall. Pictures. He walked over and stood in front of the wall to find his wife, his past life, staring back at him. Smiling at him. Mocking him with his own former happiness. There was the familiar tightening around his throat from looking at Shelly. He couldn’t look at her without nearly having a panic attack. One glance at her face and the enormity of her absence, and his future alone seemed to crash over him as fresh as the day he lost her. He was incapacitated, and he couldn’t go on. He couldn’t survive this. He wasn’t strong enough.

  Luke closed his eyes to block out the pictures. Then he turned and glanced around to find that there were more pictures set about as if to torture him. Kelly had done this. How dare she? What did she think she was doing? Trying to finish him off?

  Of course, in her defense, she probably didn’t quite grasp that most days, he wished he were dead, too. And one look at Shelly reminded him of that fact.

  He shook his head. Too scary. He couldn’t think that way, the thought of oblivion sometimes called to him like the answer to a nightmare. A place where he’d quit feeling, where he’d quit hurting so much. Where loneliness couldn’t gnaw at him so incessantly, he sometimes was sure he was going mad with it.

  Damn Kelly.

  But she couldn’t know this, could she? What these pictures evoked in his mind? He was claustrophobic with all the smiles. He turned and opened the sliding door, nearly tearing it off its tracks to get outside. The evening air was pleasant and warm on his face, the sun burning like a hot coin over the ocean, making the waves stand out in perfect clarity. It was beautiful, soothing, open, and free. Space. Clean space where a man could breathe.

  He leaned into the railing, gulping air.

  “Do you want me to take them down?”

  Luke jumped when Kelly suddenly materialized behind him as if she’d popped out of his head into the flesh.

  “You didn’t answer my knock, so I let myself in. Do you want me to take them down?”

  He wasn’t sure what he wanted, other than for the deep hole of grief that was starting to consume him to suddenly stop. Every feeling that he fought with all his energy to keep at bay suddenly churned in his gut.

  She looked at his face, her tone suddenly contrite as she backed up. “I didn’t know it was still that bad for you. I’ll take them down.”

  He stalked in after her and grabbed a photo off the TV.

  “How could you think this wasn’t that bad?”

  She looked at the picture he held of Shelly pregnant, taken the week before she died. Kelly looked as if she was about to turn and flee. But she didn’t. She stepped forward and gently took the picture from his hand, placing it back on the TV.

  “Get out.”

  “No,” she said, her tone just as cold as his. “Don’t you get it? I’m sorry for you. But you need to deal with it. You need to quit being so nice about it to everyone and deal with the feelings you keep locked so far from you that you can’t even look at a picture without a panic attack. I didn’t know it was that bad. But now that I do, the last thing I’m doing is leaving you alone.”

  How could self-absorbed Kelly Reeves get him? When everyone else failed to even sense an inkling of his psyche?

  “We had a real nice friend thing going on here. I don’t see any reason to ruin that, so leave it. Leave me. I’m not feeling real friendly right now. So please do yourself, and me, a favor, and leave.”

  “I don’t need to be your friend. But you need me, more than you could possibly see right now.”

  “I’m trying here to do the right thing after all you told me last night. You don’t want to know what I’m feeling.”

  She held her gaze on him. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like this,” he said. He shot a hand out and wrapped it around her waist, drawing her to him. He ground his mouth against hers in a kiss that was the polar opposite of last night’s soft and slow heat. Tonight, it was hard, punishing.

  He wasn’t feeling very kind just then toward Kelly, her intentions, and his own life. He pressed against her to let her know exactly what he was feeling, and there was nothing gentle or soft about it. Pure lust seemed to have taken hold of him where his anger was boiling. What the hell? This kiss would at least make skittish, inexperienced Kelly leave him alone.

  He held her waist. Both of them breathing hard, they stared at each other.

  “I think you get the point. You know what I want, and we both know that’s not you, so get out.”

  “No you don’t. You want to tell the world off, and instead, you smile and politely tell them all what they want to hear. Making me leave isn’t going to change anything. Letting me stay, just might, and that’s why you’re nearly as panicked for me to leave as you are panicked by those pictures.”

  “Quit telling me what I want. And quit pretending you have any idea how I feel.”

  “I think you’re the one who doesn’t know how you feel. Three years later, and it overwhelms you so much, you can hardly breathe.”

  “Get out.”

  He turned his back to her, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring out the window. Her hands suddenly came to up on his shoulders, she was tall enough to do so comfortably, and she rested her head on his neck. Her breath was soft on his skin, nearly as soft as the kisses she scattered at the base of his neck. He closed his eyes and savored her softness. How long had it been since he was understood? Since a woman’s hand had touched him? I
t was so long; it was impossible for him to stop her. She wasn’t in any condition to deal with what this would be. She was as complicated a woman as he could get involved with, yet here she was.

  She saw all of him, the half-dead, anxiety-ridden, frighteningly suicidal, him.

  He let out a long sigh as the anger left him. “I’ll hurt you. I don’t want to do that.”

  “I’m a big girl. Let me worry about me. Maybe for once, you should let someone worry about you. Which is pretty apparent someone needs to do.”

  Turning Kelly away now would be like a drowning man ignoring a life preserver being thrown to him. He’d drown into oblivion if he didn’t accept her. Kelly was his last chance at feeling anything real again. Anything good. So he turned toward her.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Luke turned and kissed Kelly, it wasn’t to punish her, or his life, or make her leave, it was to make her stay. They kissed long and deep. When he pulled away, he gently took her hand and started leading her toward the stairway, and up to his bedroom that was bathed in orange as the sun sank into the ocean.

  “Are you sure about this? I’m not…”

  “I know you’re not in love with me. You’re not responsible for me either. The very fact that you don’t want to hurt me tells me what kind of man you are, and that’s all I need from you.”

  “I’m a lousy guy to get involved with.”

  “No. You’re the only one I’ve ever trusted enough to get involved with, in any way. Contrary to what you think, I need this, too.”

  “This, meaning just tonight?”

  “Yes, just tonight. I get it. You need to feel again, and I need to trust again. We’re friends tomorrow. Tonight we’re…”

  “We’re what?”

  “People who need each other.”

  “I tried to warn you.”

  “I don’t need any warning.”

  Luke hauled her into his arms. They kissed, they touched, and at that moment, Kelly was as necessary to him as his next breath.

  Luke quit thinking. He ran his hands along her body. She was long and smooth. Clothing became barriers. He tugged at her shirt, her slacks, then his shirt, his jeans. They kicked off shoes, socks, and underclothes, not really caring who lugged off what, just as long as they came off. He guided her toward his neatly made bed, ripping back the covers. Laying her down, he followed her. Kelly was lean and toned, firm muscles under satiny-feeling skin. Her eyes dilated as he touched her, the pleasure and surprise startled and awakened her. Her expressions were oddly innocent when compared to her centerfold body.

  “I might not be very good at this.”

  Luke blinked. Kelly was talking. He pressed his lips together to contain his groan of dismay. He did not want to talk. Not right now. And not to her.

  “At what? Sex? You’re kidding me, right?”

  He kept kissing her, his hands exploring her breasts, her stomach, and her legs. He was so ready for this, for her, he didn’t care about anything but getting inside her.

  “No, I’m not. You’re just turned on by looking at me, not by me. I told you, I’m not that woman in those pictures.”

  Her muscles were suddenly tense. He finally stopped kissing her and flipped down on the mattress next to her.

  “What’s the matter?” He’d been married long enough to know he wasn’t getting anywhere until they’d worked out whatever was upsetting her. Her lips were pursed together. She arranged the covers primly around herself.

  “What is it?”

  “I have condoms in my purse.” She kept her eyes averted.

  “Okay, I’ll grab them.”

  “Good.”

  Her tone was prissy. He sighed. He wasn’t getting anywhere fast. He got up, walking naked downstairs, and found her purse, and the condoms. Good reason to stop, but by her tone it was more than that. She was having second thoughts about them.

  Back in the bedroom, he found her neatly tucked into the bed, the sheet around her. The spontaneity was gone and so was her mood.

  He crawled back onto the bed and stretched out beside her. He found it surprising to have her body as long as his. Her toes and his toes touched.

  “Even nice guys get turned on by a naked woman you know,” he finally said, when she didn’t say anything.

  “I know that.”

  “It’s kind of the point of what we were doing, isn’t it?”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are you mad at me for that?”

  “I’m not mad at you. I’m terrible at this part.”

  “Who convinced you of that?”

  “Frigid, ice queen, awkward, foolish, terrible…”

  “Someone said that to you?”

  “Yes, then he gave an interview to a tabloid and told the world about me.”

  Luke turned and ran his hand over Kelly’s arm and settled it on her bare hip. The skin over her hipbone was smooth and taut.

  “Whatever happens here, will stay right here. You know that, right?”

  Her face was turned away from him, her profile shadowy and stunning. Yet to him, she looked better than ever because she’d lost that harsh edge that was so much a part of her during the day, when she faced the world. She seemed soft, young and nearly innocent, which was so not what any of her pictures conveyed.

  “I like you like this,” he said finally, when she didn’t respond.

  “Like this? Acting like an idiot? A stupid, high-maintenance drama queen?”

  “No, I like you, just being you. You’re not the first person to be unsure in the bedroom. You don’t think I’m nervous about this?”

  “Of course, you’re not. You were doing just fine.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t done this in a while. For some reason, no one else has done it for me in a long time. So long, it embarrasses me to admit.”

  She jerked her head to him. “Really?”

  “You are a famous model, not exactly a run-of-the-mill girl.”

  “But I am. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you. I am worse than a run-of-the-mill girl, I’m more like a clueless virgin.”

  Luke grinned. “Perfect. I always wanted to deflower a virgin.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Why not? You’re nervous, I’m nervous. Why can’t it be funny? Why can’t it be fun? We’ve had fun together so far, haven’t we?”

  She eyed him with a frown. “Yes.”

  “Then why does it have to be any different in here? I like you. You make me smile, and no one’s done that for me in three, long miserable years. So I want to have sex with you, not to prove something, or because I want a trophy conquest with a famous model, but because I like you. I care that you’re here with me now, and that you know you can trust me. Do you understand that?”

  “I’m beginning to.”

  “Then let’s have some fun. You can tell me what you like, what you don’t. I’ll prove to you you’re none of those things you were called.”

  “How do you know I’m not?”

  “Because I’ve kissed you. Now I want to make love to you, and with you. It isn’t an audition you know. We can adjust, if some things are not working. But somehow, I know it’s going to work out just fine.”

  She studied him a long moment, then finally nodded, her face serious. “I’m sorry I stopped you.”

  He laughed.

  He started slower this time. Kissing her, feeling her long body. In each spot, he rubbed her slow and long. He’d scared her before. She needed things done gradually before she could learn that she was warm and willing, and there wasn’t anything wrong with her.

  He nearly thanked her for letting him be the one to show her that, because he needed her then, more than he’d needed anyone in the past three years. And it was unbelievable to feel, if even for just an hour, that he was still alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kelly woke up, disoriented, the room shadowy in pre-dawn glow. She glanced at the clock and groaned. It was five o’clock in the morning, and she was alr
eady wide-awake. What now? She was as inexperienced with the after part of sex, as she was with the before. She leaned over and turned over the picture she’d placed on Luke’s nightstand. Waking up to her lover’s wife smiling at her wasn’t something she imagined when she set the picture there.

  “Leave it.”

  Kelly jumped when Luke’s voice suddenly filled the room. He sounded wide-awake.

  “Leave it? But I thought…”

  “Yeah, I know, but maybe you’re right. I should be able to look at her picture.”

  Kelly drew her hand back to the bed unsure of what to say.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Sleeping with her? Her heart dropped as she waited for his answer.

  “For how I talked to you last night. I had no right to be so rude to you. I’m surprised you stayed after my little performance.”

  Her heart bounced back up with surprise. He was sorry about that? She smiled to the dark. She could handle that.

  “Kel?”

  “I heard you. I hadn’t given it a second thought. You were upset, and I was pressing you. Maybe too much.”

  “Someone had to at some point.”

  Luke got up then, walking into the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom. Her cheeks flamed with nerves. What was she supposed to do or say about this? She had to act cool, like this was no big deal. She could do that after all they’d done in the bed last night.

  But morning also meant facing what they’d done, meeting his eye in the light of day, and wondering what he was thinking about her, or picturing about her. Oh God, how come she hadn’t given a thought to this part of it? And being so alone and intimate with Luke?

  Luke came out, now in boxers, and walked over toward his dresser. After grabbing socks, he went over to his closet. He selected a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt which he promptly ducked into. He was dressed in a minute flat, and here she sat still naked as a newborn in his bed.

  Great, now what? He hadn’t said anything. Which she should have known he’d do. There were no sweet nothings to be whispered between them. She was okay with that. Last night, it seemed so easy to do. But now?