Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) (11 page)

He had the devil’s own luck, or maybe it was his set expression that had two stools opening up just as they approached. He half lifted her onto the leather-strapped seat and then took the other. It was quieter here than near the dance floor, so she didn’t have to resort to lip-reading to hear his opening remark. “This was a bad idea.”

She frowned at him. “I might have wanted to dance, you know.”

“What? With that surfer dude? He was drunk.”

Her chance to retort was interrupted by the bartender, who slapped a couple of napkin squares in front of them and asked for their orders. Vance wanted beer. Layla put in for a margarita.

It didn’t add to her dignity that the guy pouring drinks followed up by requesting her ID and from the corner of her eye she saw Vance smirk. Ignoring him, she fished her license out of her sundress pocket and at the bartender’s satisfied nod reiterated her desire for a margarita and tacked on an order for a tequila shot, salt and a slice of lime.

Vance made a noise. “Do you think you should—”

“It’s a patriotic choice,” she hissed at him.

“Today’s July Fourth, not Cinco de Mayo,” he said as their drinks were delivered.

Instead of answering him, she grabbed up the saltshaker that had been placed in front of her. With her tongue, she wet the web of skin between her left forefinger and thumb, sprinkled salt on the damp spot, then traded the shaker for the shot glass. After licking at the salt, the tequila went down fiery and hot, and she chased the flames by biting into the tangy citrus pulp of the lime.

Then she smiled at Vance.

His expression didn’t tell her anything. He watched her coolly over his bottle of beer, unnerving her again, so she turned to the margarita and took a hefty swallow. The chill of the blended drink mitigated the burn in her belly, the combination creating a warm glow that traveled through her blood.

Feeling more relaxed than she had in days, she lifted her margarita glass again.

“Maybe you should take that slow,” Vance warned.

Before she could even roll her eyes, someone on the other side of Layla spoke up. “What you doing drinking with such a Danny Downer, pretty lady?” a man’s voice said.

Two guys crowded near her left elbow, both holding beers and wearing smiles as bold as the Hawaiian shirts they were wearing. “Hey,” the one in the orange shirt said, nudging his friend in blue. “That’s more than a pretty lady. That’s the cupcake girl. Remember, we bought a dozen from her this morning after surfing?”

The second man’s eyes went wide. “Hot damn, you’re right.” He leaned in closer, whispering as if he had a secret to tell. “Never tell my mom I said this, but you beat out anything she ever baked for me.”

Layla laughed, then lowered her voice, too. “I’ll keep that between the two of us.”

“Wait just a minute,” his friend protested, tapping his own chest with his half-full bottle of beer. “
I
saw her first.
I
realized she was Cupcake Cutie. No sharing sweet nothings with my woman.”

Layla laughed again as they started squabbling about the rules of first flirtation rights and who’d ignored those very same rules just last Saturday night with the “awesome red-haired babe” at “that bar on Second Street.” Clearly, the pair spent a lot of time together cruising for female companionship.

As the not-quite sober, almost entirely serious discussion continued, the blue-shirted man paused the conversation to address Layla. “Excuse us for just a minute,” he said. “We’ll get back to you as soon as we sort this out.”

Layla could only smile at them. They were clearly harmless and actually quite good-looking if you weren’t blinded by the ultraloud shirts. “I’ll be right here waiting.”

“Oh, God,” Vance muttered. “Don’t encourage them.”

She turned to him. “What’s the matter, Danny Downer?”

His eyes narrowed at the nickname. “They’re idiots,” he told her. “Boozed up and bored. They’re the kind of men you should give a wide berth.”

Oh, yeah, he was going all big brother, wasn’t he? Doling out unsolicited advice and treating her as if she’d never been to a bar or handled a couple of flirtatious men.

Maybe he didn’t think she was appealing enough to actually have been approached by the male species before, she thought in annoyance, taking another swallow of her margarita to cool her snap of temper. “I’ve dated before, Vance. Kissed men. Even—don’t faint—had sex. I know what I’m doing.”

His mouth tightened. “Not with guys like that you don’t.”

Layla glanced over her shoulder at them. They were still engrossed in arguing the finer points of bro etiquette. In her judgment, their XY was of the nontoxic variety. They’d had a few beers, but so what? Yet her escort continued scowling in their direction.

She shook her head at him. “Listen, every person isn’t a Boy Scout, Vance.”

He turned his frown on her. “What?”

“I’m talking about you,” she said, gesturing toward him with her glass. “Just because you’re a squeaky-clean, always-in-control ice man—”

“Actually, I was the rowdiest party animal you’d ever have the misfortune to meet.”

“What?” Layla blinked in surprise.

“You heard me.” He set his beer onto the bar. “I excelled at wild and stupid from the day I bought my first fake ID until I was well into my twenties.”

Her mouth dropped, then she swallowed. “What happened then?”

Vance shrugged. “Cleaned up my act.”

There had to be more to the story. “Because...?”

“Because I grew out of stupid. Then I met a woman who made me...made me think. Eventually I asked her to marry me.”

Layla thought her eyes might pop out of her head. “You’re engaged?”

He retrieved his beer and took a swallow. “
Was
engaged, until about six months ago. But the point is, I recognize your friends Tweedledum and Tweedledee. That was me. Going nowhere good fast.”

She still considered him too harsh on the other two, but that didn’t concern her now.
Vance had been engaged
. And not that long ago, either. For some reason she couldn’t pinpoint, the idea irritated her as much as or more than his big brother act.

Shouldn’t he have told her he’d wanted to marry someone? Shouldn’t she have sensed it? He’d presumably been in love with the woman. Was he still in love with her?

The question was on the tip of Layla’s tongue when the clack of a shot glass against the polished wood surface in front of her redirected her attention. “Top shelf tequila,” the bartender explained, then nodded at the pair in Hawaiian shirts. “From your buddies.” He also slid over another wedge of lime and nudged forward the salt.

“I’ll take that,” the guy in orange said, scooping up the shaker and shouldering his friend away from Layla. Catching her eye, he lifted his hand and made a loose fist. Then he wet the skin between his thumb and forefinger with his tongue. “Lick the salt off me, Cupcake Girl, it’ll make your tequila shooter so much tastier.”

A strangled sound came from the other side of Layla. Vance reached across her, snatching the shaker from the other man. He was standing now, drawn to his full height of six foot three, all the muscles he had from packing pounds of equipment and weapons radiating threat. “Can it, buddy. The only man she’ll be licking is me.”

She might have laughed, but he didn’t seem the least bit aware of the suggestiveness of his remark. Neither Hawaiian-shirted guy found it amusing, either. Hands up, they backed away, murmuring all the while. “No offense” and “Sorry to bother you” and “Didn’t mean to trespass.”

Layla turned her head toward Vance. Even though the innocuous duo was walking away, he didn’t relax his posture. He stood there, glaring at them until they disappeared in the crowd, all junkyard dog.

Or older brother.

Her ire rose as he settled back onto his stool. How dare he...

She couldn’t decide exactly how she wanted to end that sentence. She only knew she couldn’t stand his guardian act any more than she could stand his cool control any more than she could stand this ridiculous attraction to him she couldn’t seem to stifle—and he’d been engaged just a short time ago! He was in love with someone else!

Her gaze settled on the saltshaker that he’d placed in front of her.
The only man she’ll be licking is me.
Without giving herself time for second thoughts, she grabbed it up at the same moment she grabbed Vance’s left hand. The cast covered part of it, but she didn’t let that stop her. Before he could have a chance to yank away, she leaned down and licked a wet line across his knuckles. Then she dashed the salt there, tongued up the granules and knocked back the tequila.

Feeling triumphant, she dropped the empty glass, bit into the lime and met the gaze of her “big brother.”

Her mood died as she saw the bright smolder in his eyes. The wedge of citrus fell from her limp fingers as she watched him reclaim his hand. Without breaking her gaze, he ran his own tongue across his knuckles, licking up the remaining salt granules—taking the same path as hers.

She shivered, his gesture like a stroke of wet velvet against her own skin. Goose bumps rose on her spine and feathered along the ticklish skin covering her ribs. Her intent had been to poke at him. To shake him up like he’d shaken her at the idea that he’d been engaged. That he was in love with some other woman. She’d wanted to rattle him because she despised being looked upon like a little sister.

But the blue fire in his eyes told the true story. Vance didn’t think of her as a sibling any more than she thought of him as a brother.

He was just better at hiding it.

* * *

A
LONE,
V
ANCE STRODE
from Captain Crow’s toward Beach House No. 9. Addy had been located and she’d shared the information that Baxter had recently departed for home and that she’d be returning to No. 9 just as soon as she gave her old college pals a brief tour of the Sunrise Pictures memorabilia stash. Layla was trailing in Vance’s wake, but he wasn’t inclined to slow for her. He needed to put distance between them.

Again.

On the way to the bar, he’d thought the buffer of the crowd would provide that distance, but then he’d caught sight of the raucous mob. Instinct had warned there was trouble brewing. Someone was going to spill a drink on Layla, he’d thought. Or a fight would break out and she would get caught by an errant fist.

Hah.

The fight had been with himself, trying to keep from snatching her bodily away from those two aloha-shirted ass-hats on the make. As for the fist... Vance looked down at his hand and remembered her soft tongue sliding across the bumps of his knuckles, lapping delicately at him like a cat. His fingers curled, his nails biting into the hard surface of his cast as heat started smoldering in his belly.

Dammit! He had to find a way to smother this sexual fire that kept flaring up between them despite his best intentions.

Suggesting he play big brother had worked for shit. So...what now? Maybe he should initiate a civilized conversation about the situation and lay out the exact boundaries.

We’re just going to be friends.

There’s no point in getting any more intimate than that.

You stomp out your sexual sparks and I’ll stomp out mine.

All very calm. All very polite.

He took a deep breath of damp ocean air and released it, his stress starting to ease. The straightforward approach would work, right? Honesty was always best.

His gaze narrowed as he caught sight of Beach House No. 9 just ahead. There was a male figure standing on the deck, his facial features indistinct in the dusk. But Vance didn’t need to see the face to recognize who it was.

The very last person he wanted to see.

A bitter cocktail of emotions poured like bile into his belly and adrenaline blasted through his blood, once more tensing his muscles to battle-readiness. He was going to kill him, Vance thought, surging forward as his fingers again curled into fists. He was going to knock the bastard’s head from his shoulders and—

No
.

God, no, he decided, coming to a sudden halt. That reaction would only prove he cared a whit about the betrayal. No way would he give the guy the satisfaction.
So chill,
he told himself.
Be chill
.

Forcing a second long breath into his tight chest, he allowed himself another moment to calm. Then he mounted the stairs from the sand and confronted the man leaning against the deck railing.

“What the hell do you want?” he demanded of his brother. Because being chill didn’t mean being polite.

Fucking Perfect Fitz stared at him in silence. His chiseled features hadn’t changed since Vance had seen him last. He still looked as if he’d been born with a label reading Most Likely to Succeed.

“You
were
wounded,” he finally said. Running his hand over the smooth layers of his nut-brown hair, he cleared his throat. “You were really hurt.”

Vance ignored the comment. “How did you find me?” he asked, then made a disgusted sound as the obvious answer presented itself. “I’m going to kick Baxter’s ass.”

Fitz shook his head. “Not Bax— Wait, Bax knows?”

Vance pressed his lips together.

“It was Addison,” his brother said, crossing his arms over his chest. “She told her mother where and with whom she was staying. I guess Mrs. March missed the memo that it was a big secret you were hiding out here at the beach, a mere hour away from your family home, and injured to boot.”

“I’m not injured.” He was never going to admit to Fucking Perfect Fitz that he’d been hurt by anything...or anyone. “I’m fine.”

Fitz was silent another long beat, just staring at Vance as if assessing that for himself.

Impatient with the examination, Vance huffed out a breath. He didn’t know how long he could keep his temper in check, so this show had better get on the road. “You never answered the question. What do you want?”

“Go visit Mom, V.T.”

He found the use of the old nickname his brother had coined—V.T. for Vance Thomas—rankled as much as the order. But he stayed silent.