Flushed (6 page)

And then he kissed her.

For a moment, she forgot she’d agreed to this evening to get
back at Steven and simply sank into the pleasure of Kim’s kiss. He knew how to
kiss a woman, creating a sensuous balance between making her comfortable and
letting her know there were less civilized forces lurking beneath the surface.

It was just a kiss, but it was enough to make her think
about what it might be like to have more, to have his undivided attention, the
touch of his rough hands and a full night of that smile on the pillow beside
hers.

Dangerous. He was definitely dangerous.

No, no, no.

Men were not on the menu tonight, especially not Mr.
So-Gorgeous-Women-Want-To-Touch-Him Kim Martin, all seventy-two lean, tanned
inches of him. Dressed, she finally noticed, in a fitted silk shirt, opened at
the throat, and a short leather coat. The shirt was Easter-egg blue, making his
ringed eyes even more vivid.

And at a time when most Dallas men blindly adopted a uniform
of smooth black leather, Kim’s coat was mahogany brown, a color as dark as his
untamed, every-which-way hair. He was more devastating than the flowers she
still held.

But that’s what she’d wanted for this plan, wasn’t it?
Someone who could outshine Steven in every department?

She went to the kitchen to put the flowers in water. He
followed her, talking to her, asking if she were okay after this afternoon,
telling her the kid was fine.

He was talking about falling from a fifty-foot ceiling
again. She didn’t want to talk about that. Isabelle got a beer from the fridge.
“Want one?”

Kim shook his head. “I’m driving.”

Isabelle finished her swig.

“So who are we chaperoning?” he asked with a smile,
suggesting the idea amused him.

“Stacey and Bob,” she said.

“Lumber Barn Stacey and Bob the Giant?”

Isabelle grinned. “Bob-the-Giant-what, though. That’s the
question.”

Kim grinned back at her.

Dangerous, but fun. Lots of fun. She told him to make
himself at home while she got dressed.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked through the bedroom
door as she laid a dress on the bed.

“Orange.”

He laughed. “No way. That’s mine, too. What about dogs? Do
you like dogs?”

She’d been about to pull off her t-shirt. Instead, she
opened the bedroom door. “Depends on the dog,” she said, looking at him.
“What’s going on?”

“We’re supposed to be secretly dating, right?”

She nodded, blushing.

“It’d be easier for me if we knew more about each other.”

“Oh. Good point. Do you like dogs?”

He slipped his hands in the pockets of his tobacco-brown
trousers. “Love ‘em. I’m thinking of getting a Rhodesian Hatchback. Or maybe a
Great Dame.”

She laughed. “Great Dame? Hatchback?”

He pretended to look surprised. “You prefer the Nosehair
Terrier?”

She shook her head. What a goof.

“An all-American mutt, then,” he said, grinning. “Maybe a
shepherd mix.”

“Hmm. Keep talking.” She closed the door between them and
pulled off her clothes.

“Are you the little sister, or is Charlie the little
brother?”

“Good one. I’m the big sister, but only by three weeks.
Charlie has been my brother since I was thirteen, but I’ve known him since I
was six.”

Silence from the other side of the door. Isabelle slid the
dress over her head and smiled. Should she make him ask?

“I’ll be twenty-seven,” she said, checking the full-length
mirror beside her dresser. The dress wasn’t orange. It was three degrees darker
than the flowers Kim had brought. watermelon wine. She thought about changing
into their mutual favorite, but if she remembered right, Mirabelle had orange
walls. She didn’t want to blend in. “August the eighth.”

“That only leaves me a few months to shop,” he said. “I’d
better get started.”

She laughed and moved into the bathroom for eye makeup.

The door and the distance between them muffled whatever he
said next. Since she wasn’t one to let her date watch her get ready, she let
him wind down while she finished.

Not that this was a date. Not a real one.

When she returned to the living room, she found Kim browsing
the framed family photos she’d arranged on the built-in bookcase. He had one in
his hand as he turned to greet her.

His gaze seemed trapped in the bare skin between her chin
and the top of her slip dress. It slid down the fluid red fabric and got stuck
again at her short, beaded hemline. His lips moved as if saying “wow”. Finally,
he managed to meet her eyes, looking dazed. A little rush of pleasure skated
over her skin.

Offhand, she couldn’t remember a more compelling reaction
from a date. Not that this was really any such thing. Still the heat in his
eyes could not be easily dismissed, whatever word she might choose. This much,
at least, wasn’t an act for him. His kiss hadn’t been an act, either. If she
wanted another taste, she could have it, and more.
Yes, please.
She
swallowed hard as blood left her brain for a more primitive distribution.

Kim shook his head as if to clear it. “Warn a man before you
do that.”

And so the danger passed. She tried not to be disappointed.
This wasn’t going anywhere beyond a favor to Stacey. And a last jab at Steven.
And maybe one more kiss for herself. For the road.

“I thought you said we were chaperones,” he said. “Even if I
manage to behave, Bob is likely to change his mind about your friend.”

Even if? Damn, he was good at this. She grinned at him.
“Thank you for that,” she said. He made a gesture suggesting he was helpless to
do otherwise. She grabbed the beaded shawl from the bedroom doorknob and took
his arm.

As she closed the front door behind them, he asked, “So are
we sleeping together?”

The keys slipped out of Isabelle’s hand and jangled to the
boards of the porch. Did he really just say that?

Kim laughed, squatting to get the keys and handing them to
her. “Oops. I didn’t mean to startle you. It just seemed relevant.”

She worked again at fitting the key into the door to secure
the deadbolt. Even with the porch light on, it wasn’t easy, distracted as she
was.

“To our roles as secretly dating chaperones, I mean,” he
said.

Oh. He sure didn’t talk like any plumber Isabelle had met.
Of course, he didn’t look like any other, either.

“I’m going to get slapped, aren’t I?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just…I’m not…”

The problem, of course, was wanting to sleep with him and
yet wanting none of the complications that would follow. Like jealousy. Hers.
And infidelity. His.

Crap.

“Neither of them believe we’re sleeping together,” she said.

“That’s easy, then.”

Maybe for him.

She tossed the shawl around her bare shoulders and walked
with him down the porch steps and up the walk, where he opened the door of a
newish-looking orange Jeep for her.

“I was expecting your truck,” she said, glimpsing a
footlocker and at least three pairs of sports shoes in the back.

He laughed. “You don’t want to go anywhere in that heap,” he
said. “Besides, you’re far less likely to wind up sitting on a stray tool in
this one.” He ran his hand over the seat as if checking for tools and grinned.
“Of course, there are never any guarantees.”

He had two vehicles. That was twice as many as Isabelle, who
was still driving her work van everywhere and dreaming of a time when she
wouldn’t have to load groceries in amongst shelving and shoe drawers.

Two vehicles. Nice clothes. Great taste in flowers. And yet
he’d said he needed cash.

She wasn’t going to ask. It wasn’t any of her business. If
he was another comfort-seeking con artist, he would be sorely disappointed
tonight. They weren’t dating.

“Orange,” she said of the Jeep. “I approve.” She got in.

Kim caught himself watching Isabelle’s dress slide up her
creamy thigh as she got into the passenger seat. He closed the door for her and
took a few deep breaths as he circled to the driver’s side. He could do this.
He could be near her curvy body and wicked smile and still manage to respect
her old-fashioned standards. Never mind the inviting elegance of her bare neck.
And soft arms. And full, healthy thighs under her short, red…

Focus. Breathe.

Why was he doing this, again?

Favor. She’d asked him to.

Damsel in distress.

Check.

He could do this.

He got in and put on the shoulder belt before starting the
Jeep. Time to start eating up the miles between Isabelle’s south Dallas
bungalow and the restaurant, way up in one of the more northern suburbs.

“I appreciate your doing this, but you don’t have to try so
hard,” Isabelle said.

“What’s that?”

“This isn’t a date until we meet up with Stacey and Bob.”

“Sure it’s a date—a double date.” He grinned, hoping to see
her agree to that much at least, and got huffed at for his trouble. Uh oh. “So
the flowers were wasted, then?”

“‘Fraid so.”

“Ah, well. Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“I’m only saying, no need.” She shifted in her seat and had
to grab the beaded shawl that tried to slide off her lap.

“So this isn’t supposed to be any fun for me?”

“Are you having fun?”

She was surprised?

“I was until a minute ago,” he said.

“I’m sorry. This is my first just-for-show relationship.
It’s difficult to know where to draw the line.”

He nodded. “Me too.” Just for show. Why did that seem even
harsher than
we’re not dating
?

Kim pulled onto Stemmons Freeway and started north. He edged
the Jeep up toward eighty miles an hour. Push it higher than that and it would
start to shimmy. He had to have that looked at before he moved.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You were cool with us
pretending to be a romantic item last night. You’re cool about pretending
tonight. Either I’m easier to tolerate than most men, or I’m merely convenient.
Tough to say which is harder on my ego.”

She sighed. “You’re wonderful. Thoughtful. Great kisser. Drool-worthy.
You’re perfect.”

She didn’t sound sarcastic.

“That’s good, right?” he said cautiously.

“Sure. Until I find you in bed with another woman.”

What? “When did I get into bed with another woman? Is it
because I’m not sleeping with you? Is it why I’m not sleeping with you?”

“Yes, in fact,” she said. “It’s why we’re not even dating.”

“Lost me,” he said, his head starting to hurt.

“I know.”

Kim had entered the Canyon, an ever-forking high-speed maze
of concrete that brought a fistful of major highways together at downtown
Dallas and then peeled them off again. It wasn’t the best place for a
complicated conversation.

She’d called him drool-worthy. A great kisser. How did she
get from there to an apparently militant we’re-not-dating stance?

Once on the Tollway, Kim wound his speed back up to eighty.
He was still getting passed. He definitely had to get the Jeep looked at.

Concentrating on the road was simpler than trying to figure
this woman out. He’d been taken with her—her wit, her spirit, even her ankles.
Clearly, his fantasies were not being reciprocated. He should let it go. Show
her a good time tonight and leave her alone. A gentleman did not push,
especially not a gentleman with plans to leave town.

He endured another ten minutes of silence while they made
their way through the pricey Park Cities and farther north, past LBJ Freeway
and the Dallas Galleria, and farther north still. Then she surprised him by
saying, “Is it really safe?” She sounded far away and uncertain.

“The Jeep?”

“Wall Werx.”

“Absolutely. I’ve been climbing now for…” Kim paused to get
the right number and realized he wasn’t counting weeks or even months, but
rather years. Well, almost years. One year and change. Astounding. A record.

And as recently as this afternoon, he was still finding fun,
new things to try. Wow.

“Kim?”

“Sorry. I hadn’t realized it had been almost two years.
Surprised me, is all. And yes, it’s safe,” he said. “You don’t climb without at
least a little instruction. And in the Big Top—the big room you saw today—you don’t
climb without a rope and a trained partner at the other end of it.”

“But that boy fell,” she said. “As high as he was, he could
have been killed.”

“The kid had a better chance of being hit by a car than
getting killed climbing,” he said, choosing not to mention that most
climbing-related injuries were suffered by girlfriends watching from the ground
below. “He had a quality climbing harness that really fit him. He had a
secured, locking carabiner at his tie-in. All the anchors were bombproof. Only
the untrained idiot on belay posed any danger, and it was pretty minimal.
Cameron probably only fell about ten feet.”

The concrete walls to either side of the Tollway were rising
again as they burrowed ever northward. This was where Kim grew less sure. The
Galleria was generally as far north as he ever went.

“You realize, ‘hit by a car’ and ‘fell ten feet’ were the
only English words in that sentence.” She sounded pissed.

“It’s safe,” he told her. “It’s also the most fun you’ll
have with your clothes on. Come by sometime and I’ll show you.”

“I don’t think so.”

Something had her in a mood. He glanced over at her. “I said
‘safe’ not ‘date’. Did I say ‘date’? I did not say ‘date’.” It was the
clothes-on thing. Had to be. She was thinking he was obsessed with sex. She’d
have to take some responsibility there. That dress was an invitation to obsess.
It looked like a nightgown from the forties, low cut both back and front and
shaped to cup her breasts just so. The fabric looked liquid, as if he could
just slip its little straps off her curvy shoulders and—

Focus.

“I’m not mad. I just don’t…”

She didn’t seem willing to finish that sentence. Instead,
she said, “Tell me about your family, Kim.”

His hands tightened on the wheel as he sailed past another
toll plaza. “Not as interesting as yours,” he said. “You never told me how you
came to have a brother at thirteen.”

“Charlie’s dad’s a widower and my mom liked being married,
just not to my wandering-eyed dad. I’m happy they hooked up, even if Charlie
did stand me up today. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“He stood you up?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

It was true. He didn’t care. “I can’t imagine any man
standing you up.”

He changed lanes. Their exit had to be somewhere soon.

“I don’t like heights,” she said.

“What?”

“I thought I would pass out just looking up this afternoon
at Wall Werx. There. That’s my embarrassing confession. Your turn.” It came out
as one long sentence, a staccato rush of words.

Kim hadn’t seen that one coming. Afraid of heights? He
couldn’t even imagine it. Not to the extent the tightness in her voice
betrayed. Not to the degree that it would be a big-deal confession. Maybe she
expressed fear as anger. He could understand that much, at least.

“I have a half-brother, Mom’s first marriage, ten years
older than me,” he said, trying to keep his own voice from getting tight,
though fear had little to do with why.

“That’s a big difference in age. Does he live in Dallas?”

Did he ever. “Much too close.”

“You don’t like him?”

He wanted to laugh. “Ever had someone in your life with all
the answers?”

“I wish.”

Huh. She didn’t seem the type to live under another’s thumb.

“Even if he didn’t care you didn’t ask?”

“Oh. Pushy, is he?” She turned more fully toward him. Could
he manage another civil answer?

“Superior is more like it. Married a perfect wife, has
awesome kids, runs a respected business. It’s like he’s got license to meddle.”

“But you do good work. You’re successful. Doesn’t he see
that?”

Hands too tight on the wheel, Kim shook his head. “I’m not
looking for an ‘attaboy’. Not from him.”

Silence suggested she was expecting him to say more. As far
as Kim was concerned, the less said the better.

“And your folks?” she asked.

Isabelle had apparently found a topic she liked. Too bad it
wasn’t one of Kim’s favorites. Next thing you know, she’d be asking where he
went to college. He hadn’t realized there were so many things he didn’t want to
talk about. “Mom lives in Houston. Last I heard from my father, he was looking
for work in California.”

“I’d say your family was far more interesting than mine.”

He grunted, not trusting himself to say more. He took
comfort in knowing they were nearly to the restaurant and exited in silence.
Kim had always liked the hiss of rubber on asphalt, whether on a bike or in a
car. Something about the sound of objects in motion. Like him. Not like Kerry,
who moved only in the well-worn path set before him by his sainted father.

And apparently, not like regal, wounded and undeniably
passionate Isabelle Caine, the Immovable Object.

So much for perfect. Isabelle turned her gaze out the dark
window, feeling as alone as she had in bed last night. She’d started to trust
Kim, to suspect he had a conscience, some kind of code he lived by. But a man
who had nothing nice to say about his family was a man without roots. And she
knew what happened with those kinds of men.

Just another reason to be glad she’d been clear about
tonight’s arrangement.

By the time they pulled up at the squatty suburban strip
mall where Mirabelle made its unlikely home, she wasn’t sure she could even
fake her way through a meal.

Kim parked. “How did we meet?” he asked.

“What?”

“Our relationship. Did you call for a plumber? Or did our
eyes meet across the ice rink at the Galleria?”

Oh.

“Kim, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe you should take
me home.”

“Hang on.” He came around, opened her door and waited until
she took his offered hand as she stepped down to the pavement. The touch of his
sandpaper fingers surprised her again.

“Okay,” he said, still holding her hand. “If you’re going to
break my heart, do it here. It’s always better face-to-face.”

“Oh, please. As if you are ever the break-ee.”

His voice changed from joking to blanket-soft. “If you had
any idea how much I want to kiss you, you wouldn’t say that.”

“Then tell me,” she said. “Tell me how much. Make me
believe.”

And he did.

Her awareness shifted from a white scar that interrupted his
right eyebrow, to a fan of dark eyelashes, then down to his parting lips and
cleft chin and…mmm. Isabelle slipped her hands beneath Kim’s open coat. She
spread her fingers across his silk-covered chest as his arm wound around her
and pulled her inexorably closer.

This time, there was no teasing of her lips or polite
hesitation. He was drinking her, drawing her, promising her something that had
no words. Her body understood. She stepped closer, one of her feet between his,
leg to leg, belly to belly, chest to chest.

Warmth and humidity and the sense that something very old
was being shaken awake.
Oh my.

Her hands felt restless. Her pulse, heavy. Her body itched.
She pressed herself closer, hip to hip, heat to heat. Kim’s hand cupped her
neck, sliding up into her hair, his rough skin making her shiver against him.

She gasped.

He eased back, still holding her cheek in one rough palm. Their
bodies were still pressed together. His eyes seemed very dark in the parking
lot’s eerie sulfur light. She knew he was seeing nothing but her and it made
her feel like the most desirable woman ever to draw breath on earth.